One of the Twelve Apostles, while travelling a hundred miles from the scene of assassination, and totally ignorant of what was done, was so unaccountably sad, and filled with such unspeakable anguish of heart, without knowing the cause, that he was constrained to turn aside from the road and give utterance to his feelings in tears and supplications to God. Another Apostle, twelve hundred miles distant, while standing in Fanuel Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, with many others, was similarly affected, and obliged to turn aside to hide the big tears that gushed thick and long from his eyes. Another, president of the high priests, while in the distant state of Kentucky, in the solitude of midnight, being marvellously disquieted, God condescended to show him, in a vision, the mangled bodies of the two murdered worthies, all dripping in purple gore, who said to him, we are murdered by a faithless state and cruel mob.
Shall I attempt to describe the scene at Nauvoo on that memorable evening? If I could, surely you would weep, whatever may be your faith or scepticism, if the feelings of humanity are lodged in your bosom; all prejudice and mirth would slumber, till the eye of pity had bedewed the bier, and the heart had found relief in lamentation. Before another day dawned, the messenger bore the tidings into the afflicted city; the picquet guards of the city heard the whisper of murder in silent amazement, as the messenger passed into the city. There the pale muslin signal for gathering the troops hung its drooping folds from the temple spire (as if partaking of nature's sadness), and made tremulous utterance to the humble soldiery to muster immediately. As the dawn made the signal visible, and the base tone of the great drum confirmed the call, fathers, husbands, and minor sons all seized the broken fragment of a dodger, or a scanty bone, for the service that might be long and arduous before their return, or swallowed some thickened milk (as might be the case) and fled to the muster ground; the suspicious mother and children followed to the door and window, anxious to see the gathering hosts emerge from their watch-posts and firesides, where rest and food were scanted to the utmost endurance. The troops continued to arrive, and stood in martial order, with a compressed lip and a quick ear. They waited with deathly but composed silence, to hear the intelligence that mournful spirits had saddened their hearts with during the night. The speaker stood up in the midst, not of an uniform soldiery of hirelings, for they had no wages; their clothing was the workmanship of the diligent domestic—the product of wife and daughters' arduous toil; their rations were drawn from the precarious supplies, earned in the intervals between preaching to the states and nations of the earth, and watching against the intrusions and violence of mobs. The speaker announced the martyrdom of the Prophet and Patriarch, and paused under the heavy burden of the intelligence.
But here I must pause; my pen shall touch lightly, as it must feebly, that hallowed—that solemn and ever memorable hour! The towering indignation; the holy and immutable principle of retribution for crime that dwells eternally in the bosom of God, insensibly impelled the right hand almost to draw the glittering sword, and feel the sharpness of the bayonet's point and its fixedness to the musket's mouth. But the well planted principle of self-command, and also of observing the order of heaven and the council of the priesthood, soon returned the deadly steel to the scabbard; and the victorious triumph of loyalty to God, in committing evil doers to Him that judgeth righteously, and who hath said, "vengeance is mine and I will repay," prevailed over the billows of passion; and in the transit of a fleeting moment the holy serenity of the soldiery, depicted by an occasional tear, showed to angels and men, that the tempest of passion was hushed, and wholly under the control of the spirit of wisdom and of God. It was the most unearthly and morally sublime scene that I ever witnessed. Contemplate a city and community of 20,000 people, whose love for their leader, the Prophet of the Lord, was warm and abiding as the love of David and Jonathan, in an evil moment betrayed by a sovereign State! Under his instructions they had been taught the ways of truth and salvation—they had been gathered from remote parts, even distant islands and continents, that they might hear the word of the Lord from his lips, and build up a city where gambling and lewdness, theft and drunkenness should have no admittance! And the life of Joseph was considered so necessary to the work of God and the welfare of the human family, that many thousands could readily have died in his stead, if that could have preserved his life. But the Governor of Illinois, the Commander-in-Chief of 80,000 organized militia, threatened the speedy demolition of the whole city of Nauvoo, if Joseph was not delivered up to him for trial on the antiquated charge of treason! He made the most solemn assurance, and pledged the sacred faith of the State, that he should be kept safe and unharmed until he could have a fair and impartial trial. But oh! the cruel perfidy of that modern Nero, the governor! and the bloody butchery of the soldiery (some of whom had been disbanded and others had not), that could deliberately murder innocent and helpless men, that had surrendered at discretion, after all the strongest assurances of protection! The soldiery in Nauvoo numbered near four thousand, while those in alliance with the bloody perpetrators in the country, were not more than one-half the number. They would have been an easy prey to the merited revenge of the outraged force at Nauvoo; but that force bore the outrages with coolness and wisdom that has never been equalled by uninspired men. They governed themselves under circumstances the most extraordinary, and hearkened calmly to the voice of wisdom, when their pain and grief were almost insupportable. The soldiery on the Temple square heard, but felt that there was no adequate victim for vengeance in the county, or even in the destruction of the whole State. Some, least tender in their hearts, found relief in tears. In the houses of the Saints, aside from the soldiery, females, less competent to bear the news than husbands and fathers, in some instances lost their sanity of mind for a season; but as the sun arose and the people congregated on the green, after being exhorted to give their enemies into the hands of Him that judgeth righteously, tranquillity and order ensued. But not so with the mob. During all the bloody night their houses were hastily deserted by men, women, and children. So great was the consternation and so precipitate the flight, that even females fled in their nightclothes, almost naked, and continued their flight amid imprecations and shrieks for the distance of even fifty miles, where, exhausted and frightened, they alarmed villages, and the city of Quincy to the ringing of bells, and the speedy gathering of every person that could bear arms for their defence; but no man pursued, though "the wicked fled."
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR'S WIFE.
Catherine Curtis Spencer died on the 12th of March, 1846, at Indian Creek, near Keosaqua, Iowa territory, at the age of thirty-five years, wanting nine days. In one month from the time of her departure from Illinois to the wilderness, she fell a victim to the cares and hardships of persecution. The youngest daughter of a numerous family, brought up in affluence and nurtured with fondness and peculiar care as the favourite of her father's house; her slender, though healthy frame, could not endure the privation of sleep and rest, and the inclemency of the winter season (the thermometer below Zero for ten days). The change from the warm rooms of brick and plaistered walls, to that of mere canvass ceiling and roof, floored with snow and icy earth, was too much for her fragile form to endure. When, through unforseen hindrances in travelling, there was no place where sleep could visit, or food suited to the demands of nature could be administered to her or her six little children (from the age of thirteen and under), she would cheer her little innocents with the songs of Zion. The melody of her rare voice, like the harmony and confluence of many virtues in her mind, contributed on that memorable epoch of the church, to render her the glory of her husband, and the solace and joy of her children. When asked if she would go to her distant friends that were not in the church, who had proffered comfort and abundance to her and her children, she replied, "no, if they will withhold from me the supplies they readily grant to my other sisters and brothers, because I adhere to the Saints, let them. I would rather abide with the church, in poverty, even in the wilderness, without their aid, than go to my unbelieving father's house, and have all that he possesses." Under the influence of a severe cold, she gradually wasted away, telling her children, from time to time, how she wanted them to live and conduct themselves, when they should become motherless, and pilgrims in a strange land. To her companions she would sometimes say, "I think you will have to give me up and let me go." As her little ones would often inquire at the door of the waggon, "how is ma'? is she any better?" she would turn to her husband, who sat by her side endeavouring to keep the severities of rain and cold from her: "oh, you dear little children, how I do hope you may fall into kind hands when I am gone!" A night or two before she died, she said to her husband, with unwonted animation, "A heavenly messenger has appeared to me to-night, and told me that I had done and suffered enough, and that he had now come to convey me to a mansion of gold." Soon after, she said she wished me to call the children and other friends to her bedside, that she might give them a parting kiss, which being done, she said to her companion, "I love you more than ever, but you must let me go. I only want to live for your sake, and that of our children." When asked if she had anything to say to her father's family, she replied emphatically, "Charge them to obey the gospel."
The rain continued so incessantly for many days and nights, that it was impossible to keep her bedding dry or comfortable; and, for the first time, she uttered the desire to be in a house. The request might have moved a heart of adamant. Immediately, a man of the name of Barnes, living not far from the camp, consented to have her brought to his house, where she died in peace, with a smile upon her countenance, and a cordial pressure of her husband's hand about an hour previous.
Many tributes to her memory, from the Twelve, and other distinguished friends, expressive of her worth and the amiableness of her life, have been communicated to the writer, which conjugal relationship forbids me to insert, but which are still a comfort to the bereaved in his pilgrimage through mortality. Though prepossessing in her manners, her confiding and generous mind always made permanent the friendship that she once obtained. Her unceasingly affectionate and dutiful bearing to her husband, and her matronly diligence in infusing the purest and loftiest virtues into the minds of her children, not only exemplified the beautiful order of heaven, but made the domestic circle the greatest paradise of earth. Said a member of the high council, after her death, who had often observed her in the temple of the Lord, where she loved to linger and feast on the joys of that holy place, "I never saw a countenance more inexpressibly serene and heavenly, than hers."
"'O! she was young who won my yielding heart,'
No power of genius nor the pencils' art
Could half the beauties of her mind portray,
E'en when inspired; and how can this my lay?
Two eyes that spoke what language ne'er can do,
Soft as twin violets moist with early dew.
In sylph-like symmetry her form combin'd,
To prove the fond endearments of the mind,
While on her brow benevolence and love
Sat meekly, like to emblems from above,
And every thought that had creation there,
But made her face still more divinely fair."
Her remains were conveyed to the city of Nauvoo, and there, after a few neighbours had wept, and sung, "Come to me; will ye come to the Saints that have died," and expressed their condolence to the deeply afflicted husband, buried, in the solitude of the night, by the side of her youngest child, that had died near six months before.