It had come so insidiously, with such apparent naturalness, little by little--a settler here, a settler there; here an acre of gray desert charmed to yellow wheat; there a pouch of shining gold washed from the burning sands; another wagon-train with hopeful men and faithful women; a cabin, two cabins, a settlement, a schoolhouse, a land of unwalled villages,--and democracy; a wicked government of men set up in the very face and front of God-governed Israel.
At first they had come with ox-teams, but this was slow, and the big Kentucky mules brought them faster; then had come the great rolling Concord stages with their six horses; then the folly of an electric telegraph, so that instant communication might be had with far-off Babylon; and now the capstone in the arch of the Lord's vengeance,--a railway,--flashing its crowded coaches over the Saints' old trail in sixty easy hours,--a trail they had covered with their oxen in ninety days of hardship.

The rock of their faith would now be riven, the veil of their temple rent, and their leaders corrupted.
Even of Brigham, the daring already told tales that promised this last thing should come to pass; how he was become fat-souled, grasping, and tricky, using his sacred office to enlarge his wealth, seizing the canons with their precious growths of wood, the life-giving waterways, and the herding-grounds; taking even from the tithing, of which he rendered no stewardship, and hiding away millions of the dollars for which the faithful had toiled themselves into desert graves.

Truly, thought Joel Rae, that bloody day in the Meadows had been cunningly avenged.
One morning, a few weeks after he had reached home from the north, he received a call from Seth Wright.
"Here's a letter Brother Brigham wanted me to be sure and give you," said this good man.

"He said he didn't know you was allowing to start back so soon, or he'd have seen you in person." He took the letter and glanced at the superscription, written in Brigham's rather unformed but plain and very decided-looking hand.
"So you've been north, Brother Seth?
What do you think of Israel there ?" The views of the Wild Ram of the Mountains partook in certain ways of his own discouragement.
"Zion has run to seed, Brother Rae; the rank weeds of Babylon is a-goin' to choke it out, root and branch! We ain't got no chance to live a pure and Godly life any longer, with railroads coming in, and Gentiles with their fancy contraptions.

It weakens the spirit, and it plays the very hob with the women.