The stain was there, red in the candle-light.

But the cries no longer rang in his ears as on that other night when he had been sinful before the page.

And he was glad, knowing that the self within him had again been put down.
Then came strange news from the East--news of a great civil war.

The troops of the enemy at Camp Floyd hurried east to battle, and even the name of that camp was changed, for the Gentile Secretary of War, said gossip from Salt Lake City, after doing his utmost to cripple his country by sending to far-off Utah the flower of its army, had now himself become not only a rebel but a traitor.
Even Johnston, who had commanded the invading army, denouncing the Saints as rebels, had put off his blue uniform for a gray and was himself a rebel.
When the news came that South Carolina had actually flung the palmetto flag to the breeze and fired the first gun, he was inclined to exult.
For plainly it was the Lord's work.

There was His revelation given to Joseph Smith almost thirty years before: "Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina." And ten years later the Lord had revealed to Joseph further concerning this prophecy that this war would be "previous to the coming of the Son of Man." Assuredly, they were now near the time when other Prophets of the Church had said He would come--the year 1870.