[Brigham Young Jr.]
I have had curious feelings lately. When father [Brigham Young] was verysick in St. George [Utah] in the spring of [18]77 previous to his death, he was taking a vapor bath in his house when he called for me to take him out of the box; 'quick, quick' he said. He fell into my arms fainting I laid him in his easy chair, he gasped twice, his eyes set, underjaw fell, his Bowels gave away and he lay as if dead I looked over and beyond him and saw a deep dark gulf, I was terrified and the horrible depths seemed to represent what was before us if father died. I believed him dead and my very soul cried out 'You must not die father,' the future was too terrible to contemplate. I laid my palsied hands upon his head and in a quivering voice prayed God to restore my father to life. At the end I opened my eyes and looked upon his face. His eyes were wide open and were clear and glittered like blue steel and in his natural voice he quietly said 'Well your not much of a soldier.' Twice within the last week I have been perfectly unmaned, for perhaps ten seconds each time, and the same sensations experienced on the occasion when I believed my father dead and I was gazing over his body into that gulf of dispair have the same feelings of despair assailed me. I never knew the torture of terror but these three times. I was wide awake each time and it took all the power I have in the priesthood to overcome this unknown terror. I know to some extent what the prophet Joseph [Smith] experienced when seized upon in the woods by that soul destroying power just previous to the appearing of our God & his Christ.
[Brigham Young Jr. Diary, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910-1951, Privately Published, Salt Lake City, Utah 2010]
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