That the Mormon battalion did good service in the Mexican War of 1847 is a matter of history. It was sent at a most critical conjuncture. Application was made to the Saints, when upon the point of commencing their exodus from Egypt, through the deserts of Paran and Sin, where the red Amalekite and the Moabite lay in wait to attack them, and when every male was wanted to defend the old and sick, the women and children, and the valuables of which the Egyptian had not despoiled them. Yet the present Prophet did not hesitate to obey the call: he sent off 500 of his best men, who fought through the war and shared in the triumph. Providence rewarded them. It was a Mormon—James W. Marshall—who, when discharged from service, entered with some comrades the service of a Swiss land-owner, Captain Suter—a remnant of Charles X.'s guard—near Sacramento, on the American River, and who, in January, 1848, when sinking a mill-run or water-run, discovered the shining metal which first made California a household word. On the return of the battalion to Great Salt Lake City, laden with nearly half a million of gold, a mint was established, and a $5 piece was added to the one million dollars which forms the annual circulation of the United States. It bears on the reverse, "Holiness to the Lord," surmounting a three-cornered cap, placed over a single eye: the former alludes, I was told, mystically to the first Presidency; the obverse having two hands clasped over the date (1849), and the words "Five Dollars, G.S.L.C.P.G." The $5 appeared somewhat heavier, though smaller than an English sovereign. Anti-Mormons adduce this coinage as an additional proof of saintly presumption; but it was legally done: a Territory may not stamp precious metal with the federal arms, but it has a right to establish its own. They adduce, moreover, a severe charge, namely, that the $5 piece was 15–20 per cent. under weight, and yet was forcibly made current. One remarkable effect the gold certainly had. When the Kirtland Safety Savings Bank, established by Mr. Joseph Smith in February, 1831, broke, he stout-heartedly prophesied that before twenty years should elapse the worthless paper should be again at par. The financial vaticination was true to the letter.[1]
- ↑ The Mormons quote two other prophecies both equally offensive to the United States, and both equally well known.
On the 26th of April, 1843, Mr. Joseph Smith distinctly declared, in the name of the Lord, that before the arrival of the Son of Man the "question of slavery would cause a rebellion in South Carolina," and effect a "division of the Southern against the Northern States." It was a calamity easy to be foreseen, but we look with anxiety to the unfulfilled portion, the "terrible bloodshed" which will result.
In 1846, when, humanly speaking, want and destitution stared the Saints in the face, Mr. Brigham Young predicted that within five years they would be wealthier than before. This was palpably fulfilled in 1849, when the passage of emigrants to California enabled the Saints to exchange their supplies of food for goods and valuables at enormous profits.
I commend these "uninspired prophecies" to the simple-minded translator of "Forewarnings, Prophecies on the Church, Antichrist (who was born, we are told,
