ost
remarkable commonwealth that the world has ever seen. Salt Lake City
was the one pier upon which was laid the long and unbroken iron chain of
the Pacific Railroad.

On what singular foundations lie the corner stones of some of the
greatest achievements! I think you can safely say that had there been no
Joseph Smith there had been, up to this date at least, no Pacific
Railroad.

This tragedy meant everything to those who took part in it, no matter on
which side they fought or followed.

No one saw beyond the circle of houses in which they then lived and
moved. As a rule those who followed the prophet, as well as those who
murdered him, were wild, ignorant men, from the mountains of Tennessee,
the wilds of Virginia and their own Missouri.

To these men, as I have said, this tragedy meant all the world. Carthage
to them meant all that Carthage ever meant to Rome.

Nearly a hundred men, heavily masked, moving down upon a prison, with
its half dozen inmates. A little tussle; one struggle at the door. Then
a few shots. Then a few men lying in their blood on the prison floor.
Then a leap from a window, a fall; a man lying dead in the jail yard.
Some masked men pick up the body. They sit it up against a pump in the
yard; and then they, as if to be doubly certain, fire at the dead body
of the prophet as they file out of the jail yard and disappear.

All is consternation, terror now, flight! It seems there will not be one
human being, save the dead and dying, left in the town. One family alone
dares to remain to care for the murdered.

The work was well done. If such a deed can be done well, this certainly
was. The secret was kept as never had secret been kept before. Life was
depending. Not only the life of the man who had taken part, but the
lives of his children, his wife, all his house. Who says the West is not
the world of Romance and Tragedy?

A pendulum must swing about as far one way as it does the other. Blood
meant blood. From the stains on that prison floor sprang the Draggon's
teeth. Out of that awful day came forth a singular conception: the
Danites--Destroying Angels.

The prophet of God, as these men professed, had been slain. Unlike the
Christians, they proposed to slay in revenge.

I fancy you might trace this on till you came to the awful tragedy of
Mountain Meadows. Putting the two tragedies together, side by side, and
passing them on to the impartial judgment of some pagan, I am not
certain th