The Call of the Shepherd.

"Come Out of Her, My People."—The Dispersion of Israel has for its complement the Gathering of Israel; the prophets who predicted the one likewise foretelling the other. The Savior's personal visits to the various branches of the Israelitish race, before or after His resurrection, were prophetic of a general restoration of the Lord's people to their ancient lands, and the folding of the scattered sheep into one great flock, with him as the Shepherd over all.^[1]

Prophecies of the Gathering.—The more notable of the Hebrew prophecies pertaining to the Gathering are as here given:

Isaiah.—"And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." . . . .

"They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West." . . . .

"And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."^[2]

Jeremiah.—"I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion." . . . .

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

"But, the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them; and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.

"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." . . . .

"Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth. . . . .

"For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born.

"Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock."^[3]

Jesus Christ.—"And again this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come, or the destruction of the wicked."^[4]

"And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."^[5]

The Savior also predicted to the Nephites the gathering of the House of Israel;^[6] and John the Revelator foresaw the same event in his great vision on Patmos.^[7]

The Realization.—How marvelously and how rapidly these predictions are being fulfilled, the history of the past hundred years plainly tells. The Angel with the Everlasting Gospel has flown from heaven to earth, and the message borne by him is being preached "again" in all the world, as a final witness to the nations.

Isaiah's reference to the setting up of an Ensign for Israel's gathering finds its fulfilment in the restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood, and in the organization of the Church of Christ in this dispensation.^[8] Then and there was raised a rallying standard for the sons and daughters of Ephraim, the first scions of Jacob's household to be "born again," to embrace the ancient faith in modern times—the first of the broken off branches of Israel's "olive tree" to be "grafted in again" and bear good fruit.^[9]

Keys of the Gathering Restored.—Before there could be a complete gathering of the chosen people, the Keys of the Gathering had to be restored. Accordingly, when the time was ripe, they were conferred upon the founder of the Latter-day Church. Moses, who held those keys at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, was the messenger who now restored them. The place of restoration was the Kirtland Temple; the time, April, 1836. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery testify that "the veil" was taken from their minds, and they "saw the Lord," even Jehovah, who proclaimed to them his identity with the Savior of Mankind. The record then continues: "After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto us, and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north."^[10]

First Latter-day Saints.—Then began the great work for which these keys had been restored. All preceding it was but preparatory. "Mormonism's" first converts had been made in the region where the Church arose—the farming districts of Western New York and Northern Pennsylvania. But Kirtland, Ohio, was the cradle of the Kingdom. There a Temple was built, and the Priesthood more perfectly organized, preliminary to the sending of the Gospel to foreign nations, and the gathering of scattered Israel to the Land of Zion. Up to the summer of 1837 the "fishers of men" were busy only in the United States and in Canada. Now they crossed over the British Isles, and later to the continent of Europe. Instant and marvelous was their success. In parts of England—notably Lancashire and Herefordshire—whole villages and congregations were swept into the Church by the unlettered yet divinely empowered Apostles of the new dispensation.^[11]

Earliest Immigrants.—A small company of Latter-day Saints, numbering but forty-one—the first to "gather" from abroad—sailed on the ship "Britannia" from Liverpool for New York, in June, 1840. They were bound for Nauvoo, Illinois. Each succeeding year added its quota to the fast growing nucleus of the Savior's kingdom. Thus was set in motion the mighty tide of immigration which, swelling the numbers of the Saints in the Mississippi Valley, eventually peopled with the skilled mechanics and hardy yeomanry of Great Britain, Scandinavia and other European countries, the mountains and valleys of the Great West.

The Impelling Motive.—How different the motives impelling these people, from the motives generally imputed to them! It was not for gold and silver, flocks and herds, nor any of "the good things of this world," that they forsook home and country and "gathered" to the Land of Zion. It was not to better their temporal condition, that they abandoned comfort and in some cases affluence, crossed the stormy ocean, dragged rickety hand-carts over parching plains and snow-capt mountains, to settle in a barren wilderness and endure hardships and privations innumerable, while redeeming the waste and dotting it with cities, farms and vineyards. It was for God and his Kingdom—nothing less; and it was the love of Truth that inspired and impelled them.^[12]

Character of the Saints.—Utah's early settlers were stigmatized as ignorant and malicious. It was ignorance or malice that so stigmatized them. "Scum of the earth," "offscourings of civilization," were some of the pet names bestowed upon them by their enemies. How utterly unjust these epithets, how grotesquely misapplied, everyone must know who has any knowledge of the facts. In reality, they were among the best men and women of their time. Many of them were descended from the Pilgrims and the Patriots who founded this nation, and in their veins, as Children of the Covenant, flowed the blood of priests and kings, illustrious through a thousand generations.^[13]

These modern Zion-builders were not among those who wait for a cause to become popular before embracing it. Lowell little realized how admirably he was painting their portrait when he penned these lines:

Then to side with Truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just.
Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit
Till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.

* * *

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

Not slaves, but free men and free women, founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were of the sheep that knew the Shepherd's voice, and when put to the test, they showed "the mettle of their pasture."

"One of a City and Two of a Family."—Jeremiah's prediction was uttered at a time when families (tribes) were much larger than they now are—large enough for one tribe to fill several cities.^[14] Otherwise, the prophet might have changed his wording to read: "One of a family and two of a city." Phrased either way, the forecast has been literally fulfilled in the painful and pathetic experiences of many Latter-day Saints, including women and children, turned out-of-door by parents or guardians, for daring to be "one of a city" or "two of a family," in identifying themselves with a people everywhere "spoken against."^[15]

"The Shoulders of the Philistines."—This phrase translates itself into the facilities for far and rapid transportation owned and operated by the Gentiles, but utilized by the God of Jacob in bringing his people from foreign shores, and up into the tops of "the high mountains of Israel."^[16] "They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West." When Isaiah wrote those words, he was gazing with prophetic eye upon this very period. He beheld the ships and railroads of the Gentiles, likewise the Land of Zion, now occupied by the Gentiles, but formerly peopled by the Nephites (Joseph and Judah) and included in the lands that God gave to their forefathers.^[17] Israel needs the help of the Gentiles—their wealth, their power, their wonderful insight into and command over material things, their intelligence and skill in manipulating temporalities. How, without the children of Japheth, could the children of Jacob be gathered out from the nations?^[18]

The Lost Tribes.—It is maintained by some that the lost tribes of Israel—those carried into captivity about 725 B. C.—are not longer a distinct people; that they exist only in a scattered condition, mixed with the nations among which they were taken by their captors, the conquering Assyrians. If this be true, and those tribes were not intact at the time Joseph and Oliver received the keys of the gathering, why did they make so pointed a reference to "the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north?" This, too, after a general allusion to "the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth." What need to particularize as to the Ten Tribes, if they were no longer a distinct people? And why do our Articles of Faith give those tribes a special mention?^[19]

The "Highway."—Isaiah's reference to the "Highway" points directly to the lost tribes, respecting whose return from "The North Country," his fellow prophet, Jeremiah, promises an event that shall so far eclipse in scope and grandeur Israel's exodus from Egypt, that the latter will no more be mentioned.

Joseph the Seer must have had the same thing in mind when he wrote: "And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord, and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves, and they shall smite the rocks and the ice shall flow down at their presence, and an highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep."^[20]

Already he had foretold the removal of the Latter-day Saints to the Rocky Mountains—then a desolate, uninhabited region—and was evidently pondering that thought when he further declared: "And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land."^[21]

Ephraim and the Returning Tribes.—It was Ephraim who lifted the Ensign for the Gathering. It is to Ephraim that the returning tribes will "bring forth their rich treasures," receiving from him their spiritual blessings. "And the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence."^[22]

Judah and Jerusalem.—The same prophecy mentions the tribe of Judah, whose gathering place, however, is not the Land of Zion, not the New Jerusalem, but Jerusalem of old, yet to be rebuilt upon a scale of magnificence paralleled only by the splendor of her sister city and twin capital of Christ's Kingdom.^[23]

Even as the Waters.—Hear, O Israel! Children of Jacob! The night of dispersion is past. The day of gathering has dawned. The tempests that broke above the heads of your ancestors have spent their fury, and the clouds have parted and are rolling away. The barren ground, refreshed by the fearful visitation, has brought forth abundantly, and a ripened harvest awaits the reaper's cycle. The revivifying rains, having fulfilled their mission, must now return to the ocean whence they were taken. Such is the meaning, the symbolism, of the scattering and gathering of Israel.

Footnotes

1. John 10:16; 3 Nephi 15:21; 16:1-3; 21.2. Isa. 11:12, 14, 16. See also 5:26; 35:10; 43:5, 6. The same Prophet declares:

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

"And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Isa. 2:2, 3.)

This prophecy, however; seems to refer, not so much to a gathering of Israel, as to an Israel already gathered, unto whom the nations will come to learn the ways of the Lord.3. Jer. 3:14; 16:14-16; 31:8-10.4. Matt. 24:31, as rendered by Joseph the Seer, Pearl of Great Price, p.78.5. Ib. Bible, King James' version.6. 3 Nephi 21.7. Rev. 14:16; 18:4. See also Deut. 33:17; Psalms 50:5; Ezek. 34:12-14.8. D. & C. 115:4, 5; 45:9; 64:42.9. Jacob 5 and 6.10. D. & C. 110:1-4, 11.11. Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, was placed at the head of the first foreign mission. He was accompanied by Orson Hyde, Willard Richards, and other Elders. Subsequently another apostolic mission, headed by Brigham Young and including a majority of the Twelve, carried the Gospel to all parts of the British Isles.12. I was once asked by a gentleman, friendly to the Latter-day Saints, why they did not co-operate with the millionaire philanthropists who have endeavored in recent years to place upon arid lands poor Jews taken out of large cities; but whose efforts, owing to inexperience in such enterprises, have been more or less futile. My questioner thought a copartnership between such capitalists and such colonists—one to furnish the money, the other the knowledge and skill necessary for the undertaking—might work a splendid result. He added with unction: "You could stipulate, you know, that every Jew thus colonized should become a Mormon—and just think how that would build up your Church!"

The intent was serious, but the effect was to amuse. It suggested the Shakespearean court scene, where the Venetian Duke decides that the Jew Shylock, as part of his punishment for seeking the life of Antonio, shall "presently become a Christian." ("Merchant of Venice," Act 4. Scene 1). As if Christians could be made by judicial decisions or "Mormons" by contracts for colonization.13. Talent and genius, brain and brawn, from every part of the world came in the early immigrations to Salt Lake Valley—farmers, laborers, tradesmen, mechanics, merchants, manufacturers and business men, with a liberal sprinkling of artists, musicians, writers and other professional people. "In their degree the pick and flower of England," was the comment passed upon a ship's company of "Mormon" emigrants, by Charles Dickens, the great English author, in his sketch "The Uncommercial Traveler," published in 1863.14. Joshua 21:4115. Acts 28:2216. Ezek. 34:1417. Jer. 16:15; Deut. 33:13-16; Gen. 49:22-26.18. The work is too vast, too arduous, for any one people to accomplish, particularly a people who are a mere handful among earth's teeming millions. God, not man, is doing this work, and He is not limited in his choice of instruments to his own covenant people. All men, all nations, knowingly or unknowingly, are playing into his hands.19. The fact that Arctic explorers have found no such people at the North Pole—where some theorists have persisted in placing them—does not prove that the "Ten Tribes" have lost their identity. It was tradition, not revelation, that located them at the North Pole. "The north country," "The land of the north," these are the scriptural designations of their unknown abode. All the rest is inference. Those tribes could still be intact, and yet much of their blood be found among the northern nations. Some of the pilgrims might easily have mixed with the people encountered by them while journeying toward their ultimate destination; and that Ephraim did so mix, Hosea the Prophet (7:8) declares.20. D. & C. 133:26, 27.21. Ib. 133:29.22. Ib. vv. 30,32.23. Isa. 2:3.

In April 1840, Orson Hyde and John E. Page, both Apostles, were sent from Illinois on a mission to Palestine, to bless the soil, that its barrenness might depart and the way be opened for the restoration of the Jews to their ancient homeland. John E. Page faltered and fell by the way, but Orson Hyde accomplished his mission. On the 24th of October, 1841, from the summit of the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem, he offered to the God of Israel, a fervent and eloquent prayer in behalf of his down-trodden people. He blessed the sterile land that in might once more become fruitful, and that Judah might repossess his heritage. Elder Hyde afterwards predicted that the British nation would take an active part in the redemption of Palestine; a prophecy fulfilled during the World War. In 1872, President George A. Smith went with a party from Salt Lake City, and again dedicated the Holy Land for the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.