the commissary-wagons coming next, and in this order, with bayonets
fixed, cannon shotted, and two bands playing, had marched brazenly in
the face of the Mormon authorities and through the silent crowds of
Saints to Emigrant Square. Here, in front of the governor's residence,
where flew the only American flag to be seen in the whole great city, he
had, with entire lack of dignity, led his men in three cheers for the
country, the flag, and the Gentile governor.

After this offensive demonstration, he had perpetrated the supreme
indignity by going into camp on a bench at the base of Wasatch Mountain,
in plain sight of the city, there in the light of day training his guns
upon it, and leaving a certain twelve-pound howitzer ranged precisely
upon the residence of the Lion of the Lord.

Little by little these galling reports revived the military spirit in an
Elder far to the south, who had thought that all passion was burned out
of him. But this man chanced to open a certain Bible one night to a page
with a wash of blood across it. From this page there seemed to come such
cries and screams of fear in the high voices of women and children, such
sounds of blows on flesh, and the warm, salt smell of blood, that he
shut the book and hastily began to pray. He actually prayed for the
preservation of that ancient first enemy of his Church, the government
of the United States. Individually and collectively, as a nation, as
States, and as people, he forgave them and prayed the Lord to hold them
undivided.

Then he knew that an astounding miracle of grace had been wrought within
him. For this prayer for the hostile government was thus far his
greatest spiritual triumph.