sailed away. Thus once more Fortune favored, if not the brave, at all events the vigilant. California, the peerless, became and remained ours.
But what to do with all this length and breadth of territory, unoccupied by any save a race of centaurs? It was true that Thomas H. Benton had said, in a speech delivered at St. Louis in 1844:
"I say the man is alive, full grown, and is listening to what I say, (without believing it, perhaps) who will yet see the Asiatic commerce traversing the North Pacific Ocean—entering the Oregon River, climbing the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, issuing from its gorges, and spreading its fertilizing streams over our wide-extended Union! The steamboat and the steam-car have not exhausted all their wonders. They have not yet even found their amplest and most appropriate theatres—the tranquil surface of the North Pacific Ocean, and the vast inclined planes which spread east and west from the base of the Rocky Mountains. The magic boat, and the flying car, are not yet seen upon this ocean, and upon this plain, but they will be seen there! and St. Louis is yet to find herself as near to Canton, as she now is to London! with a better and safer route, by land and sea, to China and Japan, than she now has to France and Great Britain."
But then nobody believed much in a Pacific railroad; and then, too, we had not conquered California, and did not know much about the Bay of San Francisco. Certainly it was a problem how to connect Oregon and California with the country east of the Mississippi, and how to people it, and what to do with such an extent of unprotected coast. Yet here is where our special Providence comes in.
Not many years before the events just mentioned, a religious fanatic, Joseph Smith by name, gained a powerful influence over a large body of people, leading them from place to place; until finally they settled in Illinois, and built up a city called Nauvoo. But the Illinoisans, being an ill-mannered, bigoted commonwealth, soon took a dislike to the believers in the book of Mormon, and finally drove them out at the point of the bayonet,to seek their fortunes in some distant corner of the world. These persecuted "saints" had reached the western border of Iowa, and were halting for a rest before continuing their exodus, when the Mexican war broke out. Colonel Kane, who was sent to raise a battalion from their ranks, (a refinement of malice in a Government which had failed to protect them) tells us many interesting facts concerning them, in a lecture which he delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Colonel Kane succeeded in raising a battalion, which, together with the remainder of the army, was about returning home, when the discovery of gold in the newly-acquired territory of California created that fearful mental and moral epidemic called the "gold fever."
Did the "saints" raise a stampede for the mines, like any and every other class of people? No. Their mission was to build a great city, which was to contain a wonderful temple, besides other peculiar institutions. Faithful to their faith, they made haste to build it, and behold! in the midst of the continent, when the gold-seekers fainted on their wearisome march to the Pacific, they came suddenly upon a beautiful new city, set in among emerald hills, where, when California first became ours, was only blue air and silence. Says Colonel Kane (we quote from memory): "When the travel-worn gold-hunter reaches the mountain-top overlooking Salt Lake City, and sees for the first time this haven of rest in the middle of his exhausting journey, he falls down upon his knees and thanks God, with tears of joy streaming from his eyes." Here was provided rest, and
