The other who had not laughed was Brigham himself.  For to this great man had been given the gift to look upon men and to know in one slow sweep of his wonderful eyes all their strength and all their weakness.  He had listened with close attention to the remarkable plan suggested by this fiery young zealot, and he studied him now with a gaze that was kind.  A noticeable result of this attitude of Brigham’s was that those who had laughed became more or less awkwardly silent, while the Entablature of Truth, in the midst of his pantomime, froze into amazement.

“We’d better consider that a little,” said Brigham, finally.  “You can talk it over with me tonight.  But first you go get your stuff unloaded and get kind of settled.  There’s a cabin just beyond my two up the street here that you can move into.”  He put his large hand kindly on the other’s shoulder.  “Now run and get fixed and come to my house for supper along about dark.”

Somewhat cooled by the laughter of the others, but flattered by this consideration from the Prophet, the young man had gone thoughtfully out to his wagons and driven on to the cabin indicated.

“I did think he was plumb crazy,” said Bishop Snow, doubtfully, as if the reasons for changing his mind were even yet less than compelling.

“He ain’t crazy,” said Brigham.  “All that’s the matter with him, he’s got more faith than the whole pack of us put together.  You just remember he ain’t like us.  We was all converted after we got our second teeth, while he’s had it from the cradle up.  He’s the first one we’ve caught young.  He’s what the priesthood can turn out when they get a full swing with the rising generation.  We got to remember that.  We old birds had to learn to crow in middle life.  These young ones will crow stronger; they’ll out-crow us.  But all the better for that.  They’ll be mighty brash at first, but all they need is to be held in a little, and then they’ll be a power in the Kingdom.”

“Well, of course you’re right, Brother Brigham, but that boy certainly needs a check-rein and a curb-bit right now,” said Snow.

“He’ll have his needings,” answered Brigham, shortly, and the informal council dispersed.

Brigham talked to him late that night, advancing many cogent reasons why it should be unwise to make war at once upon the nation of Gentiles to the east.  Of these reasons the one that had greatest weight with his listener was the assurance that such a course would not at present be pleasing in the sight of God.  To others, touching upon the matter of superior forces they might have to contend with, he was loftily inattentive.