'ormons 
 
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 tfORMON SAINTS ! ! 
 
f 
 
BRIGHAM YOUNG. 
 
MORMON SAINTS 
 
 BY 
 
 W. HERBERT JHOMAS 
 
 LATE OF THE 
 
 " San Francisco Examiner" 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM," "NIAGARA,' 
 "AMERICAN MINING CAMPS," " THE CHINESE IN "FRISCO," 
 
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8 
 
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Buicvoft 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE History of the Mormons contains many 
 strikingly interesting features ; and speculation 
 as to the probable future of the Church in the United 
 States is being freely indulged in by those who have 
 watched the actions of the unbelievers in regard to the 
 Latter Day Saints. The Supreme Court has recently 
 decided that the dissolution of the Church under the 
 Edmund's law was constitutional ; so that as a corporate 
 body it has ceased to exist, and its property is to be 
 administered by Federal officials. Those who continue 
 to practise plural marriage are being rigorously impris- 
 oned, and the latest ' revelation ' has caused the aban- 
 donment of the teaching of polygamy. The Gentiles are 
 out-numbering and out-voting the Mormon dwellers in 
 Salt Lake City. Will the repressive legislation and the 
 influx of Gentiles, weaken the hold of the faith upon the 
 minds of the present followers of Joseph Smith and 
 Brigham Young ; and prevent the accession of youthful 
 converts to the Church ? What are the characteristics of 
 the Mormons ? Are they misguided fanatics or vicious 
 people ? How should they be treated by those whose 
 views are antagonistic ? Is polygamy still secretly 
 practised ? Is the faith a rational one, or based on 
 superstition ? What lessons may be drawn from this 
 history of bloodshed and persecution, and the struggle 
 to found a settlement in a strange land ? I have 
 approached these questions as an enquirer ; and this 
 
VI. 
 
 little work is a study, not an exposure. I have aimed 
 at accurately reporting what I saw and heard whilst 
 among the Mormons, and at compiling other facts so 
 that the discussion of the questions raised might be 
 thorough and impartial. How far I have succeeded I 
 leave the careful and unprejudiced reader to judge. 
 There are said to be fully twenty-five thousand Mor- 
 mons in England alone, while in America there are 
 claimed to be several hundred thousands, so that it can 
 scarcely be unprofitable to examine the faith to which 
 they are proselytes, and the customs which are in vogue 
 among them. I have set down nothing in malice, but 
 have endeavoured to show both the light and shade in 
 the picture. I hope the Latter Day Saints, as well as 
 the Gentiles, will give as dispassionate consideration to 
 the evidence I have collated as I have bestowed labour 
 in endeavouring to bring up Truth from the bottom of 
 her Well. 
 
 W. HERBERT THOMAS. 
 
 PENZANCE, 
 
 CORNWALL, 
 
 October, 1890. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAGE 
 
 Social and religious problems Free love and polygamy 
 Latter Day revelations and supernatural manifestations 
 A drive around Salt Lake City The Temple and Taber- 
 nacle Cure for tramps Education Rich Saints Poly- 
 gamy now prohibited . . . . . . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Jewels in Brigham's crown The tithing system Church 
 property seized Brigham's tomb The first band of 
 emigrants Great Salt Lake 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Editor's opinions Children's belief Prosperity of Utah 
 Aunt Em of "The Woman's Exponent" Women's 
 rights Self-sacrifice Kisses and drives . . . .21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A chat with Mrs. Zina Young One of Brigham's widows 
 What they believe Brigham, Polygamy and the Church 
 defended Fifty-six healthy children . . . . .32 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Principal White on Education in Salt Lake City An unfavour- 
 able verdict Balky horses and hair-pulling The rancher 
 and the bishops 45 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Secrets of the Endowment House Horrible Vows and penalties 
 Grotesque ceremonies Apostates doomed Alien Mor- 
 mons not citizens . . . . . . . . .51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Mountain Meadow Massacre Religion or Revenge ? 
 Slaughter of the Innocents Talmage's indictment of 
 Mormonism .......... 59 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Crimes of Danites The Hand-cart scheme Mrs. Stenhouse's 
 trials Wholesale condemnation of the system . . .70 
 
vm. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. PAGE 
 
 Heart-burnings and jealousies Brigham disliked scratching 
 Wives in horse-boxes Curious complications Matri- 
 monial failures Best types of Mormons Are they happy ? 78 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Brigham Young's character Erratic teachings of Priests Tit- 
 bits of vulgarity Plural marriage of Celestial birth Two 
 thousand Converts yearly Jarman's allegations . . .88 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The future of Mormonism Growth of the Church Effect of 
 Education, Repressive legislation, and Gentile immigra- 
 tion The last elections. . . . . . . .96 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Origin of Mormonism Medium in San Francisco and other 
 frauds The gold plates and Book of Mormon, according to 
 Mrs. Stenhouse, Orson Pratt, and Rev. Alfred Rowland, 
 LL.B. Peter Cartwright and Joseph Smith Testimony 
 of the witnesses 105 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Primitive Mormons as Communists Modern Mormon exten- 
 sions of Territory Talk with a Mormon lady in Ogden 
 Bitter denunciation by debased Apostates Choice Mormon 
 Hymns ........... 120 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The practice of Polygamy If almost extinct, will it be revived ? 
 The appeal for admission to Statehood Report of the 
 Senate Commission National regulation of marriage laws 
 suggested Joseph Smith's Revelation on Polygamy His 
 wife's denial and his son's Church Twenty thousand 
 monogamous disciples . . . . . . . .128 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Is Mormonism of Divine Origin ? Revelation possible God 
 and the Atomic theory The Argument of Design Three 
 great tests of a Religion's Authenticity : (i) Truthful wit- 
 witness as to Miracles, Inspiration and Angel Visits; (2) 
 Comparison of its doctrines with those of other religions ; 
 (3) Its universality of adoption and applicability . . .135 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Trial of Mormonism The Judge's remarks The Miracu- 
 lous Revelation and Gold Plates The Mormon Advocate's 
 defence Good men or Liars Did the plates exist ? Did 
 the Angel appear ? Was the translation genuine ? Motive 
 Revelation necessary 145 
 
IX. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. PAGE 
 
 The Prosecuting Attorney's Reply Where are the Super- 
 natural Plates ? False Prophets and Superstition Naylor, 
 the pretended Messiah Loval, the fanatic Falsity of 
 Smith's pretensions A vision of Christ The Eye of Faith 
 Lack of adequate motive considered Blinded knavery 
 What is the verdict ? . . . . . . .155 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Are the Mormons Moral or Immoral ? Various kinds of 
 Morality : (i) Natural Morality ; (2) Savage Morality ; (3) 
 Civilised Morality ; (4) Society Morality What constitutes 
 personal Morality ? Conscientious obedience to a man's 
 best conceptions of right Most Mormons conscientious 
 Typical believers 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Is Polygamy Immoral ? Not if practised by conscientious 
 people under favourable conditions Abraham, Solomon 
 and David Polygamy in Japan Plural marriage outgrown 
 No direct condemnation in the Old Testament, or by 
 Christ in the New Testament Must deal with it as 
 expedient or inexpedient The history of Marriage 
 Bagehot answered by Sir J. W. Dawson Reasons why Poly- 
 gamy is inexpedient Moral suasion preferable to perse- 
 cution The need of knowledge and charity The President 
 renounces Polygamy 183 
 
TS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "And Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred 
 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart." I Kings xi. 3. 
 
 BURNING QUESTIONS. 
 
 SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS ARE THE 
 STUDY OF THE AGE. 
 
 WHILE the few are speculating as to whether or 
 not life is worth living, the many are seeking 
 to discover how our existence may be brought to 
 harmonise with the divine intentions. In the upheaval 
 caused by the investigation of social evils, moral systems 
 and religious faiths have to stand at the bar of criticism, 
 and show cause for their existence. Human happiness 
 is dependent upon our living under rational and natural 
 social conditions ; and upon our being in touch with the 
 Master Mind of the Universe. 
 
 We want to know what we must believe as to the life 
 beyond the visible ; we desire to know what we must do 
 
 as moral beings, capable of thought and action. 
 
 B 
 
Consequently the claims of the various religious creeds 
 are the subjects of keen controversy and careful analysis ; 
 while ethics engage the attention of an equally vast 
 number of students, who deal with established rules of 
 conduct in a manner which implies that re-adjustments 
 of codes are necessary when man's development changes 
 the conditions of his life. 
 
 Some may regard the discussion of the question 
 1 Is marriage a failure ? ' as a trivial and meaningless 
 specimen of journalistic sensationalism. To me it 
 implies that the relations of the sexes in the marriage 
 state are seriously discordant in a great number of 
 instances. The causes of this conflict are being ascer- 
 tained with more or less exactness ; and although love 
 and marriage are as old almost as the Garden of Eden, 
 the ventilation of these complex questions should be 
 continued until the complete solution is attained. 
 
 LOOK BEFORE LEAPING. 
 
 Before any important innovation is allowed we should 
 entertain no reasonable doubt as to the wisdom of the 
 proposed change ; for it may be that in many respects 
 our ideal is true, and our attainments only failures 
 because of individual carelessness or wilfulness. 
 
 A certain class of theorists advocate free love, which 
 means an utter abolition of our existing marriage laws ; 
 while the mildest of that school plead for a return to 
 the polygamous system, which was in vogue among the 
 ancient Hebrews, as a panacea for the evils which they 
 attribute to unnecessary restraint in the conjugal state. 
 As polygamy, or plural marriage, has been one of the 
 most striking features of the religion of the Latter Day 
 
Saints, an examination of the practical working of that 
 system may enable lovers of truth to draw a better com- 
 parison between our own monogamous institution and 
 that which we are asked to sanction, if not to adopt. 
 
 The religious aspect of the Mormon community is 
 equally novel and curiously interesting. We have pro- 
 fessed Latter Day revelations to Joseph Smith, the 
 founder of the sect, and to Brigham Young, his successor; 
 accompanied with alleged supernatural manifestations, 
 which have successfully appealed to the faith or credulity 
 of hundreds of thousands of converts. It is useless to 
 pooh, pooh, the question, of whether the religion is of 
 divine origin, for as faith is demanded by all religious 
 creeds, almost any belief that affects the hopes and 
 fears of the people will have its advocates. It would 
 have been unwise if Christian theologians had refrained 
 from answering the arguments of the rationalist critics, 
 for men are persistently demanding either demonstrations 
 or logical polemics ; and it would be equally dangerous 
 to ignore the claims of any church to the faith of the 
 masses, who soothe their minds by clinging perhaps to 
 the most transparent delusion, until- a purer and more 
 rational religion is set before them. 
 
 The Mormon saints interested me so greatly that, while 
 in Salt Lake City a year ago, I interviewed several of 
 the prominent Mormons and Gentiles ; and since then 
 have made an extensive investigation of works on the 
 subject. In the following pages I shall give the result 
 of my own labours ; together with condensations of the 
 statements of other writers, so that from a perusal of the 
 whole, the public may find satisfactory answers to the 
 questions which will suggest themselves to all who feel 
 
 B 2 
 
an earnest desire to have an accurate knowledge of the 
 lives and beliefs of their fellow men. 
 
 WHERE THE SAINTS LIVE. 
 
 It was early morning when we steamed into the depot. 
 The commodious and detached houses, amidst well-kept 
 gardens and waving trees (which also lined each side 
 of the avenues) ; the wide streets along which sparkling 
 water flowed from the hills around ; the towering edifices 
 and apparent fertility of the soil, all indicated that this 
 home among the mountains, if not an abode of the 
 blessed, was at least a blessed abode. 
 
 The sun was gleaming on the purple hills ; fruit 
 blossom and beautiful bright-hued flowers perfumed the 
 air ; silvery waters gleamed in the distance ; on some of 
 the hills the snow still rested, although it was almost 
 summer, and the sky was cloudless. 
 
 No fairer city could one wish to behold ; and yet in 
 1847 when the Mormon band came down Emigration 
 Canon they saw only a wilderness in which they must 
 live if they wished to escape assassination. So they 
 pitched their tents, and in less than fifty years by dint 
 of hard labour and perseverance they made the desert 
 give birth to the rose. Irrigation and energy did the work, 
 for the climate is usually so dry that without assistance 
 from man the soil would not have been productive. 
 
 Standing boldly against the clear atmosphere were 
 the most striking edifices of the city the Mormon 
 Tabernacle, and the new Temple of the Saints. The 
 spires of the Temple, the flat roofs of the houses, the 
 air of tranquility that pervaded the city, the scarcity of 
 women in the streets, and other features, impart, as 
 
Max Adeler remarks, " a truly oriental aspect to the 
 scene." The bustle of an American city is absent, and 
 because Salt Lake city is different from any other 
 settlement in the United States, it is as interesting to an 
 American as to a European. 
 
 CRIMINALS AND TRAMPS. 
 
 " Some people imagine," said our guide, " that com- 
 pulsion is used here to recruit the Mormon Church, but 
 this is false. They recognise the right of everyone to 
 freedom of thought, speech and belief. There are ten 
 or eleven religious denominations in the city, and there 
 is not the slightest interference from anyone." 
 
 As we passed the gaol, he remarked that in this prison 
 the new steel rotary cells were in vogue, so that the 
 prisoners' actions could be watched all the time, and 
 any scheme to escape be frustrated. " Of the criminals " 
 he continued, "fully 85 per cent, throughout Utah terri- 
 tory are from the ranks of foreigners, the remaining 15 
 per cent, being drawn from the Mormon population. The 
 population of Utah is 230,000 ; and of Salt Lake city 
 32,000, of whom 27,000 are Mormons, the proportion 
 holding good throughout the territory, so that the 
 Saints, even with their bad reputation, hold the law in 
 greater respect than the other inhabitants." 
 
 WORK FOR THE LAZY. 
 
 "We have no paupers here," said he, "for the country 
 around is prosperous, and we have a sure cure for 
 tramps. If any shiftless mortal comes along who 
 prefers idleness and penury to honest labour and the 
 regular wage, we quickly spot him and give him three 
 
or six days at the gravel bank in return for his board and 
 lodging, with the result that the aristocratic tramp 
 usually passes by Utah with a cold and haughty air; 
 or being once amongst us is glad to shake the dust of 
 the modern Zion from his feet." 
 
 Pointing to a very fine building, the guide said as we 
 stopped our vehicle for a moment, " this is St. Mary's 
 Academy, a Catholic school for girls. There is also a 
 similar institution for boys. There are ten or twelve out- 
 side schools which have no connection with the district 
 schools. In the latter no reference to Bible or Deity is 
 made, and there is a school in each of the twenty-one 
 districts into which the city is divided. The territory 
 also owns an Academy." 
 
 Passing a Mormon mansion, the residence of Mr. 
 Hill, the cashier of the Zion Savings Bank, the guide 
 said that the stock of the bank was worth 300 per cent., 
 and perhaps, could not be bought for that. 
 
 I was impressed with the fact that whatever might be 
 the condition of the working classes, the heads of the 
 Mormon Church seemed to be rolling in riches. Their 
 houses and grounds were as magnificent as those of 
 any wealthy men in other parts of the world. That 
 of John Taylor, the late president of the Mormon 
 'Church, and successor of Brigham Young, was a pretty 
 fair specimen. The guide said that Taylor was in 
 Carthage gaol when Joseph Smith and his brother were 
 assassinated by a mob, while under the protection of the 
 State of Illinois. Taylor, Smith and others were then 
 in confinement on account of their having advocated 
 polygamy ; Taylor having four wives. 
 
POLYGAMY NOW A CRIME. 
 
 The result of the strong popular feeling against 
 Mormonism has resulted in polygamy being prohibited 
 by law, so that it is now a crime to live with more than 
 one wife. 
 
 " On this side," said the guide, pointing to another 
 dwelling " resides George Q. Canon, who has five times 
 represented the Mormons in Congress. Only recently 
 he emerged from the penitentiary where he served a 
 term for refusing to desert his wives, whom he had 
 married before the passage of the Edmond's Bill, which 
 compelled men to put away all except the first wife. He 
 was the only member ever unseated because of his 
 advocacy of Mormon customs. Since the passage of 
 the bill 900 convictions have been secured in Utah 
 Territory. The penalty is six months in the penitentiary, 
 and a fine of three hundred dollars. The law is carried 
 into effect most rigidly, and the practice of polygamy is 
 almost extinct." 
 
 Our next halting place was a spot which is the greatest 
 attraction to visitors to Salt Lake City, viz., Temple 
 Block, on which are situated the Mormon Temple and the 
 Tabernacle. The former is not yet completed, although 
 the -gigantic task was commenced on April 6th, 1853, 
 and no less than $2,000,000 (^"400,000) were expended 
 in erecting the walls of granite, which was obtained from 
 the Washatch range of mountains at the back of the 
 city. In addition to this up to the present time it has 
 cost a similar sum in the construction of the remainder 
 of the building, so that the total cost will be enormous. 
 It is 200 feet by 100 feet; the walls are 100 feet high, 
 and the middle tower on each end will be 200 feet. It 
 is built entirely of granite, 
 
w 
 
 o 
 w 
 u 
 
 H 
 
HEARD A PIN DROP. 
 
 By the side of this massive edifice is the Tabernacle, 
 which was designed by Brigham Young, and its erection 
 superintended by himself, about twenty-two years ago, at 
 a cost of $300,000. It looks something like an immense 
 oval beehive, its construction being very peculiar. It will 
 seat 12,000 persons, and can be emptied in two minutes 
 by means of the twenty doors that open on the court-yard, 
 so that admirable precaution has been taken against loss 
 of life by fire. It is built of wood, is 250 by 150 feet and 
 70 feet high, being one of the largest buildings in America 
 without a central support. The wood used in the roof 
 is ingeniously crossed and dovetailed, and the acoustic 
 properties of the Tabernacle are remarkable. One of 
 the officials whispered from the rostrum at one end and 
 he could hear him distinctly from the gallery at the 
 further end, a distance of 200 feet ; and we also heard a 
 pin drop into a silk hat which he held in his hand. 
 
 The gallery extended all around the building, and was 
 supported by a single row of pillars. Instead of lamps 
 being placed in different parts, the Tabernacle is lit by a 
 row of gas jets around the bottom of the front of the 
 gallery. The seats were of light-coloured wood, and so 
 arranged that the whole congregation faced the preacher. 
 It is said that the appearance of the inside of the vast 
 dome was not pleasant to the eye, and this has been 
 remedied by draping the interior with long streamers of 
 evergreen and coloured paper. In the centre was 
 suspended a huge floral piece ornamented with small 
 American flags, presumably emblematic of the loyalty 
 of the Mormons to the Stars and Stripes. Services are 
 
10 
 
 held every Sunday at 2 p.m., when a sacrament of pure 
 water is administered ; after which the Saints adjourn 
 to the Theatre or elsewhere ; as the drama, dancing 
 and other amusements are not prohibited by their 
 religion. 
 
 The organ in the Tabernacle is one of the finest in 
 the world, being forty feet high, and containing 2,648 
 pipes. It cost $100,000. This place of worship has a 
 mixed choir of 120 voices. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 11 But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
 world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage." Luke xx. 35. 
 
 BRIGHAM'S PARADISE. 
 
 THERE seems to have been some doubt as to how 
 many wives Brigham Young actually had. Artemus 
 Ward states that some persons said " there was about 
 eighty of her," while others placed the number at 
 twenty. I asked one of the elders in the Tabernacle, 
 who said he did not know the total number, but that 
 Brigham Young, shortly before his death, had stated 
 in his presence that he (Brigham Young) had sixteen 
 wives living, and forty- three children. 
 
 " This building," said the guide, stopping before a 
 large plain edifice, " was once a tithing office ; now it is 
 a general storehouse. The tithes in Utah are voluntary 
 contributions, no compulsion whatever being exercised 
 towards those who may feel indisposed to yield up a 
 tenth part of their earnings to the church, after the old 
 Jewish fashion ; but the delinquents are few. The tithes 
 may be paid, either in land produce or money, to the head 
 Bishop. By means of this system, and the establish- 
 ment of Relief Corps for charitable purposes, no one 
 throughout the territory is compelled to beg, and, in fact, 
 we have no beggars amongst us." 
 
12 
 
 Not many minutes after we had dispensed with the 
 guide, I may observe in parenthesis, a fairly decently 
 dressed lad asked us for money, as he said he was 
 destitute; but then " it is the exception that proves the 
 rule." 
 
 SEIZING THEIR PROPERTY. 
 
 The Amelia Palace, named after Brigham's alleged 
 favourite wife, was another evidence of the lavishness of 
 the wealthy Mormons. It cost *$ 100,000 ; is provided 
 with all modern conveniences, in the shape of elevators, 
 heat radiators, etc., and is elegantly furnished. It was 
 erected for the use of the Presidency of the Church, 
 but is now in the hands of a Receiver, together with 
 several large farms, thirty thousand head of sheep, and 
 other property, seized and taken from the Mormons for 
 violation of a section of the Edmonds Bill, prohibiting 
 the retention of more than $50,000 worth of property, 
 besides places of worship, by any religious society. An 
 appeal has been taken to test the constitutionality of 
 the act. 
 
 The Zion Co-operative Mercantile Institution which 
 we glimpsed in passing was twenty rods long. It was 
 started by Brigham Young in 1869, and has a business 
 of from four to six million dollars annually, and a 
 capital of $1,250,000. The stock is worth $115 on the 
 market, $40,000 worth having changed hands at that 
 figure two weeks before I was there (April i2th, 1889). 
 Two hundred persons are employed in the establishment, 
 some of whom make boots, overalls and jumpers. 
 Later on we paid a visit to the Store, which had a glass 
 roof, admitting light to all the galleries, and gained a 
 better idea of its magnitude. 
 
WHERE THE PROPHET DIED. 
 
 We next passed through the Eagle Gate ; four pillars 
 uniting in the centre to form an arch on which was 
 perched the " patriotic piece of poultry " which is the 
 brazen emblem of America's greatness. This was the 
 gateway to Brigham's block of school-houses. We were 
 shown a window of the Lion House, the Prophet's chief 
 residence, from which he used to gaze around the city 
 after dinner, and wonder on which of his wives he should 
 next bestow his caresses. In a room to the north he 
 died on August 2gth, 1877, being 76 years old. 
 
 The residences of his first wife and one of his sons 
 John W. Young, were handsome stone buildings, sur- 
 rounded by gardens in which grew tulips and hyacinths. 
 This son is the third male offspring, and he is a very 
 enterprising railroad man, owning two or three branch 
 railroads leading out of Salt Lake City. 
 
 There are also a number of houses in which sons, grand- 
 sons and other relatives of the deceased Prophet live ; 
 as they were handsomely provided for at his death. 
 He is said to have left a comfortable home and a 
 sufficient fortune to support each wife during her life- 
 time, and $20,000 to each of his forty-four children. 
 Ann Eliza, his last wife, however, left Salt Lake and 
 went throughout the country preaching against Mor- 
 monism. She was only between twenty and thirty 
 years old, so this was truly one of the May and 
 December marriages, few of which are productive of 
 happiness or contentment in our own country. 
 
 SEE TWENTY MILES, 
 From the Eagle Gate a splendid view can be had of 
 
15 
 
 the City, and the range of mountains beyond; as the 
 road goes as straight as an arrow to its foot, a distance 
 of twenty miles, and the air is so light that objects 
 scores of miles away can be seen plainly with the naked 
 eye. 
 
 Brigham sleeps inside the rails which enclose a grave- 
 plot on the side of a hill. His monogram is engraved 
 upon the gate. 
 
 A plain stone lies over his remains, which occupy the 
 south-east corner of the plot. He desired no monu- 
 ment ; being more modest on quitting the world than 
 when alive ; but, as the guide said, " This entire city, with 
 its 100 miles of streets 120 feet wide, its Temple, Organ, 
 Co-operative Stores, etc., is a standing monument to 
 his name." 
 
 Later in the day in conversation with another citizen, 
 the latter said he was present when Brigham Young was 
 interred. Under the coffin, which was of native wood, 
 was a sandstone slab, and the huge block of stone above 
 it weighed several tons. 
 
 Four of his wives lie in separate graves alongside of 
 their common husband, and as some of the survivors 
 are now old and wrinkled it is probable that after a 
 while he will be surrounded by more of his earthly 
 treasures. 
 
 SHE STOOD ON HIS GRAVE. 
 
 An adventurous young lady from Boston (The Hub 
 of the Universe) immortalised herself when the rest of 
 our party left the spot, by climbing over the high rails, 
 in order to plant her dainty foot on Brigham Young's 
 tomb. 
 
16 
 
 "This house with the three chimneys," said the 
 voluble guide, " is the residence of John T. Kane, 
 the present representative in Congress. The chimneys 
 are a sign that he is not a Mormon. 
 
 " The mines at the back of the mountains around the 
 city are very rich, eight million dollars having been paid 
 in dividends by the Ontario mine. The value of Utah's 
 mineral product for 1886 was ten million dollars. Fort 
 Douglas, where the soldiers are garrisoned, is three 
 miles east of the City. 
 
 " When the Mormons were driven out of Illinois in 
 1847, after suffering horrible privations, fourteen men 
 and three women came down Emigration Canon 
 opposite, and formed a settlement, which was rapidly 
 augmented by saints from other parts of the world. 
 
 " Irrigation being necessary for fruit growing and 
 other purposes, seven streams now flow down the hill- 
 sides into the Jordan river to the west, and the soil is 
 now most productive. The streams are formed by the 
 melting snow." 
 
 THE WHEAT AND TARES. 
 
 Outside the house of the third wife of Bishop John 
 Sharp several Mormon children were playing on the 
 grassy bank as happy as any English children. Sharp 
 only lives with the first of his wives as the law annulled 
 his other marriages, and declared the children illegiti- 
 mate. In the next building to this residence lives a man 
 who settled on the same spot in early days in a tent, 
 which has now given place to an elegant villa. 
 
 " You will observe," said the guide, as he pointed to 
 Mormon and Gentile houses in proximity " That the 
 
17 
 
 great antagonism between the Saint and the Sinner 
 exists only in the imaginations of newspaper correspon- 
 dents, for they live within a few yards of each other. I 
 came here in 1848 myself, and ought to know something 
 of the facts of the case." 
 
 I would have liked to take a trip to the Great Salt 
 Lake, but it is about sixteen miles from the city ; 
 and I should have been obliged to neglect a more 
 important object which I had in view. 
 
 WANTED A HUSBAND. 
 
 An American whom I once interviewed in San 
 Francisco said, " I have just come from Salt Lake 
 City, and I like some of the scenery in that region. 
 Garfield Beach on Great Salt Lake is a most beautiful 
 spot, and as for the Lake itself the water is so salt and 
 heavy that a well-built man could lie on his back and 
 go to sleep on the water without sinking." 
 
 He added a sweeping and uncompromising opinion of 
 Mormons. " I have no use for Mormons," said he, 
 " The men are short and insignificant, while the women 
 are ugly and illbred. One woman told me that she 
 would marry a man if he were married to another 
 woman and had no love for herself." 
 
 The following graphic description of the Lake, and the 
 pleasure of bathing in it, is taken from the "Detroit Free 
 Press " : 
 
 BATHING IN THE LAKE. 
 
 " Bathing in the Great Salt Lake is an experience so 
 unique, so delightful and exhilarating, that it can never 
 be forgotten. There is probably nothing like it in the 
 world. It differs entirely from ordinary salt water 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 bathing. The water of the lake is so extremely heavy 
 (being nearly 29 per cent, salt) that a person cannot 
 sink. It is really a strange sensation to one who is not 
 accustomed to bathing in this water to walk out into the 
 lake. You feel yourself growing lighter and lighter as 
 you advance, until you seem to weigh nothing, and it is 
 only with the greatest difficulty that you can keep on 
 your feet. The feet, being lighter (ordinarily) than one's 
 head, show such a decided determination to come to the 
 surface that one is rather startled, and you immediately 
 picture to yourself the dire calamity of your feet in the 
 air and your head under the water. But no such state 
 of affairs ever exists. After you have become accustomed 
 to the buoyancy of the water, you will probably do as 
 the others do that is, you will let your feet come to the 
 surface, when you will find yourself calmly floating on 
 the water with your head and shoulders entirely above. 
 The body is gently rocked as the waves roll in and softly 
 break upon the sand. By lying on the back and placing 
 the arms at right angles to the body and drawing them 
 down to the sides, the bather can propel himself rapidly 
 through the water with comparatively little exertion. 
 The bathing season commences in June, and lasts until 
 the latter part of August, the temperature of the water 
 varying at different months during the summer, ranging 
 from 60 to 85, reaching the latter point during August. 
 
 CLOSE YOUR MOUTH. 
 
 " The area of the lake is 2,000 square miles, it being 
 seventy-five miles long by fifty miles wide in the widest 
 place. The average depth is probably about fifteen feet, 
 the greatest depth being about thirty-five. There are 
 two bathing resorts, Garfield and Lake Park. Trains 
 
19 
 
 leave the city for the lake at nearly all hours of the day. 
 The favourite, or rather the fashionable, hours of the day 
 in which to bathe are from 3 to 5 o'clock p.m., between 
 which time the water is the warmest. Notices are posted 
 in every corner cautioning bathers not to get the salt 
 water into the mouth, nose, or eyes, as it is very disagree- 
 able and irritating ; and if allowed to get in the lungs is 
 extremely painful. But with ordinary caution there is 
 little or no danger. It is a common sight to see two 
 hundred people lying quietly on the surface of the water 
 without the least exertion. 
 
 ROWING AND SUNSETS. 
 
 " The beach is composed of a remarkably clean white 
 sand, and the water is as clear as crystal, the bottom 
 being clearly discernible at almost any depth. The lake 
 is well supplied with rowing boats for the accommodation 
 of the public. There are also two strong rowing clubs 
 on the lake the Garfield Club at Garfield, and the Salt 
 Lake Club at Lake Park and the contests between the 
 rival clubs have never failed to attract large crowds. 
 Owing to the extreme buoyancy of the water, boats float 
 one-third lighter than in fresh water, and therefore it is 
 claimed that the water in Great Salt Lake is the fastest 
 in the civilized world. 
 
 " The view from the beach is beautiful at any time, 
 but reaches the climax at sunset ; when the islands and 
 the distant mountains assume the varying tints of the 
 sunset sky, and the surface of the lake looks like a vast 
 basin of molten silver, quivering in the slightest breeze. 
 The tints are so delicate, and the view so inspiring, that 
 once seen it makes a lasting impression upon the 
 memory." c 2 
 
26 
 
 THROUGH PREJUDICED SPECTACLES. 
 
 Here is another description of the great Salt Lake : 
 " From Salt Lake City to Ogden the railway traverses 
 a narrow plain. On the one side are the dead waters ; 
 on the other the sharp peakes of the Washatch Range. 
 The region is highly cultivated. Farms reach their 
 brown or green fields over its length and breadth, and 
 little streams run in bright threads out of the mountain 
 Canons and across the meadows. And the lake itself ! 
 Always mysterious, it appeals to the imagination of 
 every traveller. It sleeps for ever. No waves dance 
 over it, no surf roar breaks the stillness about it. Is it 
 sulky, one wonders ? Does it recall the time when its 
 waters covered the whole of Utah ? Is it jealous of the 
 mountains about it, remembering when they were battled 
 against ? What history belongs to it ? Why has it 
 alone remained part of a mighty ocean, salt and lifeless ? 
 The high peaks are radiant and full of life ; but the lake 
 is dull and heavy. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ' True love in this differs from gold or clay, 
 That to divide is not to take away." 
 
 THE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 UNFAIRLY TREATED BY STRANGERS. 
 
 The main idea I had in view was to secure an intro- 
 duction to one of Brigham Young's score or so of 
 widows, or at any rate to interview her if I had to 
 introduce myself. I first hastened to the office of the 
 " Salt Lake Herald," the leading Gentile paper, and laid 
 my difficulty before the Editor, who received me very 
 kindly. 
 
 "I am afraid that you are attempting an impossibility," 
 said he, " seeing that your train leaves in a few hours. 
 However, I will assist you as far as I am able. Several 
 of Brigham's widows are in town at present, I believe ; 
 and I am personally acquainted with all of them, but I 
 dare not introduce a newspaper man into their homes." 
 
 " Why ? " I asked. 
 
 " Because they are adverse to having their private life 
 made the subject of curious enquiry of strangers," he 
 replied. "They have a certain religious belief, and they 
 are as modest and conscientious as any people under 
 the sun. Several persons have from time to time 
 abused their confidence in this manner, and they would 
 
22 
 
 be sure to feel aggrieved if I were to bring them into 
 unpleasant notoriety." 
 
 " But is there no one to whom you can introduce me, 
 who will in turn secure an interview for me with one of 
 the widows ? " I suggested. 
 
 YOUNG BRIGHAM. 
 
 After some reflection and consultation with his sub- 
 editor, my new-made friend rang up some of the 
 Prophet's sons on the telephone, who were, however, 
 not in their offices at that moment. They were expected 
 back shortly, so in the meantime I placed the Editor on 
 the witness stand. 
 
 " I am like a good many other people," said I, " more 
 interested in, than informed about, Mormonism. Do 
 not the Mormons claim that their religion is of divine 
 origin through revelations to Joseph Smith, the founder 
 of their sect ? " 
 
 " They certainly claim, and believe it firmly too " 
 he replied " Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were 
 both from Vermont, and the former started Mormonism 
 in New York in consequence of the alleged finding of 
 some gold plates by him (through revelations), on 
 which were inscribed certain characters, which being 
 translated proved to be the Book of Mormon." 
 
 " Well, seeing that the polygamous system is the 
 main point in which Mormonism appears to differ from 
 other religions, I would like to know whether or not it 
 operates, or has operated successfully ? " 
 
 FORTY YEARS OF POLYGAMY. 
 
 " They have had forty years of this kind of thing," 
 was the reply, " and as far as I can judge they have 
 
23 
 
 got along all right on account of their genuine belief, in 
 the majority of instances, that they were obeying the 
 will of God. If the conscience is obeyed, even though 
 the actions may be opposed to natural inclinations, 
 persons usually obtain as much happiness as fall to the 
 lot of man. There is practically no new polygamy, 
 now that it is made a criminal offence, so we have to 
 do with plural marriage as a thing of the past. To me 
 Mormons are pretty much the same as other people. 
 They carry out, or try to carry out, their own peculiar 
 ideas, and as everything with them is voluntary they 
 seem to have no more discord than marks the lives of 
 other religious enthusiasts." 
 
 " Did the wives live together ? " 
 
 " Only in rare cases ; as it is understood that a man 
 must not take a wife until he can support her, and as a 
 rule the men with most wives were middle-aged men 
 who could keep up separate establishments, and they 
 did so. Sometimes the increase of families rendered 
 this imperative, but often one wife has reared the children 
 of another, if the first died, or the other had no 
 children." 
 
 " How do the children themselves seem to view the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " As most of the inhabitants here are Mormons the 
 home training has that tendency, so it is not surprising 
 that the majority grow up in the same faith, and consider it 
 perfectly natural to do as their parents, provided it were 
 lawful. The same result is usually found in any com- 
 munity where the religion is not a mere matter of form, 
 or for use only on state occasions," 
 
" I noticed the Zion Mercantile Institution." I re- 
 marked, " Is that the property of the Mormon fraternity, 
 or merely a co-operative body similar to those in 
 England." 
 
 " Originally it was purely co-operative, as those 
 Mormons who started it worked and divided the 
 profits, but now it is more of a stock company, and the 
 employees are paid the market value of their labour, 
 and no more. There is nothing socialistic whatever in 
 the arrangement. 
 
 MORMONDOM A COMMUNE. 
 
 " In theory Mormondom is something in the nature 
 of a commune, but in practice human nature is the same 
 as in other parts of the world. The saints call each 
 other ' brother ' and ' sister,' but if a man can make 
 more money than another he keeps it. Hence we have 
 rich and poor as in other communities, and in some 
 instances in the past when a poor man has burdened 
 himself with three or more wives with whom he has lived 
 in a rough log cabin, the poverty has been very keen. But 
 this is an exceptional case, as precautions are usually 
 taken to prevent, or alleviate, absolute destitution. 
 
 " For instance, a year or two ago the County built a 
 house two or three miles below the city, and bought a 
 farm, on which they have taken care of several poor 
 families. They have a system here among the Mormons 
 of each Church Ward taking care of its own poor out 
 of the district tithes and contributions." 
 
 " Is Salt Lake City prosperous ? " 
 
 " Yes, the outlook is very favourable, although we 
 have occasional stagnation of trade. There is very 
 
25 
 
 little unemployed labour in the city. We depend for 
 our prosperity upon mining, agriculture, and manufac- 
 turing, there being numerous machine shops in full 
 swing." 
 
 " What is the average rate of wages ? " 
 
 " At present miners earn [in English money] from 
 i2/- to i8/- per day; mechanics, carpenters, etc., I2/- ; 
 day labourers, 6/- to I2/-" 
 
 " It seems to me," I suggested, " that a great deal of 
 energy is devoted by the Mormons to increasing the 
 population, in direct opposition to the Malthusian theory 
 that there are too many people in the world at present 
 for the amount of wealth produced ; or, at any rate, that 
 population constantly tends to increase faster than 
 wealth ? " 
 
 MORE CHILDREN, MORE GLORY! 
 
 " You have struck the right idea," replied the Editor, 
 smiling, " for the objecl: of life with Mormons is to pro- 
 create. The more children you have, the greater your 
 glory will be hereafter ; so that they partake more of the 
 character of the old Hebrew women, who thought it a 
 disgrace to be barren, rather than of the Parisian or even 
 American type, who often think children objectionable, 
 to put it very mildly." 
 
 Further conversation was stopped by the use of the 
 telephone again, but without avail, and the Editor closed 
 the interview by saying : " There is one chance for you 
 yet to see one of the widows. I will send you up to 
 ' Aunt Em,' who runs the " Woman's Exponent." She 
 is one of the wives of Daniel H. Wells, one of Brigham 
 Young's councillors. She is one of the cleverest Mor- 
 
26 
 
 mon ladies, and can, if she will, give you the introduction 
 you desire." 
 
 Armed with Mrs. Wells' address I set out again on my 
 mission. I was convinced by the fact that the Editor was 
 extremely cautious in his replies, that the dark side of 
 Mormonism, if there was one, must, perhaps, be sought 
 from someone outside the locality where the Saints are 
 in the ascendency. 
 
 A TYPICAL SMART MORMON LADY. 
 
 I glanced at Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells rather critically, 
 for she was supposed to be an educated Mormon lady, 
 and would undoubtedly show more striking traces of the 
 effects of the system upon a refined nature, than an 
 illiterate and superstitious person, ready to grasp at any 
 bait which tempted her credulity. 
 
 Mrs. Wells was apparently between fifty-three and 
 fifty-eight years of age, small, wiry, grey-haired, and neatly 
 dressed. But what struck me most were the lines across 
 her forehead and cheeks ; furrows that scarcely looked 
 like the wrinkles produced by age ; but rather by a life 
 of stern struggle with something which had embittered 
 her cup of happiness ; drinking dregs that were utterly 
 distasteful, yet never shrinking, because considering it a 
 matter of duty, as pilgrims have done penance by walking 
 with blistered feet to some ancient shrine, suffering, yet 
 smiling through their agony. The firm chin and tightly- 
 drawn mouth hinted of a strong will, ready either to 
 conquer self, or to attack those opposed to her. Some- 
 thing in her voice too sounded hard and metallic at 
 times, and yet on the whole she was pleasant and hearty, 
 and I liked her. I believe her object in life was to be 
 
27 
 
 good and to do good. From her writings, which I after- 
 wards saw, I found she was very fond of poetry, and that 
 the name ' Aunt Em ' over which she wrote was not a 
 misnomer. She found her own happiness in making 
 others happy. 
 
 " What is the character of this paper you edit ? " I 
 asked, after introducing myself. 
 
 "'The Woman's Exponent,'" she replied, handing 
 me a copy, " is a journal published in the interests of 
 the Rights of the Women of Zion, and the Rights of 
 the Women of all nations. We claim the right of 
 Female Suffrage, which has been taken from us because 
 we are Mormons, and voted in accordance with our 
 conscience." 
 
 "Do you claim that Mormonism tends to elevate the 
 condition of woman ? " I asked. 
 
 " Certainly," was the reply. " I am aware that many 
 persons who do not know us think that we are slaves ; 
 but nowhere in the world has woman more liberty than 
 under our religion. She is respected, is accustomed to 
 think for herself, lives as noble a life as any woman, and 
 usually has a higher sphere of labour. We have our 
 Women's Societies and Clubs for our improvement and 
 pleasure, and everything is done to give women an object 
 in life, rather than fritter away her valuable time in the 
 frivolities of fashion and gaiety, although we do not con- 
 demn any innocent amusement and recreation. 
 
 HOW THEY CRUSH JEALOUSY. 
 
 " But is not plural marriage, as you term polygamy, 
 demoralising in its tendency ? Is it not repugnant to 
 woman's natural instincts ? " 
 
28 
 
 " I will answer your last question in the affirmative. 
 It is natural for a woman to desire to absorb all of a 
 man's affection, for human nature is intensely selfish. 
 How far this desire would have operated but for the 
 monogamous training through which we have passed for 
 centuries, cannot be estimated ; but now, as the result of 
 our environment, woman is accustomed to think her 
 husband must live to consult her wishes in all things, 
 and devote his time and love exclusively to herself. But 
 we introduce the element of Spiritual Duty into our lives ; 
 and while seeking female emancipation where we are 
 bound by legal fetters, we obey a higher code of morals, 
 and for conscience' sake crush our natural infirmities and 
 evil passions. We believe that our prophets were 
 inspired by God, and we consider it our duty to obey 
 the commands delivered unto us." 
 
 " Suppose," said I, " that in a vision, or by any other 
 medium through which the Mormons receive their 
 revelations, you were ordered, or believed you were, to 
 sacrifice human life, would you kill a child to offer up a 
 sacrifice, as Abraham was prepared to do with Isaac ?" 
 
 " That is rather an extreme case," said Mrs. Wells, 
 smilingly ; " but I believe we should do as we were 
 told, if we were convinced that the command was of 
 divine origin. We have stood the weight of obloquy 
 that has been heaped on us by other nations, and we 
 should not withhold our own lives if they were needed 
 by the Lord. But I don't think such a test is necessary, 
 or would ever be imposed on us in these days." 
 
 Mrs. Wells propounded my question to several other 
 Mormon ladies of good standing who were in the room ; 
 but they said the matter had never been raised before, 
 
and they could not, therefore, pass an opinion as to what 
 course would be taken. 
 
 " How do you Mormon wives get along together ? " I 
 enquired. 
 
 " More happily than blood relations do with you," she 
 replied. " This young lady," pointing to an amiable, 
 fair-haired, and fair-complexioned girl, who acted as her 
 sub-editor, " is one of my husband's daughters by 
 another wife, and we have never had an angry word in 
 our lives. Mr. Wells has, or rather had, six wives ; for 
 now by law he has none, his first wife being dead. We 
 all love each other, and consider each other as belonging 
 to one family. We have much to bear, however, for if my 
 husband were to enter my house this minute he would be 
 arrested. In fact fathers have been sent to prison for 
 merely following a dead child to the grave. We are 
 under the strictest surveillance, as though we were 
 great criminals ; but we consider it a part of our duty 
 to be loyal American citizens, and we do not violate the 
 law. We believe that force is no remedy. We must 
 convince the world that celestial marriage is pure and 
 productive of good, and show by our lives that we are 
 not as black as we are painted." 
 
 MUST KISS THEM ALL. 
 
 " How about the husbands, though; do they never 
 display favouritism to the younger and prettier wives?" 
 
 " If they are true to their faith they do not. They 
 ought not. A man cannot or rather could not, for we 
 must remember that plural marriage is illegal marry a 
 new wife unless his previous wives consent, under the 
 laws of the Church, so he should be as kind to the 
 
30 
 
 elderly ones as to the younger ones, and he usually is. 
 My husband is one of the best of men. Sometimes, of 
 course, a man does display partiality, for there are bound 
 to be some undutiful persons in any society." 
 
 " If a man takes his wife for a drive does all of her go 
 at a time ? " I enquired. 
 
 "No, he usually takes one only, and the others wait 
 until some other time. In the same way, he visits them 
 according to arrangement with them. If he kisses one he 
 is supposed to kiss all on going away on a journey." 
 
 Mrs. Wells then gave me her autograph and several 
 pamphlets about the church. After some persuasion she 
 informed me where I should find Mrs. Zina D. H. Young, 
 one of the most intelligent of Brigham's widows, but 
 she did not feel justified in introducing a stranger to her. 
 " These widows are very much like other people " said 
 she, " I don't see why you are so anxious to talk to one. 
 There are the pictures of two of them on the wall." 
 
 I replied that because of Brigham Young's position his 
 wives were certainly curiosities. The photographs were 
 those of two ordinary looking women, neither very young. 
 And, by the way, I do not remember seeing a single 
 really good-looking girl in my perambulations about the 
 streets of the city : possibly they were kept indoors. 
 
 Mrs. Wells's house is flanked on one side by the old 
 fort, an adobe house, built by Brigham Young in 1847 ; and 
 on the other side by a stone house, which was used as a 
 mint to coin the gold that was brought there from Cali- 
 fornia in 1848, during the beginning of the great gold 
 fever. 
 
 At that time the Indians used to live there in 
 their wigwams. There are still some of these children 
 
3* 
 
 of nature " with untutored minds " around the city, but 
 their flat, bloated, copper-coloured faces ; black, matted 
 hair ; and their gaudily coloured blanketed forms, make 
 them far from sightly objects. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 11 There is beauty all round when there's love at home." 
 
 MRS. YOUNG INTERVIEWED. 
 
 When in the tabernacle I purchased one of Brigham 
 Young's portraits, an engraving of which forms the 
 frontispiece. He does not look much like a prophetic 
 dreamer. He is not angelic enough. It is a portrait of a 
 very large, stout man with a massive head. His large 
 brow indicated him to have been what he really was a 
 clever, shrewd man while the strong nose and firmly-set 
 mouth and chin, as surely showed that he was born to 
 command. His eyes were small but keen. A short white 
 beard ornamented the lower part of his chin, and his 
 hair, of silver grey colour, was inclined to curl. 
 Altogether I should say from his picture that he was a 
 man whose animal passions moulded the bent of his 
 ambition. The life of an ascetic would have had no 
 charms for him, for nature had moulded him differently. 
 
 Contrary to my expectation I met with a polite recep- 
 tion from Mrs. Young, to whom I apologised for intruding 
 upon her privacy. 
 
 " Come inside," she said, cordially. 
 
 The house differed in no respect from those of well- 
 to-do persons in our own land. The drawing-room, into 
 
33 
 
 which I was ushered, was furnished with taste, the walls 
 being hung with oil paintings, some of which were por- 
 traits. Money had neither been lavishly expended, nor 
 penuriously withheld, in fitting up the apartment. 
 Comfort and refinement had been combined. 
 
 OLD BUT VIGOROUS. 
 
 The description of Mrs. Wells would almost apply to 
 Mrs. Young, except that the latter was several years 
 older. The same wrinkles and air of firm repression ; 
 the same shrewd look and staid affability ; the same 
 willingness to talk when treated with deference, and the 
 same evident desire to proselytise ; i duty ' the one 
 actuating principle governing conduct ; were noticeable 
 to the close observer. 
 
 I determined that my interrogatories should be mainly 
 directed to her reasons for upholding polygamy, as I had 
 only casually dealt with this part of the Mormon 
 religion in my previous interviews. 
 
 " I desire to know more about your religion, Mrs. 
 Young," said I; " but will you first tell me something 
 about your late husband ? Did you live with him long ? " 
 
 " Thirty years is long enough to study a man's 
 character," was the reply, " and I lived with Mr. Young 
 that length of time. A more loving father, or a kinder 
 husband never lived on earth. He was honoured and 
 loved by myself and his other wives, as well as by the 
 whole Church. I had three children by him, and raised 
 four belonging to another wife when she died. One of 
 the latter's children is inside now, and another, you may 
 notice, is just passing the house. Mr. Young's character 
 has been vilified throughout the world. They have even 
 
34 
 
 accused him of murdering people, but it has been our 
 lot to be persecuted and maligned because we seek to 
 elevate the race by living pure lives and propagating the 
 true religion. We have suffered, but our cause is 
 increasing in strength, and no power of man will ever 
 exterminate us or our Church." 
 
 " What is the basis of your religious belief ? " I asked. 
 
 " We believe," said she, " in the Old and New 
 Testaments, together with the later revelations made to 
 Joseph Smith, the Prophet, known as the Book of 
 Mormon." 
 
 " How was it that Joseph Smith founded the Church 
 of the Latter Day Saints ? " 
 
 JOSEPH AND THE ANGEL. 
 
 " I see," said Mrs. Young, " that you are not familiar 
 with the writings of our people. But I can give you a 
 brief history of the origin of the Church. Joseph Smith, 
 whom I knew well, and knew him to be a godly man, 
 was born in New York, and educated to the Presbyterian 
 faith, as I was myself. But early in life he became con- 
 scious that he was to do a great work. He wandered 
 about the mountains for four years nourishing that 
 spiritual life within him by agonising prayer, living 
 among the Indians, and purifying his mind and heart of 
 worldly dross. It was then that the Lord revealed unto 
 him the place where he found the gold plates, in a stone 
 box, on which were engraved strange characters. 
 
 "Joseph could not decipher these characters, so he took 
 them to a professor of languages, who said the writing 
 was in the old Hebrew style. It was translated, and 
 the result was the book of Mormon. The plates were 
 
35 
 
 seen by Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmore and Martin 
 Harris, who were also convinced of their divine origin ; 
 because an angel of God came down from heaven and 
 laid the plates before their eyes ; and they have so testi- 
 fied in a preface to the book. Eight other witnesses 
 saw the writing and the translations, and they swore 
 before God that they lied not. 
 
 THE PROPHET MURDERED. 
 
 " Joseph was commanded to establish the Church of 
 Christ on earth again, and to raise up a race of God- 
 fearing people. The result was martyrdom for him and 
 his brother ; for after being involved in thirty-nine law 
 suits they were decoyed by women and killed. My 
 husband was with them but he escaped. Because of 
 our belief we have been hunted from one place to another 
 by the government of the United States, but we fear 
 neither man nor devil as long as we do what is right. 
 We were driven out of Courtland, Missouri, at the point 
 of the bayonet, but the time will come when we shall be 
 exalted above all men." 
 
 " What is the religious belief of the Mormons in 
 brief, Mrs. Young ? " 
 
 For answer the lady handed me a card on which were 
 printed the Articles of Faith of the Church, which read 
 as follows : 
 
 WHAT THE MORMONS BELIEVE. 
 
 i. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, 
 
 Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 
 2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, 
 
 and not for Adam's transgression. 
 3. We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all 
 
 mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and 
 
 ordinances of the Gospel. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 4. We believe that these ordinances are : First, Faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ ; second, Repentance ; third, Baptism 
 by immersion for the remission of sins ; fourth, Laying 
 on of hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 5. We believe that a man must be called of God, by 
 "prophecy, and by the laying on of hands," by those 
 who are in authority to preach the Gospel and administer 
 in the ordinances thereof. 
 
 6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the 
 primitive church, viz. : apostles, prophets, pastors, 
 teachers, evangelists, etc. 
 
 7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, 
 visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, etc. 
 
 8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it 
 is translated correctly ; we also believe the Book of 
 Mormon to be the word of God. 
 
 9. We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does 
 now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many 
 great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the 
 restoration of the Ten Tribes. That Zion will be built 
 upon this continent. That Christ will reign personally 
 upon the earth, and that the earth will be renewed and 
 receive its paradisic glory. 
 
 ii. We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God 
 according to the dictates of our conscience, and allow all 
 men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or 
 what they may. 
 
 12. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers 
 and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the 
 law. 
 
 13. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, 
 virtuous, and in doing good to ALL MEN ; indeed, we may 
 say that we follow the admonition of Paul, " We believe 
 all things, we hope all things, we have endured many 
 things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there 
 is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praise- 
 worthy, we seek after these things." JOSEPH SMITH. 
 
 " Everything we believe, uphold, or practice,'' said 
 Mrs. Young, "is found in the Old and New Testaments," 
 
37 
 
 " Then you claim that polygamy is sanctioned by the 
 Bible ? " I enquired. 
 
 SOLOMON'S MODEST FAMILY. 
 
 " I claim that you will not find one word between the 
 covers of the book condemning it. We believe that the 
 Bible says what it means and means what it says. 
 Polygamy was practised by David, who was considered 
 the man after God's own heart ; by Solomon, the wisest 
 man of his time ; by Abraham, who also had intercourse 
 with Divinity, and by other great biblical characters. I 
 know the old cut and dried argument ' that God per- 
 mitted this and many other things because of the hardness 
 of men's hearts ; but other vices, crimes or sins were 
 denounced and penalties laid down by God. 
 
 " Christ knew when He was upon earth that polygamy 
 was practised in Judea at the time when he preached 
 against adultery, hypocrisy, drunkenness, and other sins, 
 yet He never uttered a word on the subject. Many 
 passages of scripture contain the word ' wife ' and not 
 ' wives,' but merely because the plural is not used it does 
 not follow that no man can marry more than one wife. 
 Besides this the prophet Joseph Smith teaches us that 
 it is right in the sight of God." 
 
 MORE CHILDREN, MORE GLORY. 
 
 " What other arguments have you in favour of 
 polygamy ? " I enquired. 
 
 " We desire to raise righteous children to counteract 
 the evil in men at the present time, and we believe that 
 the more children there are born in a spiritual and 
 eternal union the greater will be our glory hereafter. 
 
38 
 
 The wives can help each other in the rearing of the 
 children and comfort each other in trouble. There were 
 fourteen wives of Mr. Young alive at one time, and we 
 lived together until the growth of families made it 
 necessary to form different households. Several other 
 wives were sealed to him although he never lived with 
 them. I do not know the total number of his wives, 
 but we found that plural marriage begat a nobler love 
 towards our husband and to each other. 
 
 MONOGAMY A BLIND. 
 
 " On physical, moral, and social grounds we uphold 
 polygamy. Society, as at present organised, is a whited 
 sepulchre. Wherever monogamy is the prevalent 
 marriage system it is but a cover for sin. Men are false 
 to their vows, and ruin themselves, besides degrading 
 their families, by supporting a class of fallen and de- 
 praved creatures who would not exist if all women could 
 get married to good men without having contumely 
 heaped upon them. If men do not violate their vows 
 they are cruel to their wives, because unwillingly, or 
 physically unable, to practice the necessary restraint 
 during certain periods, when it is absolutely necessary 
 for the preservation of the health of the mother. It 
 is for this reason that one husband is sufficient for a 
 woman, while a man requires several wives. 
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE. 
 
 " The very people who denounce us, wink at the 
 infamous product of their own system. If all men did 
 their duty in the world there would be no great necessity 
 for plural marriage ; but as it is there are more women 
 than men in most civilised countries, and what marriages 
 
39 
 
 are contracted are usually not pure, or a part of religious 
 life, but merely legal unions for selfish purposes." 
 
 " It seems to me," said I, " that your system is very 
 convenient for the men and very self-sacrificing for the 
 women. Would not the same men who now gratify 
 their passions by faithlessness to their one wife, use the 
 plural system for the same unholy purpose if they 
 adopted your religion ? Is it not selfish on the part of 
 men to desire more than one wife ? " 
 
 NO HAPPY HUNTING GROUND. 
 
 " If you imagine that the care of a large household of 
 wives and children is merely amusement for a man you 
 are mistaken," replied the lady. " If a man undertakes 
 the responsibility and joins our church from a base 
 motive, his actions will soon speak for themselves, and 
 he will be known to the church as a hypocrite. We are 
 temperate and virtuous as a whole ; although evil-dis- 
 posed persons have at times joined our society. For ten 
 years there was not a drunken man, nor a house of 
 ill-repute seen in this city. We detest immorality as 
 much as any sect, and unless a man is united to a 
 woman by a spiritual bond he is expelled from the church. 
 If he abuses his wife and thereby shows that his pro- 
 fession is but a cloak, she can obtain a divorce, for 
 women's rights and liberties are better preserved in 
 Mormondom than elsewhere. Plural marriage is not 
 compulsory with us. Some individuals will only desire, 
 and be only able to support, one wife, but there are 
 thousands of women who must lead lonely lives unless 
 they can contract an honourable marriage with a God- 
 fearing man. 
 
40 
 
 MORE MONEY, MORE WIVES! 
 
 "The question of wealth enters largely into the matter, 
 I should imagine," I remarked, " for the wealthy men 
 can have all the wives they want, while the poor men 
 must be content with one, no matter how much love 
 they may have for the female sex. You do not then 
 believe in an equal distribution of wealth ? " 
 
 " We each mind our own business," replied the 
 widow, " taking care, of course, to prevent destitution 
 in any family. There is no community where all men 
 are equally endowed. All men have different degrees of 
 ability, varieties of temperament and tastes, and we put 
 no artificial obstacle in the way of industrial progress by 
 imposing restrictions on the ownership of wealth. As a 
 people we have been abundantly blessed, in spite of the 
 persecution of our enemies." 
 
 " What is your attitude towards other Churches ? " 
 
 " We believe that all men will be saved who do not 
 deny Christ or sin against the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Before I left the house Mrs. Young pointed out the 
 portrait of Joseph Smith, which, if faithful, showed the 
 prophet to be a fine-looking man with clean shaven 
 features, a rather long thin nose, benevolent expression, 
 and with long hair thrown back from a high forehead 
 and tied behind in the old Puritan fashion. He was a 
 contrast to Brigham in every way. 
 
 Mrs. Young furnished me with her autograph, 
 saying that the "H." in Zina D. H. Young stood for 
 Huntingdon ; all the prophet's wives ending their maiden 
 names with " Young." 
 
 The Mormons, I noticed, preserve the names and 
 addresses of their visitors, for here, as well as at the 
 
office of the " Woman's Exponent," I was requested to 
 conform to the custom. 
 
 BRIGHAM'S DAUGHTER'S VIEWS. 
 
 A few extracts from a recent article in the " North 
 American Review " by Mrs. Susa Young Gates, one of 
 the children of Brigham Young, will fittingly follow the 
 statements of Mrs. Zina Young. She says that Brigham 
 was the father of fifty-six children, all of whom were born 
 healthy and without " spot or blemish " in body or 
 mind. Thirty-one of the number were girls ; twenty- 
 five were boys. Seven died in infancy, three in child- 
 hood, seven more since reaching maturity. 
 
 Mrs. Gates contends that polygamy produces as 
 beneficial results among human beings, as it does in the 
 breeding of quadrupeds. She says : 
 
 " As a physiological fact, of the fifty-six children born 
 to Brigham Young, not one was halt, lame or blind, all 
 being perfect in body and sound of mind and intellect ; 
 no defects of mind or body save those general ones shared 
 by humanity. The boys are a sound, healthy, industrious, 
 and intelligent group of men, noted everywhere for their 
 integrity and for the excellent care and attention bestowed 
 upon their families. 
 
 " The girls are finely developed physically, quick and 
 bright in intellect, high-spirited, and often talented, 
 especially in a musical way. All are nice girls, kind in 
 disposition, generous and social in their natures." 
 
 Plutarch, in his " Life of Lycurgus," anticipates that 
 similar effects would follow variety of sexual relations in 
 the case of women as well as of men. He remarks : 
 
4 2 
 
 RATIONAL REGULATION RECOMMENDED. 
 
 " When he (Lycurgus) had established a proper regard 
 to modesty and decorum with respect to marriage, he 
 was equally studious to drive from that state the vain 
 and womanish passion of jealousy, by making it quite as 
 reputable to have children in common with persons of 
 merit, as to avoid all offensive freedom in their own 
 behaviour to their wives Lycurgus con- 
 sidered children not so much the property of their 
 parents as of the state ; and, therefore, he would not 
 have them begot by ordinary persons, but by the best 
 men in it. In the next place, he observed the vanity 
 and absurdity of other nations, where people study to 
 have their horses and dogs of the finest breed they can 
 procure either by interest or money ; and yet keep their 
 wives shut up, that they may have children by none but 
 themselves, though they may happen to be doting, 
 decrepit, or infirm. As if children, when sprung from 
 a bad stock, and consequently good for nothing, were 
 no detriment to those to whom they belong, and have 
 the trouble of bringing them up ; nor any advantage 
 when well descended and of a generous disposition." 
 
 The Mormons, however, vigorously insist that their 
 women shall remain faithful to one man. 
 
 Referring to Brigham's polygamous household, his 
 daughter gives an idyllic picture of the family life, 
 especially waxing eloquent over the evening prayer, 
 when " ten or twelve mothers with their brood of 
 children would gather around the family altar;" forming 
 a goodly congregation in themselves. She states that 
 these Mormon wives were pioneers in a new order of 
 things, " whose tears watered into existence the lovely 
 
43 
 
 flowers of unselfishness and charity." Instancing one 
 patriarch, she says : 
 
 A PERFECT HOME. 
 
 " Nothing could exceed the sweet gentleness with 
 which this father of twenty babies watched and guarded 
 every separate " bit " of humanity that came near him. 
 I have been with this man, too, when he first enjoyed 
 the companionship of a young, beautiful bride. Not a 
 whit more devoted or tender was he to her than he had 
 been and was to the cherished wife of several years ; he 
 was to each and every one all that a true, affectionate 
 husband could be. 
 
 " Nowhere on the face of this wide earth is the love 
 of husbands for their wives, and wives for their husbands 
 so intense, so thrilling, and so divine as it is here in Utah. 
 
 " Statistics will bear me out in saying that there are 
 fewer paupers, fewer criminals, fewer insane among 
 polygamous than among monogamous families. It is a 
 well-known fact here in Utah that there are fewer 
 physical defects and greater intelligence in plural homes 
 than in the same grade or class in monogamy." 
 
 These Mormon women she claims " are working 
 grandly at the sex problem of the nineteenth century," 
 their maternal relations make it possible for a mother to 
 move out on independent lines in business, in art, and 
 the professions. The wife spends the twenty years of 
 the child-bearing period in rearing her children and in 
 quietly studying and preparing for a wider mission when 
 she can add the weight of her experience to the great 
 problem of humanity. Mrs. Gates adds, " That polyg- 
 amy, wisely and faithfully practised, will be a grand 
 
44 
 
 factor in the bringing to pass this millennium of usefulness 
 and happiness, I sincerely believe." 
 
 Mr. W. T. Stead, commenting on this article in the 
 " Review of Reviews " says, " As there are nearly three- 
 quarters of a million more women than men in the United 
 Kingdom, there is prima facie more force in the argument 
 for modified polygamy than for any other experiment 
 that has been put forward by the advocates for inter- 
 meddling with the relations of the sexes." Hence he 
 considered there would be more tolerance for Mrs. Gates' 
 plea for polygamy than for Mrs. Mona Caird's advocacy 
 of free divorce. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I saw plurality at its best, and I give it to you at its best. I have 
 shown the silver lining of this great social cloud. At the back of this 
 silver lining the cloud must be thick and black, I feel quite sure." 
 
 ARTEMUS WARD. 
 
 THUS far nothing I have written has shown the Mor- 
 mons in an unfavourable light. The editor of the 
 Gentile newspaper said nothing against the saints, and, as 
 might have been expected, Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Brigham 
 Young warmly defended the church from any imputations 
 made by their opponents. In order to form a just idea 
 of the Mormons and their religion, the other side should 
 be studied equally as carefully, and the evidence weighed 
 with an unprejudiced mind. 
 
 I had to leave Mrs. Young rather abruptly in order not 
 to miss my train, but I was fortunate enough to fall into 
 conversation immediately afterwards with Superinten- 
 dent White, of the Spring Valley Grammar Schools, 
 San Francisco, who was on his way to Europe to see 
 the Paris Exhibition, and to study the social and indus- 
 trial problems of the different European Countries. He 
 had spent a longer time in Utah than myself, and his 
 observations showed that he had used his time and 
 discerning power to good advantage. 
 
 " Morality," said he, " is merely a question of 
 longitude and latitude. It is as natural for different 
 
46 
 
 nations to have different systems of morality as 
 varieties of language and facial peculiarities. So I only 
 try to study the effects of these differentiations, without 
 condemning the people wholesale because my own ideas 
 of right and wrong differ from theirs. 
 
 THREE STORIED HEADS. 
 
 " I attended service at the tabernacle last Sunday 
 afternoon," he continued, " and watched the Mormons 
 flock into the court-yard. They were a fairly represen- 
 tative gathering. There were the few men and women of 
 intelligence and position in the church, and the great mass 
 of poor, low-browed, superstitious-looking followers, with 
 long upper lips and dull eyes. There were no ' three 
 storied heads,' like Sir Walter Scott's, in the place. 
 Many of the men had miserable-looking horses and carts, 
 rope being used instead of leather traces in some cases, 
 and the attire of these believers was shabby in the 
 extreme. There was a stolid, heavy expression of 
 countenance such as you always find among persons 
 ready to become proselytes to any religion which is 
 placed before them in a plausible or fanatical manner. 
 
 IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION. 
 
 " On enquiry I found that the majority of these men 
 and women were of the more ignorant classes of English, 
 Irish, and Scandinavians, with a few Scotch ; no Italians, 
 Spanish, or others of the Latin race being among them, 
 and very few Americans ; Joseph Smith, Brigham 
 Young, and a man named Morgan having been almost 
 the only prominent American members of the sect. 
 None of them looked very bright or happy. 
 
47 
 
 " As a rule in religious gatherings a large preponderance 
 of women is noticeable ; as they are naturally more 
 reverent or superstitious than men. But I was struck 
 with the large number of men in this Mormon congre- 
 gation, showing that they are as much dominated by 
 feeling or faith as their wives. Apostle George Q. Cannon, 
 their ex-Member of Congress was the speaker, and 
 throughout three-quarters of the address I could close 
 my eyes and imagine myself in some old Baptist Church, 
 the teaching was identical ; but towards the close a 
 tirade against the government for persecuting the sect 
 was indulged in, and the women were instructed as to 
 their duty to their husbands. It was Cannon's first 
 sermon since being pardoned by President Cleveland 
 while serving a term in the penitentiary for polygamy. 
 
 MORMON PATRIARCHS. 
 
 " I noticed too the extreme longevity of the Mormons. 
 President Woodruff, the head of their Council, is 
 eighty-two years old, and speaks with the vigor, intel- 
 lectual grasp and heartiness of a young man. Most of 
 the apostles are grey-haired men, and so are many of the 
 rank and file, which is pretty conclusive evidence that 
 they are a temperate and active people. The girls were 
 not remarkable for beauty, and from what I could gather 
 a great many of them would prefer marrying Gentiles 
 to Mormons." 
 
 DEFECTIVE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 " As an educationalist I visited their schools, but was 
 not favourably impressed by them. The people are 
 taxed to support the public schools, and miserable ones 
 
they are. One was only about seven feet high, three 
 feet being underground and four feet above. There 
 were no maps, charts, or other facilities for better 
 instructing children in the school. The education is 
 limited for the most part to reading, writing, spelling, 
 and arithmetic. Physiology, algebra and the higher 
 mathematics, were as unknown as political economy, or 
 the black art of the Egyptians. The women teachers 
 throughout the country draw salaries of from $30 to 
 $50 per month (6 to 10), out of which they have 
 to pay their board ; while the male teachers are paid 
 from $60 to $100, which is much less than the salaries 
 paid in California, for instance. These schools are 
 supplemented by parochial schools under the charge of 
 the Mormons. 
 
 OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM. 
 
 " Every woman who bears children freely is considered 
 to be building up the Kingdom of Heaven, and they 
 are encouraged to bring their offspring to church, 
 whether they cry or not. It would be considered cruelty 
 to keep them out. An article in the " Nineteenth 
 Century " recently deplored the fact that a Fifth Avenue 
 Church in New York with 1,500 communicants had a 
 Sunday School of only a hundred scholars. In the 
 district of Provo in Utah there are fully 500 children, 
 although it is a very small place ; and if the Church 
 referred to had scholars proportionately to those in 
 Provo, there would have been 3,482 instead of one 
 hundred attending the school. The Mormons think they 
 will be gods in the other world if they are fruitful, and 
 faithful to their creed. 
 
UTAH'S NATURAL WEALTH. 
 
 " The Washatch range of mountains is honeycombed 
 with silver and lead mines. The Quintan range has a 
 great deal of gold. The steam from the hot springs 
 along the borders of the valley is utilised to evaporate 
 the waters of Great Salt Lake, and the salt obtained is 
 fine in quality and unlimited in quantity. This salt is 
 used in silver mining to separate the silver from the 
 gold." 
 
 CALLED IT SQUARE. 
 
 Referring to the tithing system, Mr. White said he 
 heard of a Mormon who had contributed two " balky'' 
 horses to the Church. On being informed by the 
 receiver that they were inclined to stop suddenly, he 
 replied : " Oh, I have eighteen more of the same sort, so 
 I guess you are entitled to two of them ! " 
 
 Mr. White said it was quite common for the tithes to 
 be paid in kind. " If a man could not spare the money 
 he would, perhaps, give a sack of potatoes. Sometimes 
 after hawking about a load of vegetables all day until 
 they became demoralised, the conscientious Mormon 
 would square himself with his conscience by turning his 
 unsaleable produce over as an offering unto the cause." 
 
 WIVES AND HAIR-PULLING. 
 
 While on the way to California about two years ago, 
 I conversed with a wealthy rancher from Idaho, a 
 territory adjoining Utah; which is also largely peopled 
 by Mormons, who said : " Mormonism is not in a 
 declining state, although the Legislature prohibits 
 polygamous marriages. Of course the Saints' practices 
 are not as public as they were, but still in Idaho and Utah 
 
 E 
 
there are many men who have as many as five or six 
 wives, and some known to me have eight or nine. I 
 have lived among the Mormons nine years, for they run 
 the whole country there nearly two-thirds of the 
 population being disciples of Brigham Young and our 
 relations have always been amicable ; but I could never 
 understand their methods. 
 
 " ' How is it,' said I, to several Mormon Bishops 
 with whom I was travelling, ' that you can keep so 
 many wives without their indulging in hair-pulling 
 sometimes ? ' 
 
 " * My friend,' he replied, ' if you will join our sect you 
 will quickly discover the reason.' 
 
 " I'm not curious, and so I am still a Gentile. It is 
 hard to determine how many of the sect really believe 
 that an angel appeared to Joseph Smith, or who accept 
 all the Mormon doctrines. I rather think that the 
 license granted them has a greater attraction than any- 
 thing else. Ostensibly a man is supposed to obtain his 
 wife's consent before he can marry another woman, but if 
 she is a l true believer ' she does not object, and if she is 
 not faithful to the creed, why it doesn't trouble him at all. 
 
 " Utah is trying hard to be admitted as one of the 
 States of the Union, but the country sees plainly that 
 although the leaders of the church profess their will- 
 ingness to abandon bigamy and polygamy, it would 
 be an easy matter for them to rescind these promises, 
 and reinstate any of their practices without fear as soon 
 as they are admitted to the power derived from state- 
 hood." 
 
 This latter struggle is still going on, but as yet with no 
 satisfactory result to the Mormons. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "The Chamber of Torture ! And the roof was made of that shape 
 to stifle the victim's cries! . . . See the stone trough ! says 
 Goblin. For the water torture ! Gurgle, swill, bloat, burst, for the 
 Redeemer's honour ! Suck the bloody rag, deep down into your 
 unbelieving body, heretic, at every breath you draw ! And when the 
 executioner plucks it out, reeking with the smaller mysteries of 
 God's own image, know us for his chosen servants, true believers in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, elect disciples of Him who never did a 
 miracle but to heal, who never struck a man with palsy, blindness, 
 deafness, dumbness, madness, any one afflidtion of mankind ; and 
 never stretched His blessed hand out, but to give relief and ease." 
 DICKENS' "PICTURES FROM ITALY." 
 
 THE ENDOWMENT HOUSE. 
 
 SINCE my return to England the lines of the Mormons 
 have not fallen in pleasant places, and some terrible 
 disclosures have been made. 
 
 In November last, a Mormon named John Moore 
 applied for admission to citizenship in view of impending 
 municipal elections. He admitted under oath that he 
 had been through the Endowment House, and on this 
 ground it was contended by the Gentiles that he was 
 not eligible to citizenship. The case was contested and 
 a number of witnesses examined. 
 
 The Endowment House was established in order that 
 4 Celestial marriages ' might be performed in a holy 
 sanctuary. The house was used as a makeshift until 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 Joseph Smith's dream of a massive temple could be 
 realised, where ordinances essential to the salvation 
 of the Saints would be performed. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse, the wife of a Mormon elder, in 
 her life-story ''Escaped from the Mormons," states that 
 she went through the Endowment House in Salt Lake 
 City with her husband, and that the ceremony was the 
 most ridiculous spectacle she ever saw. They donned 
 white temple robes, and their eyes, ears and mouths 
 were anointed with oil. The women were then washed 
 all over by Mrs. Eliza R. Snow, the poetess, and Mrs. 
 Whitney, who has published " Why we practise plural 
 marriage," and other works. Each woman was then 
 told the name she would bear in glory. One was deaf, 
 and her name was spoken loud enough for others to 
 hear. This disclosed the fact that all the women were 
 to bear the name of Sarah in Paradise ! Then a kind 
 of sacred drama, illustrating the devil's tempting Eve to 
 eat the forbidden fruit, was played ; and Mrs. Stenhouse 
 and her husband were sealed for time and eternity to 
 each other, and the ordinary formula of marriage was 
 gone through. 
 
 SWORE THEY WOULD OBEY. 
 
 But after taking the third degree the most horrible 
 oaths were administered to those who had been initiated 
 into the mysteries. Mrs. Stenhouse narrates what 
 happened in the following words : 
 
 " At this stage of our rehearsal we were taught certain passwords 
 and grips ; then we were arranged in a circle. The women covered 
 their faces with their veils, and we all kneeled down, and, with our 
 right hands uplifted towards heaven, we took the solemn oath of 
 obedience and secrecy. We vowed that by every means in our 
 power we would seek to avenge the death of Joseph Smith, the 
 
53 
 
 Prophet, upon the Gentiles who had caused his murder, and that we 
 would teach our children to do so ; we vowed that, without murmur 
 or questioning, we would implicitly obey the commands of the 
 priesthood in everything; we vowed that we would not commit 
 adultery which, with reference to the men, was explained to mean 
 the taking of wives without the permission of the holy priesthood ; 
 and we vowed that we would never, under any circumstances, reveal 
 that which transpired in the Endowment House. 
 
 "The penalty for breaking the oath, which was worded in the 
 most startling and impressive way, was then explained to us. The 
 traitor's intestines were while he was yet living to be torn from 
 him, his throat was to be cut from ear to ear, and his heart and 
 tongue were to be cut out. In the world to come, everlasting 
 damnation would be his portion. Let not the reader think that this 
 was merely an imaginary penalty, or that it was expressed merely 
 for the purpose of frightening the weak-minded ; for, as will be 
 shown, punishments quite as horrible as that have been deliberately 
 meted out to the Apostate, the Gentile, and the suspected Saint, by 
 the Mormon priesthood. The innocent blood which cries for 
 vengeance against Brigham Young and some of the leaders of the 
 Church, is sufficient to weigh the purest spirit which stands before 
 the throne of God down to the nethermost abysses of hell. 
 
 "The vow we took differed from that given in the Nauvoo 
 Temple, and given by Van Dusen. We reproduce it here that it 
 may be seen that although Mormonism may change in some of its 
 details, it is, and always has been, a system on which treason, revenge, 
 and bloodshed are included as duties ; and as such are dangerous to 
 the United States. 
 
 1 ' We are required to kneel at the altar, where we have an oath 
 administered, to the effect that we will henceforth and for ever, use 
 all our influence to destroy this nation (the United States), and teach 
 it to our posterity. We are sworn by a solemn oath, that we will 
 never reveal to any person what we do and see in the temple. The 
 oath is as follows: "You do solemnly swear in the presence of 
 Almighty God, His angels, and these witnesses (pointing to 
 individuals in the room that have secret instructions to take life) 
 that you will, from this time henceforth and for ever, begin to carry 
 out hostilities against this nation, and teach it to your children ; and 
 to keep the same intent a profound secret now and for ever, so help 
 you God." 
 
 This statement does not rest on the authority of Mrs. 
 Stenhouse alone, for many of the witnesses in the Salt 
 Lake Court made similar disclosures. 
 
54 
 
 John Bond, an apostate, said he went through the 
 Endowment House in January, 1868, and in Room Five 
 he took an oath to obey the priesthood in everything 
 temporal, spiritual, political, social and financial. The 
 penalty for violation of the oaths and divulging the oaths, 
 was death by cutting the throat from ear to ear, and 
 cutting out the heart and tongue, and disembowelment. 
 He also swore to avenge Joseph Smith's death, and carry 
 out hostilities against the United States. William 
 Woodruff, the present President of the Mormon Church, 
 officiated, and fifty men and women went through the 
 ceremony on that occasion. 
 
 HAD SEEN APOSTATES SLAIN. 
 
 Martin D. Waddell, sixty-seven years old, made 
 similar statements, adding that he saw a man named 
 Green, who had apostatised, have his throat cut from 
 ear to ear. He gave full details of the crime, and the 
 names of some men who participated in that murder, 
 who are still living. 
 
 When the witness and others remonstrated, they were 
 told they would be served the same way if they did not 
 keep quiet. 
 
 W. H. Dame, who was the leader of the band, said 
 after the crime : " He apostatised once, and now he has 
 apostatised, and gone to hell." 
 
 The witness testified that Green's property, consisting 
 of $5,000 in cash, and a wagonload of merchandise, were 
 taken to the church tithing yard in this city. Dame was 
 one of the principals in the Mountain Meadow massacre. 
 
 Bishop Cahoon testified that he knew many men who 
 had been secretly murdered by order of the Church, and 
 
55 
 
 gave their names. James McGuffy, another witness, 
 seventy-five years old, connected the Mountain Meadow 
 massacre with the oaths taken at the Endowment House. 
 He said there were three organised bands of chief 
 murderers in those days. They were called Danites,* 
 Blood Atoners, and Avengers. They had the work 
 appointed to them by Brigham Young, who was con- 
 sidered God on earth. 
 
 BRIGHAM AND HIS BOWIE-KNIFE. 
 
 Verbatim extracts from sermons delivered in the 
 tabernacle were read in evidence. Brigham Young 
 preaching on apostacy, once said " I say that rather than 
 that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath my 
 bowie-knife and conquer or die." This called forth 
 applause from the congregation. In another sermon he 
 said " If a man needs salvation and it is necessary to 
 spill his blood on earth in order that he may be saved, 
 spill it. That is the way to love mankind. I could 
 refer you to plenty of instances where men have been 
 righteously slain in order to atone for their sins. I have 
 seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there 
 would have been chances in the last resurrection, if their 
 blood had been spilled on the ground as a smoking 
 incense to the Almighty." 
 
 THE EXECUTIONER. 
 
 Dr. Richards, who said he belonged to the Melchizideck 
 order of the Mormon priesthood, testified that he under- 
 stood it to be a doctrine of the church that if a man 
 apo staised he should yield himself up voluntarily to be 
 killed for the atonement of his sin ; and he supposed 
 
 * The name 'Danites ' was an allusion to the passage Genesis xlix, 17. 
 
56 
 
 President Brigham Young would appoint an executioner. 
 Several witnesses refused to testify, being in fear of 
 their lives. One said his wife would be forfeited to the 
 church. Another said an old cavalry sabre was exhibited 
 under a peculiar light, so as to make a ghastly sight, 
 when the oath was taken. 
 
 E. L. T. Harrison, a journalist, who had been ex- 
 communicated because he had advocated the opening of 
 the mines, which Brigham Young did not favour, fearing 
 it would cause an influx of Gentiles, testified that the 
 hostility to the United States was because of the enforce- 
 ment of the law against polygamy. 
 
 A MORMON NOT A CITIZEN. 
 
 The result of this evidence was that Judge Anderson 
 decided in November 29th, 1889, that no alien who is a 
 member of the Mormon church is a fit person to be 
 made a citizen of the United States. Should the other 
 Utah Judges uphold this decision, the effect on the 
 Mormon people politically will be most disastrous. 
 The matter has never been carried to a higher Court, 
 and a letter from a reliable source, written in March last 
 from Salt Lake City, informed me that as far as alien 
 Mormons are concerned, they are still denied citizenship. 
 The report of this decision in the San Francisco 
 " Examiner " concludes : 
 
 " The evidence," he says, " establishes beyond any 
 reasonable doubt that endowment ceremonies are incon- 
 sistent with the oath of citizenship." In summing up, 
 he says " whether the language of Brigham Young, Heber 
 Kimball, Orson Hyde and others, instigated the Mountain 
 Meadow massacre, or whether that horrible butchery 
 
57 
 
 was done by the direct command of Brigham Young, 
 will probably never be known. 
 
 " The evidence," Judge Anderson says, "does not sustain 
 the claim of the counsel that the feelings of the people 
 toward the Government have undergone a change, and 
 that in later years the feeling of hostility has disappeared 
 or become greatly modified. On the contrary, the 
 evidence showed that the people have persistently 
 refused obedience to at least a portion of the laws of 
 this Government, and have insulted and driven the 
 United States officers from the Territory, and denied the 
 authority of the United States to pass laws prohibiting 
 polygamy ; as unwarranted interference with the Mormon 
 religion." He closes by saying : " The evidence in this 
 case establishes, unquestionably, that the teachings, and 
 practices, and purposes of the Mormon Church are 
 antagonistic to the Government of the United States ; 
 and are utterly subversive of good morals and the well- 
 being of society, and that its members are animated by 
 feelings of hostility toward the Government and its 
 laws ; therefore, an alien who is a member of said 
 church is not a fit person to be made a citizen of the 
 United States." 
 
 " Nothing that has ever happened to the Mormon 
 Church has thrown its adherents into such a state of 
 despondency and shame." 
 
 NOT AN UNPARDONABLE SIN. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse says that the murder of a Gentile was 
 never considered by the Church to be an absolutely 
 unpardonable sin ; but the shedding of innocent blood 
 (i.e., killing a Mormon) could only be expiated by the 
 
58 
 
 death of the murderer. A woman came to her one 
 night and said that a band of masked men had taken 
 her husband out ; and subsequently brought back his 
 body with the throat cut from ear to ear. They 
 threatened to treat her in the same way if she revealed 
 this blood-atonement of an apostate. 
 
 In 1878 Orrin Porter Rockwell died. He was said to 
 be the chief of the band of Destroying Angels or 
 Danites, and to have slain over a hundred apostates 
 with his own hand. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I am Demon Revenge, and with glee I cry 
 
 ' A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye ; 
 A life for a life, and a soul for a soul,' 
 
 For my devilish wrath is like blazing coal ; 
 And my thirst for blood is only quenched 
 
 When limb from limb is asunder wrenched ! 
 A hundred lives I would have for one, 
 
 And torturing foes is infernal fun ! 
 
 Lo, the blood of the innocent crieth, 
 
 And conjureth visions of hell, 
 Where the murderer's soul ever lieth, 
 
 Mid flames and sulphurous smell ! 
 In torment the slayer will languish 
 
 As eternity's Pendulum swings, 
 And death would be sweet to the anguish 
 
 Each hour to the damn'd mortal brings ! 
 
 MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE. 
 
 THE blackest page in the history of Mormonism is 
 the Mountain Meadow massacre a page which 
 can never be obliterated from the memories of the 
 American people. But in considering this horrible out- 
 rage, it must not be forgotten that the rank and file of 
 the Mormons were not responsible for its perpetration. 
 We must endeavour to fasten the guilt on the right 
 shoulders, or at any rate refrain from condemning deluded 
 and fanatical people who were merely tools in the hands 
 of wicked men. 
 
 There would have been more excuse for the actual 
 murderers, perhaps, if it had been a religious extermina- 
 tion, although even then the apologist would have a 
 
6o 
 
 most difficult task before him. The bloody wars engaged 
 in by religious zealots afford a favourite theme for 
 denunciation, to the free-thinker ; and probably have 
 done more to embitter the feelings of the latter class to 
 the religionists than anything else. Paine, Ingersoll, and 
 others who have attacked historical Christianity, have 
 seized upon Jewish massacres, which were said to have 
 been ordered by God, and they have raised strong doubts 
 as to the divine sanction, 
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERICHO. 
 
 We are told in the book of Joshua (6th chapter) that 
 when the Israelites passed over Jordan into Canaan and 
 surrounded the city of Jericho, the priests blew trumpets 
 and the people shouted, and the walls of Jericho fell 
 down flat, " so that the people went up into the city, 
 every man straight before him, and they took the city. 
 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, 
 both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, 
 and ass, with the edge of the sword." 
 
 It is intimated that this was required as the city 
 was accursed, and the people were so wicked that 
 extermination was necessary. 
 
 But we have vile people existing in the world to-day. 
 Suppose the Mormons, the Fire-Worshippers, the Red 
 Indian or the English Protestant of to-day, claimed to 
 have been inspired to inaugurate an onslaught on the 
 dwellers in the slums of our cities or the aristocratic 
 lepers in our palaces ; who would believe them, or 
 admit their right to slaughter these people, bad as they 
 may be ? There is not a rational man who does not 
 revolt at the tortures to which religious bigots have 
 
6i 
 
 often subjected unbelievers during the horrors of the 
 Inquisition ; the War of the Crusades ; or the persecu- 
 tion of any sect by a stronger hierarchy, such as 
 we know has ofttimes taken place in England in the 
 past. 
 
 HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. 
 
 Yet in spite of our conviction that God will not 
 authorise one body of men to slay another portion of the 
 community in our own day ; and that the gallows would 
 probably be meted out to those who had such sanguinary 
 revelations, and tried to realise them ; we know well 
 that so-called l religious history ' is replete with episodes 
 of this character. 
 
 I make these remarks because mauy Protestants, 
 Romanists, and others who may chance to glance at the 
 particulars of the Mountain Meadow massacre which 
 follow, may without reading further, turn away in 
 righteous horror, ready to condemn in toto the Mormon 
 creed as inhuman, and every individual believer in 
 Mormonism as a blood-thirsty villain. 
 
 Judgment must be exercised in this matter as in the 
 study of the Scriptures. If the Christian religion were 
 to be held responsible for all the crimes that have been 
 perpetrated in its name, few would go to it for the 
 guiding rules of life. I question if many large bodies of 
 professed believers in religious doctrines can be found, 
 whose history has not been smirched with many a 
 bloody stain of intolerance and crime. So the fact that 
 the Mormon Church has this great Massacre to answer 
 for, does not prove it worse, as a whole, than other 
 organised churches. Our more humane and logical 
 
62 
 
 view of the matter is to condemn only the few instiga- 
 tors of the fiendish butchery. 
 
 REVENGE, THE MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 According to the testimony of the witnesses pre- 
 viously quoted, the Mormon Church would not scruple 
 to justify the Mountain Meadow massacre on fanatical 
 religious grounds among themselves ; but, viewing the 
 matter objectively, the deed was utterly unjustifiable, 
 and was the outcome of a desire for revenge. Subse- 
 quent developments showed the leading men of the 
 church that their wisest course was to feign ignorance 
 of the occurrence, rather than attempt to palliate the 
 offence by any explanation based on religious reasons. 
 The narrative shows there were no extenuating circum- 
 stances, and the guilty parties merited the most 
 extreme punishment. 
 
 THE HORROR DESCRIBED. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse says the Mountain Meadow massacre 
 occurred early in September, 1857. About one hundred 
 and twenty or thirty emigrants from Arkansas were 
 proceeding in waggons through Utah, and camped 
 at Jordan river to rest, and lay in fresh supplies ; 
 but they were boycotted by order of Brigham Young, 
 because Parley P. Pratt, a Mormon writer, had been 
 killed in Arkansas by a* man named McLean, because 
 Pratt had run away with, and married McLean's wife. 
 
 The Mormon theory was that as the Arkansas people 
 had sided with McLean, they were the enemies of the 
 the Latter Day Saints. 
 
63 
 
 After they had moved on the order was given by 
 Brigharn Young that they should be followed. Brigham 
 was at that time Governor of Utah, Commander-in- 
 Chief of Militia, and Indian agent as well, so he was 
 responsible for the commission of crime, or at any-rate 
 for the punishment of all offenders that came under his 
 jurisdiction. The Mormon militia disguised themselves 
 as Red Indians, and, together with a number of Indians, 
 rode after the emigrant train. Major John D. Lee was 
 commander of the militia, and was accompanied by 
 President Haight and other authorities of the church in 
 Southern Utah. They came up in several companies, 
 the Mormons pretending to be friends of the emigrants, 
 whom they induced to lay down arms and retrace their 
 steps towards Salt Lake City, promising them defence 
 from the hostile Indians. 
 
 DECOYED, SURROUNDED, AND 
 BUTCHERED. 
 
 The emigrants, believing their promises and repre- 
 sentations, were decoyed, some distance, and then the 
 Indians and disguised Mormons fell upon the band and 
 massacred the men, women, and youths, saving only 
 children too young to remember the occurrence. 
 Young girls were chased and ruthlessly shot down, and 
 the wolves soon feasted on their remains. Jewellery 
 torn from the mangled bodies of women was worn 
 publicly on the streets in Salt Lake City afterwards, and 
 clothes of the murdered men were found in the store 
 house. 
 
 BRIGHAM WAS SILENT. 
 It is a singular fact that Brigham Young made no 
 
6 4 
 
 report at headquarters of the massacre, and took no 
 steps to bring the perpetrators to justice. Twenty 
 years later, however, after the death of other parties 
 connected with the massacre, he allowed Elder Lee to 
 be tried and convicted; and Lee was sentenced to be 
 shot on the scene of the slaughter. 
 
 Before he was riddled with bullets he said : " I did 
 my utmost to save those people, and I am sacrificed for 
 others. I believe that Brigham Young is trying to 
 mislead the people." He made other remarks, in which 
 he said his conscience was easy, his belief in the divine 
 mission of Joseph Smith as strong as ever, and he 
 believed he should go to Heaven. He mentioned three 
 of his numerous wives, to whom he desired photographs 
 of himself taken at the scene of the execution should 
 be given. 
 
 Such is a synopsis of the story of this massacre as 
 described in Mrs. Stenhouse's work. She says that at 
 the present time there are many murderers walking the 
 streets of Salt Lake City who are known to have taken 
 part in it. 
 
 TALMAGE ON THE MASSACRE. 
 
 The Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D.D., in his sermon 
 on " Mormonism : an Exposure " gives a vivid account 
 of the massacre, in which the details are somewhat 
 different to the foregoing. The orator thus eloquently 
 discants on the horrors of that awful event : 
 
 " In 1857, a company of emigrants started from 
 Arkansas and Missouri for California. They were good, 
 respectable, well-to-do people ; but they had an idea 
 that they might have larger comforts for their families 
 on the other side the mountains ; so they undertook, 
 
65 
 
 what always seems to be a terrible thing, travelling in 
 the waggon emigrant train. They suffered everything 
 on the way. By night the fires kept off the wolves, and 
 by day there was fatigue and hunger, and heat, and 
 gentle womanhood fainting with the long journey, and 
 children crying for food. There were one hundred and 
 seventy in that company. 
 
 " They must needs cross Utah territory, and in Utah 
 nearly all the emigrant trains were accustomed to take 
 in new supplies of provisions ; but Brigham Young 
 heard that this emigrant train was coming, and he 
 forbade, under pain of death, any Mormon in Utah 
 giving any clothing, or food, or medicine, or kindness of 
 any sort, to these emigrants. It was a revenge for the 
 fact that a man in Arkansas had slain Elder Pratt, of 
 the Mormon Church, because he (Elder Pratt) had 
 stolen the wife of the man in Arkansas, and taken her 
 to Utah, and into Mormonism. 
 
 " On and on went this emigrant train, suffering all 
 indignity, until they came to a plain called Mountain 
 Meadow. The Indians dashed down upon the emigrants, 
 but they threw up a barricade, and in this temporary 
 fortress drove back the red men most successfully. Then 
 the Mormon militia dashed down upon them ; but you 
 know how men will fight when they fight for their wives 
 and children, and so the Mormon militia were driven 
 back. 
 
 SHOOTING LITTLE GIRLS. 
 
 " Still, it was only with great peril that anyone could 
 leave the temporary fortress, even to get water from the 
 spring near by. There was great suffering from thirst ; 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 so one day they despatched two little girls, clad in 
 white, to bring water from the spring. They said, 
 ' Most certainly the Mormon militia will not disturb 
 them ; ' but no sooner had they appeared outside the 
 barricade, than they were shot dead. 
 
 " Petitions for relief were signed by all the emigrants, 
 and by Oddfellows and Freemasons, who made appeals 
 to members of their particular order. Three brave men 
 volunteered to carry that petition for relief to California. 
 An aged Methodist minister of the group, in prayer, 
 commended these three men to God, and the emigrants 
 all knelt in supplication ; but hardly had these three brave 
 men started on their journey than they were butchered. 
 
 " Time passed on, and one day waggons were seen 
 coming. ' Now,' thought the poor emigrants, ' we 
 shall have relief,' and they could not restrain their 
 glee at the thought of liberation. The waggons came 
 up, and from them came a flag of truce, saying, ' If you 
 emigrants will surrender, and put down your arms, you 
 may walk out into perfect liberty, and you shall not 
 be harmed.' Thinking the proposition a fair one, it 
 was accepted, and they put down their arms, accord- 
 ing to the arrangement, and then the men marched out 
 first, then came the women, and then came the children. 
 After they were outside the barricade, the Mormon 
 militia, with guns and knives and daggers, massacred all 
 save a few little children, whom they thought to be 
 too young to tell the story. Aged and young husbands, 
 and wives, parents and children, left dead on the plain ! 
 Women belonging to the emigrant train, who were sick 
 and unable to walk, were then taken out by the Mormons 
 into the presence of their murdered families, stripped of 
 
6 7 
 
 their clothing, shot dead, and hurled upon the heap of 
 corpses. 
 
 HER MOTHER'S DRESS. 
 
 " The waggons, the stock of the train, the dresses of 
 the women, and their jewellery, amounting in all to a 
 property of $300,000, taken possession of by the 
 Mormon Government. Years after, a Mormon woman, 
 showing a silk dress that had been captured from the 
 train showing one of these silk dresses in Salt Lake 
 City one of the little girls that had been saved from 
 the massacre recognised it. She said, ' Oh ! that's my 
 mother's. Where's mamma ? Why don't mamma come ? 
 Mamma used to wear that ! ' And she burst into tears. 
 
 "John D. Lee, the Mormon Bishop, was the presiding 
 spirit in person of the massacre ; and when, fifteen or 
 eighteen years after, in the court-room, he gave 
 testimony, he said he had orders to do that from head- 
 quarters ; and it appeared on the evidence that Brigham 
 Young had given orders as to the disposition of the 
 property of these murdered people, and had told the 
 witnesses to hush up ; and all Christendom to-day holds 
 that man responsible for the tragedy. No wonder, when 
 years after he visited the scene, and found that the bones 
 of the emigrants had been decently buried by the 
 officers of the United States Government, and General 
 Carlton had put up a head-board by the grave, with 
 for an epitaph the inscription, " Vengeance is Mine : 
 I will repay, saith the Lord " no wonder that Brigham 
 Young, seeing that inscription, ordered it to be torn 
 
 down. 
 
 SULPHUROUS LANGUAGE. 
 
 "It is the presiding spirit of the Mountain Meadow 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 massacre that I arraign to-day for trial before you, the 
 jury of Americans. It still lives. It has its throne 
 in Salt Lake City ; and its foot on the heart of dis- 
 honoured women, and its breath is the pestilence of the 
 nation. Gory, ghastly, hideous, infernal Mormonism, 
 stand up and look into the faces of the American jury 
 that is to try you." 
 
6 9 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 41 But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable and 
 murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all 
 liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and 
 brimstone : which is the second death." 
 
 Revelation xxi. 8. 
 
 ' Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, 
 Rejudge His justice, be the god of God." 
 
 POPE'S " ESSAY ON MAN. 
 
 HORRIBLE DOCTRINES AND DEEDS. 
 
 IN the course of her sketchy and stirring (but some- 
 what rambling) story, Mrs. Stenhouse makes a good 
 many strong assertions, many of which naturally rest on 
 her veracity. For instance she says : " Certain sins 
 cannot be forgiven here on earth shedding Mormon 
 blood, divulging the secrets of the Endowment House, 
 marital unfaithfulness on the part of the wife, or 
 apostacy ; these are unpardonable. All other crimes 
 which Gentiles abhor may become even virtues, if done 
 in the cause of the Church. I do not, of course, mean 
 to say that the mass of the Mormon people act up to 
 such atrocious doctrines ; for although, when among 
 themselves, they would admit that the theory was 
 correct, the better instincts of their nature keep them 
 from ever putting that theory into practice. But what 
 I do mean to say is, that such doctrines have, over and 
 over again, been distinctly taught in the plainest words 
 
in the public hearing of thousands ; that they have been 
 printed and reprinted by authority ; and have been 
 practised, and the very highest of the Mormon leaders 
 have applauded ; and that, even at the present moment, 
 these doctrines form part of the dogmas of the Church. 
 It is this day a matter of fact, and not a matter of 
 question, that if any Mormon apostate were to commit 
 any of the unpardonable sins which I have mentioned, 
 and if he or she were to be assassinated by a private 
 individual, all zealous Mormons would maintain that 
 not only was the deed justifiable, but even meritorious !" 
 
 She charges Joseph Smith with prophesying in 1841 
 that Boggs, ex-Governor of Missouri, would die by violent 
 hands within a year ; and that afterwards he offered 500 
 dollars to several Danites (i.e., the army of Zion) to 
 assassinate him. Boggs was severely wounded, but not 
 killed ; and Smith said of some of the Danites who 
 were missing about this time, that they had gone to 
 prophesy* 
 
 Another of her assertions is that in 1866, O. N. 
 Brassfield, a Gentile, who married the second wife of an 
 elder, was assassinated ; and the report was circulated 
 that he had gone to Europe on a mission. 
 
 In October, 1866, Dr. J. King Robinson, a Gentile, 
 who had married the daughter of a Mormon widow, 
 who had seceded from the church, was also mysteriously 
 murdered. 
 
 THE HAND-CART SCHEME. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse accuses the heads of the early Mormon 
 Church of reckless disregard of the lives of believers, 
 in connection with the "Hand-cart Scheme." Converts 
 
72 
 
 from Europe and the Eastern States of America were 
 ordered to proceed across the Continent in mid-winter, 
 and told that God would take them safe through and 
 preserve them amid all the dangers of the journey. 
 Captains of hundreds and fifties were chosen, and each 
 emigrant had one hundred pounds weight of luggage. 
 
 DIED ON THE WAY. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse and her husband, who was a New 
 York journalist, started with a hand-cart company in 
 mid-winter February, 1846, from New York. The 
 pilgrimage was almost a repetition of the wanderings of 
 the children ot Israel in the wilderness. They were 
 smitten with plague, frozen with cold, suffered from 
 hunger, sank by the wayside exhausted, and hundreds 
 died by the way. Young girls and old women dragged 
 along their carts, buoyed up with faith that they would 
 soon reach the earthly Zion, until compelled to give up 
 the struggle and die. The atmosphere when they camped 
 was intolerable, and the sights indescribable ; as many 
 were too weak to preserve the decencies of civilisation. 
 Bodies would be found in the morning with marks of 
 wolf -fangs on them. 
 
 She heard that women and children were whipped to 
 make them keep up, and to keep life in them. " I did 
 not see this myself," says she, " but I believe if the story 
 was true it was an act of mercy, and not of cruelty." 
 
 TALMAGE ON THE WAR-PATH. 
 But strong as are the denunciations of the Elder's 
 wife, they are as gentle chidings compared with the hail- 
 storm of sweeping conclusions drawn by Dr. Talmage. 
 He charges i Mormonism ' with almost every crime he 
 
73 
 
 can call to mind. But what does he mean by Mormonism ? 
 The people's lives may be pure and their creed impure ; 
 or the creed may be good and the lives of its professors 
 vile ; or the lives of the bulk of the people may be 
 superior to those of the heads of the church ; or the 
 Mormons as a whole may be mistaken, but conscientious. 
 
 This is what he says : 
 
 " I charge Mormonism with being one great and 
 prolonged cruelty. Nobody denies the work of the 
 destroying angels called Danites, whose chief business it 
 was to hunt up antagonism to the Mormon Government, 
 and put it to death. It was for years the land of assas- 
 sination, and the field of blood. No one doubts the Hick- 
 man butcheries under Brigham Young. I saw a cellar 
 where a mother and two sons had been put to death 
 the mother slain in the presence of her sons, and the 
 two sons butchered, because they had revealed the 
 secrets of the Mormon Government. The whole world 
 has heard the story of the destruction of the Aiken 
 party. And these Mormons have a delicious vernacular 
 by which they describe this putting to death. They say 
 all these things with a smile and a jeer. * Oh, they were 
 put out of the way,' or ' they met with a bad accident,' 
 or ' they were used up,' or * they were cut off just under 
 their ears ! ' 
 
 "Why have these atrocities stopped? Because a 
 regiment of United States soldiers are on the hill over- 
 looking the city, and with iron rake of destruction may 
 rake that city if it attempts to repeat such atrocity. It 
 is not because Mormonism is more merciful, but because 
 it has not the courage. 
 
74 
 
 BRIGHAM'S BLASPHEMY. 
 
 " I charge Mormonism with being a great blasphemy. 
 Brigham Young, in one of his sermons, declared that 
 Christ himself was a practical polygamist ; that Mary 
 and Martha were His plural wives ; that Mary Magdalene 
 was another ; and he said in the same sermon that the 
 bridal feast in Cana of Galilee, where Christ turned 
 water into wine, was the occasion of one of His own 
 marriages ! The whole tendency of the system is 
 towards blasphemy. I was told over and over again 
 that Brigham Young, with slight provocation, would 
 swear like a fishwoman at Billingsgate. 
 
 " I charge upon Mormonism that it is a disloyalty to the 
 United States Government. There is an oath taken in 
 the Endowment House at Salt Lake City, which subverts 
 all other oaths. Perjury is no crime when enacted in 
 behalf of Mormonism. Mormonisn hates the Govern- 
 ment of the United States with a perfect hatred. 
 Fourth of July, and all patriotic demonstrations, are 
 an utter abhorrence to the Mormons ; and the Gentile 
 celebrators of the fourth of July suffer every indignity. 
 Mormonism would like the United States Government 
 to perish to-day. 
 
 " I charge upon Mormonism that it is an organised filth built 
 on polygamy. There is a man in Salt Lake City who has 
 three wives, and they are the mother, the grand-mother, 
 and the grand-daughter. 
 
 " I tell you Mormonism is one great surge of licentious- 
 ness ; it is the seraglio of the Republic, it is the 
 concentrated corruption of this land, it is the brothel of 
 the nation, it is hell enthroned. 
 
75 
 
 PHYSICAL FORCE. 
 
 " If the Mormons submit to the law, all right. If 
 not, then send out troops of the United States Govern- 
 ment, and let them make the Mormon Tabernacle their 
 headquarters, and with cannon of the biggest bore 
 thunder into them the seventh commandment. Arbitra- 
 tion by all means ; but if that will not do, then peaceful 
 proclamation. If that will not do, then howitzer, and 
 bombshell, and bullets, and cannon-ball. 
 
 " I make no war against Mormonism as a religion. I 
 war against Mormonism as an immorality, as a defiance 
 of civil law, as an institution Anti-American. When 
 Brigham Young's men, with bowie-knives, broke up 
 Judge Drummond's court in 1856, and compelled him to 
 adjourn it sine die ; and when Mormonism poised loose 
 rocks on the top of cliffs, where you may see them to 
 this day, expecting to throw them over on the United 
 States troops as they passed under, Mormonism showed 
 what she thought of our Government. k 
 
 " Now, as I have impanelled you as a jury to sit in 
 trial of this giant of lust and disloyalty, and the 
 evidence has been presented before you, are you ready 
 for the verdict before you leave the jury-box ? Guilty, 
 or not guilty? " Guilty," says one. " Guilty," say all. 
 
 MORMONISM ON THE GALLOWS. 
 
 " Then, what shall the sentence be ? It must not be 
 a small incarceration, it must not be a slight censure. 
 While we have only pity for the victims of this 
 abomination, and we pray God He will speedily deliver 
 them ; for this institution of Mormonism, as such, only 
 
7 6 
 
 extinction and death. But where shall be the execu- 
 tion, and when shall the execution take place ? What 
 scaffolding will be strong enough to hold such a monster 
 of iniquity ? One end of the scaffolding must be 
 planted on the Rocky Mountains, and the other on the 
 Sierra Nevadas. But what Friday, of what gloomy 
 week, of what gloomy month, of what gloomy year, 
 would be gloomy enough for the execution of this beastly 
 outlaw ? What grave deep enough for this stout, 
 thousand-armed, thousand-footed, thousand-headed, 
 thousand-horned, thousand-fanged corpse ? What 
 epitaph for that grave unless it be this : 
 
 11 Here lies Mormonism, the outlaw, the libertine, and the mur- 
 derer the hero of Mountain Meadow massacre. Born February, 
 22, 1827. Died 1882, at the hand of the law, and under the 
 instruction of the Almighty. ' Then the Lord rained upon Sodom 
 brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.' " 
 
 A PERORATION. 
 
 " I plead for womanhood in Utah womanhood under 
 foot, womanhood in the sewer, womanhood crushed 
 until it cannot weep, womanhood looking out of the 
 barred windows of a perdition of anguish towards what 
 seems an unpitying heaven, crying " O Lord ! how long, 
 O Lord ? " womanhood in the pandemonium of a 
 polygamous home womanhood with the garlands of 
 hope and affection and honour, torn with the swine's 
 snout of incestuous abomination womanhood that, if 
 it had a chance, or had had a chance in the past, would 
 have been as pure and good as that which presides at 
 your table to-day, or which long ago bent in benediction 
 over your peaceful cradle, before you began the struggle 
 with the world. 
 
77 
 
 " O men, with wives and daughters, and mothers ; 
 O brothers, with sisters ! Do not your ears tingle, and 
 does not your blood run cold, at this story of Mor- 
 monism ? And are you not determined at the ballot-box, 
 and with pen and tongue, and in every possible way, to 
 war against it ?" 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " O sorrowing women, ye who weep in vain, 
 Who uncaressed, sob on through the dark night, 
 With broken wings that ache to feel the light, 
 Strained out above joy's corpse untimely slain- 
 
 O hearts forsaken, hearts forlorn, oppressed, 
 My arms are strong, my breast is warm and true ; 
 Here is sweet love if love ye never knew, 
 
 Here dear unquestioning sympathy, here rest." 
 
 AMELIE RIVES. 
 
 THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. 
 
 MRS. Joseph Cook, in "Face to Face with Mormon- 
 ism," cites the case of a mother who said of her 
 dead child " Every hour of its little life it shed tears 
 that I repressed before its birth, and the agony that I 
 hid in my heart killed it at last." 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse never seems to have believed in the 
 divine origin of the re-institution of polygamy, so her 
 experience would not be a criterion of the feelings 
 of Mormon women who believe that they are doing 
 right, and who cheerfully carry the teaching of 
 Joseph Smith into effect. Mrs. Stenhouse's husband 
 started the first daily paper in Salt Lake City, " The 
 Daily Telegraph," and when it prospered, thought it 
 was time to take another wife and get more glory. A 
 girl named Carrie was in love with him, but she died 
 after confessing her secret to his wife. 
 
79 
 
 HE MARRIED BELINDA. 
 
 Stenhouse then courted Belinda, daughter of Parley 
 P. Pratt, and wanted his wife's consent to his marriage 
 with her. Mrs. Stenhouse tells how she hated the sight 
 of the girl, but she believed that her husband's eternal 
 welfare must first be considered, so after much agony 
 she gave her consent. 
 
 The ceremony was performed in the Endowment 
 House, the first wife placing Miss Pratt's hand in that 
 of her husband as a sign that the three were then 
 united. Mr. Stenhouse was also again married to his 
 first wife, by proxy for Carrie, the dead girl, who was 
 thus * sealed ' to him for eternity. Brigham Young 
 himself performed the ceremony. She then tells how 
 jealousy possessed her ; and she did not believe that God 
 ever intended her husband to live with another woman. 
 
 She virtually admits that many of the Mormon men 
 do not really believe that they do wrong, or that their 
 wives are unhappy, for she says : 
 
 " How terribly these Mormon men deceive them- 
 selves ! When peace, or rather quiet, reigns in their 
 homes they think that the spirit of God is there. But it 
 is not so. It is a calm not like the gentle silence of 
 sleep, but as the painful stillness of death the death of 
 the heart's best affections, and all that is worth calling 
 love." 
 
 She also speaks of many Mormon ladies who con- 
 fessed to her that they shared her sentiments, while 
 others, on the contrary, seemed to fervently believe that 
 they were doing God's will and appeared to be happy. 
 Some Mormon women were driven by their acute 
 sufferings to commit suicide. 
 
8o 
 
 BALL-ROOM SCENES. 
 
 She hated the ball-rooms, where husbands often 
 danced with the young wives, and the old ones had to 
 look on and wear smiling faces. She has heard women 
 mutter " I'll be even with him yet " as some energetic 
 elder led forth a blushing maid and neglected his first, 
 second, third or even fourth wife. Heber C. Kimball once 
 introduced her to five of his wives at a ball. She asked 
 him if they were all. 
 
 " No," said he, " I have forty more scattered over the 
 earth, but I have never seen them since they were sealed 
 to me at Nauvoo, and I hope I never shall again." 
 
 NO MORE SCRATCHING. 
 
 If what she says is true, Brigham himself had a taste 
 of matrimonial troubles, for he once said, " I will not 
 stand any more of this fighting and scratching around 
 me." 
 
 Men sometimes married sisters, and one man 
 married a widow and her children, so it is little to be 
 wondered at that there were stormy scenes in some of 
 the households. The houses, in many instances, were 
 merely huts ; and when a poor man took an extra wife 
 he merely added a little room to his house, or put his new 
 wife in a horse-box until he accomplished this work. 
 What was more probable, says Mrs. Stenhouse, is that 
 he put one of his old wives in the horse-box and installed 
 his new flame in one of the bedrooms. Brigham's idea 
 was that men were all boys until they were a hundred 
 years old ; and he approved of old men marrying young 
 girls. 
 
8i 
 
 Charles Ellis, writing on " The Iniquities of 
 Polygamy," gives the following interesting instances of 
 evil in Mormon marriages : 
 
 " Years and years ago a bright and beautiful woman, 
 the wife of one of Boston's most honoured men, and the 
 mother of his children, became a convert to Mormonism. 
 One night she dressed her youngest child, a lovely little 
 girl, in boy's clothes to disguise her, and in the darkness 
 ran away from her home and family to join a party of 
 Mormons going west. She went to Nauvoo, and became 
 one of the polygamous wives of Joseph Smith. When 
 Smith was killed this woman was sealed to Brigham 
 Young, and lived among his wives until her death in Salt 
 Lake a few years ago. The child, who was carried 
 away from its father by this woman, grew up with the 
 children of Brigham Young, and when she was a girl of 
 sixteen was sealed to one of Brigham's sons. She had 
 married her own brother, so to speak. A son of the 
 wife (the Boston wife, who had deserted her husband 
 and home to become the plural wife of Smith and 
 Young) became a Mormon also. He married, or was 
 sealed to, a Mormon woman. In a few months she 
 refused to live with him. Subsequently she became a 
 mother. When her child, a daughter, was eight years old, 
 the mother, no divorce being granted, was sealed to 
 Brigham Young. Eight years later her daughter was 
 sealed to Brigham's son. Thus Brigham Young was 
 sealed first to the runaway Boston wife ; later he was 
 sealed to the wife of his own wife's son. Later still, 
 Brigham's son married a girl who was the daughter of 
 one of his father's wives, and grand-daughter of another. 
 
82 
 
 EVIL EFFECTS OF POLYGAMY. 
 
 " This mixing up of people in polygamy has had a 
 somewhat demoralising effect on social relations in Utah 
 generally. There has been so much talk about the 
 iniquity of polygamy among those who have been with 
 honest purpose trying to break it down, that they have 
 become too familiar with the vice they condemn in 
 that system. It is not pleasant to hear women talking 
 about the inwardness of polygamy in Salt Lake. They 
 detail its horrors with a thoroughness that seems to 
 indicate a morbid state of mind induced by constant 
 dwelling on the subject. Men who know about such 
 things say that there is more wickedness in Salt Lake 
 than in most places of its size, and that there are more 
 questionable characters in proportion to numbers among 
 those outside of the Mormon church than there are in 
 it. It is not surprising, perhaps, that it should be so ; 
 for it has long been understood that one of the strongest 
 inducements to good, or to bad conduct is familiarity 
 with the one or the other. It would be better to ignore 
 the evils of polygamy than to denounce them ; to kill 
 them by developing something better in their stead than 
 to fix them in the minds of the young by constant 
 exposure." 
 
 I question if silence respecting evil is at all expedient. 
 As we have seen, Mormonism is not in a decaying state, 
 and will not be while missionaries are promulgating its 
 doctrines in different parts of the world. At a recent 
 convention of Mormons in Iowa, Joseph Smith, son of 
 the founder of Mormonism, read the annual report, 
 showing that there had been two thousand acces- 
 
sions to the Church during the past year. The more 
 light that can be shed on social questions, the greater is 
 the probability that the evil will be expurgated, provided 
 the subjects are not treated in a jocular manner. 
 
 There is, however, a danger that too sweeping con- 
 clusions will be drawn from these instances of 
 
 MATRIMONIAL FAILURES. 
 
 If we were to investigate the state of society in any 
 nation under the sun we should find numberless instances 
 of matrimonial misery, dissension and oppression. The 
 animated discussion called forth by the propounding of 
 the question " Is marriage a failure ? " by Mrs. Mona 
 Caird, brought this fact prominently to the notice of the 
 British public, and caused hundreds of instances of monog- 
 amous marriages, which had proved dismal failures, 
 to be revealed. The fact, therefore, that under the 
 Mormon system we find similar cases, must not surprise 
 us ; nor does this in itself call for an unqualified condem- 
 nation of the whole system, or the denunciation of those 
 who conscientiously believe in the doctrines of the 
 Church, and live up to the established standard of 
 morality in Mormondom. 
 
 If those who enter upon marriage lack the qualities of 
 mind and heart which would enable them to move 
 through life without friction, unpleasantness and unhap- 
 piness will be the inevitable result. Certain conditions, 
 of course, will intensify the connubial discord, but a good 
 system will not necessarily produce happiness if there- is 
 no affinity between those whose lives are legally linked 
 together ; and on the other hand we might feel con- 
 scientiously compelled to condemn a certain course of 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 conduct pursued by any given community, while the 
 individuals in that community might be as happy, or 
 happier, in their own line of life than they would be if a 
 different and, on the whole, higher standard of morality 
 were to be established in their midst in opposition to 
 their convictions. 
 
 GOOD AND BAD EVERYWHERE. 
 
 For instance, there would be no difficulty in picking 
 out a Mormon family, say of a husband, five wives, and 
 fifteen children (if polygamy were not made a criminal 
 offence) who would be happier and purer in heart than 
 many families living under a monogamous system of 
 marriage. The tables could also be reversed, and 
 instances adduced in which a given family living in con- 
 formity with the " one man, one wife" standard, upheld 
 in Engand, would be immeasurably superior to some 
 Mormon families, in every sense of the term. 
 
 Therefore, isolated examples prove but little. While 
 human nature remains as it is, there will be varieties of 
 temperament, intellect, and moral discernment, which 
 will produce inequalities of happiness and domestic 
 harmony, and violations of that which is good. 
 
 What do I mean by that ? I mean that no system 
 that can ever be devised will produce a perfect working 
 society, free from jealousies, stride, and selfish indul- 
 gence, unless the heart of man ceases to be " deceitful 
 above all things and desperately wicked." If you blame 
 Mormonism because of the wrecks that strew its shores, 
 blame also the systems which are marked by similar 
 disasters in England, France, and other parts of America, 
 where divorces, suicides, murders, and desertions show 
 
5 
 
 that monogamy may give birth to evil as well as 
 polygamy. 
 
 " But," say you, " is it not a fact that if in England 
 there are thousands who feel, from personal experience, 
 that monogamous marriage is a failure, it is because 
 they are not adapted to each other, or wilfully violate 
 the conditions which would enable them to live happily 
 together ? " 
 
 BEST TYPES OF MORMONS. 
 
 But this is the very position I take on the subject of 
 Mormon marriages. I see no reason to believe that there 
 is a greater amount of unhappiness or filth among the 
 best types of Mormons who have practised plural 
 marriage, than among the best types who believe that 
 one man should have only one wife, and who abide by 
 the belief. It is those who are not adapted to 
 Mormonism whose lives are marked by marital infelicity. 
 
 This is vastly different, however, to saying that 
 monogamy is not on the whole preferable to polygamy. 
 
 It is necessary to make these distinctions because 
 careless thinkers are apt to confuse cause and effect. 
 They see only good in their own established code of 
 morality, and only evil in others. If a Mormon ill- 
 treats his wife, then they hold polygamy responsible. 
 If an Englishman or a Parisian is guilty of even 
 greater cruelty to his spouse they blame the individual, 
 not monogamy. This is manifestly unfair, and in my 
 capacity of counsel for both plaintiff and defendant, I 
 am bound to point this out. Many of the cases of con- 
 jugal infelicity in Mormondom are due solely to the fact 
 that those who entered into polygamous marriages were 
 
86 
 
 weak-minded people who voluntarily agreed to share 
 the affections of their common husband, and yet were 
 unprepared with sufficient faith to endure heartburns 
 which could not fail to follow, unless jealousy was 
 cloaked with the mantle of love, self-sacrifice, and 
 unwavering faith in "the truth of that, as well as other, 
 features of their religion. 
 
 MORE MISERY THAN HAPPINESS. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to discover whether there has 
 been a preponderance of infelicitous Mormon marriages. 
 If so, it would not prove that Mormonism is ' an organised 
 filth,' as Talmage affirms, but that the bulk of the 
 people have not been firm believers in the heavenly origin 
 of polygamy, or acted at first on fanatical impulse, until 
 natural passions or former prejudices re-asserted them- 
 selves. 
 
 This is what Artemus Ward says of the Mormon 
 women : > 
 
 " Are the Mormon women happy ? 
 
 " I give it up. I don't know. 
 
 " I saw them at their best, of course at balls, tea- 
 parties, and the like. They were like other women, as 
 far as my observation extended. They were hooped, 
 and furbelowed, and shod, and white-collared, and 
 bejewelled ; and like women all over the world, they 
 were softer-eyed and kinder-hearted than men can ever 
 hope to be. 
 
 THEY LOVE. 
 
 " The Mormon girl is reared to believe that the plurality 
 wife system (as it is delicately called here) is strictly 
 right ; and in linking her destiny with a man who has 
 
87 
 
 twelve wives, she undoubtedly considers she is doing her 
 duty. She loves the man, probably, for I think it is not 
 true, as so many writers have stated, that girls are forced 
 to marry whomsoever " the Church" may dictate. 
 Some parents no doubt advise, connive, threaten, and in 
 aggravated cases incarcerate here, as some parents have 
 always done elsewhere, and always will do as long as 
 petticoats continue to be an institution. 
 
 A HAPPY UNION. 
 
 " I had a man pointed out to me who married an 
 entire family. He had originally intended to marry 
 Jane, but Jane did not want to leave her widowed 
 mother. The other three sisters were not in the mat- 
 rimonial market for the same reason ; so this gallant 
 man married the whole crowd, including the girl's 
 grandmother, who had lost all her teeth, and had to be 
 fed with a spoon. The family were in indigent circum- 
 stances, and they could not but congratulate themselves 
 on securing a wealthy husband. It seemed to affect the 
 grandmother deeply, for the first words she said on 
 reaching her new home were, ' Now thank God ! I shall 
 have my gruel reg'lar ! ' ' 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 "This scene is my delight, for here 
 Are devils mixed with true believers.' 
 
 GOETHE'S " FAUST." 
 
 BRIGHAM'S CHARACTER. 
 
 MRS. Stenhouse is unsparing in her denunciation of 
 Brigham Young. She says he looked like a retired 
 sea-captain. He was remorseless. He connived at, if not 
 suggested, some of the most atrocious crimes ever perpe- 
 trated on the face of the earth. His favourite wife was 
 Amelia Folsom Young, and she was his master, so he 
 was under petticoat government at last. 
 
 W. F. Rae had written of him as the embodiment of 
 avarice and lust. He was mean, and had cheated her 
 out of money for some bonnets she sold his wives. Men 
 were paid in Salt Lake notes, which were current only in 
 Utah Territory, and they had not handled United States 
 coin for years, so could not leave the Mormon com- 
 munity if they desired. A large sum of money had 
 been collected to build the temple, and millions of 
 dollars raised by tithing and other means ; but during 
 Brigham's lifetime no one had sufficient courage to 
 demand an account of those funds, and the interest and 
 compound interest which should be accruing thereto. 
 
 Brigham intended to proclaim himself King, and 
 declare his independence of the United States. He 
 
8g 
 
 was in the habit of borrowing large sums of money from 
 the Church, and squaring the account by turning in a 
 bill for ' services rendered.' He kept the money of 
 converts who travelled to Zion under the hand-cart 
 scheme. Brigham misled press men and authors 
 generally who came to Salt Lake City, by treating them 
 well, and showing them the bright side of everything 
 through a pair of Mormon spectacles. 
 
 BELINDA WAS DIVORCED. 
 
 The history of Mrs. Stenhouse showed that her family 
 had no reason to bless Brigham. When the Prophet 
 began to run things with a high hand, and desired to get 
 control of all the industries, he was strongly opposed by 
 a Gentile paper. Mr. Stenhouse's paper was neutral, so 
 Brigham conceived the idea that the "Daily Telegraph" 
 was not his friend, and ordered Stenhouse to move his 
 paper to Ogden, promising that it should be a success. 
 
 Belinda Pratt, meanwhile, had secured a divorce from 
 Stenhouse, who then considered the advisability of 
 marrying Zina Young, one of Brigham Young's 
 daughters. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse's daughter, Clara, married Joseph A. 
 Young, one of the prophet's sons. As Mr. Stenhouse 
 still retained some amount of faith in the " revelator," he 
 obeyed his commands and his paper collapsed. Subse- 
 quently he apostatised ; his wife and himself resigned 
 their positions in the Church ; and afterwards made a 
 living by journalism in the eastern States. 
 
 POLYTHEISM : ADAM A GOD. 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse is right when she says that the popular 
 idea of the Mormon faith is that except as regards polyg- 
 
go 
 
 amy it differs very little from Christianity. But she goes 
 on to show that many of the heads of the Church have 
 advocated entirely different views. They believed in 
 Polytheism, saying that Joseph Smith was with the 
 < gods.' They did not greatly differ from Spiritualists, as 
 they believed in three stages of progressiveness after 
 death. Their bodies would be resurrected, but not their 
 blood, as this, being the principle of corrupt life, would 
 be supplanted by some other spirit. 
 
 Brigham believed that Adam was a god. Joseph 
 Smith thought that the North American Indians were a 
 remnant of Israel. Some Mormons were baptised for 
 Queen Anne, King George, etc., as they considered they 
 could act as proxies for these royal sinners. 
 
 EX-COMMUNICATED. 
 
 These and other startling views must have caused 
 withdrawals from the British Church. According to the 
 report for the half-year ending June 30, 1853, 11,776 
 persons were ex-communicated, the great cause of this 
 relapse having been the advocacy of the doctrine of 
 polygamy. 
 
 The following are interesting specimens of the opinions 
 of one of Brigham 's right hand-men, and of the prophet 
 himself. Mrs. Stenhouse says : 
 
 "Here is a bit from one of the sermons of Heber C. Kimball, 
 which I think I must give for the reader's benefit. 
 
 " Fancy an Apostle ! ' thus addressing a large and mixed congre- 
 gation of men, women, and children : 
 
 " Here are some edicated men jest under my nose. They come 
 here and they think they know more than I do, and then they git 
 the big head, and it swells and swells until it gits like the old 
 woman's squash you go to touch it and it goes kersmash ; and 
 when you look for the man, why it ain't thar. They're jest like so 
 many pots in a furnace yer know I've been a potter in my time 
 
almighty thin and almighty big ; and when they're sot up the heat 
 makes 'em smoke a little, and then they collapse and tumble in, and 
 they ain't no whar.' This was Heber's style in general. Next to 
 making modest people blush, nothing pleased him better than to 
 annoy or ridicule any one who had the smallest pretentions to 
 education ; and yet naturally Heber was a kind-hearted man. 
 
 "Brigham's style was very little better, and the substance of his 
 discourses quite as bad. 
 
 "The Apostle Orson Pratt was the only one who dared, in the 
 presence of Brigham, to say that education was a proper thing, and 
 that there were many books which would be of good service to the 
 Saints, if they obtained and studied them. On one occasion 
 Brigham arose in ire, and said, ' The professor has told you that 
 there are many books in the world, and I tell you that 
 there are many people there. He says there is something in all 
 these books ; I say each of those persons has got a name. It would 
 do you just as much good to learn those somebodies' names as it 
 would to read those books. Five minutes' revelation would teach 
 me more truth than all this pack of nonsense that I should have 
 packed away in my unlucky brains from books.' 
 
 " But the Prophet changed with the times, and there are now in 
 Utah very good schools, both Mormon and Gentile." 
 
 Mrs. Stenhouse admits that as a body the Mormons 
 are l examples of industry and diligence, for to them 
 labour is one of the cardinal virtues.' She strongly 
 defends the moral character of the Mormon women, of 
 whom she says : 
 
 " It is difficult for one not in the Mormon Church to understand 
 how the women submit to such treatment, and in consequence they 
 are regarded by some as spiritless, debased specimens of humanity ; 
 but, as an authority on Mormonism has said, ' Whoever has read 
 debasement in the women of Utah has done them an injustice. 
 Some there be who are devoid of refined sentiment and the nobler 
 instincts of their sex, but no woman in history ever deserved more 
 respect and sympathy than the true women among the Mormons.' 
 They are taught to believe that their religion is a Divine institution, 
 which is to regenerate the world and restore the golden age, and that 
 by their submitting to the decrees of the church they help to bring 
 about this long hoped for restoration. If they endure heartrending 
 sorrow in the performance of their religion, they yet yield to the 
 Mormon doctrine that ' the first duty of a woman is submission ; 
 the second, silence.' The men also are taught that he is noblest 
 who values the companionship of the soul the least, and that his 
 
92 
 
 wife is but the mother of his children. Thus the poor Mormon 
 women are often placed on the level of the most inferior animals. 
 One of the most noted of the Mormon Apostles said : ' We think no 
 more of taking a woman than we do of buying another cow.' 
 
 "It is never expected, nor would it be tolerated in any Mormon 
 woman, that she should exercise her own judgment in opposition to 
 her husband, no matter how much she might feel that he was in the 
 wrong. I have frequently seen intelligent women subjected to the 
 grossest tyranny on the part of ignorant and fanatical husbands who 
 were influenced by the absurd teachings of the Tabernacle. One of 
 the greatest Mormon writers, Orson Pratt, has said : ' The wife 
 should never follow her own judgment in preference to that of her 
 husband ; for if her husband desires to do right but errs in judgment, 
 Heaven will bless her in endeavouring to carry out his counsels ; for 
 God has placed him at the head, aud though he may err in 
 judgment, yet the wife will not be justified in disregarding his 
 instructions and counsels ; far greater is the sin of rebellion, than 
 the errors which arise from want of judgment ; therefore she would 
 be condemned for suffering her will to rise against his. Be obedient, 
 and Heaven will cause all things to work for good.' " 
 
 PASSIONS UNDER RESTRAINT. 
 
 Mrs. Whitney in her book " Why we Practice Plural 
 Marriage " vindicates the claim of herself and her sisters 
 in Mormondom, to be considered pure-minded women ; 
 and she admits that it was only by strong faith and 
 continued self-subjugation that they were enabled to 
 overcome their natural jealousy of other women, and 
 their desire to monopolise their husband's time and 
 attention. As she is one of the foremost of the Mormon 
 ladies I append an extract from her work : 
 
 " If I did not know that my husband was actuated by 
 the purest of motives and by religious principle I could 
 not have fortified myself against that ' demon jealousy ; ' 
 and had it not been for a powerful testimony from the 
 Lord, which gave me a knowledge for myself that this 
 principle is of celestial birth. 
 
 " I have no cause to doubt my husband's love for me 
 
93 
 
 and my children, and he is a very devoted father to all 
 his children. I know by my own experience, and that 
 of my sainted mother's, and also of other first wives, 
 who have acted their part nobly, that they have not only 
 retained the affection of their husbands, but to see such 
 a great sacrifice made by the wife of his bosom has 
 increased his love and exalted her in his eyes. I have 
 had this testimony from different husbands and wives. 
 
 " I assure you there is as much delicacy, modesty and 
 refinement among those who live in this plural order as 
 can be found anywhere, 
 
 " Polygamy is not the worst trial in the world, for it 
 has been made honourable among our people, and it is 
 not in the power of man nor of Congress to make it 
 otherwise. I have always felt that I could bear it far 
 better than those practices which are unlawful and wicked 
 in the sight of God. That which would make me feel 
 humiliated and disgraced before my friends and the 
 public, would be harder to endure." 
 
 Mr. Jarman, an ex- Mormon priest, has been giving 
 lectures in England on his experiences in Utah. The 
 following is a brief outline of one of Jarman's lectures : 
 
 LATTER DAY VILLAINS. 
 
 "Mr. W. Jarman, an ex-Mormon priest, stated that 
 his grave was dug in Salt Lake City, but that he was 
 rescued by the late General Garfield. In his lectures 
 he occupied some time in referring to the customs and 
 barbarous dealings of the Mormons, and declared that 
 he was prepared to prove his assertions in any court 
 of law. He said there were at the present day three 
 hundred Mormon missionaries in England inducing 
 
94 
 
 innocent English girls to go to Salt Lake City as their 
 wives, while they already had a number of wives in that 
 country. He denounced the Mormons as the latter day 
 villains, and related his escape from the Utah territory 
 after swearing, with a dagger at his throat, that he would 
 not divulge their secrets." 
 
 TWO THOUSAND CONVERTS YEARLY. 
 
 In conjunction with this, some editorial comments on 
 the lectures which appeared in the papers subsequently, 
 are interesting, instructive and apropos. The Mormons 
 admit that their church membership is increased by 
 the labour of their missionaries to the extent of two 
 thousand converts per year, most of whom go to Salt 
 Lake City. If these persons are deceived, however, I 
 do not see why they cannot leave the city or the territory, 
 especially, as is remarked below, the law is strictly en- 
 forced by the judges. 
 
 "It is a pity, that in his lectures on Mormonism to 
 men only, Mr. Jarman does not adopt a higher tone in 
 his narration. It is very painful to hear descriptions of 
 abominable debauchery and viciousness so told as to 
 cause repeated shouts of laughter. Many of the asserted 
 facts might be imparted without giving minute and 
 unpleasant details. Respecting the subject of these 
 lectures the public should be informed that " Utah " 
 is now de-facto under the United States Government. 
 Since the formation of the Atlantic and Pacific railways 
 a marvellous change has been made by the Federal 
 Government in the administration of the law, as well as 
 in the one time recognised customs of the population. 
 The law is now administered by judges under the con- 
 
95 
 
 trol of the supreme court. Polygamy is declared to be 
 illegal, and all the wives after the first to be concubines, 
 and their children illegitimate. Avowed polygamists 
 render themselves liable to severe penalties, one of which 
 is the loss of the rights of citizenship. A powerful agency 
 in transforming the old condition of things has been the 
 establishment there of the United States system of 
 national education by the opening of public schools, 
 Brigham Young, during his autocratic regime, having 
 carefully excluded education from his system of govern- 
 ment. The execution of Elder Lee some time since for 
 his share in the l Mountain Meadow Massacre ' proves 
 how strongly the Government are making their power 
 felt now that railway communication enables it to do 
 so." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 4 For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see." 
 
 TENNYSON'S " LOCKSLEY HALL." 
 
 THE FUTURE OF MORMONISM. 
 
 THE last municipal elections in Salt Lake City, which 
 caused such intense excitement and out of which 
 arose the revelations in open court as to the horrible 
 oaths taken in the Endowment House resulted in the 
 defeat of the Mormons by a majority of about three- 
 thousand votes. Those who are unfamiliar with the 
 details of American life have jumped at very hasty 
 conclusions respecting the result of this event. 
 
 An English daily had the following leader, which is 
 typical of British ideas on the subject : 
 
 A LIVE CORPSE. 
 
 " The days of Mormonism are numbered. Brigham 
 Young's followers have been ousted from the dominance 
 of Utah by the simple process of out-voting. For many 
 years they were supreme in Salt Lake City. They 
 founded the community ; they turned a wilderness into 
 a smiling garden , they set up their own institutions, 
 and successfully defied the laws of the United States. 
 All the thunders against polygamy had no effect. But 
 the end has come in another way. The Mormons were 
 able to evade the law, but they were not able to resist 
 the intrusion of " the Gentiles." They could outwit the 
 
97 
 
 American lawyers, but they could not stand rifle in hand 
 on the margin of their territory, and shoot every stranger 
 who attempted to set foot on its sacred soil. So 
 gradually the Gentiles came in and possessed the land. 
 The Canaanites have overwhelmed the followers of the 
 prophet Brigham. The recent elections in Salt Lake 
 City have left the Mormons in a hopeless minority, and 
 all the powers of local government will pass into alien 
 hands. This result is due in no inconsiderable measure 
 to the one law which the Mormons have not succeeded 
 in circumventing. Every man in Utah who is the 
 husband of more than one wife is disqualified for the 
 franchise. 'This is the most potent weapon which legal 
 ingenuity has been able to forge against polygamy. 
 After such a defeat the Mormons may well own them- 
 selves out-manoeuvred in spite of the tenacity with which 
 they have fought the battle for supremacy so long. In 
 a community which is ruled by the Gentiles the disciple 
 of Joe Smith and Brigham Young will find himself an 
 outcast. He has lost the vote ; he is not regarded as a 
 citizen, and he may even be stripped of the means of 
 existence. It is quite possible that the new authorities 
 in Utah will declare that no man living in polygamy is 
 entitled to hold property. The enactment would probably 
 extinguish Mormonism at a blow." 
 
 THE CHURCH IS GROWING. 
 
 This is nothing short of ridiculous to anyone who has 
 made a study of Mormonism, or is at all familiar with 
 American politics. The mere fact that the Mormons or 
 " The People's Party " were outnumbered, only proves 
 that at that particular time there were more Gentile 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 than Mormon voters permitted to vote. Some of the 
 Saints were undoubtedly disqualified because of Judge 
 Anderson's decision in reference to the Endowment 
 House oaths. Others suffered because of their having 
 at one time practised polygamy. It is also charged that 
 Gentile non-voters were brought into the City, and that 
 many Mormons were illegally prevented from voting. 
 
 But even supposing that the election was fair, it in no 
 way proves that Mormonism is doomed. The Latter 
 Day Saints are increasing in number, although, perhaps, 
 not in proportion to the flow of immigration to Salt Lake 
 City of late years. Other towns are being peopled by 
 the offspring of members of the Church, and the mere 
 loss of local elections in itself means but little. Mormons 
 will not hold office in Salt Lake City, but the law will not 
 decide that a Mormon cannot hold property. The 
 conflict between the law and the Mormons has not been 
 of an ordinary character, and the fact that much of the 
 violation of the statutes has been due to mistaken, but 
 conscientious, obedience to the decrees of the Church, 
 will always be remembered. Saints who break the law 
 may be fined and imprisoned, but the judicial authorities 
 will not go further and confiscate their property. 
 
 As long as the religious faith remains embedded in 
 the hearts of the Mormons, so long will the people 
 propagate their doctrines and endeavour to put them 
 into practice, 
 
 IT MAY DIE OUT. 
 
 Oppression will not exterminate Mormonism. The 
 Church may decline and fall from inherent weakness, 
 but it will never be killed. 
 
99 
 
 It may die from either of two causes. 
 
 The first is the conviction that Joseph Smith and 
 Brigham Young were not inspired, and their revelations 
 ought not to be obeyed. 
 
 The second is that the priesthood may lose its grip on 
 the people. Brigham, for instance, was a far-seeing 
 man ; a clever general, whose tactics usually suc- 
 ceeded. Had he been alive I question if he would have 
 allowed the local government of Salt Lake City to pass 
 into alien hands. He would have concentrated his fol- 
 lowers around him, so that their votes would have out- 
 numbered those of the Gentiles. President Woodruff, 
 the present head of the Church, is an old man, and 
 probably failed to foresee that the Philistines were 
 flooding the land. 
 
 HOPE IN EDUCATION. 
 
 The effect of continual contact with the Gentiles, and 
 the consequent interchange of ideas, in all probability 
 will have its effect on the minds of the growing genera- 
 tion ; but it is always dangerous to adopt harsh political 
 measures towards a whole community, and thereby give 
 some of its more zealous members an opportunity of 
 becoming martyrs for the sake of convincing outsiders 
 that their cause is just. Education and firm, but fair, 
 government will produce a more desirable effect. 
 
 During these recent elections, F. S. Richards, Chair- 
 man of the People's Party, and one of the leading 
 Mormons, was interviewed, and asked 
 
 WILL IT AFFECT THEM? 
 
 " ' What will be the effect upon the admission of the territory into 
 the Union by either the defeat or victory of the Peoples' Party at this 
 election ? ' 
 
IOO 
 
 " ' It should have no effect, for the territory is entitled to statehood 
 regardless of local politics. Doubtless the Peoples' Party defeat 
 will tend to remove Liberal opposition of statehood, for the Liberal 
 party is anxious for statehood soon, but not until it shall gain abso- 
 lute political domination in Utah. But this act should not influence 
 the Federal Government, for it is monstrous to make the sovereignty 
 of a Commonwealth, the plaything of a local faction.' 
 
 " ' Will the election of the People's ticket retard the progress of 
 the territory and immigration ? ' 
 
 " ' No : Salt Lake is now one of the most safely progressive 
 cities of America, and that progress would be continued and 
 encouraged. Immigration of desirable citizens, all classes of invest- 
 ment of capital, would continue as in the past, only fictitious progress, 
 and the influx of dissolute or idle elements are not desired. 1 
 
 " ' Do your party favour admission into the Union ? ' 
 
 "'Yes, if admission can be had upon a basis of equal rights in 
 all citizens, whose conduct is in accordance with the law.' 
 
 THE REPRESSIVE MEASURES. 
 
 11 'What is the general feeling in regard to the Edmunds and the 
 Edmunds-Tucker Acts ? ' 
 
 " 'The Liberals, of course, are gratified, as these Acts were calcu- 
 lated to afford them considerable and unusual help, but the people 
 regard some features of them to the least degree unnecessary, even 
 as to the execution of the Government's plan against the former 
 practice of plural marriage. For instance, arbitrary confiscation 
 of church edifices and other property is unworthy of a free govern- 
 ment, and also giving all jury selections even in every case to the 
 Liberals, is deemed cruelty and un-American.' 
 
 " ' What will be the result to the Mormon Church and your party 
 in case the Gentiles win ? ' 
 
 "'I see no special result to the Mormon Church any more than 
 to any other church. Possibly discrimination against individual 
 members of the church might ensue. The result to our party would 
 be the same as to any other strong party under such circumstances. 
 Political defeat is not always permanent. It might possibly happen 
 that all classes of citizens would help our party back to power. 1 
 
 WHISKEY, WOMEN AND GAMBLING. 
 
 " ' A year ago the Liberals carried Ogden, and soon there reigned 
 such a saturnalia of whiskey, women and gambling, that United 
 States officials were obliged to interfere and enforce police regula- 
 tions. The moral Liberals of Ogden expressed disgust with their 
 own party, and wished the people once more in control.' 
 
161 
 
 ** ' Are not the Mormon Church and People's Party one ? * 
 
 "'Certainly they are not. The idea that they are is circulated 
 for political purposes in order that an enactment against the Church 
 may be used against the party. Membership or affiliation with the 
 Church is not necessary for the People's Party standing or candidacy. ' 
 
 "'Are the Edmunds' and Edmunds and Tucker Acts used for 
 political purposes ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, and that was the cause of the demand by the Liberal party. 
 Anywhere else the political minority is compelled to wait until they 
 can reverse public sentiment, or gain a majority by legislation and 
 accretions of new citizens ; but the Liberals were too impatient for 
 such ordinary methods, and wanted measures which would give them 
 immediate control, and because of the unpopularity of the name of 
 Mormon they have obtained acts disfranchising a large number of 
 citizens, and all the women are now striving under the same cover 
 to get Congressional legislation to take suffrage from every man who 
 is not a member of the Liberal party.' 
 
 GENTILE FRAUDS. 
 
 41 ' What of the rumours of alleged Liberal frauds ? ' 
 
 " ' Fraud and usurpation have been rampant in the legislature, 
 and the election machinery is in the hands of the Liberals. Special 
 registration cars were run on the Colorado line, and gangs of labourers 
 who never saw Salt Lake, were supplied with whiskey and registered. 
 Scores of the People's Party were struck off the lists, and in de- 
 fiance of the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States ; 
 others who have lived here thirty years were challenged on the 
 ground of non-residence ; others who were past forty on the grounds 
 of being under the age of registration, four of whom are candidates 
 on the Liberal ticket. The laws are declared to be supreme, and we 
 are told that we have no redress. Inspector John Bonfield, of 
 Chicago, is here and has exposed their frauds.' " 
 
 Governor Arthur L. Thomas, the most prominent 
 leader of the Liberal party, a resident of Utah for eleven 
 years, and probably the best posted man on territorial 
 affairs, was interviewed as follows : 
 
 " ' Governor, there are rumours that the election to-morrow may 
 precipitate a riot and serious trouble may ensue. What is your 
 opinion ? ' ' 
 
 " ' I am of the opinion that the election will be peaceful. Both 
 parties are working to this end.' 
 
102 
 
 THE GOVERNOR'S VIEWS. 
 
 41 ' How will the result of the election affect statehood ? ' 
 " 'The Gentiles will probably carry the city by 1,000 majority. 
 This place is the most important city in the territory and in Mormon 
 hands. This can have no immediate effect on statehood. It will be 
 some time, probably years, before the Gentiles will control the 
 territory, and Utah should not be admitted as a State until a large 
 majority of her people are in sympathy with the efforts of the 
 Government to extirpate polygamy.' 
 
 " ' Will Gentile success affect the prosperity of Salt Lake City ? ' 
 11 ' Gentile success will mean a large increase in immigration to the 
 city, and consequently an increase in its business and general pros- 
 pects. During the past two years the increase in the Gentile popu- 
 lation has added millions to the value of property. In fact the 
 increase in value for the past two years has been greater than in any 
 previous period in the history of the territory. This is directly due 
 to the Gentile efforts. The Gentiles comprise about two thirds of 
 the business men of the city, and own over sixty per cent, of the 
 assessed value of the property.' 
 
 " What has been prominent in this municipal campaign ? ' 
 
 CITY NEGLECTED AND LAWS VIOLATED. 
 
 11 'There have been many local issues which have become promi- 
 nent questions ; the need of public improvements, of police, and in 
 short the need of the many benefits which a Municipal Government 
 ought to confer. After forty years of Mormon control there is not 
 one paved street in the city ; there are no sidewalks except those 
 laid by private enterprise ; the water supply is limited, though 
 water in abundance can be had if a proper effort is made ; a police- 
 man is never seen two squares from Main street ; and all this is in a 
 city of 50,000 inhabitants. In a larger sense the great overshadow- 
 ing question which dominates in elections, municipal or general, is 
 a vital issue in the campaign, this attitude of the majority of the 
 people toward the Government under which they live. The Gentiles 
 demand that what laws are passed should be applied, and when the 
 Courts of last resort have decided that the laws shall be valid, there 
 should no longer be any controversy respecting them. The law of 
 1862 making polygamy unlawful was flagrantly violated. The same 
 law prohibited any church corporation holding more than fifty 
 thousand dollars worth of property, This was defiantly disregarded, 
 and the Mormon church became a business concern in competition 
 with its own people.' " 
 
103 
 
 WHAT WILL HAPPEN? 
 
 It is extremely difficult to prognosticate as to the 
 future of Mormonism. Like many another faith it has 
 gathered around it many adherents ; and in spite of the 
 amount of self-sacrifice it called for (on the part of 
 women, at least), when polygamy was openly practised, 
 converts poured into the Church and earnestly sought 
 to win over unbelievers. 
 
 This goes to show, at any rate, that no religious creed 
 can claim that the number of its believers and martyrs 
 is any criterion of its divine origin. More solid 
 arguments must be given than this, because it is evident 
 that every time religious faith or superstitious credulity 
 fastens upon the human mind it leads to a corresponding 
 transformation of the life ; and it is at times hard to 
 draw the lines of demarcation between the heathen 
 fanatic and the positive evangelical religionist. 
 
 MUST ANALYSE IT. 
 
 We must test Mormonism in a more rational and 
 logical manner, and see if it is in accord with the highest 
 and best in the Universe. If it is not, we should 
 endeavour to supplant it by a higher ideal, and make 
 the future brighter than the past. 
 
 But we must not forget to cast the silken robe of 
 Charity around those who may have built their house on 
 the treacherous sands, believing the foundation to be a 
 solid rock. 
 
 Bagehot's Theory of the Evolution of Society, in 
 "Physics and Politics," embodies the idea that Discussion 
 was the greater motor-power which induced Progress 
 
after primitive Society had become stagnant through 
 the repressiveness of a ' cake ' of custom. This is 
 pre-eminently an age of discussion, and unless Mormon- 
 ism can submit to the closest scrutiny, as knowledge 
 becomes more diffused, it will, like many another 
 institution, glide into the realms of oblivion. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 11 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, 
 but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 
 
 44 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
 prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils ? 
 and in Thy name done many wonderful works ? 
 
 44 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart 
 from me ye that work iniquity." St. Matthew vii., 15, 22, 23. 
 
 CHATS WITH THE DEAD. 
 
 IN San Francisco there are scores of professional 
 spiritualists. The bulk of them advertise in the daily 
 papers just as tradesmen or theatrical companies do in 
 England. They charge so much per revelation to the 
 credulous believer who wants to know how things are 
 progressing in the other world. It is a most lucrative 
 occupation, and some of the spiritualists hold public 
 seances, at which they predict various impending 
 calamities which will befall the city, and hold conversa- 
 tions with deceased persons, who obligingly send mes- 
 sages to their friends on earth. 
 
 Sometimes ' Annie ' is the one to whom the message 
 is sent, and in all probability there will be about sixteen 
 Annies in different parts of the hall. One of these is 
 almost sure to have a dead brother, a long-lost sister, or 
 some other relative answering to the description of the 
 spiritualist. If so, a great impression is made upon the 
 audience. If not, the medium tries some other name, 
 
until he finds someone who will admit that he is holding 
 communion with a beloved relative. 
 
 This kind of thing makes me sceptical as to the 
 genuineness of the communication between mortals and 
 immortals. I believe that if the veil over the invisible 
 world can be drawn aside, it will be by the pure in heart, 
 and not by those who make their living off the 
 transactions. 
 
 In company with another newspaper reporter I called 
 one evening at the residence of a noted San Francisco 
 trance-medium, and was shown into a dimly-lighted, 
 but handsome room. We were joined presently by 
 three other seekers after truth. One was a tall, fine- 
 looking man of striking physique, well-advanced in 
 years, and with the eyes of a dreamer. The other two 
 were ordinary looking young men, except that one was 
 dressed in mourning and seemed nervous, as if a strong- 
 minded person could have great influence over him. 
 
 OUR PRIVATE SEANCE. 
 
 The door opened, and the lady medium entered. 
 Mrs. Eggert-Aitkin was fair, fat and forty. She was 
 clad in a light blue robe, and was as little ethereal in 
 appearance as a flitch of bacon. However, her tongue 
 was well lubricated, and she had her business at her 
 finger's ends. As she had been a spiritualist for twenty 
 years this was not remarkable. 
 
 She was afraid we should be disappointed, but she 
 would see if the ' conditions ' were favourable. She 
 lowered the lights until we were almost in darkness. 
 We formed a semi-circle around her and joined hands. 
 Mrs. Aitken then worked up the trance part of the 
 
io? 
 
 business. Her body began to tremble, her head shook ; 
 she either feigned nervous excitement or else was really 
 ' moved by the spirits.' At last after some little 
 struggling she began to talk in a high key and somewhat 
 incoherently. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered the old gentleman in the corner, 
 " She is controlled." 
 
 I suppose he had been there before, and knew the 
 symptoms. 
 
 " Take hold of one of her hands," he continued, 
 " and see if she has a message for you." 
 
 I did so ; but she said nothing. 
 
 My friend tried to work the oracle with like result. 
 
 THE VEIL DRAWN ASIDE. 
 
 Then one of the other young men clutched her hand, 
 and she began to tell him a lot of things. Her remarks 
 ran something like this : 
 
 " I see a man, who has grey hair. His name is John. 
 Do you know him ? He knows you. He says he was 
 a friend of yours on earth. Do you recognise him ? " 
 
 The young man says, " Yes." It would have been 
 more curious if he could not remember some friend called 
 John. 
 
 " He tells me," continued the medium, " that you 
 have had trouble of late, and that you are in ill-health. 
 He says, ' Cheer up, and all will come well in time.' 
 He is happy in the other world, and says he will help 
 you all he can." 
 
 The nervous young man was greatly impressed by 
 this, and I again tried if the spirits had any message for 
 me. This time the connection was established, but 
 
io8 
 
 the spiritualist made several very bad guesses as to my 
 health, my relatives, expectations, etc. One or two 
 remarks, of course, were fairly apropos, but it would 
 have been more wonderful if once in a while any 
 shrewd woman's guesses did not hit the mark. The 
 doctrine of probabilities was in her favour in this 
 respect, and when she made a wrong suggestion she 
 adroitly branched off on something else, or murmured 
 some unintelligible words. 
 
 GAMBLING IN HEAVEN. 
 
 At last the grey-haired man secured her hand, and she 
 cried : 
 
 " Ah ! Chief, how are you ? " still in that C sharp 
 key. 
 
 " Well, thank you," he replied. " How are you ? " 
 
 " Happy enough," said she, " it is all right up here. 
 Troubles are all over. Persevere and you will learn 
 more yet. I see Jim Carson is up here." 
 
 " Jim is there, is he ? " asked the dreamy-eyed man, 
 in a solicitous tone. 
 
 " Yes ; you knew Jim, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes, we were great friends. What is he doing 
 up there ? " 
 
 " He's just gone around the corner, hunting up a 
 poker game! " 
 
 This reply staggered me, but the old man only 
 murmured meditatively. 
 
 " Ah ! yes, gambling was always Jim's great failing." 
 
 BEWARE OF FRAUDS. 
 More followed to the same effect, but the foregoing, as 
 
log 
 
 an unvarnished narrative of cold fact, is a sufficient 
 illustration of the extraordinary quackery of these pro- 
 fessional prophets and trance mediums. Each visitor 
 on leaving was expected to pay the woman half-a-dollar, 
 and those of us who had not " sat " before were solicited 
 to come around and see her privately as she would have 
 something important to reveal to us ! 
 
 Some people may be incredulous that such transparent 
 humbug should deceive persons who in other matters 
 exhibit an average amount of intelligence. But the 
 fact that these mediums exist in such numbers and 
 advertise so extensively proves that " all the fools are 
 not dead yet," and that superstition has a powerful hold 
 even on civilized people. 
 
 I do not say that there are no conscientious mediums. 
 Animal magnetism, telepathy, mesmerism and many 
 other curious forces have yet to be explained, and the 
 imagination and credulity of the spiritualists may 
 magnify these into supernatural communications. But to 
 say that the awful and mysterious in nature is going to 
 be revealed to a mercenary charlatan who retails her 
 visions at half-a-dollar a head, is to me the height of 
 the ridiculous, if not of the blasphemous. 
 
 IS SAUL AMONG THE PROPHETS ? 
 
 The fact that so many frauds exist should make us 
 extremely cautious as to assenting to the doctrines or 
 divine authority of any new prophet. Mahomet, Sweden- 
 borg, and others, have professed to have been inspired, 
 and we should regard the claims of Joseph Smith as 
 critically as those of any other man who has ever sought 
 to draw people unto him and be their king. The Mor- 
 
110 
 
 iimn-. revere ' imith, and a< . redil him u iih heinj; .1 most 
 ..niilly in. in. Mr., /in. i YMIIII",, who Knew him, 
 1 1 1 1 . \ c i . i < > 1 1 n| In. . 1 1 1 1 . i . Id ; lull < 1 1 1 ( r . I < . 1 1 1 v 1 1 > .in 
 entirely diHeient stale ol l.nls. ll is impoitanl ih.il 
 (he evidence m Imlli sides '.hould !>< weighed dr. p.p. 
 sion.ilely. We '.In MI Id endea vom lo disi ovei his motives 
 in establishing (he Mormon ehnreh " h.m all ih<- l.n r. 
 and < in umslanees sni i oundin;; the 'ase " as the judges 
 ..\\ in ih< u ( haij;e to ihe |uiy. If he willully pia tised 
 de< epi i( MI, I he UK u e widely the (arts ai e circulated the 
 less onverts will he made to the religion, 
 
 In ! i iKin;; i -out last with I he charactei ol |ose|>h 
 ! .mil h, as delineated lv M i s. . ma N oun;;, i:; I he '.Kel h 
 I IIP. hi',lM\ .u id aii i unit >l the divine oii|;ill "I the 
 Id I'l.ile 1 ., ;;i\<'n in Mr.. Stenhonse's \voik. l >he 
 r.ays : " The Immdei, Joseph ^^nlllh, was a man of 
 ohseme 01 i|;in, and il we m.i\ heli< % ve iheleslimony "' 
 his ' ( "-nl ile ' neighbours, of a mosl di-.i e|>n!ahle 
 , h.ti.i. lei \. . oidin;; I" the statement .! his h lends, 
 ahonl i he \ eai iS,o 01 i : - i he < ame nndei ihe inllnen. < 
 ol some levival meeliii!'/., . .Midu led hy the I Meshy 
 lei i. or.. I lap! ists, and \\Vsli \ aiJS, UlldcM \\ hi. h he \\ US 
 i, .illy e\ei isetl m mind, hill i onld not d(-leimme 
 \\hi. h > I ID join. In In-, hew ildei men! he^;ave him'. ell 
 up to piayei lh.it the h nlh nn:;hl he ie\ ealed lo him, 
 When one da) \\ lule ., en-a-ed, he '.I ale'- he : .a \\ a \ el \ 
 IM i- hi and fjoiit)ns h;dil m I he heavens, whi< h des< ended 
 to (he eailh and enveloped him in it 1 - mid 1 . 1, \\heu he 
 sa \y t \\ > idoi ions per.onaiM".. \\lio e\.ii il\ resembled 
 . M, li ol hei milieu lea t m es a nd likeness. . \llei mloim 
 m:; him that hi;; sins weie loi;i\en, ihey told him that 
 ol (he seels weie the true Oivuxh ol (ioil, ami lie 
 
1 1 1 
 
 vv.is IK>| lo ",M .1 1 lei I IK M 11, I Mil I I i.i I MI i li ic I line I lie full i (/. 
 o! Ihr ( iospel should he ie\ c.ded Mill- him. 
 
 " < hi ' .cpleinhcl .'I 1 . 1, I S.' \, In' alleged lli.il hell. id. i 
 
 ,(((. ml vision, in which (he IKMT.C seemed lo he filled 
 
 \\ | | I | III c, ell \Y I .1 p| MM" . I J'Jol iotIS pel '.i Hi.l "c, \\ h. M |< . I.i I , , | 
 linir.cll (o he .ill .il);;e| ol (io<l, ,lll<l who '.I. lied (hat 
 
 ( iod's o\cii.ini \\iih I lisam icnl people h, i,K-l was ahoul 
 lo he hillillcd ; lli.i! (he piep.ii.ihM y W oilv loi !hc ., ond 
 
 IV nl Ihr Mr 1 ,', I. ill Was .ihonl l> < MM 1 1 1 ir 1 1 r , .ill. I 
 
 lli il IK ('.niilh) waM l<> hr llir 1 1 r ,1 I 1 1 1 1 K 1 1 1 in lln li.illd <)1 
 ( iod (o hi i M" . 1 1 >< Mil M Hiir ol Mr. mai vrlloii:; pm po-.e-. m 
 (hi:; !< M<>M (|i:j)( t n:<alioi), lie wan lurlhei IM|<>IIM<I| 
 I ha I the N in lli A MIC IK, MI Indians \\ i < . i iciiui.iiit ol 
 !. i .id, \\ ho upon I hen In ,l arrival m \ mei ica, j >< >.-.< , , | 
 
 .1 I IK >\\lc< |"< i >| MIC I I in < i()d, ( M |< >\cd III, I.i v< MI , .1 IK I 1 1, id 
 > . ml iiiiici I revelations nnhl Ihcy \\.IIK|(|('| hoiii Mini, 
 v . I ic 1 1 they weie hl'oil^hl d\vn and inany ol I IK in 
 deshoye<l; l-ul ihe re< olds ol Ihe levelalions had hreii 
 |>i( ,( i\(d .IIK! weie no\v hidden, .ind il l.iilhlnl he \'>ul.| 
 In the iir.liiniK ill who ',1 KM i hi I MIII." I hei 1 1 he | ore I IK 
 woild. I >m in;', I ha I ni;dil a IK I Ihe l >ll< .\\iii" MM MM in- he 
 h.id ,( \ei;d olhei \i .KMT , ID \\lin h he vv.e, iir.liin l< l hi 
 |' ( |o (he |'I.M e \vhele liny \ve|e hidden and View llielll. 
 lie i i -palled lo I lie Mill ( 'llllllllOl a II, Heal I '.dniyi .1 , New 
 ', .,1 I , where IK- IIMIIK! I IK I iea:,iii< s in .1 slone < hesl, l.ul 
 w.r. pi < -hi I M! ' < I I y I h aii|;el, ( who a< < onlin;; lo his jilale 
 
 MM Ml, .C'.IMI ap|)eaied,j II-MII IMIK hill" MM Ml, IM IM" 
 
 Mil-nil' d Ih.il Ihey \v< ic only lo IM <>|i|. lined hy pi.iyi i 
 :ind I. ill hi nine',', in ohcyiM" Mie Lo| ( |. l''oin yi.ir, l.il< i, 
 on Se p| en i he i .'..'.ml, i ."..'/, MK aii|;i I deli v< n-d I IK in old:; 
 inlo his hands." 
 
 The leroids weie said <" I" eiij',iav( d oil f.old pl.ile:,, 
 
112 
 
 from seven to eight inches in width and length, being 
 not quite as thick as common tin. With them was found 
 an instrument, consisting of two clear crystals set in the 
 two rims of a bow like a pair of spectacles, called the 
 Urim and Thummin, which had the wonderful property 
 of enabling the wearer to translate the plates, to see any 
 distance, and to obtain revelations upon every kind of 
 subject he desired. 
 
 According to Orson Pratt, " The plates were filled on 
 both sides with engravings in Egyptian characters, and 
 bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, and 
 fastened at one edge with three rings running through 
 the whole. The volume was something near six inches 
 in thickness, a part of which was sealed." A facsimile 
 of three lines was published several years before Smith's 
 death in " The Prophet," a Mormon journal, but instead of 
 the characters being Egyptian, they were the pure inven- 
 tion of some ignorant person, and bear no resemblance 
 to any ancient writings whatever. It is one of those 
 self-evident frauds by which an ignorant impostor is 
 almost sure to expose himself sooner or later. 
 
 When Smith lyingly affirmed that these records had 
 been placed in his hands by the angel, several attempts 
 were made to rob him of them, which, although unsuc- 
 cessful, caused him so much trouble that he left his home 
 and settled in Pennsylvania. From December, 1827, t 
 February, 1828, he translated several of the plates by 
 means of the so-called Urim and Thummin, which, with 
 a copy of the characters, he sent by his friend, Martin 
 Harris, to Professor Anthon, of New York, a celebrated 
 classical scholar and Egyptologist. Harris states that 
 the Professor pronounced the characters to be Egyptian, 
 
H3 
 
 Chaldaic, Assyrian, and Arabic, and that he entirely 
 approved of his translation. The Professor, however, 
 in a letter dated January lyth, 1834, distinctly denies 
 having seen a translation of any kind, and asserts that 
 the characters which Harris showed him were anything 
 but Egyptian. Mr. Anthon says in this letter that the 
 copy exhibited by Harris contained characters arranged 
 in columns, imitating Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses, 
 flourishes, Roman letters inverted ; and that these 
 columns were terminated by a clumsily-drawn circle, 
 divided into several compartments decked with various 
 strange marks, evidently copied from the Mexican calen- 
 dar given by Humboldt, but so copied as to conceal the 
 source from which it was taken. 
 
 " Harris, upon his return, commenced his functions as 
 secretary to Smith, and while separated from him by a 
 curtain, so as not to see the plates, he copied out what 
 the translator read by means of the Urim and 
 Thummin. When he had thus written out 116 pages, 
 he obtained permission to take away his copy to read to 
 his wife and some other persons pointed out by special 
 revelation, but by the connivance of his wife he was 
 robbed of it, and this portion of the manuscript was for 
 ever lost to the Mormon prophet. 
 
 " It would naturally occur to anyone that with his 
 constant visits from the angels, and with the supernatural 
 powers of the Urim and Thummin, there would have 
 been no difficulty in getting another translation of the 
 lost manuscript, especially as the original plates were 
 still in his possession ; but no, he received a special 
 revelation warning him to avoid the attacks of the 
 
 wicked, who would not fail to compare the new trans- 
 
 i 
 
lation with that which had been stolen, and to signal out 
 any discrepancies between them ; to prevent which he 
 was to abstain from re-translating the stolen part. A 
 neat way this to escape the detection of an imposture, 
 but scarcely a way out of a difficulty that we should 
 expect from a heavenly messenger. 
 
 " The translation was continued ; and during its 
 progress the plates were by special revelation shown 
 first to three witnesses in a vision ; and afterwards the 
 identical plates were shown by Smith to eight others, 
 and were by them handled and examined. The transla- 
 tion was completed in March, 1830, upon which a revela- 
 tion was made to Joseph Smith commanding Martin 
 Harris, under pain of damnation, to sell his effects to 
 cover the expenses of its publication. 
 
 " Such in brief is a history of the Book of Mormon, 
 and indeed of the origin of Mormonism. It is easy to 
 see that having begun this religion with forged 
 revelations, it was necessary to support it with others of 
 a similar character. Thus Smith was always receiving 
 alleged Divine messages, and those who had accepted 
 the first lie could not but regard the voice of such a man 
 as the voice of God, to disobey which was a deadly sin. 
 This gave him an authority and power that his suc- 
 cessor, Brigham Young, was not willing to forego, but 
 to possess which he also must have revelations. They 
 came at his bidding, and notwithstanding the events 
 proved many of them false, still the people were so 
 deluded by believing the first lie, that they accepted any 
 explanation rather than acknowledge that they had been 
 deceived by a false prophet." 
 
 The Rev. Alfred Rowland, LL.B., in a fair sketch of 
 
" Mormonism As It Is," in the " Leisure Hour," gives 
 the following interesting account of the contents of the 
 Book of Mormon, together with remarks on the author- 
 ship of the work : 
 
 AN < INSPIRED' ROMANCE. 
 
 Another writer says : 
 
 " The plates were said to contain an account of the 
 primitive history of America, from the time of the 
 settlement in that country of a colony from the Tower 
 of Babel, down to the beginning of the fifth century of 
 the Christian era. These colonists, called Jaredites, 
 were a wicked race, who finally were extinguished by 
 mutual slaughter, like Kilkenny cats. But about 600 
 B.C., another band of settlers came from Jerusalem, 
 consisting of Lehi and his wife, their four sons with 
 their four wives, and a few others, making a party of 
 sixteen men and women altogether. When Lehi died 
 there was a quarrel for supremacy among his sons, of 
 whom Nephi was divinely appointed. The descendants 
 of those who refused to recognise him were cursed with 
 dark skins, and condemned to be * an idle people, full of 
 mischief and subtlety, which did seek in the wilderness 
 for beasts of prey.' In other words these bad Hebrews 
 were the ancestors of the North American Indians. In 
 the time of Nephi II. three days after the crucifixion 
 on Calvary, which was accompanied by an earthquake 
 which shook the western world the Lord Jesus 
 appeared from Heaven among the Nephites, and many 
 of them believed in Him. The two races, however, 
 continued hostile until in A.D. 384 a dreadful battle was 
 fought a kind of Armageddon in which the Christian 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 
 
 Nephites were almost annihilated. But one of their 
 prophets, named Mormon, had shortly before written an 
 abridgment of their prophecies, histories, etc., which 
 Moroni, one of the few survivors of the battle, hid in 
 the Hill Cummorah in A.D. 420, and there they lay buried 
 until they were revealed to Joseph Smith, who was to 
 unite them with the Bible for the benefit of the Saints 
 in these Latter Days. The famous Book of Mormon is 
 a translation of these records which was made by Joseph 
 Smith, with the aid of his Urim and Thummin ; he 
 sitting behind a blanket while he dictated to Oliver 
 Cowdery. This witness and two others declared that 
 an angel showed them the original plates ; and shortly 
 afterwards eight other persons, three being members of 
 Smith's family, and by no means blameless in reputation, 
 gave similar testimony. Beyond this there is no 
 evidence whatever that the plates ever existed ; while on 
 the other hand there is reason to believe that, with the 
 exception of a few ungrammatical interpolations, the 
 Book of Mormon was stolen from a MS. romance, written 
 by a clergyman named Solomon Spalding, who died in 
 1816." 
 
 IMPUDENT AND CUNNING. 
 
 Peter Cartwright, the famous Methodist Episcopal 
 travelling preacher, writing of a meeting he had once 
 with Joseph Smith, states : " I found him to be a 
 very illiterate and impudent desperado in morals, but at 
 the same time he had a vast fund of low cunning." 
 According to Cartwright, Smith flattered him, and 
 sought to induce him to claim the gift of tongues, 
 prophesy, and laying on of hands, as the Mormons had 
 
done. Peter, however, roundly abused the Prophet, and 
 claimed that the Saints were hypocritical frauds. He 
 adds that when Joseph Smith was a candidate for the 
 Presidency of the United States almost every infidel in 
 the country voted for him. He would not have been 
 assassinated had not he and his followers burnt hay 
 stacks and plundered people before he was thrown into 
 Carthage Gaol. Joseph told Peter that he would rule a 
 people which would overthrow the Government of the 
 United States, and uprear a church which would 
 supersede every religious body in the Nation." 
 
 An article in " Tit-Bits" on " Persons who profess to 
 be inspired," thus comments on this book of Mormon: 
 Next to Swedenborg should, perhaps, be ranked Joseph 
 Smith, the founder of the Mormon sect, which has suc- 
 ceeded in making converts in every corner of the globe. 
 In 1823 Smith announced that he had had a vision of 
 an angel of God, and four years later he declared that 
 the same angel had given him a book, written in 
 Egyptian characters on thin gold plates, which was the 
 composition of a prophet whom he called Mormon. It 
 was afterwards proved that the book had been written 
 by a clergyman named Spalding; but Smith's preten- 
 sions were still believed in by a large number of people, 
 who gradually gathered around them a large following, 
 with the result now known." 
 
 Following is the testimony of witnesses to the book of 
 Mormon : 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES. Be it known unto all 
 nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall 
 come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, 
 which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, 
 their brethren, and also of the people of Jarad, who came from the 
 
n8 
 
 tower of which had been spoken ; and we also know that they have 
 been translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath 
 declared it unto us ; wherefore we know of a surety that the work 
 is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which 
 are upon the plates ; and they have been shewn unto us by the 
 power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of 
 soberness, that an angel of God came down from Heaven, and he 
 brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, 
 and the engravings thereon ; and we know that it is by the grace of 
 God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and 
 bear record that these things are true ; and it is marvellous in our 
 eyes, nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we 
 should bear record of it ; wherefore, to be obedient unto the com- 
 mandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we 
 know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of 
 the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment- 
 seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens. 
 And the honour be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost, which is one God. Amen. Oliver Cowdery, David 
 Whitmer, Martin Harris. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "And the multitude of them that believed were of one fieart and 
 of one soul ; neither said any of them that ought of the things 
 which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things in 
 common." Acts iv. 32. 
 
 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 
 
 WHATEVER vices or low ideas of morality may 
 have crept into the Mormon religion of late 
 years, it appears to have been one of the purest re- 
 ligions in early days. The editor of the San Francisco 
 " Argonant," describing the contrast between a modern 
 six-day's trans-continental trip in a Pullman car, with 
 a journey made on mule back and in ox waggons through 
 the States (which occupied five months from the time 
 when he left New York, May ist, 1849, until he 
 reached San Francisco) pays this tribute to the first 
 settlers in Salt Lake City: "At the great city of the 
 Salt Lake, we came upon the pioneer Mormons, camp- 
 ing in their covered waggons, amid corn fields just 
 in the tassel, worshipping in a temple of boughs. 
 Polygamy was not then acknowledged. It was a primi- 
 tive church, with such primitive virtues as sobriety, 
 industry, and honesty. There was a common field for a 
 common granary, and communism was a feature of the 
 primitive Christian church. Tithes were paid for the 
 support of the priesthood-^the same custom prevails in 
 the Church of England to-day. Ignorance, bigotry, and 
 
121 
 
 disloyalty are charged against the Mormons these are 
 among the religious virtues which adorn the oldest of 
 the hierarchical organisations. Polygamy is a crime 
 against the law, made a crime by law, and it is in mode 
 to denounce it, and yet it is historically venerable, by all 
 ancient religions sanctioned." 
 
 MORMONS IN CANADA. 
 
 One American paper says that " Canada has been 
 more thrifty than wise in dealing with Mormonism. She 
 rather encouraged a Mormon emigration to the North- 
 west, and it is evident that all the undesirable pecu- 
 liarities of the Church which have made its existence in 
 the United States a political and moral curse, are as 
 fully developed in its Canadian offshoot as in Utah. One 
 of its Canadian leaders has publicly declared that 
 polygamy will be openly practiced, as it is now secretly 
 a feature of life among the Mormons of our own 
 territory." 
 
 EXTENDING THEIR TERRITORY. 
 
 Another paper has the following news-item respecting 
 the extension of Mormon territory : " Calgary (N.W.T.), 
 November 18, 1889. There is considerable excitement 
 among the authorities at Lethbridge and Fort McLeod 
 over the advent of a large party of Mormons from Salt 
 Lake City. The party includes President Woodruff, of 
 the Mormon Church, George Q. Cannon, late Delegate 
 in Congress from Utah, Brigham Young, Jun., and 
 Bishop Smith, nephew of the Mormon prophet, Joseph 
 Smith. 
 
122 
 
 " Their unexpected visit is for the purpose of inspect- 
 ing the workings of the Mormon colony near Fort McLeod, 
 and to make arrangements for providing homes for 
 several thousand Latter Day Saints, some of whom are 
 now en route from Europe. 
 
 " President Woodruff states that, owing to the perse- 
 cution of Mormons by the United States authorities in 
 Arizona, it has been decided to make a partial change 
 of base, and next spring thousands of Mormons now 
 residing in Utah and Arizona will remove to the North- 
 west Territory. Several colonies will be established in 
 Assinaboine and Alberta, all tributary to the one at Fort 
 McLeod, where all the doctrines of the Mormon faith, 
 including polygamy, will be taught and practised. 
 
 " The colony at Fort McLeod is under the superinten- 
 dency of a former member of the British Columbia 
 Legislature, who resigned his seat in that body to become 
 a Mormon Bishop." 
 
 MORMONISM IN OGDEN. 
 
 On looking over an old note-book, I find an account of 
 an interview I had with a Mormon woman in July, 1887, 
 while passing through Utah on my way to California. 
 My notes read as follows : 
 
 When we reached Ogden we had to wait several hours 
 for the next train to San Francisco, and I utilised part 
 of the time in strolling around the town. I walked down 
 an avenue shaded by trees with thickly clustering foliage, 
 and sat on a bench to rest, as the weather was very hot, 
 and the dust thick on the roads. A lady happened to be 
 standing in her gateway, and I soon entered into conver- 
 sation with her, She said she came to Ogden about five 
 
123 
 
 years ago. She was a Mormon, and so was her husband ; 
 in fact his family had joined the Church before they left 
 England. I asked her if polygamy was still practised 
 in that town. She said, " Some of the men in Ogden 
 have four or five wives, but are not allowed to live with 
 them, and are constantly watched by the police, and if 
 detected are put in the penitentiary." 
 
 " Did the Mormons live happily together before the 
 prohibitory law was passed ? " I asked. 
 
 " Generally speaking, they did," she replied. " It is a 
 rule for Mormons to ask the first wife if she is agreeable 
 to their taking another, and if not they would not marry 
 again. There are, of course, exceptions, as there would 
 be in any community. The object of the Mormons in 
 marrying more than one wife is that all women should 
 have husbands, and this is necessary as there are more 
 women than men in the world." 
 
 NOT A GOOD SAINT. 
 
 When pressed on the matter she said she did not know 
 whether she believed in polygamy or not, and could not 
 say what she would do if her husband desired to bring 
 another woman into the house and the law would not 
 prevent him. She said, " A good Mormon lady would 
 consent, but I am afraid that I am not good at all. The 
 Mormons believe that Joseph Smith saw an angel who 
 inspired him to do as he did. The Mormons accept 
 the doctrines of Christ, and found their practises on the 
 Bible record of Solomon and his wives. I cannot 
 understand all about it, but the Elders of the Church 
 could argue with you, and explain things, as they are 
 wiser than I am. The Mormons believe in a future life 
 
I2 4 
 
 and that they will be rewarded, for one thing, for 
 marrying more than one wife." 
 
 ANGELS OR BEASTS. 
 
 I said it seemed to me that either the Mormon women 
 were angels or beasts to forgive their husband's desire 
 to live with other women. 
 
 "They are angels," she replied, "and you will not 
 find any in Ogden who will come under the description 
 of beasts." 
 
 I referred to the defective civilisation of olden times, 
 and asked her what she had to say in reply to the old 
 argument that the Israelites were in a backward state ; 
 and that polygamy was permitted because the people 
 were not capable of understanding and carrying out the 
 whole of God's desires and commands. 
 
 She only replied that she thought it more honourable 
 to have more than one wife and let the world know it, 
 than to go with other women and deceive one's wife and 
 the world. There were a good many Gentiles in Ogden, 
 she said, and the Mormons had no liberty now, but 
 they will deserve and inherit greater happiness in a 
 future life. 
 
 COARSE VIEWS OF A WOMAN. 
 
 While travelling by train a few days ago I engaged in 
 conversation with a gentleman who said that he had 
 seen one of Brigham Young's widows, who went by the 
 name of Alice, in Denver, Colorado, and was a woman 
 of most disreputable character. " She lectured against 
 Mormonism while there about seven years ago, and the 
 main objection she raised against it was that women in 
 
Salt Lake City did not have sufficient marital pleasure 
 under a polygamous system. She was given to gross 
 indulgence of her animal feelings, and consequently her 
 abuse of Mormonism rather elevated the system than 
 degraded it." The character of the witness is one of the 
 most important elements in a criminal case, and the 
 good must not be condemned by the testimony of the 
 evil. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGE THE GOOD. 
 
 A writer from Salt Lake City, named Charles Ellis, in 
 an article on "The Iniquities of Polygamy," published in 
 the " Detroit Free Press " a few months ago, utters some 
 well-considered and unprejudiced remarks. He says : 
 " The most bitter denunciation of Mormons and poly- 
 gamy to which I listened came from a woman whose 
 face was a proclamation of the beast of passion, and 
 she was the wife of an apostate Mormon, who was one 
 of the most ignorant men I ever met. I found him so 
 bitter against the Mormons that I took the trouble to 
 trace his record, and found that he was an untruthful and 
 unprincipled man, who was not better, but worse, than 
 the people he denounced. In leaving the Church he 
 sank below it. This peculiarity is true of people who 
 leave other churches. There are two ways of getting out 
 of a church. One is to grow out of it, the other to fall 
 out ; to go through the roof because it is not large enough 
 to contain you, or to go out through the cellar because 
 you have fallen through the floor. The first have nothing 
 bad to say of their old social and religious home ; the 
 last nothing good. When we hear denunciation of any 
 system it is well to bear this in mind. The evils of 
 
126 
 
 Mormonism cannot be cured by abusing Mormons. Let 
 us acknowledge the good among them, and, by en- 
 couraging it, help them to outgrow the evil. That there 
 is good one needs only to be an honest observer and a 
 truthful reader to see. The entanglements of relation- 
 ship, and that brutal proxy marriage, are things of the 
 past. Even the Mormon people will not encourage 
 them. They will never be repeated. God lives and 
 grows in the minds and hearts of men and women. It 
 will not be long before the virtues of this modern 
 theological melee of ancient barbarisms will have out- 
 grown the vices ; and then we shall all see that 
 Mormonism, whatever its origin, has it place and its 
 rights in a free country." 
 
 MORMON HYMNS. 
 
 No. 325 in the hymn book used in the Tabernacle : 
 
 " Hail to the Prophet ascended to Heaven, 
 
 Traitors and tyrants now fighting in vain, 
 Mingling with gods he can plan for his brethren, 
 
 Death cannot conquer the hero again ! 
 Great is his glory and endlesss his priesthood, 
 
 Ever and ever the keys he will hold, 
 Faithful and true he will enter his kingdom, 
 
 Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old." 
 CHORUS Hail to the prophet, etc. 
 
 The following hymn was composed in commemoration 
 of the repulse of the Federal troops by " The Warriors 
 of Zion," and was sung in the Tabernacle during a 
 Sunday service, after the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper : 
 
 " Old Sam has sent, I understand, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah ! 
 A Missouri ass to rule our land, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah, day ! 
 
127 
 
 But if he comes we'll have some fun, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah ! 
 To see him and his juries run, 
 Du dah ! Du dah, day ! 
 CHORUS Then let us be on hand, 
 
 By Brigham Young to stand, 
 And if our enemies do appear, 
 
 We'll sweep them off the land. 
 Old squaw-killer Harney is on the way, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah ! 
 The Mormon people for to slay, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah, day ! 
 Now if he comes the truth I'll tell, 
 
 Du dah ! Du dah ! 
 
 Our boys will drive him down to hell, 
 Dudah! Du dah, day!" 
 
 Following is the chorus of one of the numerous hymns 
 emphasising the duty of paying tithes. It is sung to 
 the tune of " The King of the Cannibal Islands" : 
 
 11 Then if to prosper you desire, 
 And wish to keep out of the fire 
 Nay, if you to be saints aspire, 
 Come forward and pay your tithing." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " Phoenix The fabulous bird which is said to exist single, and to 
 rise again from its own ashes ; hence used as an emblem of 
 immortality." 
 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 WILL POLYGAMY BE RESURRECTED? 
 
 IS polygamy still practised by the Mormons, and will 
 it be perpetuated ? 
 
 This is an important question. We know that the 
 doctrine of plural marriage is still tenaciously held by 
 the Latter Day Saints, and advocated whenever the 
 opportunity is afforded them. On the other hand, the 
 Mormons change their base according to circumstances, 
 and affirm, when officially interrogated, that the practice 
 of polygamy is a thing of the past. Our Mormon guide 
 said there had been over nine hundred convictions since 
 the passage of the Edmunds Bill, making it a criminal 
 offence to live with more than the first wife. This 
 proves that the officers of the law are adopting stringent 
 measures to make the decision of the Federal Govern- 
 ment effective, and that it is extremely difficult for a 
 man to violate the law and escape the penalty. 
 
 I have said elsewhere that the Mormons desire to be 
 admitted to Statehood, so that they can make their own 
 laws. It is to their interest, therefore (looking at it 
 from an unscrupulous standpoint), to convince the 
 Government that the people of Utah are law-abiding 
 
129 
 
 citizens ; and as a matter of fact they do argue on these 
 lines whenever the question of Utah's admission to the 
 rights of Statehood is discussed. 
 
 THE MAIN-SPRING. 
 
 A single conversation with a conscientious Mormon 
 lady is sufficient to convince an unprejudiced inquirer 
 that polygamy is one of the main points of their 
 doctrine. If this is eliminated the rest of the religion 
 varies but little from orthodox Christianity. I do not 
 for a moment think that the generality of Mormons 
 believe such rubbish as that * Adam was a God,' or in short 
 hold any other creeds than those printed and published 
 to the world. A few of the priests may have preached 
 differently, but they do not constitute the whole of the 
 Mormon Church. If then, the teaching that plural 
 marriage is heaven ordained, be abandoned, the Mormon 
 faith in Joseph Smith must necessarily be shaken at its 
 foundation ; and the teachers could not proselytise with 
 any degree of success. 
 
 My opinion is that as long as the belief in the divine 
 mission of the founder of their sect continues, so long 
 will polygamy be a part of the Mormon religion ; and 
 this probability must be faced by the people of the 
 United States if any legislative change is contemplated. 
 
 This is a burning matter with the dwellers in Utah 
 Territory, and Congress has been frequently importuned 
 to give the Mormons the same rights and privileges as 
 are accorded to almost all other people on the American 
 continent. 
 
 A NATIONAL ENQUIRY. 
 
 I extract a synopsis of the Report of the Congressional 
 
130 
 
 Committee on Territories in regard to Utah being 
 admitted as a State into the Union ; taken from Aunt 
 Em's " Woman's Exponent," of March i5th, 1889 : 
 
 "It commences by setting forth the doctrine that when Congress 
 organises a Territory and provides a Territorial Government for the 
 people therein, it is with the implication that they shall have a State 
 Government, and it is with this promise held out to them that they 
 occupy and develop the public domain ; and their right to a State 
 Government cannot be denied, when the proper conditions are 
 fulfilled, without bad faith on the part of Congress, unless there are 
 circumstances that relieve Congress from a duty that would other- 
 wise be imperative. 
 
 "The conditions in Utah are then set forth, and the statements 
 made by the gentlemen who appeared before the Committee in behalf 
 of Utah's admission are virtually adopted by the Committee as in- 
 controvertible facts. The area, population, products, manufactures, 
 mining interests, schools, churches, moral status of the people, 
 finance of the Territory, etc., are given with details and statistics 
 that are of great value in a public document of this character, with 
 the deduction that the conditions exist which entitle Utah to 
 admission as a State, and that it is of national importance that Utah 
 should have a State Government. 
 
 "Then follow the objections, which are first, 'The existence of 
 polygamy ; ' second, ' The power and teachings of the Mormon 
 Church on that subject : ' Discussing these and summing the matter 
 up, it resolves itself in this form, ' Whether a Territory will be 
 excluded from the Union for opinions entertained by a majority of 
 the people ; ' and also the question, ' Whether polygamy is by the 
 Mormon Church made mandatory or permissive.' The statements 
 on both sides are fairly presented in brief, and it is made clear that 
 the Utah Legislature never established polygamy, and that the large 
 majority of the people have never practised it. 
 
 "The Committee leave the dispute to the consideration of the 
 House, with the plain reference that on a simple question of belief, 
 Congress will not attempt to decide, and that the members of a 
 society or sect ought to know better than their opponents what their 
 true belief is on any article of their creed, also that this cannot well 
 be made a basis of legislation. That Congress would hardly under- 
 take to legislate in regard to a belief that was avowed; certainly 
 would not venture so far as to act against, or because of, a belief that 
 is disputed." 
 
 WILL MAKE IT A CRIME. 
 The provisions of the new Constitution for Utah on 
 
this question are thus considered, and also " the powers 
 of Congress after admission." The document concludes 
 with the following : 
 
 "Notwithstanding, and in view of the fact that the present Con- 
 gress is soon to expire, and probably without opportunity on the part 
 of the House to consider this subject, your Committee deem it just 
 to all parties concerned to present to the House the condition of 
 Utah as to population, resources, development, schools, etc., and 
 the extent to which polygamy exists as above set forth ; together with 
 the respective contentions as to the doctrines of the Mormon Church, 
 and the good faith of the Mormon element in respect of the offer 
 to make polygamy a crime by a constitutional provision, not repeal- 
 able except with the consent of Congress. 
 
 "The indications are certainly very strong that in the distant 
 future, polygamy, in fact, will have ceased to exist, and when that 
 time arrives, if not sooner admitted, the question will have to be met, 
 whether Congress will exclude Utah as a State because a majority 
 of the people are members of the Mormon Church. 
 
 " Having thus presented the situation as disclosed at the hearing, 
 the Bill is reported back, with the recommendation that it be placed 
 on the calendar for consideration and action thereon by the House. 
 
 "From the report of this Committee one would naturally be led 
 to the conclusion that Utah would be admitted into the Union of 
 States in the near future. Great credit is due to the Committee from 
 Utah who have laboured so energetically to present the claims of 
 the Territory to the President and to the Congress of the United 
 States, and to the Honourable Delegate whose views and opinions on 
 this subject have been so ably set forth. 
 
 " The people should not slacken their efforts because the situation 
 of affairs seems more propitious, but still persist in the endeavour to 
 obtain that to which Utah is justly entitled. Perhaps after along 
 series of importunities it may be, like the story of the woman in 
 Scripture, importuning the unjust judge, who granted her prayer at 
 last because he was wearied by her persistency." 
 
 THE SWEET BY AND BY. 
 
 This is indeed a most favourable and sanguine report, 
 but the sentiment of the American people as a whole is 
 not so favourable to the Mormons. They assert that 
 when once Utah is admitted to Statehood she will re- 
 establish the practice of polygamy. This, of course, is 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 the reverse of what the Latter Day Saints state they are 
 willing to promise, as is seen from the report. 
 
 How far the Mormons may be trusted in their promises 
 is problematic, as, like the Jesuits, they appear to con- 
 sider the end justifies the means. Ex-president John 
 Taylor when doing missionary work in France denied 
 that the Saints practised polygamy, although he had 
 five wives at home. Mr. Rowland offers a sensible 
 solution of the Statehood difficulty by advocating 
 national regulation of laws respecting marriage and 
 divorce, which now widely vary in the different States, 
 so that Utah might don the robe of Statehood, and still 
 be subject to regulations prohibiting polygamy. 
 
 Both the American and National Bar Associations 
 are agreed as to the expediency of Uniformity in the 
 Marriage and Divorce Laws. These two Federal Associa- 
 tions are endeavouring to bring about this most desirable 
 Reform, as well as the International Codification of the 
 leading principles of the laws of nations, such as arbitra- 
 tion, maritime rules and regulations, and criminal 
 extradition, with a view of uniform and enforced comity 
 among the civilised and commercial nations of the 
 world. 
 
 Extract from the Revelation given to Joseph Smith, at 
 Nauvoo, July nth, 1843. 
 
 " And again, I say, let not My servant Joseph put his property out 
 of his hands, lest an enemy come and destroy him for Satan seeketh 
 to destroy for I am the Lord thy God, and he is My servant ; and 
 behold ! and lo, I am with him, as I was with Abraham thy father, 
 even unto his exaltation and glory. 
 
 "Now, as touching the law of the priesthood, there are many 
 things pertaining thereunto. Verily, if a man be called of My 
 Father, as was Aaron, by Mine own voice, and by the voice of Him 
 that sent Me, and I have endowed him with the keys of the power 
 of this priesthood, if he do any thing in My name, and according to 
 
33 
 
 My law, and by My word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify 
 him. Let no one, therefore, set on My servant Joseph, for I will 
 justify him ; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his 
 hands, for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God. 
 
 "And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood; if any 
 man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the 
 first give her consent ; and if he espouse the second, and they are 
 virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified ; he 
 cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him ; for he cannot 
 commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him, and to none 
 else ; and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he can- 
 not commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given 
 unto him ; therefore is he justified. But if one or either of the ten 
 virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has 
 committed adultery, and shall be destroyed ; for they are given unto 
 him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my command- 
 ment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by My Father before 
 the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal 
 worlds, that they may bear the souls of men ; for herein is the work 
 of My Father continued, that he may be glorified. 
 
 " And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife 
 who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law 
 of My priesthood as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe 
 and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord 
 your God ; for I will destroy her ; for I will magnify My name upon 
 all those who receive and abide in My law. Therefore it shall be lawful 
 in me, if she receive not this law, for him to receive all things what- 
 soever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because she did not 
 believe and administer unto him according to My word ; and she then 
 becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, 
 who administered unto Abraham according to the law, when I com- 
 manded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. And now, as pertaining to 
 this law, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you 
 hereafter, therefore let this suffice for the present. Behold ! I am 
 Alpha and Omega. AMEN." 
 
 This communication on the subject of what is called 
 " The Patriarchal Order of Matrimony," was made 
 twenty-three years after the first revelation ; and nine 
 years more passed before this secret revelation was 
 publicly proclaimed. On August 2gth, 1852, Brigham 
 Young produced in a public meeting in Salt Lake City, a 
 copy of this revelation, said to have been made to 
 Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, in which he was commanded 
 
134 
 
 to take as many wives as God should give him. In 
 justice to Emma, wife and widow of Joseph Smith, it 
 should be stated that she denied he had any wife but 
 herself, and declared that Brigham Young's ' new ' 
 revelation was a fraud. She withdrew to Nauvoo, 
 where she and her four sons founded a monogarnic Mor- 
 mon community called Josephites. The great bulk of 
 Mormons, however, regard the doctrine of polygamy as 
 emanating from Joseph Smith. Even at the present day 
 the Mormons are divided on this question. Joseph 
 Smith, the son of the founder of the Latter Day Church, 
 who is now fifty-eight years of age, is the leader of 
 twenty thousand disciples in Iowa, who accept the Bible 
 and the Book of Mormon, but repudiate Brigham 
 Young's polygamy doctrine. A recent dispatch from 
 Lamoui in that State says that they will maintain 
 missions in Salt Lake City for the purpose of warning 
 Brighamites of the crime and folly of polygamy, 
 
 MEMBERSHIP OF THE MORMON CHURCH 
 IN SALT LAKE CITY. 
 
 The Mormon Church in Salt Lake City has 12 
 apostles, 70 patriarchs, 3,919 high priests, 11,805 elders, 
 2,069 priests, 2,292 teachers, 11,910 deacons, 81,899 
 families, 119,915 officers and members, and 49,303 
 children under eight years of age. The number of 
 marriages for the six months ending i6th April, 1889, 
 was 530 ; number of births, 2,754 5 new niembers 
 baptised, 488 ; ex-communications, 113. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " I hear your message, but I have not faith 
 And Miracle is fond Faith's favourite child." 
 
 DOGMATIST " Well I'll maintain it spite of sneer, 
 
 Or argument or gibe uncivil 
 I see a thousand devils here, 
 Which proves the being of a devil." 
 
 GOETHE. 
 
 IS MORMONISM OF DIVINE ORIGIN? 
 
 THE claims of any religion which is tenaciously held 
 by its adherents are such that we should not lightly 
 brush them aside. As a rule men cling to their own 
 religion, and regard it as a sacred thing which must not 
 be made the subject of critical enquiry ; yet they seldom 
 reverence in the slightest degree the different belief 
 adopted by another man, or community of men. This 
 is manifestly unfair ; since belief is an indispensable 
 element in all ; and the diversity of religions on the face 
 of the earth, together with contemporaneous unbelief in 
 any religion at all, entitle every religious creed alike to 
 earnest consideration. 
 
 The same method of criticism should be adopted 
 towards all. Absolute certainty in spiritual matters is, 
 we know, unattainable at least in our present state of 
 finite knowledge, in spite of the vaunting assertions of 
 the arrogant religious bigot. We can only deal with 
 the probabilities, according to our human experience and 
 
the light of our reason, heart, and the intuitions or 
 spiritual perceptions the latter, however, being given 
 no great prominence in the discussion, since they are the 
 most controversial. We cannot expect to convince a man 
 that the subject of our belief is an actuality because we 
 feel it to be so. We must appeal to the enquirer's in- 
 telligence, and his own intuitive perceptions, or impres- 
 sions based on the intuitions. 
 
 DOES A DIVINE BEING EXIST ? 
 
 It is unnecessary to discuss at length the questions of 
 whether or not a Divine intelligence exists ? and conse- 
 quently, whether any religion may, or may not, have a 
 divine origin ? But a few words will suffice to state the 
 positions taken by persons of antagonistic modes of 
 thought. 
 
 The intelligent believer in God, who does not confine 
 himself entirely to spiritual feeling, usually points to, as a 
 proof of the Creator's existence, the adaptation which 
 is manifested in the universe if he is asked to state 
 his reasons claiming that this adaptation implies 
 design ; hence there must have been a designer. 
 
 A camel before starting on a long journey across the 
 desert can imbibe sufficient water to enable it to march 
 many days without perishing of thirst, and its cushioned 
 feet are adapted to the shifting sands. This would seem 
 to indicate that the camel was specially designed by a 
 Creator to traverse the desert in this manner. 
 
 " But," says the positivist, " there may have been a 
 time when the desert was not a desert ; when the camel 
 was of different shape and capacity from what it is now ; 
 and when, after long ages, the sand appeared, the camel 
 
137 
 
 was compelled to adapt itself to its changed environment, 
 or else die out. Such animals as could not suit them- 
 selves to the new circumstances would become extinct. 
 Those which, by an evolutionary process, grew feet which 
 could traverse the sand easily, and could endure long 
 journeys before reaching an oasis, would be the camels 
 such as we see them now. This, therefore, does not of 
 necessity imply the existence of a conscious, intelligent 
 designer." 
 
 The same answer is made when the believer points to 
 the colour of the Negro, and his ability to stand the 
 intense heat of the African climate. Sceptics say that 
 the Negro may not have been thus originally constituted, 
 but became so in conformity with Nature's laws as a 
 creature of circumstances. The adaptation of varied 
 races to different climates, and the transmutation of 
 matter to serve a hundred uses, they say, do not warrant 
 us in attributing these to design and a designer. 
 
 MEN NOT WORLD MAKERS. 
 
 If we argue that as a watch pre-supposes the existence 
 of a watchmaker, and reasoning from analogy, contend 
 that as mind was employed in making the watch, there 
 must have been a First Great Cause, possessing infinite 
 mind, to have launched this universe, with all its 
 stupendous mysteries, into space, and to have kept it in 
 order ; we are warned by scientific thinkers that we have 
 had no experience in world-making ; and that our human 
 experience is not a safe foundation upon which to rear 
 a structure of positive assertion in regard to the creation 
 of a world which transcends the loftiest flights of 
 imagination, much less the actual facts of human life. 
 
138 
 
 These persons deny the feasibility of any attempt to 
 prove the supernatural by natural faculties. They assert 
 that reason will not form a pathway up to a moral 
 governor of the world, and that the intuitions must 
 not be regarded even as facts, while as judges of what 
 lies beyond the veil they are as flimsy as a spider's web. 
 
 THE AGNOSTIC VERDICT. 
 
 In short they say we can demonstrate nothing outside 
 of the operation of Nature's laws ; and, therefore, that 
 no religion can be decided to be of divine origin. 
 
 The common sense of mankind is, however, opposed 
 to such positions, difficult as this materialistic logic may 
 be to controvert ; and human beings, while knowing 
 that until they pass over the dark river of death they 
 will never absolutely be able to demonstrate the truth of 
 their faith, still regard it as safer and more natural to 
 cling to a belief in a God, and a God of Greatness, 
 Justice and Mercy (rather than refrain from using the 
 faculties with which they have been endowed), and 
 build up, to the best of their capacity, ideas as to the 
 Divine origin of life, heart, soul, will, conscience and 
 matter. There may be a God ; and, as far as human 
 experience goes, the greater probability exists that there 
 is a God, than that the complex machinery of Nature 
 works harmoniously because of the involuntary attrac- 
 tion of atoms possessing affinity. The latter theory, 
 known as the Atomic theory, is, perhaps more intel- 
 ligible, thus stated : That Matter and Motion are 
 eternal ; that the Ultimate Atoms which form the 
 Universe always possessed an affinity for each other ; 
 in the same way that there is said to be an affinity 
 
139 
 
 between persons of the opposite sex who are invol- 
 untarily attracted toward each other, and united by 
 a bond of affection. These primary atoms having 
 affinities, rushed together, formed simple organisms, 
 and established laws, from which other subsidiary 
 laws sprung, and so ultimately complex organisms, 
 such as the highest in the Animal Kingdom Man 
 came into existence. This theory, however, is but 
 a feeble explanation of the Origin of Life ; for how 
 could the attraction of matter transform the dead into 
 the living, and the mindless into the reasoning ^ The 
 Atomic hypothesis in no way accounts for the existence 
 of mind, will, or conscience. Hence it is, as I have 
 said, rejected by the intelligence of the average civilised 
 man. The latter usually leaves Metaphysical, and par- 
 ticularly Materialistic, speculation to those for whom 
 it has special charms, and takes his stand on the propo- 
 sition that God is a Fact. 
 
 THE MYSTICAL BECOMING REAL. 
 
 The labours of the Society for the promotion of 
 Psychical Research, by the way, in the investigation of 
 dreams, premonitions, apparitions, mesmerism, telepathy 
 or spiritual telegraphy, the divining rod, haunted houses, 
 spiritualism, coincidences, etc., go to establish an even 
 stronger supposition in favour of there being super- 
 natural agencies at work, and that there is a connection 
 between Human Mind and Divine Mind, which ulti- 
 mately may become established truths. The realm of 
 Realism is expanding, and the believer in God cannot be 
 looked upon as merely a superstitious, or credulous, 
 individual. 
 
140 
 
 I assume in this study and trial of Mormonism that 
 God exists, and that a Religion may have a Divine 
 origin. 
 
 THREE GREAT TESTS. 
 
 What are the tests which should be applied to a 
 religion, on which we may, as rational beings, form 
 sensible conclusions as to its Divine origin ? 
 
 TRUTHFUL WITNESSES IN LIEU OF 
 PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 
 
 (i) The most convincing test would naturally be that 
 as to the historical facts respecting its origin, whether its 
 alleged prophets, priests and reporters (or chroniclers) 
 lived, spoke and wrote in the manner attributed to them 
 in other words, whether events and utterances have 
 been accurately reported. In relation to alleged spiritual 
 manifestations, such as miracles, inspiration and angel's 
 visits, the reliability of the witnesses' testimony is of 
 the utmost consequence. If this test results satisfac- 
 torily, no other test whatever is necessary. Whenever 
 other tests have to be applied, it is tantamount to a con- 
 fession that this test cannot be answered so as to place 
 the matter beyond reasonable doubt. 
 
 WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE. 
 
 Another test to which a religion may be submitted is 
 this : Does a comparison of its doctrines with those of 
 other religions show it to be spiritually and morally 
 superior, and to harmonise more fully with the known 
 facts of human nature ? If so, there is a strong case of 
 probable evidence as to its Divine origin, established. 
 This necessitates a close comparison of the teachings of 
 
different religions, taking into consideration the varied 
 environments of the religionists. 
 
 ITS UNIVERSALITY OF ADOPTION AND 
 APPLICABILITY. 
 
 One of the most common arguments, and which is 
 voiced by learned theologians, is that the thing which 
 exists under widely different circumstances ; which sur- 
 vives transformations in society, and prospers among 
 different nationalities is the True. That is to say, in 
 regard to religion, a belief which can number its 
 adherents by millions in many countries and ages, which 
 accords with historical development, and forms the 
 active principle in the lives of millions, would be the 
 belief based on the True. 
 
 There is scarcely sufficient allowance made in this 
 proposition for the credulity or faith of mankind, and 
 its effects on their actions, unless the position be qualified 
 considerably. 
 
 CREDULITY AND FAITH. 
 
 From the time that man first possessed intelligence 
 he instinctively feared or venerated the unseen powers. 
 
 Whether man when first created was a rational and 
 intelligent being, who descended in the scale until 
 he became the savage who has been discovered in prim- 
 itive ages ; or whether the savage is the product of 
 evolution, having been developed from the lower animals, 
 and civilised man the result of the development of the 
 barbarian is one of the most disputed subjects of the 
 day. 
 
 But a community of people, savage or civilised, has, 
 I believe, hardly ever been discovered in which there 
 
142 
 
 was not some rude worship of the unknown God. The 
 idol-worshipper's feeble mind was contented with a 
 block of wood or stone for a deity. Some adored, and 
 still adore, the sun, fire, ' sacred ' animals of the lower 
 order, and men. Intelligent humanity seeks behind the 
 effect for the Cause and worships God, the Omnipotent. 
 
 The aspiration of the human mind is for light. The 
 grander and nobler the religion, the more likely it is to win 
 its way among men. A religion which is in touch with the 
 common pulse of humanity may have its persecutions 
 and its martyrs, but ultimately will spread and be adopted 
 by the great suffering masses of the world. The purer 
 the ideal the more likely is its cause to permeate human 
 society- in the course of time; because it harmonises 
 with the most delicately-attuned conscience. 
 
 It is natural, therefore, that the religion which appeals 
 most to the intellect and the heart will be promulgated 
 with zeal, and that the seed sown will increase a hun- 
 dred-fold. This, I admit, raises a presumption in favour 
 of the superior religion that it is a true religion ; but it 
 does not establish the fact, nor as an isolated argument 
 is it strong evidence of probability. There is the pos- 
 sibility that another religion, purer and better than any 
 yet known, may be conceived, and until each religion, at 
 any rate, has a fair opportunity of laying its doctrines 
 fairly before the world, it would be unfair to judge the 
 cause by its success or failure. 
 
 Perhaps Christianity has stood the fire of criticism, 
 and the lapse of centuries, better than any other creed 
 among men whose minds are above irrational super- 
 stition : but this would have to be proved before we could 
 say that this raises a presumption in favour of the Divine 
 
143 
 
 origin of Christianity, and consequently that the origin 
 of competitive religions was only human. It may not be 
 necessary to decide on this matter before finding a 
 verdict either for or against Mormonism. 
 
 If considerable doubt arises respecting the credibility 
 of the witnesses, the believer may justly demand that 
 probable evidence be entertained, and then it will be 
 necessary to discuss the universality of its adoption or 
 otherwise ; and its superiority or inferiority as compared 
 with other religions. In certain cases these two tests 
 would not be requisite ; for instance, if the historical 
 statements were disproved, or if they were proved ; 
 because that would finally dispose of doubt. When 
 the supposed facts are neither disproved nor proved, 
 but remain enshrouded in mystery, the other tests may 
 be carefully applied, such as in the case of Christianity, 
 for instance, where the probability exists, from primd 
 facie internal evidence its doctrines and experiences of 
 its believers that it is of Divine origin. 
 
 Like the Rev. Joseph Cook of Boston, I wish to 
 ' stick to clear ideas,' and I have made the above 
 observations for a definite purpose. I have emphasised 
 the conditions under which all the tests I have named 
 would be rendered necessary ; because there are circum- 
 stances under which some of them may be considered 
 superfluous. 
 
 If we discover on applying the test as to the truth- 
 fulness of a religion's witnesses, that there is convincing 
 evidence of deception, fanaticism and irrationality 
 connected with its establishment, we shall not require 
 to go farther, as this would easily prove the religion to be 
 of only human origin. At this point I will not say 
 
144 
 
 whether my conclusions as to the divine revelations to 
 Joseph Smith will be adverse or not ; but I will say that 
 perhaps we shall not require to consider probable 
 evidence to any great extent, unless there is no positive 
 destructive evidence given, and the presumption of doubt 
 is in its favour. If one test settles the matter the reader 
 will doubtless scarcely regret that we shall not have to 
 go all over the histories of the multitudinous religions 
 now extant; or into a microscopic analysis and com- 
 parison of their doctrines. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 'He that believeth not shall be condemned." 
 
 JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 THE TRIAL OF MORMONISM. 
 
 THE Public Prosecutor appears for the Enquirers. 
 A Mormon Advocate represents the Church of 
 the Latter Day Saints. The Jury, of intelligent human 
 beings, have heard the evidence, and the Judge turns to 
 the Counsel for the defendant. 
 
 " Your client," he says, " is not charged with a 
 criminal offence, in having propagated doctrines which 
 are perhaps believed to be true and beneficial to the 
 human race. But the Public Prosecutor demands that 
 you shall justify the claim of your religion that it has 
 been established by divine command in a miraculous 
 manner. If you fail to prove this to the satisfaction of 
 the jury they are entitled to disbelieve its divine origin. 
 You are most zealous in proselytising, and in the interests 
 of those persons who may only have heard one side of 
 the matter, before this action was brought, the Court 
 deemed it necessary that you and the people should have 
 an opportunity of appearing here the one, so as to 
 speak as Exponent and Defender ; the other as dis- 
 passionate Critic and Agnostic. 
 
146 
 
 NARROWING THE INQUIRY. 
 
 " I shall instruct the jury that absolute certainty in 
 religious matters, of which we can have only a subjective 
 perception, is unattainable. But as rational men and 
 women, they may perhaps entertain no reasonable doubt 
 after hearing the evidence on both sides of the case. As 
 Counsel for the defendant you may address yourself to 
 the jury on the question of the origin of Mormonism. 
 It will not be necessary to discuss in this trial whether 
 polygamy is superior to monogamy, or vice versa ; or 
 whether Mormonism is widely believed or not. The 
 question is, are you prepared to take your stand on the 
 ground that the book of Mormon is of divine origin ; and 
 that on its face it bears evidence of the truth of this 
 assertion ? If so, you may make your argument on this 
 point. If the verdict goes against you, any practices 
 which may have been established through your belief, 
 must necessarily be treated as human institutions, and 
 the public must be judges as to whether, if they fall 
 below the standard of morality adopted by the common 
 sense of progressive human beings, these practices should 
 be condemned and suppressed." 
 
 THE MORMON DEFENCE. 
 
 " May it please the Court, and ladies and gentlemen of 
 the Jury," begins the Defendant's Attorney, " I accept 
 the suggestion of His Honour, and shall confine myself 
 with pleasure to the testimony bearing directly on the 
 matter of the supernatural revelations and miraculous 
 origin of the fountain of Mormonism. This really is the 
 point of the whole matter, as I am free to confess that 
 if we did not esteem it a Divine command to set up our 
 
147 
 
 Church and put into practice the system of plural 
 marriage (formerly in vogue among God's chosen people, 
 the Jews) I say, were it not for a special revelation to 
 that effect, we should not have departed from the 
 monogamous standard of morality, which is approved 
 although violated in numberless instances by people of 
 modern times. Consequently we cannot, and do not, 
 expect our system of plural marriage to prove the Divine 
 origin of our religion, although I am far from admitting 
 that if this system of morality were adopted by con- 
 scientious people, it would compare unfavourably 
 with any other popular standard. I say we are willing 
 to let plural marriage defend itself, and we stand or fall 
 by the unbiased verdict of reasoning man on the 
 evidences regarding the Revelation. 
 
 " I am also willing that the test of the universality of 
 the adoption and applicability of a religion, as a 
 probable proof of its Divine origin, should not be applied 
 to Mormonism, because on the face of it this course 
 would be unfair. Some religions are 2,000 years old ; 
 Mormonism is only about sixty-seven years old. Give 
 each religion a fair start, let it work its way along 
 through the ages, and then this test might fairly be 
 applied. But how can you judge different religions by 
 their success or failure when the Latter-Day Revelation 
 has not had time to be promulgated, and to persistently 
 break down the barriers of superstition and error ? 
 Mormonism is young; other religions are old : therefore 
 that test could not have any practical bearing on us if 
 the facts respecting our illustrious founder's visions and 
 mission were enveloped in mystery. 
 
 L 
 
148 
 
 TARES AND WHEAT. 
 
 " I appeal to you on the facts. I do not pretend to 
 you that because we have good men and refined women 
 among our ranks, that this is a proof of the truth of our 
 religion. Neither do I think that because villains, 
 treacherous scoundrels, murderers and lascivious persons 
 have been found among us, as the tares have been found 
 among the wheat, that this is any indication that our 
 belief is based on falsehood. Some of the best of men 
 have been attached to the worst of religions. Some of 
 the worst people have been hypocritical, professed 
 converts to the purest of religious doctrines and 
 churches. I mention this that you may lay aside any 
 prejudice on either side if you may have been tempted 
 to entertain such a prejudice. 
 
 UNITED, YET DISTINCT. 
 
 " I do not forget that we hold our Church to be an 
 extension of the great Christian Church, and that the 
 great majority of our members are firm believers in the 
 doctrines taught by Christ. Whatever controversy 
 there may be as to the divine origin of Christianity, it 
 does not assist, or act to the detriment of, my client. 
 We do not claim that Joseph Smith was God, or that he 
 was the Son of God ; therefore, in judging this new dis- 
 pensation we. have not to prove either of these assertions. 
 We are not required to prove that Christ performed 
 wonderful miracles, or that the apostles saw angels, and 
 witnessed the Resurrection and Transfiguration on the 
 Mount. But we ha veto demonstrate to you that Joseph 
 Smith saw angels ; that he, like Moses, had command- 
 
ments written on tablets presented to him, and that he 
 was not an impostor. 
 
 NOT A DIVINE PERSON. 
 
 " Christ spoke to man, we are told, as one having 
 authority, as a divine personage, commanding people to 
 walk in His footsteps. We set up no such right to a 
 control over your actions. If Christ was divine, he had 
 a right to issue supreme commands, even though they 
 rendered null and void the power of choice, and set aside 
 the conclusions of the mind, heart and intellect. But 
 we do not say that Joseph Smith was in this position to 
 dictate. We know that he was a man, and although we 
 assert that he was inspired, we do not expect you to 
 believe it because we say so. It is a logical proposition 
 that inspiration must not attest history, if we have to 
 prove our inspiration by our history. We must not 
 reason in a circle ; but satisfy you, as rational beings, on 
 fair authentic evidence. I ask you to leave your minds 
 open to receive truth, and that you will use the faculties 
 which our Maker has given to every non-idiotic person 
 to judge for yourselves if we are fools or rogues. 
 
 MIRACLES MUST BE PROVED. 
 
 " I wish above all things to be candid, and not mislead 
 your minds one step by imposing upon your credulity. 
 
 " Now as to the supernatural character of the Mormon 
 revelation and the marvellous manifestation in connection 
 with the discovery of the gold plates. We cannot 
 demand your faith without advancing proofs to convince 
 a rational person. Either we must establish the truth 
 of our religion by a preponderance of evidence, and 
 
satisfy your minds beyond all reasonable doubt, or I am 
 sure you would say, and justly so, ' Joseph Smith was 
 an impostor, and his revelation a fraud.' 
 
 " I take it that you all are agreed as to the existence of 
 God ; because if you do not assent to this rational 
 assumption, you must of necessity disbelieve in the 
 claims of each and every system of revealed religion. 
 I consider that you admit the possibility of miracles, 
 inspiration and angel visits ; only, as you may never 
 have experienced anything of the kind, you desire 
 satisfactory evidence that the possibility is a reality. 
 
 WHAT ARE THE FACTS ? 
 
 " I come now to the testimony of the witnesses. 
 
 " We have before us the testimony of Joseph Smith, 
 himself a martyr to the cause he advocated. W r e have 
 the evidence of three witnesses, who positively affirm 
 that they saw* an angel bring the plates and lay them 
 before their eyes. We have the testimony of eight 
 other witnesses that they were shown these supernatural 
 tablets engraved with Egyptian characters. We have 
 testimony that a professor of languages admitted some 
 of these hieroglyphics to be what was claimed ; and we 
 have the book of Mormon itself, as a result of Joseph 
 Smith's interpretation, containing commands to him to 
 establish this church of Christ. 
 
 TRUTHFUL OR UNTRUTHFUL MEN. 
 
 " Remember this, there are only two issues before you. 
 One is that Joseph Smith and the witnesses who sup- 
 ported him were frauds and liars, the other is that they 
 were conscientious, truthful, and good men. You cannot 
 set aside the testimony, or give a verdict to the effect 
 
that these men were really religiously insane believer's. 
 If only one man professes to see an angel he may 
 have been deceived ; for anyone who is acquainted 
 with lunatics knows that the most prevalent delusion 
 among people possessing deranged intellects is that of 
 hearing supernatural voices in the night, and seeing 
 visions which exist only in the disordered imagination. 
 I have many a time seen lunacy commissioners apply 
 this test to people brought before them for examination. 
 If the subject confesses that he is troubled with super- 
 natural demonstrations, these cold-blooded men forth- 
 with consider the case fit for therapeutic treatment ; for 
 they do not believe that if the mind and body are in a 
 healthy and normal state, anyone would be troubled with 
 these visionary terrors. 
 
 " But here we have several witnesses who swear that 
 they also saw the angel lay the plates before their eyes ; 
 while eight others state that the plates existed, and 
 were so tangible that they were given a view of them. 
 It is not likely that all these persons would have been 
 deceived at the same time and on the same state of 
 facts. Two madmen seldom have precisely the same 
 delusion, and it is highly improbable that if these men 
 were together they would all have been deluded in like 
 manner. 
 
 " As intelligent persons, therefore, you cannot adopt, 
 what you might deem an easy and charitable course, and 
 say ' They were religious lunatics ; deluded zealots ; 
 imaginative fanatics.' 
 
 THE KERNEL OF THE MATTER. 
 
 " The points you must consider are 
 
 " ' Were these men rogues or good men ? ' 
 
" ' Did the plates exist ? ' 
 
 " ' Did the angel appear ? ' 
 
 " ' Was the translation of the characters genuine ? ' 
 
 " Here comes in an important question, l What 
 motive could either Joseph Smith or his colleagues have 
 had in propagating untruth, and setting up a religion 
 whose institutions were in antagonism to the laws of 
 the United States ? ' 
 
 " If a man goes wrong it is a common saying 
 1 Who was the woman ? ' Ungallant as this may be, it 
 implies the existence of a motor-power strong enough to 
 overbalance the good intentions of the average man. 
 Similarly we must look for a motive, if the truth regard- 
 ing the origin of Morrnonism depends on the credibility 
 of its witnesses. 
 
 " What would they have been likely to gain from the 
 establishment of a false religion ? 
 
 " A man who is rogue enough to seek to deceive 
 persons by setting in motion such a tremendous and 
 intricate piece of machinery as a bogus religious church, 
 would surely be smart enough to consider its probable 
 effects on his own fortunes. But what do we find ? 
 This man Joseph Smith, who you are asked to believe 
 was an impostor, a lascivious scoundrel reeking with 
 immoral desires, and building up his empire on 
 blasphemy; this man I say, was assassinated, as a natural 
 consequence of his running counter to popular sentiment 
 in regard to some of the real or supposed practices and 
 teachings of himself and his followers. 
 
 EASY ROAD TO PLEASURE. 
 " As a rational man Joseph Smith would have known 
 
'53 
 
 that if he sought to build up a moral and religious system 
 which was condemned by the people among whom he 
 lived, he would have to suffer the penalty. He would 
 be treated either as a criminal by the law, or else be 
 sacrificed by the mob, which would be aroused by a 
 startling innovation of which it did not approve. 
 
 " If Joseph Smith wanted to pluck ' the fruits and 
 flowers of love,' is it not more sensible to suppose that 
 he would have chosen a safer way ? If a man is 
 licentious and wishes to gratify his wild desires, could 
 he not do so surreptitiously, and without running the 
 risk of being murdered or thrown into gaol ? I affirm 
 that the promulgation of a religion embodying doctrines 
 which would be dynamite under the feet of the preacher, 
 is one of the strongest evidences that Joseph Smith was 
 not instigated by a sordid, ambitious, or immoral motive, 
 in announcing his mission and publishing his revelations ; 
 and that the same may be said of those witnesses who 
 swear they also saw the angel and knew the doctrines 
 to have been of divine origin. 
 
 " I ask you in the face of such evidence as this, are you 
 prepared to deny the right we have set up ? Are you 
 convinced that our founder was a black-hearted villain, 
 playing on the weaknesses and credulity of superstitious 
 people ? I ask you to reflect before you make your 
 decision. 
 
 A REVELATION NEEDED. 
 
 " Remember that those who knew Joseph Smith 
 intimately pronounced him to be a prayerful and noble 
 man. If he possessed any title to this character he 
 would not have been guilty of swearing falsely and 
 
154 
 
 uttering blasphemies. Remember the state of depravity 
 and irreligion which is but cloaked in civilised countries 
 with the garment of respectability and hypocrisy. If 
 revelations were ever made to man, they are as badly 
 needed in our day as in byegone ages. There is but a 
 thin veil between this world and the mysterious world 
 beyond. You and I are but spirits as miraculous as 
 anything that the mind of man can conceive. We see 
 but the effect the cause lies beyond. Remember that 
 revelation is not impossible, and that men have afore- 
 time stoned, crucified and shot, and burned those who 
 would fain have lifted mankind to a higher plain ; and 
 who would have imparted to sinful man the news of the 
 glimpses they have had of supernatural glory. 
 
 " If there is a personal God and we are responsible 
 beings, is it probable that he would have left this world 
 in the darkness of ignorance and impenetrable mystery ? 
 We claim that our religion is a part of the great infinite 
 ocean of Truth. Two thousand years ago a great 
 revealer came upon earth. Sixty-seven years ago the 
 Latter Day revelation was made. Christ was crucified ! 
 Joseph Smith was assassinated ! " 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1 Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." 
 
 Daniel v. 27. 
 
 THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY'S REPLY. 
 
 HE defender of Mormonism having closed his argu- 
 A ment, the People's representative rises to reply. 
 
 " My task is an easy one " he says. " I do not wish to 
 disparage the ability shown by my learned friend in 
 laying his case before you. He has stated the issues 
 with lucidity and candour. He has, while keeping 
 within the limits of legal propriety, in a brief and 
 succinct argument laid before you the evidence he has 
 been able to accumulate on behalf of his client. We 
 might have had a ranting appeal for eternal justice ; we 
 might have been treated to a brilliant panegyric on the 
 speculative good qualities of Joseph Smith ; but these 
 would have had no effect on your minds, and my learned 
 friend very properly refrained from appealing to your 
 passions or sympathies, rather than to your judgment as 
 men and women aspiring to that which is highest and 
 best in the universe. 
 
 " I shall follow his example, and confine myself to 
 terse, logical remarks, bearing in my heart no prejudice 
 against the defendant ; but anxious only that truth 
 should prevail. Rational belief is one thing, super- 
 stitious credulity is another. It will be my duty to point 
 
out to you that the Mormon religion appeals to the 
 gullibility of impressionable people; for the evidence 
 adduced before you has proved this beyond all reason- 
 able doubt. 
 
 WHY THIS MYSTERY? 
 
 " We are not surprised to find that, as nearly two 
 thousand years have elapsed since Christ lived on earth, 
 his acts are the subject of extensive controversy, and 
 that a much greater demand is made on our faith than 
 was the case with contemporaneous human beings, who 
 saw and heard him time after time. Remembering 
 that there were no newspapers in those days ; that 
 practically Palestine was isolated from the rest of the 
 world, and that they had no electric wires to flash news 
 from one continent to another, or mighty vessels to carry 
 thousands from one side of the globe to the other within 
 a month remembering these facts, and that the average 
 intelligence was much lower than to-day, I say we are 
 scarcely surprised that the enquirer now finds the 
 external evidence as to its central personage to be very 
 scanty ; and we naturally study the gospels, and other 
 documentary testimony, with all the greater zest and 
 persistency, because upon these, almost exclusively, we 
 are asked to base our belief in its divine origin. 
 
 " But we do not expect to find the same mystery 
 surrounding the facts in connection with the foundation 
 of the Mormon Church. The alleged revelations only 
 date from 1820, yet there is such a conflict of evidence 
 as to the main features of the religion that we are 
 tempted to exclaim Is there any truth in history ? 
 Can any statements be made which in a few years will 
 
not be controverted ? The burden of proof, how- 
 ever, rests with the Mormons, as it is impossible to 
 disprove the assertion of a man that he saw an angel, 
 except by rigidly cross-examining him, and detecting 
 discrepancies in his story, or showing that he fails to 
 produce the very articles which are the foundation of 
 his claim. 
 
 " Strictly speaking there is only one question which I 
 need put to you. If I go beyond this question it will be 
 more for the purpose of aiding you in dealing with any 
 other religious doctrine to which some zealous missionary 
 may seek to make you a convert. 
 
 "WHERE ARE THOSE SUPERNATURAL 
 PLATES ? 
 
 " That is the question which cuts the ground from 
 under the Mormon Church. The disappearance of 
 1 exhibits ' during the trial of a case is always of the 
 greatest importance. The non-production of evidence 
 by a defendant which he has openly announced will 
 establish his innocence, is most damaging to his cause. 
 
 " Where are those wonderful plates ? I ask. My 
 learned friend has said nothing about their disappear- 
 ance, so I presume it is left to your imagination to fancy 
 that the angel who revealed their whereabouts, also took 
 them up in a cloud after they had been translated. If 
 my friend could produce them in court we could submit 
 them to learned men who would have no difficulty in 
 deciphering them if they were written in Egyptian or 
 any other language, living or dead. If the characters 
 then formed the contents of the book of Mormon we 
 should be all ready to admit that so far the defendant 
 
had proved his case, and most searching investigations 
 would then be required to find whether they had been 
 engraved by Spalding, or somebody else of human, 
 rather than divine origin. 
 
 " We are told that Joseph Smith had his first reve- 
 lation when he was fourteen years of age ; that he 
 believed the North American Indians were a remnant 
 of Israel ; that he dwelt among them and was informed 
 by angels that no sect on earth was the real Church of 
 Christ, and that Smith was the privileged person who 
 was to usher in the second coming of the Messiah by 
 establishing the True Church ; that there was a ' Urim 
 and Thummim ' in the stone box, by which the plates 
 could be transcribed, and which possessed other remark- 
 able qualities. I ask you whether this outline of the 
 revelation does not bear a suspicious resemblance to the 
 biblical narrative of Samuel's visions, Moses' tables of 
 stone, the Urim and Thummim in the ark, and the 
 claim of the Jews that they alone were the favoured 
 people of God ? If these two transparent stones pos- 
 sessed these marvellous properties they would be the 
 strongest kind of evidence on behalf of the defence. 
 Considering the vast number of antiquities which have 
 been handed down from one generation to another, it 
 ought to have been the easiest thing imaginable to pro- 
 duce these magic spectacles. That they have dis- 
 appeared, and were not publicly shown at the time when 
 the * prophet ' professed to have had them, is proof 
 positive to any unprejudiced and non-superstitious mind 
 that the whole thing was a transparent piece of 
 quackery, worthy only of a bogus spiritualistic medium. 
 
159 
 
 SUPERSTITION NOT DEAD. 
 
 " There is one lesson that you may draw from this 
 false religion it is that there is more superstition in the 
 world than many imagine. We are accustomed to 
 boast of the intellectual grandeur of the nineteenth 
 century, but if it were necessary I could show you that 
 there are thousands of people both in England and 
 America who are firm believers in witchcraft, charms, 
 omens, unlucky days, and other superstitions. We need 
 not wonder, therefore, that people flock around the banners 
 of a false prophet. There is such a thing as emotional 
 insanity. The man who has a violent temper is to that 
 extent insane when inflamed with anger ; and it is hard 
 to draw the line as to where true spiritual intuition ends, 
 and irrational credulity begins. Is it surprising that men 
 will believe in the pretensions of others when history 
 abounds with instances of men who have entertained 
 the wildest ideas of themselves ? 
 
 THE PRETENDED MESSIAH. 
 
 "Take the case of James Naylor, the pretended 
 Messiah, who died in 1660. This enthusiastic visionary 
 was an admired preacher among the Quaker followers of 
 George Fox; As his features bore a near resemblance 
 to those of Christ, he believed he was Christ, and was 
 so acknowledged by a large number of people when he 
 assumed the character. He professed to heal the sick 
 and raise the dead, and when he entered Bristol, the 
 people of his sect strewed leaves and branches of the 
 trees in front of him, and cried, ' Hosannah, blessed is 
 he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! ' He was 
 pillored, burnt through the tongue, and branded with a 
 
i6o 
 
 B in his forehead for ' blasphemy ; and, after being 
 whipped, was confined to hard labour. The discipline 
 of the prison soon restored him to his senses, and he 
 acknowledged having been guilty of a heinous sin. 
 Here we have the case of a man who actually 
 deluded himself; but, as my learned friend pointed out, 
 we cannot take a charitable view of Joseph Smith's case 
 and say he was a monomaniac, for the evidences of a 
 concerted swindle are too palpable in his case. The case 
 of Naylor is principally valuable as showing that mere 
 faith or credulity even among civilised people is no 
 criterion whatever of the genuineness of the claims of 
 the archmover. No one would deprecate cynical dis- 
 belief in religious matters more than myself. But, on 
 the other hand, we must beware lest we give way to 
 impressions entirely unsupported by reason. What 
 can we think of the absurd belief held by a native 
 of Cornwall who died a few years ago, that he should 
 live until the second coming of Christ ? Or of the 
 Shakers who believe in the possibility of an absolutely 
 sinless life, and exemption from death on the ground 
 that sin causes death, and, therefore, if they sin not, 
 neither will they die ? 
 
 NAILED TO THE CROSS. 
 
 "Or of the fanaticism of Matthew Loval, a shoemaker 
 of Venice (who died in 1810), who believed he ought 
 to imitate the sufferings of the Redeemer, so tried to 
 crucify himself ; piercing his side ; nailing himself, 
 naked and bleeding, to a cross, to be found next morning, 
 by the inhabitants, bearing his sufferings with the stoical 
 indifference of a doomed savage or the resignation of a 
 Christian martyr ? 
 
" These extraordinary instances of men, otherwise 
 sane and shrewd, show you that human nature is most 
 bewildering, tortuous, and that we may well ask for 
 strong proofs of the Divine origin of any doctrine, 
 knowing how reason has been warped by superstition in 
 the past. Not every man who professes to have his 
 lips touched with the live coal from the altar is worthy 
 of credence. How many false prophets foretold that the 
 world would have come to an end years ago, from 
 Mother Shipton to divines of the Church of England ? 
 It is an old story this the presumption of man : 
 ' Men would be angels, angels would be gods.' 
 
 " We may do worse, my friends, than lend an atten- 
 tive ear to Pope that poet whose reasoning has stood 
 many an assault : 
 
 " Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
 All but the page prescribed their present state : 
 From brutes what men, from men what angels know, 
 Or who could suffer being here below ? 
 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
 Had he thy reason could he skip and play ? 
 Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food, 
 
 And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 What future bliss He gives not thee to know, 
 But gives that hope to be thy blessing now ; 
 Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
 Man never is, but always to be, blest. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Hope humbly then, on trembling pinions soar ; 
 Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore." 
 
 WHY REVEAL TO A FEW? 
 
 " This teaching, you will perceive, is drawn from the 
 book of Nature. The poet ignores revelation of a 
 supernatural character. I do not ask you to do likewise, 
 for revelation may be genuine. I only wish to impress 
 
 M 
 
1 62 
 
 upon you that revealed religion goes far beyond the 
 teachings of the book of Nature ; and that before you 
 cling to any special manifestation of this kind you 
 should bring to bear upon the Medium of inspiration all 
 the light of your understanding ; and not be deluded by 
 such blasphemous trickery as that of this charlatan, 
 Joseph Smith, and his companions in knavery, the 
 ' witnesses ' who state they also saw the angel. There 
 is no reason for any ' hole in the corner ' revelations. 
 God has given to us to see the transcendent glories of 
 this world. If he desires us to have glimpses of the 
 infinite, do you think He is going to single out half-a- 
 dozen mortals throughout the world for this special 
 favour ? Are there only a few righteous men in Sodom 
 and Gomorrah ? Even if so, would not special ocular 
 demonstrations of this kind be needed more by the 
 ninety and nine lost sheep in the wilderness than by the 
 one just man that needs no repentance ? 
 
 " I know a man who is as sane as I am in most things ; 
 who was an electrician by profession before he retired to 
 live on his private means ; who has been a zealous 
 student of ancient history, and has a remarkably valuable 
 collection of old coins all of which goes to prove that, 
 as men go, he is not an ignorant charlatan desirous of 
 imposing upon the credulity of men for personal gain. 
 He told me with an air of serious conviction, something 
 which no man would tell another in joke, and I believe 
 he was perfectly sincere in the belief that he actually 
 saw what he mentioned. He said : 
 
 LIFE, ELECTRICITY, AND VISIONS. 
 "'You know I have had a great deal to do with 
 
1 6 3 
 
 electricity. I have a belief that all Life is but electric 
 fire : when a man dies, the spark which is in him becomes 
 once more a part of the great ocean of electricity. I 
 had a theory that by experimenting with this mysterious 
 element, human beings could know more of the secrets 
 of the Universe. Several friends and myself combined 
 to make electrical circuits to transmit thought, and 
 penetrate what had. before been hidden from man. We 
 went so far that we dared not go farther. We found 
 we were exploring forbidden ground, and my companions 
 became afraid. One night we continued our experi- 
 ments, and we heard a voice warning us that if we did 
 not stop, our blood would be upon our own heads. My 
 friends were stricken with terror and gave up the 
 dangerous work. I thought it might have been a 
 delusion, and made another attempt to prove the 
 mysteries. Then I saw light stream down from the 
 ceiling of my room and Christ himself stood before me. 
 I knew then that either I must be content with finite 
 knowledge or pass into the great sea of life. From that 
 moment I forswore all psychical investigation, for I know 
 it means destruction. I see how people now-a-days are 
 dabbling in electricity, and using up the great life-force 
 of the world. If they go on like they are going there 
 will be fearful convulsions of nature in the near future.' 
 
 " I ask you, as reasonable men, do you believe such 
 assertions as are contained in that statement ? I should 
 have to consider you as being low in the scale of intel- 
 lectuality if you did. Yet if you do not disregard the 
 claims of Joseph Smith's religion you may as well assent 
 to the delusions of every monomaniac, and the preten- 
 tions of every blasphemous trickster. 
 
164 
 
 EVIDENCE OF FRAUD. 
 
 " Now as to the character of the witnesses, according 
 to direct testimony. My learned friend has told you 
 Joseph Smith was held to be a good man by Mrs. Zina 
 Young, and others who knew him. I have adduced 
 testimony quite the reverse. The implication, too, that 
 Smith failed to translate the stolen portion of the Book 
 of Mormon the second time, because he was afraid of 
 the comparison which might be instituted, is another 
 evidence of duplicity. I am aware, too, that there is in 
 existence testimony to the effect that an interviewer 
 questioned the witness Harris and others, who admitted 
 that they only saw the supernatural visions with the eye 
 of faith ! I know that, strictly speaking, this is not 
 legally admissible, because I am unable to give my 
 authority for the statement, which was published in a 
 magazine many years ago ; but my friend can scarcely 
 object to my mentioning the fact, as most of the evidence 
 introduced here on both sides is documentary, as we 
 could not cross-examine writers of books who are either 
 dead or in foreign countries. I only desire to show that 
 as opposed to the written affirmation by these witnesses, 
 there is alleged to be an admittance by them that they 
 saw only with ' the eye of faith.' 
 
 IMITATING BIBLICAL LANGUAGE. 
 
 " If you will take a retrospective glance at the 
 phraseology of the revelation in regard to polygamy, you 
 will notice a similarity to biblical style ; yet there 
 is such a difference between the two that one cannot but 
 consider Smith's revelations a deliberate, and only 
 
partially successful, imitation. It would be interesting 
 to speculate upon the state of Smith's mind during the 
 concoction of these things. If he believed in the Divine 
 origin of the Scriptures, or the existence of a Supreme 
 Being, he was guilty of wilful blasphemy, while at the 
 same time preaching to others that the only true road to 
 God was through himself. An artist once painted 
 Solomon with one foot in heaven and the other in hell, 
 because he did not know where Solomon had gone. I 
 question if he would have the same difficulty in fixing 
 the abode of one who deliberately set himself to pervert 
 the most sacred instincts of humanity into polluted 
 channels. 
 
 " I should consider you would have no difficulty in 
 deciding that Smith received no supernatural plates or 
 revelations ; consequently the translations were frauds 
 invented to deceive the public. This being so you 
 cannot do other than return a verdict that Mormonism 
 is not of Divine origin. 
 
 QUESTION OF MOTIVE. 
 
 " Before submitting the case to you, however, I would 
 like to point out the fallacy involved in one phase of the 
 argument of my friend, the Mormon Advocate, upon 
 which he laid great stress I refer to his question, 
 ' What motive could either Joseph Smith or his colleagues 
 have had in propagating untruth, and setting up a 
 religion whose institutions were in antagonism to the 
 laws of the United States ? ' 
 
 " The study of motives is an interesting one, but it 
 does not turn in favour of the defendant in this case. 
 It is contended that Joseph Smith could have obtained 
 
i66 
 
 the gratification of any sensual or ambitious desires 
 without facing the probabilities of assassination, and 
 that if he was a shrewd rogue, as I claim, he would 
 have chosen some easier and safer path. 
 
 " I admit the former clause, that he could have done 
 so ; but deny that he necessarily would have taken that 
 course. 
 
 " Some will tell you that Duty is one of the greatest 
 motive powers or springs of human action ; a greater 
 one is the desire for Happiness. In pursuing this will o'- 
 the-wisp, this flying phantom, this mirage of the desert, 
 men choose various paths. Some find their happiness 
 (or try to) in self-sacrifice ; but the great bulk of man- 
 kind seek the philosopher's stone along the roads of 
 Ambition, Sentiment, Passion, Avarice, Thriftlessness, 
 Destructiveness, and other highways congenial to dif- 
 ferent types of human beings. ' In men we various 
 ruling motives find.' But supposing that a man is 
 actuated by a selfish and evil motive, does it follow even 
 if he is crafty and unprincipled that he will choose the 
 easiest method of attaining his object ? I say, by no 
 means. 
 
 EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE. 
 
 " Do not understand me to deny that the tendency of 
 mankind in the pursuit of happiness is to follow the line 
 of least resistance, or, in other words, to seek the most 
 simple and convenient method of achieving the object in 
 view. I admit this is the rule, but, like many other 
 rules, this has its exceptions, and the exceptions are 
 numerous. 
 
 " What is the object of the drunkard ? Not to drink 
 beer, but to derive the pleasiire, or supposed pleasure, he 
 
1 6 7 
 
 obtains from indulgence in alcohol. His object is to 
 secure happiness, and he chooses one way of obtaining it. 
 I have heard of an old toper who said his idea of 
 Paradise was a place where he could keep his mouth 
 under the running tap of a beer barrel ! I know many 
 shrewd, crafty men who are confirmed drunkards. They 
 shorten their lives, debauch and disgrace themselves, 
 and become a pest to Society by their besotted habits. 
 I want to know if, in this one respect, these men are not 
 fools ? To persons of refined tastes such indulgence 
 would be productive of no pleasure ; and to no rational 
 person would it return pleasure commensurate with the 
 coincident suffering and loss. It is a wise saying, that 
 it is foolish to purchase present pleasure at the expense 
 of future pain. Yet we see this course pursued every 
 day by persons of widely different environment. Chinese 
 girls suffer torture when they are babies, and incon- 
 venience through life, in order to be classed among ' the 
 small-footed ladies.' English girls compress their waists 
 with corsets; and this is one of the main causes to which 
 the thirty thousand deaths annually of Englishwomen 
 from consumption may be attributed, according to the 
 report of the Registrar - General. Many criminals 
 recently confessed when interrogated in America, that 
 crime did not pay. If they had been honest they 
 believed they might have got rich with half the expendi- 
 ture of energy. Every foolish or vicious person, from 
 the opium fiend, debauchee, and criminal, to the business 
 man who ruins his health in the struggle to soar above 
 his rivals and build up a fortune, pursues the worst 
 course that could be chosen to obtain satisfying and 
 permanent pleasure. Diogenes in his tub is far more 
 
1 68 
 
 sensible in being contented, providing the King does not 
 come between him and the sunlight. Unless a man 
 studies the laws of health and the effects of actions, and 
 compares transitory whirlwinds with permanent gentle 
 zephyrs, he is not choosing the most rational path to the 
 attainment of Happiness. 
 
 A CRAFTY FOOL. 
 
 "Is there anything inconsistent then in Joseph Smith 
 having been a crafty villain, and, at the same time, in 
 some respects, a consummate fool ? Assuredly not. 
 For one thing he could not have foreseen that he was to 
 be assassinated. If his mind was not gnarled and badly- 
 balanced he might, however, have anticipated a 
 calamitous end to his illegal venture. But it is a common 
 thing for men to allow their passions to blind them to 
 probable, and, in some cases, inevitable results. In homi- 
 cide cases Judges charge the Jury that malice aforethought 
 must be proved to constitute the crime murder in the 
 first degree ; and this malice is to be discovered from a 
 consideration of all the facts and circumstances surround- 
 ing the case, as it is impossible to obtain an actual view 
 of the operations of the criminal's mind. But it is a 
 fact equally true that atrocious cases of slaying have 
 often occurred, where there has been a complete absence 
 of an apparently adequate motive for the killing. It is 
 one of the most difficult things in the world to trace a 
 given action to a given motive. The foolishness of the 
 wise man, though a paradox, is nevertheless a reality. We 
 have heard of the philosopher who had a large and a 
 small hole made in the bottom of his door so that the 
 cat and kitten could pass through. When asked as to 
 
i6g 
 
 his reason, he replied, * Why, the great cat could not go 
 through the little hole ; ' and was amazed when his 
 interrogator reminded him that the little kitten could go 
 through the large hole I < The rogue and fool by fits is 
 fair and wise,' says Pope. May we not say, * The 
 rogue by fits becomes a fool ? ' If not, why the saying, 
 1 He was hoisted by his own petard ; ' * He digged a pit 
 for others, and fell into it himself ? ' Because a crafty 
 man makes a mistake in calculation and suffers by his 
 own folly, it does not follow that he is not cunning in his 
 dealings in general. Joseph Smith might have conceived 
 and put into practice the wildest kind of ideas, with a 
 great display of crooked ingenuity, and yet have been 
 so puffed up with vanity or ambition as to overlook 
 possible and probable disastrous results to himself. Or, 
 even foreseeing these results, he may have been so filled 
 with the thirst for notoriety that inspires many individ- 
 uals, as to purchase present happiness at the expense 
 of future pain. What more destructive and irrational 
 method of settling national disputes than that of going 
 to war and slaying thousands of valuable lives ? Yet in 
 spite of our vaunted civilisation, international arbitration 
 has not yet superseded this savage method of settling 
 quarrels. 
 
 " This somewhat extended reference to the difficulty of 
 attaching a rational motive to an apparently irrational 
 act, was in point of fact unnecessary in view of the 
 other circumstances of the case. But, if in other respects 
 the evidence had been in Joseph Smith's favour, the 
 fact that he risked his life and fortune in promulgating 
 his doctrines, might have been additional corroborative 
 evidence as to his sincerity. As the facts are quite to 
 
170 
 
 the contrary, it is far from proved that because he took 
 chances on a risky speculation, he was not a hypocritical, 
 blaspheming, false prophet. 
 
 " In the face of this evidence you cannot accept 
 Mormonisrn as of Divine origin. It would be contrary 
 to reason and judgment. Every year the Mormon 
 missionaries are circulating specious falsehoods to 
 beguile girls into the meshes of their net. There are 
 always feeble minds ready to be swayed by the first 
 powerful influence. I appeal to you to condemn the 
 Mormon faith as based on falsehood, fraud, and 
 blasphemy ; and to do your duty in rolling away the 
 mists of superstition and ignorance relics of barbarous 
 ages and to advocate the emancipation of thought, and 
 the reign of truth and rational belief." 
 
 What is the verdict ? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " This light and darkness in our chaos join'd 
 What still divide ? The God within the mind. 
 Extremes in Nature equal ends produce, 
 In man they join to some mysterious use ; 
 Tho' each by turns the other's bound invade, 
 As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, 
 And oft so mixed the difference is too nice 
 Where ends the Virtue, or begins the Vice." 
 
 POPE. 
 
 " Great men are always polygamists; no matter under what social 
 system they may live, even though they transgress the laws of 
 ordinary social life." 
 
 THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 ARE THE MORMONS IMMORAL? 
 
 HAVING disposed of the question as to the Divine 
 origin of Mormonism, we now have to consider 
 whether the Mormons are moral or immoral. 
 
 Persons of circumscribed knowledge of human nature 
 and the manners and customs of nations, usually fall 
 into the error of condemning other people strongly, 
 illogically, and uncharitably ; entirely forgetting that 
 morality is largely a matter of longitude and latitude, as 
 Superintendent White puts it in the interview I had 
 with him. An institution in vogue among the Sandwich 
 Islanders may be utterly opposed to our notions of 
 propriety or good conduct ; but those islanders may be 
 
172 
 
 eminently respectable members of the community in 
 which they reside ; and deserving enlightenment rather 
 than scorn, condemnation, or ridicule. 
 
 There are many kinds of morality*, and until it can be 
 shown that a man or woman violates every one of them, 
 we have no right to say that, because their practises are 
 contrary to our ideas of right and wrong, they must 
 necessarily be looked upon as criminals or vicious people. 
 From what Dr. Talmage says of the Mormons one would 
 be led to conclude that there was not a conscientious, 
 moral, refined, and intelligent individual among the 
 Church of the Latter Day Saints. Such caustic, 
 denunciatory language is misleading, and, therefore, 
 unjust, as can be easily demonstrated to an impartial 
 mind. 
 
 THE CHILD OF NATURE. 
 
 There is such a thing as natural morality, or natural 
 good conduct. It is the instinct of the savage to slay, 
 but he knows full well that he is violating a natural law 
 in murdering a fellow being. The mere fact that the 
 individual has life, renders it a law of Nature that he 
 should be allowed to retain his life, until for some act he 
 forfeits that life through being an enemy of Society. 
 While he remains non-destructive himself his fellow 
 savage has no moral right to cut the thread of his 
 existence, and the slayer becomes a murderer. 
 
 But barbaric morality may admit of the killing of 
 human beings. A Hindoo mother throws her babe into 
 the Ganges as a sacrifice to the gods. Being blinded by 
 ignorance and fanatical teachings and customs, she 
 crushes all a mother's love because she believes she 
 
173 
 I 
 
 is doing a meritorious act and a religious duty. This 
 is a wilful destruction of human life ; yet who would say 
 that the conscientious, sorrowing woman was an immoral 
 and murderous wretch ? This would be a case for 
 enlightenment by spreading truer, holier, more natural 
 beliefs, to be crystalised into nobler customs. But 
 according to the light of her knowledge and the standard 
 of morality in vogue among her people, this woman is 
 a moral and religious member of Society. 
 
 SAVAGE MORALITY. 
 
 It is essential that we should dwell on this lower order 
 of morality, because all higher standards of good conduct 
 are matters of development. In Panama the natives 
 walk about in a state of complete nudity, as also in 
 some parts of Africa and other warm countries. These 
 people have no idea that they are following any objection- 
 able mode of life which might be styled immoral. They 
 have their own code of morality, and this practice of 
 Garden of Eden simplicity is to them natural, comfort- 
 able and perfectly respectable. White persons at first 
 are intensely shocked on residing in these countries ; but 
 after a time this feeling wears off, and they view the 
 custom with indifference, and imitate it as nearly as they 
 can without violating the more sensitive code of morality 
 which in colder countries they have been accustomed 
 to conform to and approve. In this instance the natives 
 neither violate natural morality nor any standard set up 
 in their midst. 
 
 A savage may be guilty of breaking the laws of 
 natural morality, and yet keep within the bounds of his 
 own laws and customs. There is thus a distinction 
 
between natural morality and savage morality. 
 
 WALKED TO HER GRAVE. 
 
 I have heard of a traveller who, when among 
 one of the Indian tribes, was invited to attend a 
 funeral. On the day appointed a large party assembled, 
 and in conversation with one of those present the 
 traveller remarked that he did not see the dead person. 
 ' It is my mother who is to be buried ' replied a young 
 native by his side, ' but she is not dead yet ; she is 
 walking at the head of the procession.' To the amaze- 
 ment of the visitor the old woman was conversing with 
 her friends in the most cheerful manner, and on arriving 
 at the burial place she submitted to being strangled as 
 if it were an ordinary and perfectly legitimate pro- 
 cedure ! It was simply a custom of the tribe that when 
 their members became old and useless they should be 
 killed off. She conformed to the custom, and the execu- 
 tioners looked upon it as an unavoidable, although 
 perhaps unpleasant, duty. To us such an act seems 
 abhorrent although we consider we are justified in 
 ' mercifully ending the sufferings of the lower animals.' 
 But should we look upon the stranglers in this case as 
 murderers ? I say, certainly not. 
 
 VARYING STANDARDS OF MORALITY. 
 
 But besides natural and savage morality there is also 
 civilised morality. Even here, however, scarcely any 
 two systems are alike. What constitutes good conduct 
 in one civilised country would be scouted in another. 
 Some of the French and Spanish notions are repugnant 
 to English people ; while our ideas of propriety are. 
 
in some instances, equally distasteful and objectionable 
 to people of other nations. I could specify instances, 
 but were I to do so many would doubtless consider me 
 guilty of great impropriety. However, at the risk of 
 offending a few of the thin-skinned type, I will give an 
 example. 
 
 Plutarch was certainly a man of superior intellect, and 
 in his ideal Commonwealth of Lycurgus, he narrates 
 (evidently with approval) some of the customs inaugur- 
 ated by this ' half mythical or all mythical Solon of 
 Sparta.' He says : 
 
 " In order to take away the excessive tenderness and 
 delicacy of the sex, the consequence of a recluse life, he 
 accustomed the virgins occasionally to be seen naked, 
 as well as the young men, and to dance and sing in their 
 
 presence on certain festivals As for the 
 
 virgins appearing naked, there was nothing disgraceful 
 in it, because everything was conducted with modesty, 
 and without one indecent word or action." 
 
 Startling and immoral as this Adam and Eve style 
 would be to English people, it would be no more so 
 than are our customs of allowing girls to walk abroad 
 without escorts, or veils over their faces, to some of the 
 Oriental nations. 
 
 "SOCIETY" MORALITY. 
 
 But even more curious than the broad national 
 systems of morality, is that unwritten code which we 
 may term Society morality the laws of Mrs. Grundy, 
 who stands ready to be shocked and scandalised if her 
 decrees are disregarded. What anomalies we may per- 
 ceive in her hotch-potch, patch-work ethics ! Pictures 
 of the nude, when painted by eminent artists, are lauded 
 
I 7 6 
 
 as splendid studies of nature. Statues of undraped 
 figures may be seen at the Crystal Palace and other 
 public places, and the unsophisticated rural visitor is 
 dumbfounded at the things which Society does not regard 
 as indecent or immoral. But a dealer in photographs 
 of nude men and women finds himself under the grip 
 of the law ; and an insufficient amount of clothing worn 
 by a man on the street would also lead to arrest, and a 
 visit to the police station. George Meredith speaking 
 of a society woman remarked " She exposed as much 
 of her person as modern Society regulations would allow 
 her to do." Mrs. Grundy approves of low-necked ball 
 dresses, and gossamer bathing suits, yet anything 
 approaching such a costume on the street would evoke 
 her righteous horror. I venture to say that oft-times the 
 things which Society condemn are really less harmful 
 or immoral in their tendency or nature, than the customs 
 which Mrs. Grundy has stamped with the seal of her 
 approval. 
 
 All this brings us to the inevitable conclusion that 
 unless an individual violates a natural law there is great 
 possibility of his or her being undeserving of disdain or 
 punishment. Particular actions are no safe guide to us 
 as to our attitude towards those who may perform those 
 actions. 
 
 WHAT IS PERSONAL MORALITY. 
 
 What then is the main requisite of personal morality ? 
 I answer that a man must be above all things, conscien- 
 tious. If he uses his conscience, his heart, and his 
 intellect in a perfectly honest manner, he does not lose 
 his claim to our esteem, although he may eat peas with 
 his knife, or live with twenty wives. 
 
'77 
 
 Who would call George Eliot an immoral woman ? 
 She possessed genius, despised the legal trammels em- 
 ployed to force love, and lived with Mr. Lewis without 
 the aid of the marriage ceremony. Her actions we con- 
 demn as objectionable, illegal, bad in their influence, 
 and according to our own standard immoral, yet we 
 are given to understand that it was from a pure motive 
 that this popular lady novelist departed from this custom 
 of good conduct ; and we have no right to withhold our 
 respect from her. 
 
 If a person is conscientious, his errors of judgment, 
 defects of perceptivity, training or acquired knowledge 
 must be considered as such, and he must not be regarded 
 as an enemy of Society. 
 
 THE SPHERE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 It is no longer held by right-thinking men that 
 Conscience will reveal what particular line of action will 
 eventually produce good results, or what religious belief 
 is true. If this idea was not exploded, we should 
 have to face the preposterous conclusion that if a man's 
 life was contrary to any given and accepted system of 
 morality, it would follow that he had disregarded his 
 Conscience, and was, therefore, an immoral person. 
 
 The following lines, which I wrote some years ago, 
 state in a terse manner the limitations of Conscience : 
 
 RIGHT AND WRONG. 
 
 Actions or thoughts may good or evil be, 
 
 But human brains may vainly seek to grasp 
 
 The heights and depths of knowledge, so to learn 
 
 Beyond all doubt the ultimate effects. 
 
 Yet trust not all to Conscience' warning voice ; 
 
 She sways no sceptre in thy Reason's sphere ; 
 
 . N 
 
1 7 8 
 
 For know that Conscience only Motive heeds, 
 Interpreting thy heart's inmost desire. 
 Keep then thy longings spotless as the snow ; 
 Expand thy Mind and open wide her doors ; 
 Act on the light that downward freely streams, 
 Then Conscience will approve and God will smile. 
 
 ARE MORMONS CONSCIENTIOUS? 
 
 Conscience being only the interpreter of " Tightness 
 and oughtness in motives," we must not blame con- 
 scientious Mormons because their ideas differ from ours, 
 both as to their religious belief and moral system. As 
 they do not violate the law of natural morality they are 
 entitled to have their actions and belief discussed as 
 things apart from themselves ; and every facility should 
 be afforded for educating them to ideas and practises 
 in harmony with the highest standard of morality, 
 which is the result of the combined experience of 
 civilised man, as elicited by a comparison of the nature 
 and effects of things. 
 
 If there were no good people among the Mormons, 
 there would have been little reason for a thorough 
 investigation and discussion of their lives. We should 
 simply need to dispatch missionaries to them to mould 
 them on the lines of civilisation, as far as practicable. 
 But I write to condemn the system, and to defend the 
 bulk of the people from the attacks often made upon 
 their character as a community ; for I believe, after fair 
 consideration of testimony and from personal observation, 
 that the majority of the Saints are mistaken but con- 
 scientious, and, therefore, moral people. 
 
 SHEEP AND GOATS. 
 That there are glaring exceptions to this class I readily 
 
179 
 
 admit. Whoever was responsible for the Mountain 
 Meadow massacre ; the institution of the law that an 
 apostate must die ; the callousness displayed in sending 
 deluded believers to Utah under the Hand-Cart scheme, 
 and many other things mentioned in this book must be 
 considered as evil-minded, selfish, murderous and 
 immoral people. Joe Smith and Brigham Young are 
 dead, so we are not required to place them on trial for 
 the deeds done in the body ; but we are bound to form 
 the opinion that while the Mormons have been at times 
 persecuted, they have sometimes exacted an eye for an 
 eye and a tooth for a tooth sometimes the wrong eye 
 and tooth. We have heard of the rack, the thumb- 
 screw, the scavenger's daughter, and other instruments 
 of torture used to spread the Religion of Humanity : yet 
 we must not judge all Christians by the evil deeds 
 of a few men, nor call Christianity a fungus because 
 villains have traded in its doctrines. 
 
 In establishing Mormonism, as in founding many 
 other religions, some people became members because it 
 afforded an opportunity to gratify ambition, to attain 
 notoriety, to hold the reins of power, and to amass a 
 vast fortune through the credulity of ignorant believers. 
 Some, attracted by what to them was license, simulated 
 belief, and under the garb of hypocrisy revelled in the 
 satisfaction of their grossest passions. Others were in- 
 telligent but emotional, and when once convinced 
 partly perhaps by defective reasoning, and partly by 
 sensation that they found truth in this particular phase 
 of religious life, they never wavered, and still cling to 
 their belief, blinded by the effects of early training or 
 fanatical emotion. 
 
 N2 
 
i8o 
 
 SWAYED BY SOPHISTRY. 
 
 But the rank and file of the saints belong to none of 
 these classes. They are from the great body of illiterate 
 persons, who, being awed at realising that they are in a 
 world of mystery, if born in any land under the sun 
 would succumb to the strongest local religious influence. 
 The ranks of all churches are recruited from their midst, 
 and any smart and unscrupulous man can sway them by 
 specious words, until they are ready to accept sophistry 
 as the inspired word of God. People of this kind have 
 for ages being maintaining by the sweat of their brows, 
 indolent and hypocritical professional teachers of 
 religion, and will continue to do so until we stray much 
 farther from the Missing Link, or until Faith is lost in 
 Sight of the Eternal. 
 
 "JUDGE NOT THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED." 
 
 If we set ourselves up as Judges of the morality of 
 individuals whose environment differs widely from our 
 own, we are guilty of the sin of uncharitableness, 
 and we arrogate to ourselves what we do not possess, 
 viz., a perfect knowledge of the operations of those 
 wonderful faculties with which man has been endowed. 
 The power of hereditary tendencies ; the peculiarities 
 of temperament ; the effects of association with good 
 and evil, which is inseparable from active participation 
 in the struggle for existence ; the influence of inexplic- 
 able, and perhaps ungovernable impulses, and the force 
 of temptation all these go to make up the complexity 
 of our natures and actions ; and until we stand at the 
 Eternal Bar of Justice we shall never know the exact 
 
extent of the moral accountability of any man, be he 
 Mormon or Mahommedan, Murderer or Monarch. 
 
 If you decide that all men have absolute free-will, 
 abide by your own decision, and remember that if there 
 is an infallible standard of morality preached to you, 
 you will be morally responsible for every violation of its 
 code. If then your life is not perfect in action as well 
 as in intention, remember that, not being without sin, 
 you must not cast the first stone at another frail mortal. 
 
 If, on the contrary, you admit that those who fain 
 would do right ' are conscious most of wrong within,' and 
 that will power and intellectual comprehension are both 
 limited by external and hereditary influences, you must 
 then hold out the warm hand of fellowship to those 
 whose lives apparently contain more blots than those of 
 persons who have been swayed by more enlightening 
 forces. 
 
 Meet the Mormon as a member of the great family of 
 humanity ; respect the good in him ; sympathise with 
 natural limitations of understanding, and try to con- 
 vince him that there is a greater good than that which 
 he has heretofore perceived. Above all do not let the 
 following lines by Ella Wheeler Wilcox be true in 
 your case : 
 
 TWO WOMEN. 
 
 I know two women ; and one is chaste 
 
 And cold as the snow on a winter waste ; 
 
 Stainless ever, in act and thought 
 
 (As a man born dumb in speech errs not) . 
 
 But she has malice toward her kind 
 
 A cruel tongue and a jealous mind. 
 
 She judges the world by her narrow creed, 
 
 And never performs a kindly deed ; 
 
 A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate, 
 
 Yet she holds the key to Society's gate. 
 
182 
 
 The other woman with a heart of flame 
 Went mad for a love that marred her name ; 
 But out of the grave of her murdered faith 
 She rose like a soul that has passed thro' death. 
 Her aim is noble, her pity so broad 
 It covers the world like the mercy of God. 
 A healer of discord, a soother of woes, 
 Peace follows her footsteps wherever she goes 
 The worthier life of the two, no doubt ; 
 And yet Society locks her out. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " Society is arriving at the consciousness that for an ordinary 
 woman to expect the monopoly of a man of genius is a crime of 
 vanity and of egotism so enormous that it cannot be accepted in its 
 pretensions or imposed upon him in its tyranny." 
 
 OUIDA. 
 
 " As the word of God has declared marriage to be honourable in 
 all, so we must infer that His laws have made provision for the 
 honourable marriage of all, and that every person of each sex is 
 equally entitled to its rights and benefits. If love be refining and 
 ennobling, if it be the spontaneous instinctive birthright of all, and 
 if our Greater has restricted its indulgence to the marriage relation, 
 then marriage must be the right of all, or else God is not a 
 benevolent being. The fault is not in nature, nor in the laws of 
 God ; but it is in the tyrannical laws and fashions of the artificial 
 system of social life which now obtains among us." 
 
 THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 IS POLYGAMY IMMORAL? 
 
 IS polygamy immoral, or must we only judge it on the 
 grounds of expediency ? 
 
 We know that systems of morals are built up on what 
 ought to be ; so that an action which will in all proba- 
 bility be productive of greater harm than good, is classed 
 as immoral. If an act, however, is not necessarily produc- 
 tive of evil, but may be because of the attitude of a 
 man's 'little world' towards it, it may be inexpedient, but 
 cannot reasonably be considered immoral. A girl may wear 
 a low-necked ball dress in a ball-room with the greatest 
 propriety ; yet if she appeared in this attire on the 
 
184 
 
 street Society would be so shocked that it might blast 
 her reputation. Many little things will occur to the 
 reader which hinge upon expediency alone. If the 
 individual were alone on a desert island no harm would 
 result ; yet every day we resign a certain amount of 
 liberty of action, not because we should do wrong, but 
 rather because our deeds might have the appearance 
 of evil to persons who, being differently constituted, 
 could not conscientiously do the same thing. If we 
 persistently entirely disregard conventionality, we may 
 not feel condemned, and yet our example may, like a 
 stone flung in water, set in motion ripples whose 
 circles will expand until they enter many a life with 
 injurious results. A great reform, if introduced sud- 
 denly and inopportunely, would perhaps carry with it an 
 incalculable amount of evil, counter-balancing the 
 general good tendency of the scheme. 
 
 POLYGAMY RESPECTABLE. 
 
 In the times of Abraham, Solomon and David, when 
 polygamy and concubinage were recognised institutions, it 
 would have been absurd to stigmatise them as immoral. 
 Conscientious and religious people, I contend, might 
 practise plural marriage voluntarily, and their sincerity 
 and self-sacrificing spirit might eliminate grossness from 
 it, so that under these conditions it might be a distinct good. 
 But when we come to contrast plural marriage with 
 monogamy, bearing in mind the imperfections of human 
 nature, we may find that the latter is vastly superior to 
 the former, because, all things considered, the one man 
 one wife system produces greater good, with less demand 
 upon the restraint of those who adopt it. 
 
1 86 
 
 I regard polygamy as inexpedient rather than immoral, 
 because the common-sense of mankind has abandoned 
 it, and because we could not ordinarily furnish the con- 
 ditions under which it might be looked upon as natural, 
 workable and beneficial. 
 
 We are told that in Japan free love (or a mixture of 
 promiscuous intercourse and polyandry) is an honoured 
 institution, and that 
 
 " After 2,000 years of free love we 
 
 find crime rare, the prisons almost empty, domestic 
 tragedies nearly unknown, adultery uncommon ; very 
 few foundlings thrown upon public charity, all children 
 
 being at the father's charge In no 
 
 country in the world are political and social order 
 more complete ; in none it seems is there more life-long 
 conjugal felicity." 
 
 Here it will be seen is an institution less rigid than 
 polygamy, alleged to produce beneficial results because of 
 the attitude of the Japanese nation towards it. We have 
 no greater right to condemn their system as being 
 immoral, than they have to seek to compel us to adopt 
 free love in England. In all probability Mrs. Zina 
 Young was right when she said that their object in 
 practising polygamy was not to pander to base passions, 
 but to bring into the world many righteous children. 
 There is no allegation, either, that in a Mormon com- 
 munity the horrors of prostitution abound, as they do in 
 other communities, because Mormonism has rigid laws 
 by which it regulates the lives of its believers. 
 
 Inequalities of intellectual grasp and varieties of 
 temperament help to form various customs in particular 
 localities and different ages. Polygamy served its 
 
I8 7 
 
 purpose, and we discard it only because we find another 
 kind of sexual relation is more in harmony with our 
 complex society and modern conditions of life. 
 
 WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY? 
 
 Still there are many persons who would regard plural 
 marriage as immoral if the Bible condemns it. Field's 
 Revised Handbook of Theology says that the Bible con- 
 tains an infallible standard of morality. If direct con- 
 demnation of it is found in the Scriptures, no doubt the 
 majority of English people would argue that this estab- 
 lishes its immorality. This, however, is not the case. 
 
 After carefully referring to numerous passages in the 
 Scriptures under the indexed heads of " Polygamy dis- 
 approved of," " Laws concerning Marriage," and " Its 
 nature and design," I am bound to say that Mrs. Young 
 was strictly accurate when she told me that nowhere in 
 the Old or New Testaments is there a word positively 
 condemning plural marriage as a sin. Under the Mosaic 
 dispensation polygamy was extensively practised, and 
 although adultery and other crimes in relation to the 
 sexes were punishable with death, yet polygamy is 
 treated as though it were a legitimate and moral 
 institution. In the 21 chap. Deut. the law is laid down 
 that if a man have two wives, one of whom he hates and 
 the other he loves, and if the hated one's child is the 
 first-born, he must not be deprived of his greater share 
 of inherited property on account of that hatred. Solomon 
 is not censured for having 700 wives and 300 concubines ; 
 but because they were women from idolatrous nations, 
 who led him astray from the Jewish religion in his old 
 age. And though Solomon lays down wise precepts, 
 
1 88 
 
 many of which are applicable to all ranks and conditions 
 of men, all nationalities, and all times, he does not deal 
 with the peculiar Oriental harem life as compared or con- 
 trasted with a monogamous system of marriage. The 
 only bone of contention is the common use of the 
 singular, instead of the plural number in the Scriptures ; 
 and such language as " And they twain shall be one 
 flesh." 
 
 But generally speaking, biblical laws tend to show 
 that it was optional for a man to live with one wife or a 
 dozen, provided they were not other men's wives, or 
 connected by ties of consanguinity, or were not idolaters. 
 
 CHRIST SILENT ON THE SUBJECT. 
 
 In the New Testament it is somewhat remarkable that 
 Christ is only said to have spoken once at any length 
 concerning Marriage, and then mainly confined himself 
 to condemning divorce for any cause except adultery. 
 He uses the term " wife" and not " wives," but although 
 Josephus says " for it is with us an ancient practice to 
 have many wives at the same time," Christ does not say 
 that this practice was either immoral or productive of 
 unhappiness. Paul, in his epistles, " speaking by per- 
 mission and not of commandment," while recommend- 
 ing celibacy in some instances, does not denounce 
 polygamy. 
 
 Practically then we have no decisive scriptural 
 grounds for considering plural marriage repugnant to 
 God or man, if the contract is voluntary, and the woman 
 only has one husband ; while the latter does not prove 
 unfaithful, or seek divorce except on the ground of the 
 woman's adultery. 
 
We have then, I contend, to try polygamy as ex- 
 pedient or inexpedient not moral or immoral. Is it 
 equal or superior to Monogamy ? Would it be produc- 
 tive of greater happiness ? Is it necessary in order to 
 eradicate any existing evils ? 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 A glance at the history of marriage will help us to 
 answer these enquiries. Bagehot, in his " Physics and 
 Politics," states that promiscuous intercourse was the 
 first form of sexual relationship between primitive man 
 and woman. Organised society was then unknown, and 
 a mutual desire for pleasure was all that was necessary, 
 and no marriage laws existed. Descent was traced 
 through the mother alone. When population increased 
 and the units were welded together the association 
 being for mutual protection and assistance restraints 
 had to be imposed on individuals in order that the 
 public safety might be promoted. Free intercourse was 
 superseded by polygamy, which was succeeded by 
 monogamy as the intelligence of the community increased 
 and a higher standard was set up. Sir J. William 
 Dawson, however, in " Points of Contact between 
 Revelation and Natural Science," furnishes a crushing 
 answer to this theory, and affirms that deviations from 
 monogamous relationship have been lapses from the 
 original marriage state, and that consequently the ideal 
 of modern advocates of free love and polygamy is 
 not only an inferior one, but contrary to the intention of 
 the Creator of the Universe. 
 
 In the chapter on " Primitive Social Institutions," he 
 says : 
 
xgo 
 
 " Certain archaeologists have recently been much 
 occupied with attempts to trace the social condition of 
 primitive man in the customs of the ruder and more 
 barbaric tribes, and in turn to deduce these from a 
 supposed bestial condition in which the family and the 
 marriage tie did not exist. Now, it is well known that 
 in countries so widely separated as North America, India, 
 Australia, and New Guinea, we find certain peculiar and 
 often complex laws of affinity and of marriage, which 
 are probably of very ancient origin. These are such 
 as the following : The recognition of woman as the 
 principal factor in the family ; descent in the female line, 
 and systems of consanguinity based on this ; exogamy, 
 or prohibition to marry within the same tribe or family ; 
 family tokens or emblems devised to regulate these 
 arrangements, and in connection with all this, a system 
 of tribal communion, in which the wives and mothers 
 are a related communism, into which the husbands are 
 introduced from without by the practice of exogamy. 
 
 " That this complicated system sprang from a primi- 
 tive promiscuous intercourse is a pure assumption and 
 contrary to scientific probability. The long period of 
 helplessness and dependence of the human child renders 
 it essential that the relation of husband and wife should 
 have existed from the first ; or to place the matter on the 
 lowest level, that man should be a permanently pairing 
 animal, and the analogy of some of the animals nearest 
 to man, though the nearest of these are very remote 
 from him in this respect, strengthens this conclusion. 
 Again, so soon as men formed tribes and communities, 
 which necessity would oblige them to do almost from 
 the first, it would become necessary to guard the family 
 
igx 
 
 relation, and this was done by enforcing the rights of 
 the wife and mother to her husband and her child, and 
 to care and protection in child-bearing and nursing. 
 Lastly the law of exogamy could scarcely have been 
 spontaneous, but must have been an expedient devised 
 by sagacious leaders in order to prevent, on the one 
 hand, too close inter-marriage ; and, on the other, entire 
 isolation on the part of the tribes into which men were 
 necessarily divided, and at the same time to avert undue 
 variation and degradation. In the record of the social 
 arrangements of primitive man as given in the Bible, 
 we have intimations of these institutions, and confirma- 
 tions of their existence in subsequent references, even 
 after the patriarchal and tribal arrangements had been 
 fully established." 
 
 Further on this writer says, " Not long ago, a late 
 eminent archaeologist was surprised when I pointed out 
 to him that his discoveries of exogamy and descent in 
 the female line had been anticipated in the law ' therefore 
 shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave 
 unto his wife.' Here it is the husband who leaves his 
 family to go with his wife, and she, as the centre of the 
 family and mother of the children, is the true husband, 
 
 bond of the household In the village 
 
 community the women rule ; in the tribe or clan there is 
 a patriarchal chief." 
 
 If detailed reasons as to why polygamy should not be 
 regarded as the highest form of sexual relationship are 
 requisite, they can easily be adduced. Here are some 
 which, I consider effectually prove the case for mono- 
 gamy as against plural marriage : 
 
WHY POLYGAMY IS INEXPEDIENT. 
 
 First, because of our antagonistic ideas, which are 
 the result of our modern training and expansion of 
 thought. We do not live in a land where polygamy is 
 an " honoured institution," and however we may have 
 imbibed the antagonistic sentiment, it is repugnant to at 
 least the female sex, and to a large proportion of men. 
 Unless there are certain specific advantages to be 
 derived from an enforced revulsion of feeling we should 
 be foolish to abandon our present system, but rather seek 
 to renovate it whenever necessary. We do not believe 
 that God commands us through Joseph Smith to 
 re-institute polygamy, or that the more children we have 
 the greater will be our crown of glory in the other 
 world. If we adopted polygamy at all it would be 
 because we considered it innately superior to monogamy, 
 which it is not. 
 
 Second, because a religious belief in its necessity 
 seems indispensable, as the Mormons admit that human 
 nature being selfish, only a strong sense of religious 
 duty can enable a woman to overcome her aversion to 
 only retaining a section of her husband's affections. 
 
 Third, because from an economic standpoint there is 
 no necessity for such an increase in the population as 
 would follow if polygamy were to become universal. In 
 fact the present rate of increase in a country where 
 monogamy is the rule is becoming a serious problem for 
 social reformers ; as selfish competition, leading to an 
 inequality in the distribution of wealth, has produced 
 wide-spread poverty. Even a deluge of " righteous " 
 children after the Mormon type, would not be hailed as 
 an unmixed blessing. 
 
193 
 
 Fourth, because even if competition were abolished, 
 and the production of wealth became even greater than 
 it is at present, by co-operation, each individual's share 
 of the annual profits would not suffice to maintain more 
 than one wife and family. Under our present industrial 
 system polygamy is only possible to the rich. 
 
 If plural marriage be admitted to be a desideratum it 
 is absurd and unjust that the wealthy man should 
 monopolise several women and the poor man have only 
 one. 
 
 Fifth, because even if men could afford it, there would 
 not be enough women to go round in large numbers. 
 The proportion of male births to females throughout the 
 world is said to be as twenty-one to twenty, but war and 
 other causes turn the scales slightly the other way as 
 people grow older. Consequently the principle could 
 not be of universal application. fJMijmjvfi I *L ~ 
 
 FAULT IN MEN, NOT THE SYSTEM. 
 
 Sixth, because the adoption of polygamy would not 
 necessarily mean the abolition of prostitution. It is 
 true that many women remain single now who might be 
 happier married, and many would not lead immoral 
 lives if they could marry a man ; but compulsory single 
 life does not usually lead to prostitution on the part of 
 women, nor is single life caused by the prevalence of 
 prostitution. The reasons why many young men and 
 women remain unmarried are varied, usually being 
 economic or personal. Poverty frequently prevents 
 marriage. Inability to find a suitable partner in life acts 
 similarly. A selfish desire for gratification of the 
 passions, without bearing any of the burdens of pater- 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 nity, actuates as a barrier in other cases. Prostitution 
 of women result more frequently from an inordinate 
 craving for fine garments, indolence, defective moral 
 training, (resulting in dissipation and drunkenness,) 
 betrayal by a lover, and other causes ; rather than from 
 the necessity of earning a livelihood by bartering the 
 body for gold. 
 
 The same cause which now makes a man unfaithful 
 to his one wife would make him discontented with any 
 number of wives, and he would ever be on the look out 
 for fresh faces. Turkish harems would spring up all 
 over the land among those who would accept the burden 
 of maintaining a large number of wives. But the men 
 who are now single because they are too poor, or because 
 they cannot find even one suitable partner in life, would 
 not be benefited by being privileged to have a dozen 
 unsuitable ones if they could maintain them. So that 
 there would still be an enormous number of single 
 women who would have to earn their own living ; and 
 even if from this cause single women often led immoral 
 lives, (which I deny) there would be little diminution in 
 the number of prostitutes. I have shown what are 
 some of the more frequent causes of prostitution, and 
 these would not be removed were polygamy to be sanc- 
 tioned by law and public opinion. 
 
 If, as is claimed by Mrs. Zina Young, the Mormon 
 men and women are rigidly faithful to each other, and 
 there is no immoral class maintained in Salt Lake City, 
 this is because the Mormons are governed by a religious 
 sentiment and belief, and a sense of duty. This has a 
 tendency to change people's nature, but if religion were 
 separated from polygamy, and human nature left as it is 
 
195 
 
 at the present time, those who are impure would be 
 impure still. 
 
 Seventh, because polygamy requires a much greater 
 amount of self-sacrifice on the part of women than men. 
 Love seems naturally to beget jealousy, and where there 
 is no jealousy there is a lack of desire to be together, 
 arising from an absence of personal interest, which 
 can be traced back to a lack of love. Under polygamy a 
 woman is required to be content to know, not only that 
 her husband is not with her, but that at a particular 
 time he is caressing another woman. In return for this 
 suppression of her feelings what does the man sacrifice ? 
 He has a larger amount of self-indulgence than before, 
 in return for supporting a greater number of wives, 
 which many men would gladly do provided they had the 
 means. He would have a dozen homes instead of one, 
 and Society would regard his actions as perfectly 
 proper, although each wife would undoubtedly feel an 
 instinctive bitterness at being deserted so frequently ; and 
 the chances are that the less attractive wives would be 
 treated with growing indifference, while each new 
 addition to the vineyard would temporarily possess 
 almost a monopoly of the man's attentions. 
 
 Eighth, because if a man had numerous wives, and a 
 family of forty or fifty children, like Brigham Young for 
 instance, there would almost inevitably be an absence of 
 paternal love and training. A man could hardly keep 
 track of their names, much less study their individual 
 characteristics in order to secure their esteem, and help 
 to develop their varied tastes and talents. Our home 
 training in England is defective enough, but what it 
 would be if polygamy prevailed is a prospect scarcely 
 pleasant to contemplate. o 2 
 
196 
 
 MONOGAMY A SUPERIOR INSTITUTION. 
 
 Ninth, because under a monogamous system we can 
 remove any evils or cure any defects, more successfully 
 than under a polygamous system. We have all the 
 advantages which arise in the latter state, if there are 
 any, and many others in addition, notwithstanding that 
 only recently it has been shown that in many cases 
 English marriage is a failure ; for the same deplorable 
 results would follow, and more rapidly, if polygamy 
 were the rule. If one man and one woman could not 
 live together without being miserable, would there not 
 be greater discord if the man had to please twelve 
 women, and they had to divide his love between them ? 
 
 Tenth, because a man should be governed by Duty as 
 much as a woman. If he denies that variety (otherwise 
 promiscuous intercourse) is desirable in her case, why 
 should he not be required to exercise similar self- 
 restraint ? And is it not his duty to seek to make her 
 happy ? If parties are unhappily mated, we might 
 sanction greater freedom of divorce rather than doom 
 two individuals to life-long misery ; but we could not 
 approve of the introduction of a system which would 
 only aggravate the evil. It is less burdensome for men 
 and women to live in monogamy happily and chastely 
 than in polygamy. What kind of men are they who 
 usually violate our marriage laws ? Are they the finest 
 specimens of manhood, or do they not usually lack love, 
 sympathy, honour, and manliness ? A man who is 
 impulsive and subject to wandering fancies for other 
 women, will restrain himself if he has a sincere regard 
 for his wife, and will also treat her with consideration 
 
197 
 
 even though he may not consider that less restricted 
 sexual relations would be immoral. But if a man will 
 play the hypocrite now and endanger his wife's health, 
 he would give the freest reign to his fancies and passions, 
 if he could do so with the sanction of Society and the 
 permission of a self-sacrificing wife. 
 
 Eleventh, because if monogamy is not perfect, it is 
 far more preferable than polygamy. Monogamy " fur- 
 nishes the conditions under which the highest specimens 
 of human nature are evolved ; it has given us ideally 
 perfect unions of man and woman." We have the 
 home, the family, with conjugal and parental love in a 
 marriage state which is best adapted for perpetuating 
 the race and ensuring the public weal. There is ample 
 opportunity for unselfishness in our system, if it is 
 claimed that Mormonism is good because it develops 
 that quality. 
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT THE CURE. 
 
 We must not expect to gather grapes of thorns or figs 
 of thistles. We should not consider that our system is 
 necessarily defective, or that another is preferable, merely 
 because men do not try to govern their inclinations, or 
 plead that desire alone must be recognised and satisfied. 
 If free-will is not altogether a delusion, then men can 
 (particularly if a religious sentiment is cultivated) keep 
 their passions within the boundary of a monogamous 
 marriage ; and if a remedy for an evil which is the 
 result of selfish animal cravings is sought outside of the 
 cultivation of a higher moral sense, it will be as futile as 
 expecting to abolish poverty without placing a check on 
 man's selfishness, and without equalising incomes. 
 
We should be sympathetic to the impulsive, and 
 seek to lift them when they have fallen, rather than 
 encourage them to repeat the act by sanctioning it. 
 The Mormons should not be condemned or persecuted if 
 they are conscientious, and are not trying to force others 
 into their mode of life. But the public must guard 
 against being carried away by fanaticism, or even milder 
 emotionalism and defective reasoning. Freedom of 
 thought, speech, and action, should be granted to all, 
 except when it is palpable that such a course would lead 
 to vice or crime. We should aim at the highest and 
 best line of life, and remember that as an integral part of 
 Society it is our duty to abstain from many things not 
 because they are rigidly wrong, but only inexpedient. 
 
 OUR ATTITUDE TO MORMONISM. 
 
 It may seem hard to the Mormons that they should be 
 imprisoned for doing what they believe to be right ; but 
 still, viewing all sides of the case, I can but think that 
 the United States Government is right and consistent in 
 preventing the practise of polygamy, just as it prohibits 
 bigamy or other illegal acts. It would be preferable if a 
 punishment could be devised to distinguish criminals 
 who do wrong with the full consciousness that it is 
 wrong, from religious zealots who violate modern ideas 
 of good conduct through a sincere belief that they are 
 doing what is right in the sight of God. At present the 
 only course open seems to be to discountenance plural 
 marriage because of the probable effect it would have 
 on the rising generation. 
 
 The latest advices from Utah (September i6th, 1890) 
 state that " Judge Anderson, in sentencing a large 
 
199 
 
 number of Mormons for polygamy at the September 
 term of the Second District Court, held at Beaver, in 
 this State, remarked upon the fact that all the accused 
 had refused to promise to obey the laws in future ; yet 
 the Mormons constantly caused it to be reported through 
 the Press and in Congress that polygamy had been 
 abandoned. The fact was, he said, that the Mormons 
 proclaimed abroad that polygamy was not practised in 
 Utah, while that every term a crowd of polygamous 
 offenders were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and 
 refused to even promise to obey the laws in future. The 
 pretensions of the Mormons, the judge concluded, were 
 false and absurd." 
 
 This shows the difficulties with which the judicial 
 authorities have to cope, and the obstinacy of the Mor- 
 mons ; but we must not forget, however, that harsh 
 measures are not altogether satisfactory. Only in a 
 certain degree can we counteract erratic ideas by legisla- 
 tive enactments. Unless we appeal to the intelligence, 
 and convince individuals that the thing condemned is 
 unworthy of acceptance and adoption, rigid laws will 
 be only partially successful. 
 
 HACKING A SHADOW. 
 
 It will not do to imitate the example of the Methodists 
 and Campbellites, who are said to have once mobbed 
 Joseph Smith and treated him to a dose of tar and 
 feathers. As Mr. Rowland says: " History affords few 
 more striking examples of the powerlessness of persecu- 
 tion to put down even mistaken faith, than that exhibited 
 by Mormonism. It would be as easy to hack a shadow 
 with a Damascus blade as to cut down a superstition by 
 the use of physical force." 
 
200 
 
 It is a great mistake to imagine that Mormonism is 
 dying out. Persecution gave new life to Christianity ; 
 and any unnecessary restraint of the liberties of 
 Mormons should be avoided. It is unwise to foster the 
 idea that they are martyrs, and their judges brutal 
 enemies. The great cure for ignorance is education ; 
 the remedy for a dwarfed system of morality, one that 
 is superior. " If we would deal with the evils in 
 systems we must do so by purifying the issues of moral 
 thought, not by attempting to constrain it by legal 
 impedimenta." The more light that is thrown on 
 the defects in the system, and the loftier the motives 
 advocated as guiding forces in life, the more beneficial 
 will be the results. 
 
 THE LATEST MANIFESTO. 
 
 Will the President of the Mormon Church be true to 
 his word ? He has just issued a manifesto dated October 
 6th, 1890, to the effect that the Church teaches polygamy 
 no longer. This act is said to be the outcome of a 
 special revelation from God. He also declares his 
 intention of submitting to the law of the United States 
 prohibiting plural marriages. If he abide by this 
 decision, and his flock obey the voice of the Shepherd, 
 the most objectionable feature of Mormonism will have 
 been renounced. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY HOBLYN & TAYLER, THE CORNWALL PRINTING WORKS, REDRUTH.