History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

BRIGHAM'S CHARACTER.
ham did not know before that he was a lion, while
Sidney received the truth with reluctance that he was
indeed a lamb. Something more than pratory was necessary
to win in this instance ; and of that something,
with great joy in his heart, Brigham found himself in
possession. It was the combination of qualities which
we find present primarily in all great men, in all leaders
of men—intellectual force, mental superiority, united
with personal magnetism, and physique enough to give
weight to will and opinion ; for Brigham Young was
assuredly a great man, if by greatness we mean one
who is superior to others in strength and skill, moral,
intellectual, or physical. The secret of this man's
p0Wer—a power that within a few years made itself
felt throughout the world—was this : he was a sincere
man, or if an impostor, he was one who first imposed
upon himself. He was not a hypocrite; knave, in
the ordinary sense of the term, he was not; though he
has been a thousand times called both. If he was a bad
man, he was still a great man, and the evil that he did
was done with honest purpose. He possessed great administrative
ability ; he was far-seeing, with a keen insight
into human nature, and a thorough knowledge of
the good and evil qualities of men, of their virtues and
frailties. His superiority was native to him, and he
was daily and hourly growing more powerful, developing
a strength which surprised himself, and gaining constantly
more and more confidence in himself, gaining
constantly more and more the respect, fear, and obedience
of those about him, until he was able to consign
Sidney to the buffetings of Satan for a thousand
years, while Brigham remained president and supreme
ruler of the church. 19
18 Sidney had a trial, and was convicted and condemned. Sidney Rigdon
was a native of Saint Clair, Penn. , where he was born in 1793. Until his 26th
year he worked on his father's farm, but in 1819 received a license to preach,
from the society known as the regular baptists, being appointed in 1822 to the
charge of the first baptist church in Pittsburgh, where he became very popular.
In 1824 he resigned his position, from conscientious motives, and joined
the Campbellites, supporting himself by working as a journeyman tanner.
Two years later he accepted a call as a Campbellite preacher at Bainbridge, 0.,
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