{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap12.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap12.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap12.htm","text":"\"Your Fathers, where are they? And the Prophets, do they live forever?\"\nBible\nTHERE he goes! The fraud 1 The cheat 1\" Ole Petersen, of Ephraim townsite, in \nthe San Pete valley, added some vigorous oaths and gestures to these words. He was \nan angry man striding back and forth on the front porch of the only public hotel \nin the little town.\nI had gone to meet this tow-haired Scandinavian in the month of June, 1877, with \nthe interests of the Liberal work at heart. He was one of a few, in that section, \nwho was opposed to the backing of the Mormon Church.\nThis valley was mainly settled by people from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. They \nhad renounced the stately Lutheran Church of their country, and had welcomed, with \nenthusiasm, this Latter Day faith. It fed their fanaticism with promises of forty \nacres of land, in each man's name, as a gift of a new, practical religion, now existing \nin free America. These people had come over to receive their new start in life. \nBy their industry they had made homes for themselves in this broad valley. Everything \nof their own here, they owed to the church. Why should they not stick to it? Now \nwhat was the matter with Ole Petersen, that he should revile the head of that church, \nas he was passing through this town of Ephraim? He was an apostate of the most violent \nkind. He had reacted powerfully against the Church, which had brought him out, as \na boy with his father's household, years before. He had cause for it, and that cause \nwas concrete in the person of Brigham Young, who was just then in full view of this \nincensed son of the North Seas.\nHe had lost his property, and that loss had caused his apostasy. All this was due \nto some fine real estate machinery on the part of Brigham Young's office. His titles \nwere voided and he was now almost penniless. He had been too free of speech, for \nOle Petersen was a tonguey man, and the Church had paid him up for his talk, by \ntaking away his estate. This was done through some such crooked financial trick, \nas happens nowadays in California, when an eastern tenderfoot is fleeced by a real \nestate broker, whose office is on the curb of the street.\nOf course Ole Petersen laid all of his troubles and losses to the autocrat of Utah's \nfinances, Brig-ham Young. And now this prophet was passing by. He was taking his \nlast ride from St. George, in southern Utah, where he had wintered, and was on his \nreturn to headquarters in Salt Lake City.\nBrigham had been sick. The strokes of time began to tell on his giant frame; and \nto face the winter in the low altitudes of St. George, below the rim of the basin \nand near the border of Arizona's canyons, was deemed the best for him. But a man \nof affairs must attend to his affairs. Certain events of late, like the successful \nprosecution of John T. Lee for the Mountain Meadows affair, and the odium that the \nhanging of this culprit had brought on the Church, made it necessary for the ailing \nprophet to get back to his seat in Salt Lake City. So as soon as his strength would \npermit, he started on a stage ride of two hundred miles to the terminus of the railway, \nsome hundred and ten miles south of the city. It was a ride through an almost hostile \nterritory, since through this end of the country the dead Bishop had a host of relatives \nand friends, who were angry and incensed at the coup the government had made.\nLee's own family were out with threats to shoot the head of the Church, and, while \nOle Petersen was no relative, he was hot in sympathy with these threats.\nThis was Brigham Young's last outing, though he did not know it. He was not to fall \nfrom the shot of some vengeful Mormon, but from the stroke of disease. Dysentery \ncarried him from the sight of man the following August.\nI had seen him two years before robust, though aged. I caught a glimpse of him as \nhe was now passing by. He went fully armed and protected like some European monarch \nin danger of assault from disaffected subjects.\nA cloud of dust announced the coming of the cavalcade. He had left Manti, the county \nseat, which like St. George was a temple city. In these temple cities the rites \nof polygamy could be given as well as in Salt Lake City itself. In this manner the \nmeans of entering into polygamy was brought to men's doors and the long ride and \nexpense of a journey to Salt Lake was avoided.\nBrigham had a great many friends in this valley who took pains to protect him from \nLee's two sons, who were out to shoot.\n\"Here he comes I Here he comes!\" Such cries brought me out on the hotel porch, with \nOle Petersen.\nI had been talking with him, but found him a restless listener. He was really listening \nfor the cries to herald the passing prophet. He fidgeted and fretted. He was short \nand sharp in his answers, and impatient in his manner. He ran his hands through \nhis hair, and pulled his long flaxen beard again and again.\n\"That d-d cheat is coming through here today. I'd like to take a shot at him.\"\n\"What has he done to you that makes you wish to shoot him?\"\nI will tell his story in a few words. His parents had died soon after settling near \nEphraim and they had left other property than the ranch they had received from the \nChurch. His people had means to invest, when they first came over from Sweden. Being \na minor the Church had taken charge of this property until he should come of age. \nAs soon as he had grown up, the Church ordered him on a mission to Sweden to make \nconverts of his fellow countrymen. He knew what this meant, since a Mormon missionary \nwas sent forth at his own charges and had to make his own way and provide for his \nown expenses.\nIt was a very hardy and wonderful experience that the Mormon missionary had to face, \nif sent on a mission. Nothing but the hottest faith and zeal could meet the need. \nNow Ole Petersen had cooled off from the faith of his people. He had seen some things \nsince childhood that he did not like, and there were many things he could not believe. \nHe had been born with a brain that wanted to think out things, and not take them \nfor granted just because they were spoken with authority.\nSo he refused the mission, and decided to stay and work his property himself. This \ndid not suit the Church, which had long used his property, and did not intend to \nsurrender the control of it.\nHe was disciplined for his disobedience, and it was declared that he had forfeited \nhis rights, and the Church further claimed that the investments made by the parents \nhad proven failures, so there was very little due him.\nThis little he was given. He was mad all through, and left the Church's jurisdiction; \nand was counted an apostate to whom the Church owed nothing. He interviewed Brigham \nYoung, who had been very rough with him. He had gone away in a hot-headed rage, \nand his little home being in this fanatical town of Ephraim, he had had a fighting \ntime with words and blows.\nYet he had the old Viking spirit, which kept him on the field. He had not sold out, \nand left for other parts, but stood his ground. He was trying to get a Liberal school \ninto this seat of Mormonism. That was how I happened to meet him that hot day in \nJune.\nIf all this had occurred ten years earlier, Ole Petersen would have been \"sent to \nhell across lots,\" like many others who had fought the Church of their early faith.\n\"Here he comes! Here he comes!\"\nThese repeated cries brought Ole out into the dusty road, as the trotting cavalcade \ncame up the street.\nThirty Piute warriors in paint, feathers, and blankets, rode first with their guns \nacross their saddles. These \"Battle Axes\" of the Lord had watchful eyes for any \nmovements that looked like action. Ole eyed them as fiercely as they eyed him, and \nthe others in the crowd.\nNext came a four horse covered carriage, with an armed rider on each side of the \nvehicle. Within, and yet in view, sunk back in the rear seat, with a tired air of \na sick man, sat the Prophet. I caught a full view of his grim, grey bearded face, \nsicklied over by long illness, with a sallow tint so unlike the rugged hue that \nI had noticed in the Tabernacle two years before. He looked annoyed as he leaned \nslightly forward, when he caught the sound of Ole Petersen's strident voice. \"Oh! \nyou Cheat! Oh! Church Fraud! You coward to forsake your tools! You are the man that \nthey should have hung instead of Lee!\"\nOle Petersen's arms were in the air, but without weapons; and this lanky, angry \nman shook his fist at Brigham, as he rapidly drove past. A motion with a weapon, \nand there would have been a hail of bullets about us.\nThe last I saw of Brigham Young was the tightening of the mouth until it was a thin, \nfirm slit within a grey bearded face, that you see in the characteristic pictures \nof this Mormon leader. His hands clenched the seat as the carriage swayed; and I \nhad looked my last at the passing prophet. He looked the sick man that he was.\n\"May you die the death! May God strike you down!\" This was Ole's parting shot as \nthe carriage, and its advance riders, swept on. As events showed, these words were \nmore deadly than any shot that he might have fired.\nThirty white guards followed close in the rear, garbed like cowboys and armed. These \nmen grinned at us, and some few of them sneered at the angry Swede, vociferant in \nthe roadway. Then the dust rose up, and hid them all from sight.\nI never thought that Ole's imprecation would be so soon fulfilled. I could see death \nin the eye of this aged despot, and so expected his passing from the world would \nnot be long delayed. But hardly two months elapsed when word came south that the \nPresident of the Church of the Latter Day\nSaints had left for the bourne from whence no traveler returns.\nThere are some ancient faiths that proclaim their saneness of life and creed, through \nthe succeeding ages and changes. But all such become inert, and if seemingly quick \nwith life, it is but a galvanized vitality like the movements of a dead toad under \nthe electric spark applied to a limb.\nSee how intact China, the oldest of all countries, has remained after the first \ndiscoveries and civilization. It would not change. It would not learn. So with Buddhism. \nIt was content to meditate and forego action. It held its ground for ages by the \nforce of some fine, if not beautiful, ideas, but where it lives to-day it is a quiescent \nfaith, its force lost to any dominance of the world.\nMormonism has truth elements within its bosom, and because of this, it will live \nand thrive; but unless it sloughs off the anachronisms and superstitions, it will \nbe weighted with a corpse that will hold it to a body of death which will retard \nits power. But it has a practical element welded to its theories, and this may cause \nit to change with the times, and keep up with those times as they change.\nA heavy step in the entry, and a sharp knock on the door, of the Liberal Hall, in \nMount Pleasant, and I opened to admit Ole Petersen, an excited and delighted man.\n\"You've heard the news? That Rascal's gone to his account. My curse came true!\"\nThere were many who felt like Ole Petersen, but a great mourning was made throughout \nthe territory, as this modern Prophet passed from among his people.\nI soon got word from superficial observers of the conditions in Utah, that now the \nMaster Mind was gone and his voice silent, the Church, which he had built up, would \ncrumble and break. This was the general idea, just then, but it was a false one.\nThis singular mixture of the practical and the spiritual, withstood a change of \nleaders with about the same ease that a kingdom meets the cry of, \"The King is dead! \nLong live the King!\"\nThe old order of things went on under a new management. The system was well fitted \nto meet greater changes than a death could bring, and even to face a new condition, \nand prosper in a new environment, if necessary.","title":"Chapter XII: The Passing Prophet","type":"page"}