Chapter 12

Therefore, though their enemies drove on them ruthlessly, they succeeded in parrying the last sword-thrust, till they had completed even the gilding of the angel and trumpet on the summit of its lofty spire. As a closing work, they placed on the entablature of the front, like a baptismal mark on the forehead, these words:

THE HOUSE OF THE LORD:

BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

HOLINESS TO THE LORD!

Then, at high noon, under the bright sunshine of May, the next after its completion, they consecrated it to divine service. There was a carefully studied ceremonial for the occasion. It was said the high elders of the sect travelled furtively from the camp of Israel in the wilderness, and, throwing off ingenious disguises, appeared in their own robes of office to give it splendor.

For that one day the temple stood resplendent in all its typical glories of sun, moon and stars, and other abounding figured and lettered signs, hieroglyphs, and symbols; but that day only. The sacred rites of consecration ended, the work of removing the _sacrosancta_ proceeded with the rapidity of magic. It went on through the night, and when the morning of the next day dawned all the ornaments and furniture, everything that could provoke a sneer, had been carried off; and except some fixtures that would not bear removal, the building was dismantled.

This day saw the departure of the last of the elders, and the largest band that moved in one company together. The people of Iowa have told me that from morning to night they passed westward like an endless procession. They did not seem greatly out of heart, they said; but, at the top of every hill, before they disappeared, they were to be seen looking back, like banished Moors, on their abandoned homes and the distant temple and its glittering spire.

After this consecration, which was construed to indicate an insincerity on the part of the Mormons as to their stipulated departure, or at least a hope of return, their foes set upon them with renewed bitterness. As many fled as were at all prepared; but by the very fact of their so decreasing the already diminished forces of the city's defenders, they encouraged the enemy to greater boldness. It soon became apparent that nothing short of an immediate emigration could save the remnant.

From this time onward the energies of those already on the road were engrossed by the duty of providing for the fugitives who came crowding in after them. At a last general meeting of the sect in Nauvoo, there had been passed a unanimous resolution that they would sustain one another, whatever their circumstances, upon the march; and this, though made in view of no such appalling exigency, they now with one accord set themselves together to carry out.

The host again moved on. The tents which had gathered on the hill summits, like white birds hesitating to venture on the long flight over the river, were struck one after another, and the dwellers in them and their wagons and their cattle hastened down to cross it at a ferry in the valley, which they made by night and day. A little beyond the landing they formed their companies and made their preparations for the last and longest stage of their journey.

Though the season was late, when they first crossed the Missouri, some of them moved forward with great hopefulness, full of the notion of viewing and choosing their new homes that year. But the van had only reached Grand Island and the Pawnee villages, when they were overtaken by more ill news from Nauvoo. Before the summer closed, their enemies set upon the last remnant of those who were left behind in Illinois. They were a few lingerers, who could not be persuaded but there might yet be time for them to gather up their worldly goods before removing. Some weakly mothers and their infants, a few delicate young girls, and many cripples and bereaved and sick people--these had remained under shelter, according to the Mormon statement at least, by virtue of an express covenant in their behalf. If there was such a covenant, it was broken. A vindictive war was waged upon them, from which the weakest fled in scattered parties, leaving the rest to make a reluctant and almost ludicrously unavailing defence, till September 17th, when one thousand six hundred twenty-five troops entered Nauvoo and drove all forth who had not retreated before that time.

Like the wounded birds of a flock fired into toward nightfall, they came straggling on with faltering steps, many of them without bag or baggage, beast or barrow, all asking shelter or burial, and forcing a fresh repartition of the already divided rations of their friends. It was plain now that every energy must be taxed to prevent the entire expedition from perishing. Further emigration for the time was out of the question, and the whole people prepared themselves for encountering another winter on the prairie.

Happily for the main body, they found themselves at this juncture among Indians who were amicably disposed. The lands on both sides of the Missouri in particular were owned by the Pottawottomis and Omahas, two tribes whom unjust treatment by our United States Government had the effect of rendering most hospitable to strangers whom they regarded as persecuted like themselves.

They were pleased with the Mormons. They would have been pleased with any whites who would not cheat them, nor sell them whiskey, nor whip them for their poor gypsy habits, nor conduct themselves indecently toward their women, many of whom among the Pottawottomis--especially those of nearly unmixed French descent--are singularly comely, and some of them educated. But all Indians have something like a sentiment of reverence for the insane, and admire those who sacrifice, without apparent motive, their worldly welfare to the triumph of an idea. They understand the meaning of what they call a great vow, and think it the duty of the right-minded to lighten the votary's penance under it. To this feeling they united the sympathy of fellow-sufferers for those who could talk to them of their own Illinois, and tell the story of how they also had been ruthlessly expelled from it.

Their hospitality was sincere, almost delicate. Fanny le Clerc, the spoiled child of the great brave Pied Riche, interpreter of the nation, would have the paleface Miss Devine learn duets with her on the guitar; and the daughter of substantial Joseph la Framboise, the United States interpreter for the tribe (she died of the fever that summer) welcomed all the nicest young Mormon women to a party at her father's house, which was probably the best cabin in that village. They made the Mormons at home, there and elsewhere. Upon all their lands they formally gave them leave to remain as long as suited their own good pleasure.

The affair, of course, furnished material for a solemn council. Under the auspices of an officer of the United States their chiefs were summoned, in the form befitting great occasions, to meet in the yard of a Mr. P.A. Sarpy's log trading-house. They came in grand costume, moving in their fantastic attire with so much _aplomb_ and genteel measure that the stranger found it difficult not to believe them high-born gentlemen, attending a fancy-dress ball. Their aristocratically thin legs, of which they displayed fully the usual Indian proportion, aided this illusion. There is something too at all times very mock-Indian in the theatrical French millinery tie of the Pottawottomi turban; while it is next to impossible for a sober white man, at first sight, to believe that the red, green, black, blue, and yellow cosmetics, with which he sees such grave personages so variously dotted, diapered, cancelled, and arabesqued are worn by them in any mood but one of the deepest and most desperate quizzing. From the time of their first squat upon the ground to the final breaking up of the council circle they sustained their characters with equal self-possession and address.

I will not take it upon myself to describe their order of ceremonies; indeed, I ought not, since I have never been able to view the habits and customs of our aborigines in any other light than that of a sorrowful subject of jest. Besides, in this instance, the powwow and the expected flow of turgid eloquence were both moderated probably by the conduct of the entire transaction on temperance principles. I therefore content myself with observing generally that the proceedings were such as in every way became the dignity of the parties interested, and the magnitude of the interests involved. When the red men had indulged to satiety in tobacco-smoke from their peace-pipes, and in what they love still better--their peculiar metaphoric rhodomontade, which, beginning with the celestial bodies, and coursing downward over the grandest sublunary objects, always managed to alight at last on their "Great Father," Polk, and the tenderness with which his affectionate red children regarded him. All the solemn funny fellows present, who played the part of chiefs, signed formal articles of convention with their unpronounceable names.

The renowned chief Pied Riche--he was surnamed Le Clerc on account of his remarkable scholarship--then rose and said: "My Mormon brethren, the Pottawottomi came, sad and tired, into this unhealthy Missouri bottom, not many years back, when he was taken from his beautiful country, beyond the Mississippi, which had abundant game and timber and clear water everywhere. Now you are driven away, the same, from your lodges and lands and the graves of your people. So we have both suffered. We must help one another, and the Great Spirit will help us both. You are now free to cut and use all the wood you may wish. You can make all your improvements, and live on any part of our actual land not occupied by us. Because one suffers, and does not deserve it, is no reason he shall suffer always: I say, we may live to see all right yet. However, if we do not, our children will. _Bon jour!_"

And thus ended the powwow. I give this speech as a morsel of real Indian. It was recited to me after the treaty by the Pottawottomi orator in French, which language he spoke with elegance. _Bon jour_ ["good day"] is the French, Indian, and English hail, and farewell of the Pottawottomis.

Upon the Pottawotomi lands, scattered through the border regions of Missouri and Iowa, in the Sac and Fox country, a few among the Ioways, among the Poncas, in a great company upon the banks of the l'Eau qui Coulée (or Running Water) River, and at the Omaha winter quarters, the Mormons sustained themselves through the heavy winter of 1846-1847. It was the severest of their trials. This winter was the turning-point of the Mormon fortunes. Those who lived through it were spared to witness the gradual return of better times; and they now liken it to the passing of a dreary night, since which they have watched the coming of a steadily brightening day.

In the spring of 1847, a body of one hundred forty-three picked men, with seventy wagons, drawn by their best horses, left the Omaha quarters, under the command of the members of the high council who had wintered there. They carried with them little but seed and farming implements, their aim being to plant spring crops at their ultimate destination. They relied on their rifles to give them food, but rarely left their road in search of game. They made long marches, and moved as rapidly as possible.

Against the season when ordinary emigration passes the Missouri, they were already through the South Pass, and after a couple of short days' travel beyond it entered upon the more arduous part of their journey, which now lay through the Rocky Mountains. They passed Fremont's Peak, Long's Peak, The Twins, and other summits, but had great difficulties to overcome in forcing their way over other mountains of the rugged Utah range, sometimes following the stony bed of torrents, the headwaters of some of the mightiest rivers of our continent, and sometimes literally cutting their road through heavy and ragged timber. They arrived at the grand basin of the Great Salt Lake, much exhausted, but without losing a man, and in time to plant for a partial autumn harvest. Another party started after these pioneers from the Omaha winter quarters, in the summer. They had five hundred sixty-six wagons, and carried large quantities of grain, which they were able to sow before it froze.

The same season these were joined by a part of the battalion and other members of the Church who came eastward from California and the Sandwich Islands. Together they fortified themselves strongly with sun-dried brick walls and blockhouses, and, living safely through the winter, were able to reap crops that yielded ample provision for the ensuing year.

In 1848, nearly all the remaining members of the Church left the Missouri country in a succession of powerful bands, invigorated and enriched by their abundant harvests there; and that year saw fully established their commonwealth of the "New Covenant," the future State of "Deseret." [Footnote: The Mormons repeatedly tried to secure the admission of Deseret into the Union as a State under that name--said to mean "virtue and industry."]

When Utah was organized as a Territory (1850), the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, was made governor. In 1857 President Buchanan appointed a non-Mormon to succeed Young. This act led the Mormons to rebel, but after a display of military force by the Government they acknowledged allegiance. In 1896, polygamy having been prohibited by Congress, Utah was admitted to the Union. Since the settlement of the Mormons upon the Great Salt Lake there has been a large immigration into Utah. [The Mormons have spread beyond that State into Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and other parts of the West and Southwest--ED.]

(1848) THE REFORMS OF PIUS IX, Francis Bowen

In the long roll of pontiffs the name of Pius IX stands conspicuous among those of popes, who have greatly exerted their power for effect upon the papacy itself. But the influence of Pius IX was not less marked in Italian and European politics. An account of the reforms which he undertook and of the obstacles he had to confront, cannot fail to convey, directly or by implication, matters of much importance in modern history. That a pope who signalized the beginning of his official career by a series of liberal reforms should soon have been driven from his see by revolutionists is one of the historical paradoxes for which even the "philosophy of history" finds it difficult to account. But, as one writer tells us, "The revolutionary fever of 1848 spread too fast for a reforming pope, and his refusal to make war upon the Austrians finally cost him the affections of the Romans."

Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti) who at the age of fifty-four brought the power of his papal throne to advance the cause of Young Italy--led by Mazzini and other patriots--was born at Sinigaglia May 13, 1792. He was descended from a noble family, and his early education was received at the College of Volterra. Throughout the years of his youth he suffered from infirm health, but before reaching thirty he gained much in strength, and in 1827 became Archbishop of Spoleto. In 1840 he was made cardinal by Pope Gregory XVI. Gregory died June 1, 1846, and after being two days in conclave the cardinals elected their colleague Ferretti to succeed him. The cardinals felt the advisability of choosing for pope a native of the Papal States, a man not too far advanced in years, and one "who would see the necessity of correcting abuses and making some reforms."

Francis Bowen, whose review of Pope Pius's career, from his entrance upon the papal office until his temporary withdrawal from Rome, is here presented, is a well-known authority in this as also in other fields of history, and his recital is based upon the best contemporary accounts.

When Pius IX was elected Pope his course did not long remain doubtful. He limited the expenses of the court at once, dispensed alms in abundance, set aside one day of each week for giving audiences, and commanded that political inquisitions should be stopped immediately. These few steps, taken before he had had time to consult with others, afford perhaps a better indication of the mild and kind character of the new pontiff than the grave political acts which were subsequently performed. These show us the man, the others reveal only the sovereign. Just one month after his election, a manifesto of amnesty for all political offenders was published at Rome, including the exiles, those awaiting trial, and those undergoing sentence. The only conditions imposed were that the individuals pardoned should give their word of honor never to abuse the indulgence, and would fulfil every duty of a good citizen.

The news of this act flew like the wind through the Papal States, and caused everywhere a burst of exultation and gratitude toward the new sovereign. It carried joy to thousands of households, bringing back to them the long-separated brother or parent, and it was a token of future peace and contentment. In the city, says Farini, [Footnote: Luigi Carlo Farini, who is freely quoted by Bowen, was an Italian historian and statesman. His principal work is _Storia dello stato Romano dall' anno 1814 al 1830_.--ED.] the hosannas were countless; each citizen embraced his neighbor like a brother; thousands of torches blazed in the evening; the multitude ran to the palace of the Pope, called for him, threw themselves prostrate on the earth before him, and received his blessing in devout silence. Many of the pardoned offenders were still more extravagant in their demonstrations of joy and thankfulness. Among them was Galletti, of Bologna, afterward one of the Pope's ministers, and most active in those measures which ended in the assassination of Rossi and in driving Pius into exile. He had been sentenced to imprisonment for life, and was kept in the castle of Sant' Angelo. When released, he threw himself at the Pope's feet, and swore, by his own heart's blood and that of his children, that he would be grateful and faithful. Some of the exiles, however, among whom was Mamiani, refused to subscribe the proposed engagement, simple as it was; but they returned after a time to their homes, merely promising allegiance. Every time that the Pope left his palace he was surrounded by a sort of triumphal procession. The whole length of the Corso was decorated when he passed through it, and hundreds of likenesses of him, and of panegyrical compositions, covered the walls. Foremost in getting up these popular celebrations was Angelo Brunetti, afterward so well known by his nickname of "Ciceruacchio." "He was a person of single mind, rustic in manners, proud and at the same time generous, as is common with Romans of the lower class." By his industry he had acquired considerable property, and by his liberal use of it had become a leader of the populace, whom he now fired with his own enthusiasm for Pius IX.

The Pope would have been more than man if his head had not been a little turned with all this adulation, which came to him from many foreign lands as well as from Italy. But his simple and modest character bore the trial well; he manifested no undue elation, and formed his plans tranquilly and without hurry for the improvement of his people. Cardinal Gizzi, well known as a friend to reform, and much attached to the Pope, was named Secretary of State; and he wrote letters to the presidents of the provinces, inviting them, the municipal magistrates, ecclesiastics, and all respectable citizens, to prepare and offer schemes for promoting popular education, and especially for the moral, religious, and industrial instruction of the children of the poor. Commissions were appointed to deliberate and advise upon many subjects of proposed reform. Great, indeed, was the need of change in the institutions of the Pontifical States; but the Government had a delicate part to play in amending them, and it wisely determined not to be precipitate in its measures. "Already the Liberals had conceived boundless desires, and the Retrogradists were haunted with unreasonable fears. The Government had, to-day, to moderate on the left, circulate despatches, wellnigh to scold men for hoping too much."

But the friends of change, says Farini, were for the most part measured in their wishes and cautious in their proceedings; for all prudent men were exerting themselves strenuously to keep the impatient in hand, with excellent effect.

We cannot follow in detail the Pope's measures down to March, 1848, till which period the movement may be considered as all his own, emanating from his free choice and not from the pressure of outward circumstances or from revolutions in foreign States. He did enough during these twenty months to establish his character as a wise, humane, and liberal sovereign, eager to promote the temporal and religious interests of his people, and prompt to give political power into their hands as fast as they showed themselves capable of using, and not abusing, it. He instituted a civic guard throughout his dominions, modelled on the French National Guard, and disbanded the Gregorian Centurions and volunteers. All his court was opposed to this measure as premature and dangerous; and even Cardinal Gizzi resigned his place in consequence of it. But the Pope persevered, and Cardinal Ferretti, still more inclined to liberalism, was appointed in his place.

He conceived the idea of an Italian customs league, after the model of the German one, and pressed it with so much earnestness that in November, 1847, it was instituted for the Roman, Tuscan, and Sardinian dominions, and every effort was made to render it acceptable to the other powers of Italy. He established a municipal government for the city of Rome, which had hitherto remained without one; and he created a Council of State for all his dominions, to consist chiefly of the laity, one person being chosen for each Province by the sovereign, out of a list of three, nominated by the provincial authorities. This Council was to sit in Rome, and aid the Government with its advice in putting the various departments in order, in constituting municipalities, and in other public concerns. He created, also, a Council of Ministers, which Farini calls the most important act of his reign, "As being that by which the executive power acquired an organization worthy of a civilized state, and altogether novel in that of Rome." There were to be nine departments, and, with the exception of the president of the Council and its secretary, the ministers need not be cardinals. All those first appointed, however, were cardinals or prelates.

A body of _Uditori_ was attached to this Council, consisting of twelve ecclesiastics and twelve laymen, all appointed by the sovereign. The laws respecting the censorship of the press were much relaxed, and numerous political journals were established at Rome, which before had nothing that deserved the name of a newspaper. "Our infant journalism," says Farini, "had its infant passions and caprices; instead of meditating, it gambolled, and every day it smashed its toys of the day before, as children do; it instituted a school of declamation, not of political knowledge; it ran and plunged about, blindfold; it made boast of an independent spirit, and was a mean slave to out-of-doors influence."