Scandinavia are being effectually canvassed by Mormon missionaries. . Thousands of the most ignorant and depraved are annually drawn from these countries and poured into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. The teachings of these emissaries appeal to the baser portion of human nature. Animal comforts, beastly gratification, are promised as inducements to become converts. "New stakes" in Zion are being set throughout the Pacific Slope, and bishoprics established in all of the adjoining States and Territories. The Mormon polity, however vicious, is based on shrewd common sense. Its object is the greatest good for the smallest number, and it has proved a perfect success. The institution is a close corporation, from which the President of the Church, his Counsellors, the Twelve Apostles, and a few others derive unlimited authority. They also acquire great riches from the tithings paid in by the poor and superstitious masses of the church members. Claiming to be the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," it is impossible to discover in their dogmas anything that savors of Christian theology. A strange compound appears, how ever, of doctrines drawn from the faith of the Jews and of the Buddhists, and the theory of "blood-atonement" has led practically to the offering of human sacrifices. The supreme absurdity of the proposition that the practice of polygamy tends to promote a pure and spiritual religion need not be discussed here. Without any reference to that offense, there is nothing pure or spiritual in the faith of the Mormons. "They are of the earth, earthy." The Church has existed for half a century. Nearly a quarter of a million converts have been made. What are the results? Has even one man truly great appeared in it? Has it produced a statesman, poet, general, orator, patriot, or philanthropist? Is any man to-day happier or holier for the theology of Joseph Smith? Are we indebted to it for a single great or noble sentiment? Could any of these questions be answered in the affirmative, we might entertain some feeling of compassion, or a hope that proper treatment might recall them to the path of duty. But under the existing state of facts what can the Mormons demand but simple justice, the justice which we desire them to receive, but for which they have the greatest aversion. Their highest claim to consideration is in their own language, that they have "made the desert to blossom as the rose." They have indeed been industrious, but in pursuit of the best interests of the hierarchy. Were they accomplishing good, many evils could be overlooked; but in all things they are anti-Christian as well as anti-American. Their arrogant bearing in Utah, where they are so greatly in the majority, their threats of vengeance against the American people and all others whom they deem their enemies, their advocacy of blood atonement, and the comfort which they derive from the belief that eventually all inimical to them will be destroyed with fire unquenchable, does not well accord with the theology of Christ. Neither does the fact that Utah and all the Mormons are ruled by a small oligarchy composed of their President and Twelve Apostles, that freedom. of thought and of speech is not permitted there (except in Salt Lake City, under the guns of Fort Douglas), that polygamous wives, irrespective of age and nationality, without any process of naturalization, are permitted to vote and to enjoy all the other rights of citizenship, that hostility to republican institutions is thoroughly instilled into the heart of each new convert, and of every Mormon child, and that all are taught that it is a meritorious act to disobey the laws of the United States, correspond well with the principles of the American Government. They boast that they will yet be strong enough in their mountain fastnesses to cope with the national power, and so great is the superstition of the masses that they believe when the inevitable time for action arrives the leaders of the faithful will call to their aid the mighty host of heaven. Any other Government possessed of one twentieth part of the power of the United States would long ago have wiped this stain from the face of the earth. But America, young, generous, mighty, apathetic, careless of the future, nurtures in her bosom the reptile that will yet endeavor to sting her to the heart. The founder of the Mormon Church, ambitious of power, desirous of the means to gratify his animal instincts, without a spark of genius, but guided by low cunning, chose religion and superstition as the instruments with which to attain his end. He palmed off upon his credulous followers the dreamy productions of a valetudinarian for the inspirations of Jehovah. Avowing the dogma of plural marriage, persecuted for what he did, office of governor, he maintained his political supremacy, and by means of his "Band of Danites" enforced speedily, secretly, mercilessly, in despite of Federal powers, his own fatal decrees. Then was organized a most effectual plan for proselyting. The first Mormons, renegades to their religion and to their country, were nearly all Americans. The high officers of the Church are, with few exceptions, filled by them to-day. Yet the institution is emphatically foreign, and it was soon apparent to the astute mind of Brigham Young, that if his Church was to flourish, its strength must be derived from other countries. Zealous emissaries, under his direction, were sent abroad. The offscourings of Protestant Europe. have been gathered into the valleys of the Ameri not for what he believed, becoming as much of According to the law which he enunciated, the lands of Utah in the first instance belonged exclusively to the Church, and in its distribution he was not forgetful of his own interests, nor of those of his immediate followers. He subsequently formed and carried out the plan of erecting in each town or county of importance a "Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institute," which, managed by his favorites, monopolized nearly all the business of Utah, excluded the Gentiles from participation therein, and greatly increased the revenue which he had perniciously derived from the payment of tithings to the Church. The payment of this tithing is strictly enforced, and no stronger cause exists to-day for the excommunication of a brother than the fact that he has been remiss in making these payments to the officers of the treasury. After the organization of Utah into a Territory, Brigham Young was appointed governor. Thus he was at the same time at the head of the Church and of the political and mercantile interests of the Territory. Though soon superseded in the The gospel, as preached to these converts, abounds with promises of peace, plenty, and paradise in this world, and a glorious immortality in the one to come. But if these promises are no better fulfilled as to the future than the present, most Mormons will have a far more realizing sense of the place described by Dante than of the one pictured by Milton. From the time that a Mormon is baptized his enforced contributions to the wealth of the priests commence. If in America, it is nominally for the exclusive use of the Church, but actually for the pockets of the "leaders in Israel." If a poor Mormon has no money, he turns wheat and potatoes, beef and poultry, hay and wool, into the insatiable maw of the Church. If the convert is baptized in foreign lands, he is persuaded as speedily as possible to sail for America. If he has money, the elders receive it in trust until he arrives in Utah. He will never see it again. He may be paid in lands and merchandise at the Saints' own valuation, but the money will never be returned. It will inure to the benefit of apostles and elders. If the convert is poor, he will be furnished with a ticket to Utah. When there, he will ascertain that he is involved in a debt to the Church which he can never pay. Instead of diminishing, he will find that it increases every year, and he will learn that he has a job on hand similar to that of filling a well which has no bottom. When the trains, which during each month roll down the valley of the Great Salt Lake, enter the city of that name, the apostles and bishops meet to receive the new converts, to welcome them to Zion, and especially to select from the youngest and prettiest a third, eighth, or eleventh wife, as the case may be. The higher orders of the priesthood are allowed to choose first. Many a girl scarcely eighteen is compelled to become the polygamous wife of a bishop of sixty. No preconceived affection or plighted troth is permitted to interfere. Younger or more fascinating lovers must be renounced. Until recently, the anathemas of the Church and the fierce wrath of the Danites were certain to descend upon the heads of all those who dared to withstand the desires of such "holy" men. Deprivation of goods, torture, and assassination have frequently been the result of such acts of disobedience. After the farce of a marriage ceremony is performed, these young women, under age and of foreign birth, are allowed to vote, and are granted all the rights of citizenship. The men are told to have no dealings with the Gentiles, but to purchase everything they require at Z. C. M. I., or at least of some brother in the faith, and last, but not least, to promptly pay their tithing. They are then taken through the "Endowment House," the mysteries of which have been but partially explained, where, however, the performances are said to excel even those of the Mormon theatres. No Mormon, until he reaches Salt Lake City, can pass through the Endowment House. Many baptized Mormons never come to America. Consequently they are deprived of this inestimable privilege, and of attaining the highest round in the ladder of Mormon saintliness. When he does succeed in reaching the hallowed spot, he is presented with endowment robes, which he wears through life, and in which he is finally buried. These robes resemble an ordinary woollen undershirt and pair of drawers, marked with certain hieroglyphics and cabalistic sentences. Possessed of two or more of them, each saint is permitted to change for the purpose of cleanliness; but he is not allowed to take one robe completely off without having another at least partly on. For in stance, a good saint, after pulling his right arm out of the one that he has been wearing, must insert the same arm in a clean robe before he can withdraw the other arm from the robe that is soiled. Should he make a mistake and remove one garment entirely before putting on part of another, he will, according to Mormon theology, be in imminent peril of hell-fire. When a Mormon is married, he again passes through the Endowment House, where additional mummeries are performed. The farce is repeated every time that a new concubine is added to the harem. The priests perform these marriages, attend to other rites, interfere with the business relations of the laymen, dictate marriages, prescribe styles of dress, settle the disputes, where such settlement is required by the interests of the Church, meddle with politics, get elected to the legislature, hold other offices, give orders generally, and pocket the plunder. The legislation of these priestly lawgivers is somewhat striking and peculiar. Their statute books may be searched in vain for any law against incest, seduction, or bastardy, to say nothing of bigamy. The doors are literally thrown open to all those wishing to procure divorces, which may there be obtained upon the most flimsy pretexts. Licentiousness abounds, and the illegitimate children are increasing in great numbers; illegitimate according even to the very loose construction of the Mormon expounders; children whose parents never went through the slightest form of marriage. Home influences are unknown in polygamous families. The women are downtrodden and in many cases heart-broken. The children grow up ignorant, brutish, sensual. If a man, disgusted with the pretensions and practices of the Mormon Church, withdraws from it, or if an evangelist attempts to begin his work in the towns of Utah, a system of persecution will be inaugurated which, for malicious ingenuity, is unparalleled. Protection may be found in Salt Lake City, and sometimes in a few of the larger towns; but as a rule an American citizen has no rights in Utah that a Mormon is bound to respect. Though within a territory over which floats the stars and stripes, he is not in many instances permitted to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. No Gentile, as the nonMormons are called, would desire to send his children to a Mormon school. Mormons and Gentiles are nevertheless taxed alike for the construction of school-houses, which, after completion, are used as Mormon temples. But we are incorrect in saying that the two classes are taxed alike, for the Mormons assess as value the property of their Gentile neighbor at at least twice as much liken Utah, with her lofty mountains, rich valleys, as that of their brother in the faith. Thus far this people have succeeded in defying the laws and the Government of the United States. This is the result, partly of their pernicious jury system, partly of the unity and power of the Church, in some degree of their plan of intimidation of the weaker brethren, who incline to the right, and especially of the mysterious influence which they have exerted for years in the departments in Washington and in Congress. Bound together by oaths terrible to the ignorant mind, one Mormon will not convict another of a crime, except, as in the case of John D. Lee, when instructed to do so by the highest Church authorities for the promotion of Church measures. Such is the sect, the members of which see in the act of Guiteau the fulfillment of some of their prophecies, and who congratulate each other that they have received further evidence of their being finally avenged upon all of their enemies. They and great dead sea, not without reason, to the land of Palestine, and give to their own chief city the name of Zion. They greatly prefer the early faith of the Hebrews to the Gospel of Christ, and in their similes, customs, and belief approach nearer to the abominations of the Orient than to the virtues which should belong to an American and a Christian people. A little prompt legislation is required from Congress. Good juries can and should be procured in Utah the same as elsewhere. A few laws should be modified. The people of this nation should see to it that Congress does its whole duty. We advise no special legislation against the Saints; but we do desire such action as will Americanize Utah, and render her people as amenable to the laws as they are in the other Territories. Possessed of an educated, refined, and lawabiding people, Utah might well be regarded as an earthly paradise. |