Not only are the people redeemed from all their sins by the pious ministrations of the many temple-workers, who, like Samuel, continually serve and minister therein, but as marriage relations are to continue throughout the endless ages of eternity, and children are to be born forever and ever, these dead have the hymeneal ceremony performed "for eternity"; this act is known as the "sealing" process. Men are here married—by proxy—to others than the actual living wife, sometimes with her consent, sometimes without it. One old gentleman, whose name is not to be mentioned, was sealed thus for eternity to Martha Washington and to Empress Josephine. It sounds farcical and foolish in the extreme; fit only to be counted as a silly joke, unworthy the attention of a sane soul for a minute; but it is terribly sober when it is remembered that there are hundreds of thousands of innocent, honest, and unsuspecting Mormons who really and truly believe this to be the only road to eternal life and exaltation.

Added to this is the doctrine of the deification of men. All the true and faithful Mormons are to become gods by and by, and create and populate new worlds; hence the value of polygamy; in fact, this world is but one of the samples of this truth. Adam is the owner and ruler of earth, and to him we pray. He is our God. As such he is only one in an endless procession of such beings.

"There has been and there now exists an endless procession of the Gods, stretching back into the eternities, that had no beginning and will have no end. Their existence runs parallel with endless duration, and their dominions are limitless as boundless space."[3]

Possibly the most popular hymn among these people is the following, written by one of the wives of Joseph Smith, Eliza R. Snow. It is in their collection and now in use:

HYMN TO FATHER AND MOTHER

O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place! When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face? In thy holy habitation, Did my spirit once reside? In my first primeval childhood, Was I nurtured by thy side?

For a wise and glorious purpose Thou hast placed me here on earth, And withheld the recollection Of my former friends and birth; Yet ofttimes a secret something Whispered, "You're a stranger here"; And I felt that I had wandered From a more exalted sphere.

I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high; But, until the Key of Knowledge Was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? No; the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me, I've a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, mother, may I meet you In your royal court on high? Then, at length, when I've completed All you sent me forth to do, With your mutual approbation Let me come and dwell with you.

——-

[3] New Witness for God, B. H. Roberts, 1895.



WEBER TOM, UTE POLYGAMIST

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way. —Pope.

When Mormonism was no longer compelled to maintain the defensive it quickly assumed the offensive. This was apparently deemed necessary for the existence of the system. Two kinds of preaching were indulged in by the elders on their missions, home and foreign. At home they declared the beauty of the Smithian gospel, including the doctrine of polygamy, a sweet morsel for the blood-thirsty Utes. They were trying by every means, Machiavellian or otherwise, to gain the Lamanites, as Indians were called by the Mormons, at least to an extent which would allow them to remain undisturbed throughout the territory of Utah. Old Kanosh and other leaders were immersed for the remission of their sins, but they were permitted to multiply unto themselves as many squaws as they cared for. It would take water stronger than the common alkaline pools contained to reach the morals of a heathen Ute.

Very many of the Indians thus were made Mormons and white men were appointed as their bishops. Brigham Young used to make visits to them to try to instruct them in various things. For a considerable period he was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. He was such official at the time of the lamentable Mountain Meadow Massacre, in 1857, and for which crime Bishop John D. Lee suffered death.

Possibly it was the influence of Mr. Young that kept the most of the red men from the warpath and thus saved the scattered settlers in the earlier days when there were so few to guard the isolated homes in the far-away nooks and canyons of the mountains.

The other sort of preaching in which the elders indulged was that of an absolute and unqualified denial of polygamy in Utah. Such was the plan of the elders who went to Europe. The public denial of John Taylor, later president of the church, is abundant evidence. When they deny polygamy now they have the consistency of definition to back them; to their manner of explaining, polygamy is the act of taking new wives; to the non-Mormon, polygamy is the possessing of more than one wife. For this reason we are very bold in saying that polygamy is publicly practiced in Utah—witness Joseph F. Smith as chief example.

Although we may read of it, none can comprehend just what it means to a girl-wife, two thousand miles away from her parents, to be treated as an alien, in a land under the flag of the free. This was the case in the strictly Mormon settlements in Utah thirty years ago. Reason only kept the Giant Despair from the threshold of the mind. The bravery of these women can be compared only to the English women of the Sepoy Rebellion days of 1857 in India, or to those of our American sisters who accompanied their valorous husbands to their isolated posts on the Indian frontiers, resolved to share equally in the dangers, and to die lingeringly and cruelly if necessary. Retreat and surrender never grew in the hearts of such women. It was so in the times that were called the "dark days" in Utah—the time when the government applied its functions to the stamping out of polygamous practices, 1883 to 1893—ten terrible years for the Mormon as well as the non-Mormon.

Add to this the fact that, unannounced, a brawny, stalwart Indian might walk in at the door. More than once has it so occurred in our home. One day the door was suddenly opened and in walked a grinning brave, armed with a long knife, and followed by his squaw; extending his empty hand toward the far-from-home girl-wife, alone in the house, he said, "How-do!" In telling us of it, she said: "I was scared to death, I thought, but I would have shaken hands with him if I had died in the attempt. I would not let him know I feared him." But this was not Weber Tom.

It was in those fearsome days when the leading men of Utah—farmers, bankers, stockmen, church dignitaries, all sorts and conditions of the Latter-Day Saints—were being arrested and haled to the courts almost daily, that one morning there rode up to our door the battle-scarred old warrior, Weber Tom, chief of the Skull Valley Utes, or Goshutes.

If perfection is beauty, this Indian was most beautiful, for he was the ugliest creature imaginable, ugly even to perfection. One eye had been gouged out, a knife-scar extended from his ear down across his mouth, and he was Herculean in physical proportions. I am a large man, but once when I gave him an overcoat he tried vainly to button it over his vast frontal protuberance, looking at me and saying, "Too short, too short."

This giant chief dismounted, and, seeing my wife standing near, reached the reins of the bridle to her and said, "Here, squaw, hol' my hoss."

She said, quietly, "Hold your own horse if you want him held."

Having had to accommodate himself to the rudeness of a civilized woman, he made other provision for his cayuse and then asked her, "Wheh yo'man?"

She told him I was down in the field, and he then proceeded to find me. He was in the depths of trouble. He had several squaw-wives and feared he was to be arrested for it.

Now he approached me. It was dramatic; it was high-class pantomime. It is too bad the kinetoscope, cinematograph, or some other moving-picture machine had not been invented. He seemed awed by a presence, yet so emboldened by the needs of his case that he walked stoically to his quest.

Squaring his Atlaslike shoulders, he began: "You heap big chief. You talky this way" (at the same time extending one finger straight from his lips). "Mormon he talky this way" (now extending two fingers, to show he understood them to talk with double tongue). "Mormon telly me sojer men ketchy me, put me in jug [jail]; me havy two, tree, four squaw. You heap big chief. You telly me this way" (one finger). Continuing, he said: "Me havy two, tree, four squaw. Mormon he telly me, me go jug; one my squaw he know dat, he heap cry, heap cry, HEAP cry, by um by die!"

This was accompanied by gestures, throwing his body backward in imitation of the dying woman whom fear had killed, according to his dramatic story.

I told him something like this: "No, heap big lie. You go back Skull Valley, you stay home, no sojer ketchy you, you be heap good Injun!" Upon this he grunted deeply, shook hands cordially, went back to his many-wived tents over across the creek, and soon we saw them filing off through the sagebrush toward their Skull Valley home, many miles over the Onaqui range.



POLYGAMY OF TO-DAY

The man that lays his hand upon a woman, Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward. —John Tobin.

A baby was sleeping, Its mother was weeping. —Samuel Lover.

Polygamy may die in Mormondom, but has never yet done so. Cases are often reported, and from the manner of their finding it is a certainty that new alliances are being formed continually between married men and unmarried women.

Not long ago a very bright conversion was made in one of the missions of an evangelical denomination. The convert was a young woman of more than average intelligence. Some of her relatives had been polygamists, but she repudiated the whole cult and creed. For a while this decision made it necessary for her to find other residence than her rightful home.

Some time after she permitted herself to be persuaded that a young man of her acquaintance loved her more than he did the polygamous tenet of his church—he was a Mormon—and that he never would attempt to woo and win another woman while she remained his wife. She consented, and was happy in her home life. Not for a moment did she suspect him of double-dealing. Her honest heart was above entertaining such suspicion had it entered. Serenely she saw her children growing to useful womanhood. Not a cloud of anxiety appeared on the calm sea of life; all was fine sailing. One day she was making some repairs in one of her husband's garments when a letter fell from a pocket. It bore the postmark of a city where they both had relatives, and it was quite natural that she should look into its contents.

What despair and agony seized her when she read therein the statement from the "other woman" telling her "fond" husband of the birth of the child!

The poor, heart-stricken, and hitherto trusting wife immediately rose to the dignity of outraged womanhood and insulted wifehood and compelled the polygamist to choose at once between her and the concubine. He did so, choosing the younger woman and leaving her who had trusted him too fondly.

This is not a tale of the ancients in Utah, but a living, festering story of the vivid present.

One way of avoiding prosecution by the law is the surreptitious, clandestine rearing of children, whose mothers lose no prestige in the community; for it is well understood "among the neighbors and friends." "Public polygamy has been suspended," but the requirement of the doctrine remains unchanged.



GREAT SALT LAKE

So lonely 'twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. —Coleridge.

This is truth the poet sings That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. —Tennyson.



GREAT SALT LAKE

Many stories, weird and lurid, true and untrue, have been told of this body of saline water lying imposed on the breast of the beautiful and scenic State of Utah. Although one of the transcontinental highways of ocean-to-ocean travel has extended its bands of steel directly across its wide bosom for many miles, it is still a spot where mystery lingers.

Private as well as public legends are handed down from lip to ear rather than from page to eye. For that reason there are tales of this wonderful salt sea to be learned only by residing in the vicinity. Its natural moods are unlike the ocean, and its individual characteristics would make a book.

The briny pond is but a wee thing as compared with its gigantic dimensions in the days when its waters were sweet and had an outlet to the north. Then its arms spread far south into Arizona, over into Nevada and into Idaho. It was 350 miles from the northern end to the southern, and 145 miles across from east to west. The area was 20,000 square miles. This greater lake stood 1,000 feet higher than does the present one, although this one is 4,280 feet above the level of the sea. Geologists have named the earlier one Bonneville, in honor of the intrepid soldier-explorer whom Washington Irving has so well fixed in American literature.

By some as yet unknown cataclysm a great break was made at the north end of this inland ocean and its pent volume was poured into the canyon of the Port Neuf toward the ravenous Snake. This reduced the level four hundred feet, but the old beach line may still be easily noted. Gradually this diminished body became smaller and smaller until it reached the present stage of desiccation.

So impure is this heavy liquid that after evaporation there is a residuum of twenty-eight pounds of solid matter in every hundred. This is composed of salt, magnesium, and other elements carrying three dollars of gold to the ton; the gold is not made a matter of trade or of industry because facilities are lacking for its handling. Very little animal life is found in this brine, and none of vegetable; in fact, at every point where the water touches the shore vegetation vanishes utterly. The animal life is that of a very small gnat which, mosquito-like, lays its eggs on the surface of the water. The larvae, when driven shoreward, collect in such quantities as to cause a strong, unpleasant odor observable for miles to the leeward. Myriads of seagulls here find a dainty feast.

Salt Lake affords the finest and really the only beach-bathing resort in the whole interocean country. The bathing is attended with little, if any, danger. In thirty years only two persons have been lost. These strangled before assistance reached them. One body was found after four years, lying in the salty sand at the south end of the lake, whither the high winds from the north had drifted it. All the parts protected by the sand were perfectly preserved and as beautiful as if carved from Parian marble.

The tops of a number of sunken mountains still protrude above the surface and form islands: such are Fremont, Church, Stanbury, Carrington, and others. Some of these are habitable, possessing fine springs and irrigable land. Very few people live on these islands, but some brave spirits dare to face the semiprivations of such isolation and stay there with their herds.

Doubtless, many tales of heroism and devotion could be told of those who have lived on these islands. One of the best known is that of Mrs. Wenner, who, a few years after her marriage, went with her husband and little children to live on Fremont Island. Her husband's health failing, the oversight of the herds fell largely upon her, but she cheerily took up the burden, the while she trained her little ones, and was ever a true companion to him whom she daily saw slipping away.

The end came on a dread and fearsome day, while the faithful man who worked for them was detained on the mainland by a raging storm. The children and an incompetent woman could give her little assistance or consolation. There on the lonely, storm-lashed island, with faint-whispered words of love, the dear one closed his eyes forever. Tenderly she cared for his body, and sadly she kept her vigil, replenishing through the long night the two watchfires intended as a signal to those on the mainland. On the night of the second day, the man made his dangerous way back to the island—and with his help she laid the loved husband in his island grave, with no service but the tears and prayers of those who mourned.

This is but one story of desolation and sorrow—but the deep, briny waters and the barren, forbidding shores hold in their keeping many suggestions of mystery and of tears.



ARGONAUT SAM'S TALE

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. —Shakespeare.



ARGONAUT SAM'S TALE

"I panned him out over and over ag'in, But found nary sign of color," Said Argonaut Sam one evening, when, As sitting atop of a box, to some men He was spinning a yarn of the gold-trail.

And then, With arms set akimbo, he straightened his back And said: "'Twuz one night in the fifties I know; Ther' kem up the trail frum the gulch jist below A youngish-like feller; but steppin' so slow I heartily pitied him even before I saw his pale brow and heerd the sharp hack Of his troublesome cough, and plain enough lack Of more'n enough power to bring to my door That tremblin' young body.

"He hed a small pack— A blanket an' buckskin—but that wa'nt no lack In them days when notions an' fashions wuz slack; When all a man needed, besides pick an' pan, Wuz a wallet o' leather to tie up his dust—'R a place to git grub-staked (that means to git trust Till he found a good prospeck); an' then he'd put in His very best licks; fur in them days 'twuz sin Fer a man strong o' body, o' wind an' o' limb T' hang erround loafin' all day, 'twuz too thin.

"Well, this puny feller hed grin'-stunlike grit, But wuz clean tuckered out when my cabin he hit; 'N fell down a-faintin' jist inside my door— His eyes set 'n' glassy—he seemed done fer, shore. So I straightened him out, couldn't do nothin' more

Than to put back his hair an' t' dampen his brow, An' to feel fer his pulse—joy! I found it—slow An' flickery though, stoppin' and startin', an' now Gone ag'in; then it revived, but so faint, don't you know, That minute by minute I couldn't hev said Whether the feller wuz livin' or dead.

"All night I watched by him; an' 'long a-to'rds light I seed that a change hed come: so, honor bright! I made up my mind that I'd save that young life If it took me all summer. I'd fight With grim death to a finish fer him.

"An' so I begun. I quit workin' my claim Where I'd git on an average ('pon my good name) An ounce or more daily of number one gold. An' in them days we thought nothin', you see, Of layin' by stuff fer a rainy day; we Hed plenty; the diggins wuz rich, an' wuz thick Scattered over the kentry. Most every crick Hed plenty o' gold in nuggets or dust— An' the man who wuz stingy hed ort to be cussed. So I shouldered my task.

"It wuz wonderful how The new life appeared to come back to my boy; (Fer that's what I called him—'my boy') an' the joy O' perviden fer suthin' besides my lone self Made me happy. Y' see, th' experunce wuz new; Fer I'd lived all alone ever since forty-two, When, back in Ohio, I'd buried my wife An' baby. Since then I'd looked on my life As a weary, onfriendly, detestable load. So that's why I lived all alone, don't you see? I didn't love nothin' and nothin' loved me.

"But now of young Josh—his name wuz Josh Clark— He'd come frum ol' York State—could sing like a lark— Wuz finely brung up, an' that mother o' his, A sister he tol' me, an' a girl he called Liz. 'D a give the hull earth if they only could know If he wuz alive; but so hard-hearted, he Would never be grateful to them nur to me. Though I had no claim on him, yet it would seem After all I hed done fer him, shorely some gleam O' thankfulness somewhere might some time be seen. 'Sides spendin' my all I hed broken down too, Wuz a shattered ol' man, though but then fifty-two; Fer I'd give up my health an' my strength to pull through My boy—fer I loved him, if ever men do. But, no; it appeared that he hedn't no heart. Not once did he thank me, and never asked why I nussed him to life, 'stid o' lettin' him die.

"His wants wuz demands, his wishes commands, An' once in the dusk, as we set on the sands Of a stream that run by, he reached with his hands So quick an' so blamed unexpected, you see, Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife, An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done; I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun An' now wuz becomin' its prey.

"But, I'd none: I'd spent all the surplus I hed to save him. I'd missed all the summer an' fall to nuss him Who now like a tiger wuz takin' my life. 'Hol' on, my dear Josh! Hol' on, my dear boy!' No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat— I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin' my coat He throwed me ag'in, now a madman, indeed. His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, 'Do yer best. I've give you now all that I ever possessed But life. Take it now if you like!' An' he struck.

"How long I laid there in the dark, I don't know; But when I kem to I wuz layin' in bed, An' the people wuz talkin' so easy an' low, An' I knowed by the bandages too on my head That I hed been nigh to the gates o' the dead.

"An' 'Where wuz Josh Clark?' did you say? I don't know. He never wuz seen in the diggins below, Ner heerd of in them parts ag'in, fer I know He'd a-swung to the limb that come fust in the way; Fer the boys in them days hed little to say, But wuz mighty in doin'. So he got away.

"So it seems that some people is jist so depraved There ain't a thing in 'em that ort to be saved. 'Twuz jist so with Josh, who I loved as a son; He lived fer hisself an' fer hisself alone. 'N' 'at's why I remarked at the fust of this yarn, The thing 'at it's cost me so dearly to larn—'I panned him out over an' over ag'in, But found nary sign of a color.'"



THE WRAITH OF THE BLIZZARD

The night it was gloomy, the wind it was high; And hollowly howling it swept through the sky. —Southey.

What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north wind raved? —Whittier.



THE WRAITH OF THE BLIZZARD

We dread the unseen. Fear is always enervating; sometimes even deadly. Who has not fearsomely anticipated that which never came and wasted valuable energy and time in building bridges none are ever to cross? The surgical patient actually suffers more at sight of somber white-clad nurses, and the thought of the operation, than he does from the ordeal itself. It may be that we subconsciously dread the helpless state of unconsciousness into which the anaesthetic plunges us, and hesitate at a trip, no matter how short, into death's borderland, preferring to keep our own hands as long as possible on the helm of the ship of life.

I wonder why we become terror-stricken at the thought of ghosts. The untutored child needs only a hint to make him shy at the dark; and a lad has to be pretty large before he can walk far at night without once in a while looking behind him, just to be certain there is nothing following.

Thus spirits, spooks, bogies, wraiths, and other uncanny apparitions are unintentional inheritances of the race; a race that knows little more about the impending and impinging unseen than did the Saxon fathers who gave us our spooky speech.

I once had an experience which grows in interest as the years pass by. I had no fear or thought of fear that night, and the scenes of the evening were absolutely unannounced; they entered upon the sleety stage for whose violent acts I held no program.

One afternoon I was to go to one of my appointments, a mining town in Utah. In order to relieve home cares I took with me my four-year-old son, who thus would get some novel entertainment as well. To the buggy I hitched Jenny, the strawberry-roan cayuse, and started for the distant point. It was a little stormy all the way, and by the time we had well begun the service it had thickened so that a hard snow was setting in. It was dead in the north and continued with such strength that soon there appeared no slant to the falling columns. By the time church was dismissed the blizzard was on in full force, and the roads were already so filled with the new drifts that to return with the buggy was hardly thinkable. I borrowed a saddle, and leaving the little lad with friends, started for home, where I was under appointment to preach that evening. My way lay in the north, in the very teeth of the raging storm. With head tucked down, I trusted the reins to Jenny, who had never disappointed me in many a mountain trip, but I had not gone far until I found the storm was at my back. Peering sharply through the fast falling darkness, I discovered that the mountains were on my left instead of on my right, as they should have been. Jenny had turned tail to the storm. Feeling herself unwilling to face the arctic onset, she was retreating.

Only the dire necessity of the occasion made me compel her to face the torturing attack of the icy shafts that were hurling themselves on us like steel points.

We were forced, Jenny and I, to abandon the only road, now drift-filled, and take an unbroken way through the sagebrush, junipers, buckbrush, and other tangled chaparral, where there was no trail at all, and farther to the right, that I might keep an eye on the mountains and not get turned around again. I felt the force of Cardinal Newman's immortal hymn,

... amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on! The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on!

We had not gone far until I began to hear the sweetest music. I could not imagine from whence it fell, as I knew there was not a human home in all that plain between the two settlements. Then I heard personal conversation; in fact, the night was full of pleasant travelers. The awful storm seemed not to affect them in the least. They seemed to have an open road too, while we were plunging through deep snowdrifts, my feet already dragging along their tops.

When the first carriage load came up I saw it was only a desert juniper. The boreal gale sweeping through its shivering branches made converse in the music of the wild, Jenny and I being the only seat-holders in that grand opera. Soon another caravan of belated folks drove up; but it was only a load of hay that had been over-tipped. Others came, but they were only bushes or some inanimate object. There was little life out on that perishing night.

After hours of fearsome and benumbing travel, Jenny stumbled with me into the little home town. A good feed of oats and a warm shelter doubtless ended the story happily for her. But for me—the ghost of the desert and the wraith of the blizzard had become real. They spoke to me that night and I understood.

THE GREAT NORTHWEST

God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.—Longfellow.

Westward the course of empire takes its way.—Berkeley.

In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.—Isaiah.



THE GREAT NORTHWEST

Possibly there are those who find themselves thinking that Western tales are travelers' tales and must be taken with "a grain of salt." Some also say that the man who crosses the Missouri never is able to tell the truth again; this is crude, I know, and in some cases true, but they who are so afflicted were just the same before they ever saw the Missouri.

Our waterless areas were considered by Captain Bonneville (as told by Washington Irving) utterly barren and forever hopeless wastes. In Astoria—chapter thirty-four—these words are used:

"In this dreary desert of sand and gravel of the Snake here and there is a thin and scanty herbage, insufficient for the horse or the buffalo. Indeed, these treeless wastes between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are even more desolate and barren than the naked, upper prairies on the Atlantic side; they present vast desert tracts that must ever defy cultivation, and interpose dreary and thirsty wilds between the habitations of man, in traversing which the wanderer will often be in danger of perishing."

So thought Captain Bonneville; so wrote the matchless American litterateur, Washington Irving, of "Sunnyside," author and authority, creator of The Life of George Washington, and the Broken Heart, which made Lord Byron weep. The doughty Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, who died as late as 1878, obtaining leave of absence and a furlough, endured the pleasure of hardships common to the explorer, and through his happy biographer added the Trail to literature; but his eye of vision did not see these great stones of the commonwealth, Utah, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The very region so carefully pictured above as the dreariest of deserts, a veritable Western Sahara, is the exact location of Idaho and a large portion of Oregon; a region perfectly adapted to the sustenance of immense population and intense development.

Moses understood all the wisdom of the Egyptians. We do not, but we do know that the biggest thing in an arid country is the ditch. America's triumph to date in the twentieth century is the completion of the Panama Ditch. The ditch is in Idaho more valuable by far than the land, for without it the parched soil is practically worthless, being an area of shimmering sand, where the ash-colored and dust-covered sagebrush breeds the loathsome horned toad, the rough-and-ready rattlesnake, and the slinking, night-hunting coyote, which preys on the lithe-limbed, loping jack rabbit.

The modern Western American is rapidly learning a modified wisdom of the ancient irrigators of Egypt, and already knows how to drain the irrigated acres and leech these old alluvial plains. From the days when the frosty glacial plowman ran his deep basaltic furrows for the majestic Snake and other streams, these gorges of nature had been only mossy beds over which lazily slid the unmeasured volumes down to the western and "bitter moon-mad sea." Now man, the mightiest of all magicians, has lured the liquid serpents from their age-long couches, cut them into thousands of smaller streams, and sent them bravely abroad on the face of the protesting desert, drowning its death and making it to bloom and blossom.

As a concrete instance of the artificial possibilities of Idaho and contiguous regions, I will here instance a statement made for me by the Rev. H. W. Parker, superintendent of Pocatello District, and resident of Twin Falls, under date of October, 1914: "Where ten years ago this very minute there was not a fence nor a furrow (only the conditions above described by Washington Irving) there are now such municipalities as Twin Falls, Filer, Rupert, Burley, and others soon to be as fine. As pastor in 1904, my first official trip to Twin Falls was made on July 14. I found one or two frame buildings and some tents stuck around in the sagebrush; some streets had been marked out, but no grading had been done. Dust, heat, and sagebrush were the main features of the place. In October I preached the first sermon ever delivered by any minister in the new village. The congregation numbered forty-one. On February 5, 1905, I organized the first church with seventeen members; on May 23, 1909, we dedicated the present edifice at a cost of $18,000, exclusive of the lots.

"To-day this church has a membership of more than five hundred. This youngster has turned back into the treasuries of the denomination in regular collections more than $3,000. The city has to-day seven thousand people. There are between four and five miles of asphalt-paved streets, a perfect sewer system, and cement sidewalks throughout the whole municipality. An investment of $120,000 has been made in two splendidly equipped grade school buildings, besides a high school costing a quarter of a million dollars. These combined schools have an enrollment of over two thousand pupils with a teaching force of above sixty; the high school graduated forty-eight last commencement. There is not a saloon in the entire county."

Surely "progress" is here spelled in large letters.

Years ago, with the narrow strip along the Atlantic in mind, Longfellow wrote, "God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting." And as the mighty empire took its course toward the West of limitless opportunity the good God kept the sieve running full time, so that to-day

The best of the best Are in the Northwest.

THE END