key word, and grip is communicated, and the first degree of the Melchisedec priesthood is conferred.
Stupefied and weary; bowing under a sense of fearful and unnatural responsibility; excited by a species of apprehension as to what would come next, we were ushered into another room. An altar was in the center; on it the Bible, Book of Mormon and Book of Smith's Revelations. Man and woman, we were ranged around the place; Kimball in the same, and Brigham in the next room looking on; Parley Pratt officiating, and the fourth oath was administered. The allegory presumed that man, now in a fair and certain way to salvation, had a great temporal duty to perform, not an abstract theory of obedience, nor obedience in abstract things, but a great positive, present, immediate duty. We were, therefore, sworn to cherish constant enmity toward the United States government for not avenging the death of Smith, or righting the persecutions of the Saints; to do all that we could toward destroying, tearing down, or overturning that government; to endeavor to baffle its designs and frustrate its intentions; to renounce all allegiance and refuse all submission. If unable to do any thing ourselves toward the accomplishment of these objects, to teach it to our children from the nursery; impress it upon them from the death-bed; entail it upon them as a legacy. To make it the one leading idea and sacred duty of their lives; so that "the kingdom of God and his Christ" (the Mormon Church and its priesthood) "might subdue all other kingdoms and fill the whole earth." Curses the most frightful, penalties the most barbarous, were threatened and combined in the obligation either on failing to
