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576 But this number of emigrants gives no idea of the aggregate of those who have, at one time or another, been baptized into the Mormon Church in Europe. Probably not one person in twenty who receives the faith "endures to the end," and many of those who are "faithful" are so very poor that they are unable to pay the expenses of their emigrating to Zion, and they linger on in the old homes of their fathers. Brigham has made a vigorous effort to gather all the foreign Saints, and has laid the Rocky Mountain Saints under very heavy contributions to that end. To some of the foreign disciples emigration has been a great blessing; to others it has been the ruin of everything of earthly value.

The reader, however, must not suppose that Brigham has heedlessly distributed the wealth of the disciples in Utah for the suffering poor among the Saints. The prophet thinks himself a financier, and he loves to boast of that qualification.

A resolution was taken by the Mormons in Nauvoo, who had wealth enough to lead the van in the exodus to the Rocky Mountains, that they would never cease their efforts to assist the poor whom they had left behind, till every deserving soul was gathered to the body of the Church. The exiles honoured their word, and, as the pioneers found resting-places in the West, teams were sent back to Iowa and Illinois, and the poor were assisted forward to the Missouri river.

During this exodus, the emigration from Europe to the States was entirely closed; but, stimulated by the apostles, the British Saints memorialized her Majesty the Queen to provide them transportation to Vancouver's Island or Oregon, and to grant them the means of subsistence till they could produce it from the soil. The memorial has been severely criticised by those who charge the Mormon leaders with disloyal sentiments to the Republic, and there is a paragraph in it that quite admits of that construction; but Brigham has enough sins to account for without being responsible for that. In 1846 the distress in England among the poorer classes was sorely felt by the Mormons, and justified their seeking deliverance at the hands of royalty, even though their presence, 30,000 strong, in the Territory of Oregon, might have been prejudicial to American interests during the boundary debate. The British