PREFACE

The Story of "Mormonism" as presented in the following pages is a revised
and reconstructed version of lectures delivered by Dr. James E. Talmage at
the University of Michigan, Cornell University, and elsewhere. The "Story"
first appeared in print as a lecture report in the Improvement Era, and
was afterward issued as a booklet from the office of the Millennial Star,
Liverpool. In 1910 it was issued in a revised form by the Bureau of
Information at Salt Lake City, in which edition the lecture style of
direct address was changed to the ordinary form of essay. The present or
third American edition has been revised and amplified by the author.

The "Story" has been translated and published abroad. Already versions
have appeared in Swedish, modern Greek, and Russian.

The subject matter of The Philosophy of "Mormonism" was first presented as
a lecture delivered by Dr. Talmage before the Philosophical Society of
Denver. It appeared later in the columns of the Improvement Era, and
translations have been published in pamphlet form in the Danish and German
languages.

The present publication of these two productions is made in response to a
steady demand.

THE PUBLISHERS.

Salt Lake City, Utah, March, 1914.



CHAPTER I

In the minds of many, perhaps of the majority of people, the scene of the
"Mormon" drama is laid almost entirely in Utah; indeed, the terms "Mormon
question" and "Utah question" have been often used interchangeably. True
it is, that the development of "Mormonism" is closely associated with the
history of the long-time Territory and present State of Utah; but the
origin of the system must be sought in regions far distant from the
present gathering-place of the Latter-day Saints, and at a period
antedating the acquisition of Utah as a part of our national domain.

The term "origin" is here used in its commonest application--that of the
first stages apparent to ordinary observation--the visible birth of the
system. But a long, long period of preparation had led to this physical
coming forth of the "Mormon" religion, a period marked by a multitude of
historical events, some of them preceding by centuries the earthly
beginning of this modern system of prophetic trust. The "Mormon" people
regard the establishment of their Church as the culmination of a great
series of notable events. To them it is the result of causes unnumbered
that have operated through ages of human history, and they see in it the
cause of many developments yet to appear. This to them establishes an
intimate relationship between the events of their own history and the
prophecies of ancient times.

In reading the earliest pages of "Mormon" history, we are introduced to a
man whose name will ever be prominent in the story of the Church--the
founder of the organization by common usage of the term, the head of the
system as an earthly establishment--one who is accepted by the Church as
an ambassador specially commissioned of God to be the first revelator of
the latter-day dispensation. This man is Joseph Smith, commonly known as
the "Mormon" prophet. Rarely indeed does history present an organization,
religious, social, or political, in which an individual holds as
conspicuous and in all ways as important a place as does this man in the
development of "Mormonism." The earnest investigator, the sincere truth-
seeker, can ignore neither the man nor his work; for the Church under
consideration has risen from the testimony solemnly set forth and the
startling declarations made by this person, who, at the time of his
earliest announcements, was a farmer's boy in the first half of his teens.
If his claims to ordination under the hands of divinely commissioned
messengers be fallacious, forming as they form the foundation of the
Church organization, the superstructure cannot stand; if, on the other
hand, such declarations be true, there is little cause to wonder at the
phenomenally rapid rise and the surprising stability of the edifice so
begun.

Joseph Smith was born at Sharon, Vermont, in December, 1805. He was the
son of industrious parents, who possessed strong religious tendencies and
tolerant natures. For generations his ancestors had been laborers, by
occupation tillers of the soil; and though comfortable circumstances had
generally been their lot, reverses and losses in the father's house had
brought the family to poverty; so that from his earliest days the lad
Joseph was made acquainted with the pleasures and pains of hard work. He
is described as having been more than ordinarily studious for his years;
and when that powerful wave of religious agitation and sectarian revival
which characterized the first quarter of the last century, reached the
home of the Smiths, Joseph with others of the family was profoundly
affected. The household became somewhat divided on the subject of
religion, and some of the members identified themselves with the more
popular sects; but Joseph, while favorably impressed by the Methodists in
comparison with others, confesses that his mind was sorely troubled over
the contemplation of the strife and tumult existing among the religious
bodies; and he hesitated. He tried in vain to solve the mystery presented
to him in the warring factions of what professed to be the Church of
Christ. Surely, thought he, these several churches, opposed as they are to
one another on what appear to be the vital points of religion, cannot all
be right. While puzzling over this anomaly he chanced upon this verse in
the epistle of St. James:

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that
 giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and
 it shall be given him."

In common with so many others, the earnest youth found here within the
scriptures, admonition and counsel as directly applicable to his case and
circumstances as if the lines had been addressed to him by name. A brief
period of hesitation, in which he shrank from the thought that a mortal
like himself, weak, youthful, and unlearned, should approach the Creator
with a personal request, was followed by a humble and contrite resolution
to act upon the counsel of the ancient apostle. The result, to which he
bore solemn record (testifying at first with the simplicity and enthusiasm
of youth, afterward confirming the declaration with manhood's increasing
powers, and at last voluntarily sealing the testimony with his life's
blood,) proved most startling to the sectarian world--a world in which
according to popular belief no new revelation of truth was possible. It is
a surprising fact that while growth, progress, advancement, development of
known truths and the acquisition of new ones, characterize every living
science, the sectarian world has declared that nothing new must be
expected as direct revelation from God.

The testimony of this lad is, that in response to his supplication, drawn
forth by the admonition of an inspired apostle, he received a divine
ministration; heavenly beings manifested themselves to him--two, clothed
in purity, and alike in form and feature. Pointing to the other, one said,
"This is my beloved Son, hear Him." In answer to the lad's prayer, the
heavenly personage so designated informed Joseph that the Spirit of God
dwelt not with warring sects, which, while professing a form of godliness,
denied the power thereof, and that he should join none of them. Overjoyed
at the glorious manifestation thus granted unto him, the boy prophet could
not withhold from relatives and acquaintances tidings of the heavenly
vision. From the ministers, who had been so energetic in their efforts to
convert the boy, he received, to his surprise, abuse and ridicule.
"Visions and manifestations from God," said they, "are of the past, and
all such things ceased with the apostles of old; the canon of scripture is
full; religion has reached its perfection in plan, and, unlike all other
systems contrived or accepted by human kind, is incapable of development
or growth. It is true God lives, but He cares not for His children of
modern times as He did for those of ancient days; He has shut Himself away
from the people, closed the windows of heaven, and has suspended all
direct communication with the people of earth."

The persecution thus originating with those who called themselves
ministers of the gospel of Christ spread throughout the community; and the
sects that before could not agree together nor abide in peace, became as
one in their efforts to oppose the youth who thus testified of facts,
which though vehemently denounced, produced an effect that alarmed them
the more. And such a spectacle has ofttimes presented itself before the
world--men who cannot tolerate one another in peace swear fidelity and
mutual support in strife with a common opponent. The importance of this
alleged revelation from the heavens to the earth is such as to demand
attentive consideration. If a fact, it is a full contradiction of the
vague theories that had been increasing and accumulating for centuries,
denying personality and parts to Deity.

In 1820, there lived one person who knew that the word of the Creator,
"Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness," had a meaning more
than in metaphor. Joseph Smith, the youthful prophet and revelator of the
nineteenth century, knew that the Eternal Father and the well-beloved Son,
Jesus Christ, were in form and stature like unto perfect men; and that the
human family was in very truth of divine origin. But this wonderful vision
was not the only manifestation of heavenly power and personality made to
the young man, nor the only incident of the kind destined to bring upon
him the fury of persecution. Sometime after this visitation, which
constituted him a living witness of God unto men, and which demonstrated
the great fact that humanity is the child of Deity, he was visited by an
immortal personage who announced himself as Moroni, a messenger sent from
the presence of God. The celestial visitor stated that through Joseph as
the earthly agent the Lord would accomplish a great work, and that the boy
would come to be known by good and evil repute amongst all nations. The
angel then announced that an ancient record, engraven on plates of gold,
lay hidden in a hill near by, which record gave a history of the nations
that had of old inhabited the American continent, and an account of the
Savior's ministrations among them. He further explained that with the
plates were two sacred stones, known as Urim and Thummim, by the use of
which the Lord would bring forth a translation of the ancient record.
Joseph further testifies that he was told that if he remained faithful to
his trust and the confidence reposed in him, he would some day receive the
record into his keeping, and be commissioned and empowered to translate
it. In due time these promises were literally fulfilled, and the modern
version of these ancient writings was given to the world.

The record proved to be an account of certain colonies of immigrants to
this hemisphere from the east, who came several centuries before the
Christian era. The principal company was led by one Lehi, described as a
personage of some importance and wealth, who had formerly lived at
Jerusalem in the reign of Zedekiah, and who left his eastern home about
600 B.C. The book tells of the journeyings across the water in vessels
constructed according to revealed plan, of the peoples' landing on the
western shores of South America probably somewhere in Chile, of their
prosperity and rapid growth amid the bounteous elements of the new world,
of the increase of pride and consequent dissension accompanying the
accumulation of material wealth, and of the division of the people into
factions which became later two great nations at enmity with one another.
One part following Nephi, the youngest and most gifted son of Lehi,
designated themselves Nephites; the other faction, led by Laman, the elder
and wicked brother of Nephi, were known as Lamanites.

The Nephites lived in cities, some of which attained great size and were
distinguished by great architectural beauty. Continually advancing
northward, these people in time occupied the greater part of the valleys
of the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Magdalena. During the thousand years
covered by the Nephite record, the people crossed the Isthmus of Panama,
which is graphically described as a neck of land but a day's journey from
sea to sea, and successively occupied extensive tracts in what is now
Mexico, the valley of the Mississippi, and the Eastern States. It is not
to be supposed that these vast regions were all populated at any one time
by the Nephites; the people were continually moving to escape the
depredations of their hereditary foes, the Lamanites; and they abandoned
in turn all their cities established along the course of migration. The
unprejudiced student sees in the discoveries of the ancient and now forest-
covered cities of Mexico, Central America, Yucatan, and the northern
regions of South America, collateral testimony having a bearing upon this
history.

Before their more powerful foes, the Nephites dwindled and fled; until
about the year 400 A.D. they were entirely annihilated after a series of
decisive battles, the last of which was fought near the very hill, called
Cumorah, in the State of New York, where the hidden record was
subsequently revealed to Joseph Smith.

The Lamanites led a roving, aggressive life; kept few or no records, and
soon lost the art of history writing. They lived on the results of the
chase and by plunder, degenerating in habit until they became typical
progenitors of the dark-skinned race, afterward discovered by Columbus and
named American Indians.

The last writer in the ancient record, and the one who hid away the plates
in the hill Cumorah, was Moroni--the same personage who appeared as a
resurrected being in the nineteenth century, a divinely appointed
messenger sent to reveal the depository of the sacred documents; but the
greater part of the plates since translated had been engraved by the
father of Moroni, the Nephite prophet Mormon. This man, at once warrior,
prophet and historian, had made a transcript and compilation of the
heterogeneous records that had accumulated during the troubled history of
the Nephite nation; this compilation was named on the plates "The Book of
Mormon," which name has been given to the modern translation--a work that
has already made its way over most of the civilized world. The translation
and publication of the Book of Mormon were marked by many scenes of
trouble and contention, but success attended the undertaking, and the
first edition of the work appeared in print in 1830.

The question, "What is the Book of Mormon?"--a very pertinent one on the
part of every earnest student and investigator of this phase of American
history--has been partly answered already. The work has been derisively
called the "Mormon Bible," a name that carries with it the
misrepresentation that in the faith of this people the book takes the
place of the scriptural volume which is universally accepted by Christian
sects. No designation could be more misleading, and in every way more
untruthful. The Latter-day Saints have but one "Bible" and that the Holy
Bible of Christendom. They place it foremost amongst the standard works of
the Church; they accept its admonitions and its doctrines, and accord
thereto a literal significance; it is to them, and ever has been, the word
of God, a compilation made by human agency of works by various inspired
writers; they accept its teachings in fulness, modifying the meaning in no
wise, except in the rare cases of undoubted mistranslation, concerning
which Biblical scholars of all faiths differ and criticize; and even in
such cases their reverence for the sacred letter renders them even more
conservative than the majority of Bible commentators and critics in
placing free construction upon the text. The historical part of the Jewish
scriptures tells of the divine dealings with the people of the eastern
hemisphere; the Book of Mormon recounts the mercies and judgments of God,
the inspired teachings of His prophets, the rise and fall of His people as
organized communities on the western continent.

The Latter-day Saints believe the coming forth of the Book of Mormon to
have been foretold in the Bible, as its destiny is prophesied of within
its own lids; it is to the people the true "stick of Ephraim" which
Ezekiel declared should become one with the "stick of Judah"--or the
Bible. The people challenge the most critical comparison between this
record of the west and the Holy Scriptures of the east, feeling confident
that no discrepancy exists in letter or spirit. As to the original
characters in which the record was engraved, copies were shown to learned
linguists of the day and pronounced by them as closely resembling the
Reformed Egyptian writing.

Let us revert, however, to the facts of history concerning this new
scripture, and the reception accorded the printed volume.

The Book of Mormon was before the world; the Church circulated the work as
freely as possible. The true account of its origin was rejected by the
general public, who thus, assumed the responsibility of explaining in some
plausible way the source of the record. Among the many false theories
propounded, perhaps the most famous is the so-called Spaulding story.
Solomon Spaulding, a clergyman of Amity, Pennsylvania, died in 1816. He
wrote a romance to which no name other than "Manuscript Story" was given,
and which, but for the unauthorized use of the writer's name and the
misrepresentation of his motives, would never have been published. Twenty
years after the author's death, one Hurlburt, an apostate "Mormon,"
announced that he had recognized a resemblance between the "Manuscript
Story" and the Book of Mormon, and expressed a belief that the work
brought forward by Joseph Smith was nothing but the Spaulding romance
revised and amplified. The apparent credibility of the statement was
increased by various signed declarations to the effect that the two were
alike, though no extracts for comparison were presented. But the
"Manuscript Story" was lost for a time, and in the absence of proof to the
contrary, reports of the parallelism between the two works multiplied. By
a fortunate circumstance, in 1884, President James H. Fairchild, of
Oberlin College, and a literary friend of his--a Mr. Rice--while examining
a heterogeneous collection of old papers which had been purchased by the
gentleman last named, found the original manuscript of the "Story."

After a careful perusal and comparison with the Book of Mormon, President
Fairchild declared in an article published in the New York Observer,
February 5, 1885:

The theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon in the traditional
manuscript of Solomon Spaulding will probably have to be relinquished.
* * * Mr. Rice, myself, and others compared it [the Spaulding manuscript]
with the Book of Mormon and could detect no resemblance between the two,
in general or in detail. There seems to be no name nor incident common to
the two. The solemn style of the Book of Mormon in imitation of the
English scriptures does not appear in the manuscript. * * * Some other
explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon must be found if any
explanation is required.

The manuscript was deposited in the library of Oberlin College where it
now reposes. Still, the theory of the "Manuscript Found," as Spaulding's
story has come to be known, is occasionally pressed into service in the
cause of anti-"Mormon" zeal, by some whom we will charitably believe to be
ignorant of the facts set forth by President Fairchild. A letter of more
recent date, written by that honorable gentleman in reply to an inquiring
correspondent, was published in the Millennial Star, Liverpool, November
3, 1898, and is as follows:

OBERLIN COLLEGE, OHIO, October 17, 1895.
J. R. HINDLEY, ESQ.,

Dear Sir: We have in our college library an original manuscript of Solomon
Spaulding--unquestionably genuine.

I found it in 1884 in the hands of Hon. L. L. Rice, of Honolulu, Hawaiian
Islands. He was formerly state printer at Columbus, Ohio, and before that,
publisher of a paper in Painesville, whose preceding publisher had visited
Mrs. Spaulding and obtained the manuscript from her. It had lain among his
old papers forty years or more, and was brought out by my asking him to
look up anti-slavery documents among his papers.

The manuscript has upon it the signatures of several men of Conneaught,
Ohio, who had heard Spaulding read it and knew it to be his. No one can
see it and question its genuineness. The manuscript has been printed
twice, at least;--once by the Mormons of Salt Lake City, and once by the
Josephite Mormons of Iowa. The Utah Mormons obtained the copy of Mr. Rice,
at Honolulu, and the Josephites got it of me after it came into my
possession.

This manuscript is not the original of the Book of Mormon.

Yours very truly, James H. Fairchild.


The "Manuscript Story" has been published in full, and comparisons between
the same and the Book of Mormon may be made by anyone who has a mind to
investigate the subject.(1)

(1. For a fuller account of the Book of Mormon, see the author's "Articles
of Faith," Lectures 14 and 15; published at Salt Lake City, Utah, 1913.)



CHAPTER II

But we have anticipated the current of events. With the publication of the
Book of Mormon, opposition grew more intense toward the people who
professed a belief in the testimony of Joseph Smith. On the 6th of April,
1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally
organized and thus took on a legal existence. The scene of this
organization was Fayette, New York, and but six persons were directly
concerned as participants. At that time there may have been and probably
were many times that number who had professed adherence to the newly
restored faith; but as the requirements of the law governing the formation
of religious societies were satisfied by the application of six, only the
specified number formally took part. Such was the beginning of the Church,
soon to be so universally maligned. Its origin was small--a germ, an
insignificant seed, hardly to be thought of as likely to arouse
opposition. What was there to fear in the voluntary association of six
men, avowedly devoted to peaceful pursuits and benevolent purposes? Yet a
storm of persecution was threatened from the earliest day. At first but a
family affair, opposition to the work has involved successively the town,
the county, the state, the country, and today the "Mormon" question has
been accorded extended consideration at the hands of the national
government, and indeed most civilized nations have taken cognizance of the
same.

Let us observe the contrast between the beginning and the present
proportions of the Church. Instead of but six regularly affiliated
members, and at most two score of adherents, the organization numbers
today many hundred thousand souls. In place of a single hamlet, in the
smallest corner of which the members could have congregated, there now are
about seventy stakes of Zion and about seven hundred organized wards, each
ward and stake with its full complement of officers and priesthood
organizations. The practise of gathering its proselytes into one place
prevents the building up and strengthening of foreign branches; and
inasmuch as extensive and strong organizations are seldom met with abroad,
very erroneous ideas exist concerning the strength of the Church.
Nevertheless, the mustard seed, among the smallest of all seeds, has
attained the proportions of a tree, and the birds of the air are nesting
in its branches; the acorn is now an oak offering protection and the
sweets of satisfaction to every earnest pilgrim journeying its way for
truth.

From the organization of the Church, the spirit of emigration rested upon
the people. Their eyes were from the first turned in anticipation toward
the evening sun--not merely that the work of proselyting should be carried
on in the west, but that the headquarters of the Church should be there
established. The Book of Mormon had taught the people the true origin and
destiny of the American Indians; and toward this dark-skinned remnant of a
once mighty people, the missionaries of "Mormonism" early turned their
eyes, and with their eyes went their hearts and their hopes.

Within three months from the beginning, the Church had missionaries among
the Lamanites. It is notable that the Indian tribes have generally
regarded the religion of the Latter-day Saints with favor, seeing in the
Book of Mormon striking agreement with their own traditions.

The first well-established seat of the Church was in the pretty little
town of Kirtland, Ohio, almost within sight of Lake Erie; and here soon
rose the first temple of modern times. Among their many other
peculiarities, the Latter-day Saints are characterized as a temple-
building people, as history proves the Israel of ancient times to have
been. In the days of their infancy as a Church, while in the thrall of
poverty, and amidst the persecution and direful threats of lawless hordes,
they laid the cornerstone, and in less than three years thereafter they
celebrated the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, a structure at once
beautiful and imposing. Even before this time, however, populous
settlements of Latter-day Saints had been made in Jackson County,
Missouri; and in the town of Independence a site for a great temple had
been selected and purchased; but though the ground has been dedicated with
solemn ceremony, the people have not as yet built thereon.

Within two years of its dedication, the temple in Kirtland was abandoned
by the people, who were compelled to flee for their lives before the
onslaughts of mobocrats; but a second temple, larger and more beautiful
than the first, soon reared its spires in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois.
This structure was destroyed by fire, but the temple-building spirit was
not to be quenched, and in the vales of Utah today are four magnificent
temple edifices. The last completed, which was the first begun, is
situated in Salt Lake City, and is one of the wonders and beauties of that
city by the great salt sea.(2)

To the fervent Latter-day Saint, a temple is not simply a church building,
a house for religious assembly. Indeed the "Mormon" temples are rarely
used as places of general gatherings. They are in one sense educational
institutions, regular courses of lectures and instruction being maintained
in some of them; but they are specifically for baptisms and ordinations,
for sanctifying prayer, and for the most sacred ceremonies and rites of
the Church, particularly in the vicarious work for the dead which is a
characteristic of "Mormon" faith. And who that has gazed upon these
splendid shrines will say that the people who can do so much in poverty
and tribulation are insincere? Bigoted they may seem to those who believe
not as they do; fanatics they may be to multitudes who like the proud
Pharisee of old thank God they are not as these; but insincere they cannot
be, even in the judgment of their bitterest opponent, if he be a creature
of reason.

The clouds of persecution thickened in Ohio as the intolerant zeal of mobs
found frequent expression; numerous charges, trivial and serious, were
made against the leaders of the Church, and they were repeatedly brought
before the courts, only to be liberated on the usual finding of no cause
for action. Meanwhile the march to the west was maintained. Soon thousands
of converts had rented or purchased homes in Missouri--Independence,
Jackson County, being their center; but from the first, they were
unpopular among the Missourians. Their system of equal rights with their
marked disapproval of every species of aristocratic separation and self-
aggrandizement was declared to be a species of communism, dangerous to the
state. An inoffensive journalistic organ, The Star, published for the
purpose of properly presenting the religious tenets of the people, was
made the particular object of the mob's rage; the house of its publisher
was razed to the ground, the press and type were confiscated, and the
editor and his family maltreated. An absurd story was circulated and took
firm hold of the masses that the Book of Mormon promised the western lands
to the people of the Church, and that they intended to take possession of
these lands by force. Throughout the book of revelations regarded by the
people as law specially directed to them, they are told to save their
riches that they may purchase the inheritance promised them of God.
Everywhere are they told to maintain peace; the sword is never offered as
their symbol of conquest. Their gathering is to be like that of the Jews
at Jerusalem--a pacific one, and in their taking possession of what they
regard as a land of promise, no one previously located there shall be
denied his rights.

A spirit of fierce persecution raged in Jackson and surrounding counties
of Missouri. An appeal was made to the executive of the state, but little
encouragement was returned. The lieutenant- governor, Lilburn W. Boggs,
afterward governor, was a pronounced "Mormon"-hater, and throughout the
period of the troubles, he manifested sympathy with the persecutors.

One of the circuit judges who was asked to issue a peace warrant refused
to do so, but advised the "Mormons" to arm themselves and meet the force
of the outlaws with organized resistance. This advice was not pleasing to
the Latter-day Saints, whose religion enjoined tolerance and peace; but
they so far heeded it as to arm a small force; and when the outlaws next
came upon them, the people were not entirely unprepared. A "Mormon"
rebellion was now proclaimed. The people had been goaded to desperation.
The militia was ordered out, and the "Mormons" were disarmed. The mob was
unrestrained in its eagerness for revenge. The "Mormons" engaged able
lawyers to institute and maintain legal proceedings against their foes,
and this step, the right to which one would think could be denied no
American citizen, called forth such an uproar of popular wrath as to
affect almost the entire state.

It was winter; but the inclemency of the year only suited the better the
purpose of the oppressor. Homes were destroyed, men torn from their
families were brutally beaten, tarred and feathered; women with babes in
their arms were forced to flee half-clad into the solitude of the prairie
to escape from mobocratic violence. Their sufferings have never yet been
fitly chronicled by human scribe. Making their way across the river, most
of the refugees found shelter among the more hospitable people of Clay
County, and afterward established themselves in Caldwell County, therein
founding the city of Far West. County and state judges, the governor, and
even the President of the United States, were appealed to in turn for
redress. The national executive, Andrew Jackson, while expressing sympathy
for the persecuted people, deplored his lack of power to interfere with
the administration or non-administration of state laws; the national
officials could do nothing; the state officials would do naught.

But the expulsion from Jackson County was but a prelude to the tragedy
soon to follow. A single scene of the bloody drama is known as the Haun's
Mill massacre. A small settlement had been founded by "Mormon" families on
Shoal Creek, and here on the 30th of October, 1838, a company of two
hundred and forty fell upon the hapless settlers and butchered a score. No
respect was paid to age or sex; grey heads, and infant lips that scarcely
had learned to lisp a word, vigorous manhood and immature youth, mother
and maiden, fared alike in the scene of carnage, and their bodies were
thrown into an old well.

In October, 1838, the Governor of Missouri, the same Lilburn W. Boggs,
issued his infamous exterminating order, and called upon the militia of
the state to execute it. The language of this document, signed by the
executive of a sovereign state of the Union, declared that the "Mormons"
must be driven from the state or exterminated. Be it said to the honor of
some of the officers entrusted with the terrible commission, that when
they learned its true significance they resigned their authority rather
than have anything to do with what they designated a cold-blooded
butchery. But tools were not wanting, as indeed they never have been, for
murder and its kindred outrages. What the heart of man can conceive, the
hand of man will find a way to execute. The awful work was carried out
with dread dispatch. Oh, what a record to read; what a picture to gaze
upon; how awful the fact! An official edict offering expatriation or death
to a peaceable community with no crime proved against them, and guilty of
no offense other than that of choosing to differ in opinion from the
masses! American school boys read with emotions of horror of the
Albigenses, driven, beaten and killed, with a papal legate directing the
butchery; and of the Vaudois, hunted and hounded like beasts as the effect
of a royal decree; and they yet shall read in the history of their own
country of scenes as terrible as these in the exhibition of injustice and
inhuman hate.

In the dread alternative offered them, the people determined again to
abandon their homes; but whither should they go? Already they had fled
before the lawless oppressor over well nigh half a continent; already were
they on the frontiers of the country that they had regarded as the land of
promised liberty. Thus far every move had carried them westward, but
farther west they could not go unless they went entirely beyond the
country of their birth, and gave up their hope of protection under the
Constitution, which to them had ever been an inspired instrument, the
majesty of which, as they had never doubted, would be some day vindicated,
even to securing for them the rights of American citizens. This time their
faces were turned toward the east; and a host numbering from ten to twelve
thousand, including many women and children, abandoned their homes and
fled before their murderous pursuers, reddening the snow with bloody
footprints as they journeyed. They crossed the Mississippi and sought
protection on the soil of Illinois. There their sad condition evoked for a
time general commiseration.

The press of the state denounced the treatment of the people by the
Missourians and vindicated the character of the "Mormons" as peaceable and
law-abiding citizens. College professors published expressions of their
horror over the cruel crusade; state officials, including even the
governor, gave substantial evidence of their sympathy and good feeling.
This lull in the storm of outrage that had so long raged about them
offered a strange contrast to their usual treatment. Let it not be thought
that all the people of Illinois were their friends; from the first,
opposition was manifest, but their condition was so greatly bettered that
they might have thought the advent of their Zion to be near at hand.

I stated that professional men, and even college professors raised their
voices in commiseration of the "Mormon" situation and in denouncing the
"Mormon" oppressors. Prof. Turner of Illinois College wrote:

Who began the quarrel? Was it the "Mormons?" Is it not notorious on the
contrary that they were hunted like wild beasts from county to county
before they made any resistance? Did they ever, as a body, refuse
obedience to the laws, when called upon to do so, until driven to
desperation by repeated threats and assaults by the mob? Did the state
ever make one decent effort to defend them as fellow-citizens in their
rights or to redress their wrongs? Let the conduct of its governors and
attorneys and the fate of their final petitions answer! Have any who
plundered and openly insulted the "Mormons" ever been brought to the
punishment due to their crimes? Let boasting murderers of begging and
helpless infancy answer! Has the state ever remunerated even those known
to be innocent for the loss of either their property or their arms? Did
either the pulpit or the press through the state raise a note of
remonstrance or alarm? Let the clergymen who abetted and the editors who
encouraged the mob answer!

As a sample of the press comments against the brutality of the Missourians
I quote a paragraph from the Quincy Argus, March 16, 1839:

We have no language sufficiently strong for the expression of our
indignation and shame at the recent transaction in a sister state, and
that state, Missouri, a state of which we had long been proud, alike for
her men and history, but now so fallen that we could wish her star
stricken from the bright constellation of the Union. We say we know of no
language sufficiently strong for the expression of our shame and
abhorrence of her recent conduct. She has written her own character in
letters of blood, and stained it by acts of merciless cruelty and
brutality that the waters of ages cannot efface. It will be observed that
an organized mob, aided by many of the civil and military officers of
Missouri, with Gov. Boggs at their head, have been the prominent actors in
this business, incited too, it appears, against the "Mormons" by political
hatred, and by the additional motives of plunder and revenge. They have
but too well put in execution their threats of extermination and
expulsion, and fully wreaked their vengeance on a body of industrious and
enterprising men, who had never wronged nor wished to wrong them, but on
the contrary had ever comported themselves as good and honest citizens,
living under the same laws, and having the same right with themselves to
the sacred immunities of life, liberty and property.

(2. For a detailed account of modern temples, with numerous pictorial
views, see "The House of the Lord," by the present author; Salt Lake City,
Utah, 1912.)



CHAPTER III

Settling in and about the obscure village of Commerce, the "Mormon"
refugees soon demonstrated anew the marvelous recuperative power with
which they were endowed, and a city seemed to spring from the earth.
Nauvoo--the City Beautiful--was the name given to this new abiding place.
It was situated but a few miles from Quincy, in a bend of the majestic
river, giving the town three water fronts. It seemed to nestle there as if
the Father of Waters was encircling it with his mighty arm. Soon a
glorious temple crowned the hill up which the city had run in its rapid
growth. Their settlements extended into Iowa, then a territory. The
governors of both Iowa and Ohio testified to the worthiness of the Latter-
day Saints as citizens, and pledged them the protection of the
commonwealth. The city of Nauvoo was chartered by the state of Illinois,
and the rights of local self-government were assured to its citizens.

A military organization, the "Nauvoo Legion," was authorized, and the
establishment of a university was provided for; both these organizations
were successfully effected. It was here that a memorial was prepared and
sent to the national government, reciting the outrages of Missouri, and
asking reparation. Joseph Smith himself, the head of the delegation, had a
personal interview with President Van Buren, in which the grievances of
the Latter-day Saints were presented. Van Buren replied in words that will
not be forgotten, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."

The peaceful conditions at first characteristic of their Illinois
settlement were not to continue. The element of political influence
asserted itself and the "Mormons" bade fair to soon hold the balance of
power in local affairs. The characteristic unity, so marked in connection
with every phase of the people's existence, promised too much; immigration
into Hancock county was continuous, and the growing power of the Latter-
day Saints was viewed with apprehension. With this as the true motive,
many pretexts for annoyance were found; and arrests, trials, and
acquittals were common experiences of the Church officers.

A charge, which promised to prove as devoid of foundation as had the
excuses for the fifty arrests preceding it, led Joseph Smith, president of
the Church, and Hyrum Smith, the patriarch, to again surrender themselves
to the officers of the law. They were taken to Carthage, Joseph having
declared to friends his belief that he was going to the slaughter.
Governor Ford gave to the prisoners his personal guarantee for their
safety; but mob violence was supreme, more mighty than the power of the
state militia placed there to guard the prison; and these men were shot to
death, even while under the governor's plighted pledge of protection.
Hyrum fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the
second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob, which was
led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish
passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-
curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the
corpse, and fled. Thus was the unholy vow of the mob fulfilled, that as
law could not touch the "Mormon" leaders, powder and ball should. John
Taylor, who became years afterward president of the Church, was in the
jail at the same time; he received four bullets, and was left supposedly
dead.

Joseph Smith had been more than the ecclesiastical leader; his presence
and personality had been ever powerful as a stimulus to the hearts of the
people; none knew his personal power better than the members of his own
flock, unless indeed it were the wolves who were ever seeking to harry the
fold. It had been the boast of anti-"Mormons" that with Joseph Smith
removed, the Church would crumble to pieces of itself. In the personality
of their leader, it was thought, lay the secret of the people's strength;
and like the Philistines, the enemy struck at the supposed bond of power.
Terrible as was the blow of the fearful fatality, the Church soon emerged
from its despairing state of poignant grief, and rose mightier than
before. It is the faith of this people that while the work of God on earth
is carried on by men, yet mortals are but instruments in the Creator's
hands for the accomplishment of divine purposes. The death of the
president disorganized the First Presidency of the Church; but the
official body next in authority, the Council of the Twelve, stepped to the
front, and the progress of the Church was unhindered. The work of the
ministry was not arrested; the people paused but long enough to bury their
dead and clear their eyes from the blinding tears that fell.

Let us take a retrospective glance at this unusual man. Though his
opponents deny him the divine commission with which his friends believe he
was charged, they all, friends and foes alike, admit that he was a great
man. Through the testimony of his life's work and the sanctifying seal of
his martyrdom, thousands have come to acknowledge him all that he
professed to be--a messenger from God to the people. He is not without
admirers among men who deny the truth of his principles and the faith of
his people.

A historical writer of the time, Josiah Quincy, a few weeks after the
martyrdom, wrote:

It is by no means improbable that some future text book for the use of
generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: "What
historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most
powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen?" And it is by no
means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus
written--"Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet." And the reply, absurd as it
doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to
their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as
startling as this. A man who established a religion in this age of free
debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct
emissary from the Most High--such a rare human being is not to be disposed
of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. * * * The most vital
questions Americans are asking each other today, have to deal with this
man and what he has left us. * * * Joseph Smith, claiming to be an
inspired teacher, faced adversity such as few men have been called to
meet, enjoyed a brief season of prosperity such as few men have ever
attained, and finally * * * went cheerfully to a martyr's death. When he
surrendered his person to Governor Ford, in order to prevent the shedding
of blood, the Prophet had a presentiment of what was before him. "I am
going like a lamb to the slaughter," he is reported to have said, "but I
am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of offense, and
shall die innocent."

The "Mormon" people regarded it as a duty to make every proper effort to
bring the perpetrators of the foul assassination of their leaders to
justice; sixty names were presented to the local grand jury, and of the
persons so designated, nine were indicted. After a farcical semblance of a
trial, these were acquitted, and thus was notice, sanctioned by the
constituted authority of the law, served upon all anti-"Mormons" of
Illinois, that they were safe in any assault they might choose to make on
the subjects of their hate. The mob was composed of apt pupils in the
learning of this lesson. Personal outrages were of every-day occurrence;
husbandmen were captured in their fields, beaten, tortured, until they
barely had strength left to promise compliance with the demands of their
assailants,--that they would leave the state. Houses were fired while the
tenants were wrapped in uneasy slumber within; indeed, one entire town,
that of Morley, was by such incendiarism reduced to ashes. Women and
children were aroused in the night, and compelled to flee unclad or perish
in their burning dwellings.

But what of the internal work of the Church during these trying periods?
As the winds of winter, the storms of the year's deepest night, do but
harden and strengthen the mountain pine, whose roots strike the deeper,
whose branches thicken, whose twigs multiply by the inclemency that would
be fatal to the exotic palm, raised by man with hot-house nursing, so the
new sect continued its growth, partly in spite of, partly because of, the
storms to which it was subjected. It was no green-house growth, struggling
for existence in a foreign clime, but a fit plant for the soil of a free
land; and there existed in the minds of unprejudiced observers not a doubt
as to its vitality. The Church soon found its equilibrium again after the
shock of its cruel experience. Brigham Young, who for a decade had been
identified with the cause, who had received his full share of persecution
at mobocratic hands, now stood at the head of the presiding body in the
priesthood of the Church. The effect of this man's wonderful personality,
his surprising natural ability, and to the people, the proofs of his
divine acceptance, were apparent from the first.

Migration from other states and from foreign shores continued to swell the
"Mormon" band, and this but angered the oppressors the more. The members
of the Church, recognizing the inevitable long before predicted by their
murdered prophet, that the march of the Church would be westward,
redoubled their efforts to complete the grand temple upon which they had
not ceased to work through all the storms of persecution. This structure,
solemnly dedicated to their God, they entered, and there received their
anointings and their blessings; then they abandoned it to the desecration
and self-condemning outrages of their foes. For the mob's decree had gone
forth, that the "Mormons" must leave Illinois. After a few sanguinary
encounters, the leaders of the people acceded to the demands of their
assailants, and agreed to leave early in the following spring; but the
departure was not speedy enough to suit, and the lawless persecution was
waged the more ruthlessly.

Soon the soil of Illinois was free from "Mormon" tread; Nauvoo was
deserted, her 20,000 inhabitants expatriated. Colonel Thomas L. Kane, a
conspicuous figure at this stage of our country's history, was traveling
eastward at the time, and reached Nauvoo shortly after its evacuation. In
a lecture before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, he related his
experience in this sometime abode of the Saints. I paraphrase a portion of
his eloquent address.

Sighting the city from the western shore of the mighty Mississippi, as it
nestled in the river's encircling embrace, he crossed to its principal
wharf, and, there to his surprise, found no soul to meet him. The
stillness that everywhere prevailed was painful, broken only by an
occasional faint echo of boisterous shout or ribald song from a distance.
The town was in a dream, and the warrior trod lightly lest he wake it in
affright, for he plainly saw that it had not slumbered long. No grass grew
in the pavement joints; recent footprints were still distinct in the dusty
thoroughfares. The visitor made his way unmolested into work-shops and
smithies; tools lay as last used; on the carpenter's bench was the
unfinished frame, on the floor were the shavings fresh and odorous; the
wood was piled in readiness before the baker's oven; the blacksmith's
forge was cold, but the shop looked as though the occupant had just gone
off for a holiday. The gallant soldier entered gardens unchallenged by
owner, human guard, or watchful dog; he might have supposed the people
hidden or dead in their houses; but the doors were not fastened, and he
entered to explore, there were fresh ashes on the hearth; no great
accumulation of the dust of time was on floors or furniture; the awful
quiet compelled him to tread a-tip-toe as if threading the aisles of an
unoccupied cathedral. He hastened to the graveyard, though surely the city
had not been depopulated by pestilence. No; there were a few stones newly
set, some sods freshly turned in this sacred acre of God, but where can
you find a cemetery of a living town with no such evidence of recent
interment? There were fields of heavy grain, the bounteous harvest rotting
on the ground; there were orchards dropping their rich and rosy fruit to
spoil beneath; not a hand to gather or save.

But in a suburban corner, he came across the smoldering embers of a
barbecue fire, with fragments of flesh and other remnants of a feast.
Hereabout houses had been demolished; and there beyond, around the great
temple that had first attracted his attention from the Iowa shore, armed
men were bivouacked. This worthy representative of our country's service
was challenged by the drunken crowd, and made to give an account of
himself, and to answer for having crossed the river without a permit from
the head of the band. Finding that he was a stranger, they related to him
in fiendish glee their recent exploits of pillage, rapine, and murder.
They conducted him through the temple; everywhere were marks of their
brutish acts; its altars of prayer were broken; the baptismal font had
been so "diligently desecrated as to render the apartment in which it was
contained too noisome to abide in." There in the steeple close by the
"scar of divine wrath" left by a recent thunderbolt, were broken covers of
liquor and drinking vessels.

Sickened with the sight, disgusted with this spectacle of outrage, the
colonel recrossed the river at nightfall, beating upward, for the wind had
freshened. Attracted by a faint light near the bank, he approached the
spot, there to find a few haggard faces surrounding one who seemed to be
in the last stages of fever. The sufferer was partially protected by
something like a tent made from a couple of bed sheets; and amid such
environment, the spirit was pluming itself for flight. Making his way
through this camp of misery, he heard the sobbings of children hungry and
sick; there were men and women dying from wounds or disease, without a
semblance of shelter or other physical comfort; wives in the pangs of
maternity, ushering into the world innocent babes doomed to be motherless
from their birth. And at intervals, to the ears of those outcasts, the
sick and the dying, the wind brought the soul-piercing sounds of the
reveling mob in the distant city, the scrap of vulgar song, the shocking
oath, shrieked from the temple tower in the madness of drunken orgies.

This, however, was but the rear remnant of the' expatriated Christian
band. The van was already far on its way toward the inviting wilderness of
the all but unknown west. But the wanderers were not wholly without
friends; certain Indian tribes, the Omahas and the Potawatomis, welcomed
them to their lands, inviting them to camp within their territory during
the coming winter. "Welcome," said these children of the forest, "we too
have been driven from our pleasant homes east of the great river, to these
damp and unhealthful bottoms; you now, white men, have been driven forth
to the prairies; we are fellow-sufferers. Welcome, brothers."

In return much assistance was rendered by the white refugees to their,
shall I say savage friends? If it was civilization the wanderers had left,
then indeed might the red men of the forest have felt proud of their
distinction. But the Indian agent, a Christian gentleman, ordered the
"Mormons" to move on and leave the reservation which a kind government had
provided for its red children. An order from President Polk, who had been
appealed to by Colonel Kane, gave the people permission to remain for a
short season. The government of Iowa had courteously assured them
protection while passing through that territory. As soon as the people
were well under way, a thorough organization was effected. Remembering the
toilsome desert march from Egypt to Canaan, the people assumed the name,
"Camp of Israel." The camp consisted of two main divisions, and each was
sub-divided into companies of hundreds, fifties, and tens, with captains
to direct. An officer with one hundred volunteers went ahead of the main
body to select a route and prepare a road. At this time, there were over
one thousand wagons of the "Mormons" rolling westward, and the line of
march soon reached from the Mississippi to Council Bluffs. There were in
the company not half enough draft animals for the arduous march, and but
an insufficient number of able-bodied men to tend the camps. The women had
to assist in driving teams and stock, and in other labors of the journey.
Yet with their characteristic cheerfulness the people made the best, and
that proved to be a great deal, out of their lot. When the camp halted, a
city seemed to spring as if by magic from the prairie soil. Concerts and
social gatherings were usual features of the evening rests.

But another great event disturbed the equanimity of the camp. War had
broken out between Mexico and the United States. General Taylor's
victories in the early stages of the strife had been all but decisive, but
the Republic was on march to the western ocean and the provinces of New
Mexico and California were in her path. These two provinces comprised in
addition to the territory now designated by those names, Utah, Nevada,
portions of Wyoming and Colorado, as also Arizona; while Oregon, then
claimed by Great Britain, included Washington, Idaho, and portions of
Montana and Wyoming. It was the plan of the national administration to
occupy these provinces at the earliest moment possible; and a call was
made upon the "Mormon" refugees to contribute to the general force by
furnishing a battalion of five hundred men to take part in the war with
Mexico. The surprise which the message of the government officer produced
in the camp amounted almost to dismay. Five hundred men fit to bear arms
to be drafted from that camp! What would become of the rest? Already women
and boys had been pressed into service to do the work of men; already the
sick and the halt had been neglected; and many graves marked the path they
had traversed, whose tenants had passed to their last sleep through lack
of care.

But how long did they hesitate? Scarcely an hour; it was the call of their
country. True, they were even then leaving the national soil, but not of
their own will. To them their country was and is the promised land, the
Lord's chosen place, the land of Zion. "You shall have your battalion,"
said Brigham Young to Captain Allen, the muster officer, "and if there are
not young men enough, we will take the old men, and if they are not
enough, we will take the women." Within a week from the time President
Polk's message was received, the entire force, in all five hundred and
forty-nine souls, was on the march to Fort Leavenworth. Their path from
the Missouri to the Pacific led them over two thousand miles, much of this
distance being measured through deserts, which prior to that time had not
been trodden by civilized foot.

Colonel Cooke, the commander of the "Mormon" Battalion, declared, "History
may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry." Many were
disabled through the severity of the march, and numerous cases of sickness
and death were chronicled. General Kearney and his successor, Governor R.
B. Mason, as military commandants of California, spoke in high praise of
this organization, and in their official reports declared that they had
made efforts to prolong the battalion's term of service; but most of the
men chose to rejoin their families as soon as they could secure their
honorable discharge.

But to return to the Camp of Israel: A pioneer party, consisting of a
hundred and forty and four, preceded the main body; and the line of the
migrating hosts soon stretched from the Missouri to the valley of the
Great Salt Lake. Wagons there were, as also some horses and men, but all
too few for the journey; and a great part of the company walked the full
thousand miles across the great plains and the forbidding deserts of the
west. In the Black Hills region, the pioneers were delayed a week at the
Platte, a stream, which, though usually fordable at this point was now so
swollen as to make fording impossible. Here, too, their provisions were
well nigh exhausted. Game had not been plentiful, and the "Mormon"
pioneers were threatened with the direst privations. In their slow march
they had been passed by a number of well-equipped parties, some of them
from Missouri bound for the Pacific; but most of these were overtaken on
the easterly side of the river. Amongst the effects of the "Mormon" party
was a leathern boat, which on water served the legitimate purpose of its
maker and on land was made to do service as a wagon box. This, together
with rafts specially constructed, was now put to good use in ferrying
across the river not alone themselves and their little property, but the
other companies and their loads. For this service they were well paid in
camp provisions.

Thus, the expatriated pioneers found themselves relieved from want with
their meal sacks replenished in the heart of the wilderness. Many may call
it superstition, but some will regard it as did the thankful travelers--an
interposition of Providence, and an answer to their prayers--an event to
be compared, they said, to the feeding of Israel with manna in the
wilderness of old.

After over three months' journeying, the pioneer company reached the
valley of the Great Salt Lake; and at the first sight of it, Brigham Young
declared it to be the halting place--the gathering center for the Saints.
But what was there inviting in this wilderness spread out like a scroll
barren of inviting message, and empty but for the picture it presented of
wondrous scenic grandeur? Looking from the Wasatch barrier, the colonists
gazed upon a scene of entrancing though forbidding beauty. A barren, arid
plain, rimmed by mountains like a literal basin, still occupied in its
lowest parts by the dregs of what had once filled it to the brim; no green
meadows, not a tree worthy the name, scarce a patch of greensward to
entice the adventurous wanderers into the valley. The slopes were covered
with sagebrush, relieved by patches of chaparral oak and squaw-bush; the
wild sunflower lent its golden hue to intensify the sharp contrasts. Off
to the westward lay the lake, making an impressive, uninviting picture in
its severe, unliving beauty; from its blue wastes somber peaks rose as
precipitous islands, and about the shores of this dead sea were saline
flats that told of the scorching heat and thirsty atmosphere of this
parched region. A turbid river ran from south to north athwart the valley,
"dividing it in twain," as a historian of the day has written, "as if the
vast bowl in the intense heat of the Master Potter's fires, in process of
formation had cracked asunder." Small streams of water started in rippling
haste from the snow-caps of the mountains toward the lake, but most of
them were devoured by the thirsty sands of the valley before their journey
was half completed.

Such was the scene of desolation that greeted the pioneer band. A more
forsaken spot they had not passed in all their wanderings. And is this the
promised land? This is the very place of which Bridger spake when he
proffered a thousand dollars in gold for the first bushel of grain that
could be raised here. With such a Canaan spread out before them, was it
not wholly pardonable if some did sigh with longing for the leeks and
flesh-pots of the Egypt they had left, or wished to pass by this land and
seek a fairer home? Two of the three women who belonged to the party were
utterly disappointed. "Weak, worn, and weary as I am," said one of these
heroines, "I would rather push on another thousand miles than stay here."

But the voice of their leader was heard. "The very place," said Brigham
Young, and in his prophetic mind there rose a vision of what was to come.
Not for a moment did he doubt the future. He saw a multitude of towns and
cities, hamlets and villas filling this and neighboring valleys, with the
fairest of all, a city whose beauty of situation, whose wealth of resource
should become known throughout the world, rising from the most arid site
of the burning desert before him, hard by the barren salt shores of the
watery waste. There in the very heart of the parched wilderness should
stand the House of the Lord, with other temples in valleys beyond the
horizon of his gaze.

Within a few hours after the arrival of the vanguard upon the banks of
what is now known as City Creek--the mountain stream which today furnishes
Salt Lake City part of her water supply--plows were put to work; but the
hard-baked soil, never before disturbed by the efforts of man to till,
refused to yield to the share. A dam was thrown across the stream and the
softening liquid was spread upon the flat that had been chosen for the
first fields. The planting season had already well nigh passed, and not a
day could be lost. Potatoes and other seed were put in, and the land was
again flooded. Such was the beginning of the irrigation system, which soon
became co-extensive with the area occupied by the "Mormon" settlers, a
system which under the blessing of Providence, has proved to be the
veritable magic touch by which the desert has been made a field of
richness and a garden of beauty; a system which now after many decades of
successful trial is held up by the nation's wise and great ones to be the
one practicable method of reclaiming our country's vast domains of arid
lands. It was on the 24th of July, 1847, that the main part of the pioneer
band entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and that day of the year
is observed as a legal holiday in Utah. From that time to the present, the
stream of immigration to these valleys has never ceased.



CHAPTER IV

The dangers of the first company's migration were surpassed by those of
parties who subsequently braved the terrors of the plains. In their
enthusiasm to reach the gathering place of their people, many of the
Latter-day Saints set out from Iowa, where railway facilities had their
termination, with hand-carts only as a means of conveyance. Today there
are living in the smiling vales of Utah, men and women who then as boys
and girls trudged wearily across the prairies, dragging the lumbering
carts that contained their entire provision against starvation and
freezing. Such handcart companies were organized with care; a limited
amount of freight was allowed to each division; milch cattle and a very
few draft-animals, with wagons for conveying the heavier baggage and to
carry the sick, were assigned. The tale of those dreary marches has never
yet been told; the song of the heroism and sacrifice displayed by these
pilgrims for conscience sake is awaiting a singer worthy the theme. Wading
the streams with carts in tow, or in cases of unfordable streams, stopping
to construct rafts; at times living on reduced rations of but a few ounces
of meal per day; lying down at night with a prayer in the heart that they
wake no more on earth, a prayer which had its fulfilment in hundreds of
cases; the dying heaving their parting sighs in the arms of loved ones who
were soon to follow, they journeyed on.

The inevitable catastrophes and accidents of travel robbed them of their
substance. Hostile savages stampeded their cattle, or openly attacked and
plundered the trains. But on they went, never swerving from the course.
These later companies needed no chart nor compass to guide them over the
desert; the road was plain from the marks of former camps, and yet more so
from the graves of friends and loved ones who had started before on the
road to the earthly Zion and found that it led them to the martyr's
entrance to heaven, graves that were marked perhaps but by a rude
inscription cut on a pole or a board. And even these narrow lodgings had
not been left inviolate; the wolves of the plains had too often succeeded
in unearthing and rending the bodies. Every company thus made the course
the plainer; each of them added to the silent population of the desert;
sometimes half a score were interred at one camp, and of one company over
a fourth were thus left beside the prairie road. Now we traverse the self-
same track in a day and a night, reclining on luxurious cushions of ease,
covering fifty miles while dining in luxury; and we avert the ennui of the
journey by berating the railway company for lack of speed.

Relief trains were continually on the way between the valley of the Salt
Lake and the Missouri; and the remnants of many a company were saved from
what appeared to be certain destruction by the opportune arrival of these
rescuing parties. Such relief came from those who were themselves
destitute and almost starving. Brigham Young with a few of the chief
officials of the Church, and aids, returned eastward on such an errand of
rescue within a few weeks after first reaching the valley. The region to
which the early settlers came was in no wise a typical land of promise; it
did not flow spontaneously with milk and honey.

Drought and unseasonable frosts made the first year's farming experiments
but doubtful successes, and in the succeeding spring the land was visited
by the devastating plague of the Rocky Mountain crickets. They swarmed
down in innumerable hordes upon the fields, destroying the growing crops
as they advanced, devouring all before them, leaving the land a desert in
their track. The people scarcely knew how to withstand the assault of this
new foe; they drove the marauders into trenches there to be drowned or
burned; men, women and every child that could swing a stick, were called
to the ranks in this insect war; and with all their fighting, the people
forgot not to pray for deliverance, and they fasted, too, for the best of
reasons.

And as they watched, and prayed, and worked, they saw approaching from the
north and west a veritable host of winged creatures of more formidable
proportions still; and these bore down upon the fields as though coming to
complete the devastation. But see! these are of the color that betokens
peace; they are the gulls, white and beautiful, advancing upon the hosts
of the black destroyers. Falling upon the people's foes, they devoured
them by the thousand, and when filled to repletion, disgorged and feasted
again. And they did not stop till the crickets were destroyed. Again the
skeptic will say this was but chance; but the people accepted that chance
as a providential ruling in their behalf, and reverently did they give
thanks.

Today the wanton killing of a gull in Utah is an offense in law; but
stronger than legal proscription, more powerful than fear of judicial
penalties, is the popular sentiment in favor of these white-winged
deliverers. Every year come these graceful creatures to spend the
springtime in the fields and upon the lakes of Utah; and right well do
they feel their welcome, for they are habitually so tame and fearless that
they may almost be touched by the hand before they take flight.

By the autumn of 1848, five thousand people had already reached the
valley, and the food problem was a most difficult one. The winter was
severe; and famine, stark and inexorable, threw its dread shadow over the
people. There seemed to be an entry in the book of fate that every
possible test of human endurance and integrity should be applied to this
pilgrim band. Without distinction as to former station, they went out and
dug the roots of weeds, gathered the tenderest of the coarse grass,
thistles, and wild berries, and thus did they subsist; upon such did they
feast with thanksgiving, until a less scanty harvest relieved their wants.

It was at this time that the gold fever was at its height, a consequence
of the discovery of the precious metal in California, in which discovery,
indeed, certain members of the disbanded "Mormon" Battalion, working their
way eastward, were most prominent. Some of the "Mormon" settlers, becoming
infected with the malady, hastened westward, but the counsel of the Church
authorities prevailed to keep all but a few at home. These people had not
left the country of their birth or adoption to seek gold; nor bright
jewels of the mine; nor the wealth of seas; nor the spoils of war; they
sought and believed they had found, a faith's pure shrine. But the gold-
seekers hastening westward, and the successful miners returning eastward,
halted at the "Mormon" settlements and there replenished their supplies,
leaving their gold to enrich the people of the desert.

But of what use is gold in the wilderness! In the old legend a famishing
Arab, finding a well filled bag upon the sand was thrilled with joy at the
thought of dates--his bread; and then was cast into the depths of despair
when he realized that he had found nothing but a bag of costly pearls. The
settlers by the lake needed horses and wagons, tools, implements of
husbandry and building; and gold was valuable only as it represented a
means of obtaining these. Gold became so plentiful and was withal so
worthless in the desert colony that men refused to take it for their
labor. The yellow metal was collected in buckets and exported to the
States in exchange for the goods so much desired. Merchandise brought in
by caravans of "prairie schooners," was sold as fast as it could be put
out; and strict rules were enforced allowing but a proportionate amount to
each purchaser.

Within a few months after the first settlement of Utah, public schools
were established; and one of the early acts of the provisional government
was to grant a charter to the Deseret University, now known as the
University of Utah.

Up to 1849, Utah had no political history. Settling in a Mexican province,
the contest to determine its future ownership by the United States then in
progress, the people in common with most pioneer communities established
their own form of government. But in February, 1848, the treaty of
Guadeloupe Hidalgo gave California to the United States; months passed,
however, before the news of the change reached the west. Early in 1849, a
call had been issued to "all the citizens of that portion of Upper
California lying to the east of the Sierra Nevada mountains" to meet in
convention at Great Salt Lake City; and there a petition was prepared
asking of Congress the rights of self-government; and pending action, a
temporary regime was established, under the name of the Provisional
Government of the State of Deseret.

"Utah" was not the choice of the people as the name of their state; that
word served but to recall the degraded tribes who had contested the
settlement of the valleys. Deseret, a Book of Mormon name for the honey
bee, was more appropriate. The petition of the people was denied in part,
and, in 1850 was established the territorial form of government in Utah.
Concerning the period of the provisional government, such men as Gunnison,
Stansbury, and other federal officials on duty in the west, have recorded
their praises of the "Mormon" colonists in official reports. But with the
un-American system of territorial government came troubles.

At first, many of the territorial officials were appointed from among the
settlers themselves; thus, Brigham Young was the first governor; but
strangers, who knew not the people nor their ways, filled with prejudice
from the false reports they had heard, came from the east to govern the
colonists in the desert. Of the federal appointees thus forced upon the
people of Utah, many made for themselves most unenviable records.

Some of them were broken politicians, professional office-seekers, with no
desire but to secure the greatest possible gain out of their appointment.
With effrontery that would shock the modesty of a savage, the non-"Mormon"
party adopted and flagrantly displayed the carpet-bag as the badge of
their profession. But not all the officials sent to Utah from afar were of
this type; some of them were honorable and upright men, and amongst this
class the "Mormon" people reckon a number who, while opposed to their
religious tenets, were nevertheless sincere and honest in the opposition
they evinced.

In the early part of 1857, the published libels upon the people received
many serious additions, the principal of which was promulgated in
connection with the resignation of Judge Drummond of the Utah federal
court. In his last letter to the United States attorney-general, he
declared that his life was no longer safe in Utah, and that he had been
compelled to flee from his bench; but the most serious charge of all was
that the people had destroyed the records of the court, and that they had
resented, with hostile demonstration, his protests; in short, that justice
was dethroned in Utah, and that the people were in a state of open
rebellion.

With mails three months apart, news traveled slowly; but as soon as word
of this infamous charge reached Salt Lake City, the clerk of the court,
Judge Drummond's clerk, sent a letter by express to the attorney-general,
denying under oath the judge's statements, and attesting the declaration
with official seal. The records, he declared, had been untouched except by
official hands, and from the time of the court's establishment the files
had been safe and were then in his personal keeping. But, before the
clerk's communication had reached its destination, so difficult is it for
stately truth to overtake flitting falsehood, the mischief had been done.
Upon the most prejudiced reports utterly unfounded in fact, with a
carelessness which even his personal and political friends found no ample
means of explaining away, President Buchanan allowed himself to be
persuaded that a "Mormon" rebellion existed, and ordered an army of over
two thousand men to proceed straightway to Utah to subdue the rebels.
Successors to the governor and other territorial officials were appointed,
among whom there was not a single resident of Utah; and the military force
was charged with the duty of installing the foreign appointees.

With great dispatch and under cover of secrecy, so that the Utah rebels
might be taken by surprise, the army set out on the march. Before the
troops reached the Rocky Mountains, the sworn statement from the clerk of
the supreme court of Utah denying the charges made by Judge Drummond
became public property; and about the same time men who had come from Utah
to New York direct, published over their own signatures a declaration that
all was peaceful in and about the settlements of Utah. The public eye
began to twitch, and soon to open wide; the conviction was growing that
someone had blundered. But to retract would be a plain confession of
error; blunders must be covered up.

Let us leave the soldiers on their westward march, and ascertain how the
news of the projected invasion reached the people of Utah, and what effect
the tidings produced. Certain "Mormon" business agents, operating in
Missouri, heard of the hostile movement. At first they were incredulous,
but when the overland mail carrier from the west delivered his pouch and
obtained his receipt, but was refused the bag of Utah mail with the
postmaster's statement that he had been ordered to hold all mail for Utah,
there seemed no room for doubt. Two of the Utahns immediately hastened
westward.

On the 24th of July, 1857, the people had assembled in celebration of
Pioneer Day. Silver Lake, a mountain gem set amidst the snows and forests
and towering peaks of the Cottonwoods, had been selected as a fitting site
for the festivities. The Stars and Stripes streamed above the camp; bands
played; choirs sang; there were speeches, and picnics, and prayers.
Experiences were compared as to the journeyings on the plains; stories
were told of the shifts to which the people had been put by the
vicissitudes of famine; but these dread experiences seemed to them now
like a dream of the night; on this day all were happy. Were they not safe
from savage foes both red and white? There had been peace for a season;
and their desert homes were already smiling in wealth of flower and tree;
the wilderness was blossoming under their feet; their consciences were
void of offense toward their fellows. Yet at that very hour, all unbeknown
to themselves, and without the opportunity of speaking a word in defense,
these people had been convicted of insurrection and treason.

It was midday and the festivities were at their height, when a party of
men rode into camp and sought an interview with Governor Young. Three of
them had plainly ridden hard and far; they gave their report;--an armed
force of thousands was at that hour approaching the territory; the boasts
of officers and men as to what they would do when they found themselves in
"Mormon" towns were reported; and these stories called up, in the minds of
those who heard, the dread scenes of Far West and Nauvoo. Had these
colonists of the wilderness not gone far enough to satisfy the hatred of
their fellow-citizens in this republic of liberty? They had halted between
the civilization of the east and that of the west, they had fled from the
country that refused them a home, and now the nation would eject them from
their desert lodgings.

A council was called and the situation was freely discussed. Had they not
seen, lo, these many times, organized battalions and companies surpassing
fiendish mobs in villainy? The evidence warranted their conclusion that
invasion meant massacre. With tense calmness the plan of action was
decided upon. It was the general conviction that war was inevitable, and
it was decided to resist to the last. Then, if the army forced its way
into the valleys of Utah on hostile purpose bent, it should find the land
as truly a desert as it was when the pioneers first took possession. To
this effect was the decision:--We have built cities in the east for our
foes to occupy; our very temples have been desecrated and destroyed by
them; but, with the help of Israel's God, we will prevent them enriching
themselves with the spoils of our labors in these mountain retreats.

There seemed to be no room for doubt that war was about to break upon
them; and with such a prospect, men may be expected to take every
advantage of their situation. Brigham Young was still governor of Utah,
and the militia was subject to his order. Promptly he proclaimed the
territory under martial law, and forbade any armed body to cross its
boundaries. Echo Canyon, the one promising route of ingress, was
fortified. In those defiles an army might easily be stopped by a few;
ammunition stations were established; provisions were cached; boulders
were collected upon the cliffs beneath which the invaders must pass if
they held to their purpose of forcing an entrance. The people had been
roused to desperation, and force was to be met with force. In the
settlements, combustibles were placed in readiness, and if the worst came,
every "Mormon" house would be reduced to ashes, every tree would be hewn
down.

With an experience of suffering that would have well served a better
cause, this picked detachment of the United States army made its way to
the Green River country; and there, counting well the cost of proceeding
farther, went into camp at Fort Bridger. Many of the troops had almost
perished in the storms, for it was late in November, and the winter had
closed in early. Colonel Cooke reported to the commandant that half his
horses had perished through cold and lack of food; hundreds of beef cattle
had died; yet the region was so wild and forbidding that scarcely a wolf
ventured there to glut itself upon the carcasses. In Cooke's own words we
read that for thirty miles the road was blocked with carcasses--and "with
abandoned and shattered property, they mark, perhaps beyond example in
history, the steps of an advancing army with the horrors of a disastrous
retreat."

With the army traveled the new federal appointees to offices in the
territory. Cumming, the governor-to-be, issued a proclamation from his dug-
out lodgings, and sent it to Salt Lake City by courier; he signed it as
"Governor of Utah Territory." This but belittled him, for by the very
terms of the Organic Act, to uphold which was the professed purpose of his
coming, he was not governor until the oath of office had been duly
administered and subscribed. A few days later he went before his fellow-
sufferer Eckles, the appointee for chief justice of Utah, and took an
oath; but why did he swear so recklessly when the one before whom he swore
was no more an official than himself?

The army wintered at a satisfactory distance from Salt Lake City, and such
a winter, according to official reports, the soldiers of our nation have
rarely had to brave. It was soon apparent that they need fear no "Mormon"
attack; orders had been issued to the territorial militia to take no life
except in cases of absolute necessity; but General Johnston and his staff
had more than their match in battling with the elements. Communications
between Governor Young and the commandant were frequent; safe conduct was
assured any and all officers who chose to enter the city; and if necessary
hostages were to be given; but the governor was inexorable in his
ultimatum that, as an organized body with hostile purpose, the soldiers
should not pass the mountain gateway. In the meantime, a full account of
the situation was reported by Governor Young to the President of the
United States, and the truth slowly made its way into the eastern press.
President Buchanan tacitly admitted his mistake; but to recall the troops
at that juncture would be to confess humiliating failure.

A peace commissioner, in the person of Colonel Kane, was dispatched to
Salt Lake City; his coming being made known to Governor Young, an escort
was sent to meet him and conduct him through the "Mormon" lines. The
result of the conference was that the "Mormon" leaders but reiterated
their statement that the President's appointees would be given safe entry
to the city, and be duly installed in their offices, provided they would
enter without the army. This ultimatum was carried to the federal camp;
and to the open chagrin of the commandant, Governor Cumming and his fellow
appointees moved to Salt Lake City under "Mormon" escort, after a five
months' halt in the wilderness.

I believe that strategy is usually allowed in war, and I am free to say
the "Mormons" availed themselves of this license. At short intervals in
the course of the night-passage through the canyon, the party was
challenged, and the password demanded; bon-fires were blazing down in the
gorges, and the impression was made that the mountains were full of armed
men; whereas the sentries were members of the escort, who, preceding by
short cuts the main party, continued to challenge and to pass. On their
arrival, the gentlemen were met by the retiring officials, and were
peaceably installed. The new governor called upon the clerk of the court,
and ascertained the truth of the statement that the records were entirely
safe. He promptly reported his conclusions to General Johnston that there
was no further need for the army. It was decided, however, that the
soldiers should be permitted to march through the city, and straightway
the "Mormons" began their exodus to the south.

Governor Cumming tried in vain to induce the people to remain, assuring
them that the troops would commit no depredations. "Not so," said Brigham
Young, "we have had experience with troops in the past, Governor Cumming;
we have seen our leaders shot down by the demoralized soldiery; we have
seen mothers with babes at their breasts sent to their last home by the
same bullet; we have witnessed outrages beyond description. You are now
Governor of Utah; we can no longer command the militia for our own
defense. We do not wish to fight, therefore we depart." Leaving a few men
to apply the brand to the combustibles stored in every house, at the first
sign of plunder by the soldiers, the people again deserted their homes and
moved into the desert anew.

But the officers of the army kept their word; the troops were put into
camp forty miles from the settlements, and the settlers returned. The
President's commissioners brought the official pardon, unsolicited, for
all acts committed by the "Mormons" in opposing the entrance of the army.
The people asked what they had done that needed pardon; they had not
robbed, they had not killed. But a critical analysis of these troublous
events revealed at least one overt act--some "Mormon" scouts had
challenged a supply train; and, being opposed, they had destroyed some of
the wagons and provisions; and for this they accepted the President's most
gracious pardon.



CHAPTER V

After all, the "Mormon" people regard the advent of the Buchanan army as
one of the greatest material blessings ever brought to them.

The troops, once in Utah, had to be provisioned; and everything the
settlers could spare was eagerly bought at an unusual price. The gold
changed hands. Then, in their hasty departure, the soldiers disposed of
everything outside of actual necessities in the way of accouterment and
camp equipage. The army found the people in poverty, and left them in
comparative wealth.

And what was the cause of this hurried departure of the military? For many
months, ominous rumblings had been heard,--indications of the gathering
storm which was soon to break in the awful fury of civil strife. It could
not be doubted that war was imminent; already the conflict had begun, and
a picked part of the army was away in the western wilds, doing nothing for
any phase of the public good. But a word further concerning the expedition
in general. The sending of troops to Utah was part of a foul scheme to
weaken the government in its impending struggle with the secessionists.
The movement has been called not inaptly "Buchanan's blunder," but the
best and wisest men may make blunders, and whatever may be said of
President Buchanan's short-sightedness in taking this step, even his
enemies do not question his integrity in the matter. He was unjustly
charged with favoring secession; but the charge was soon disproved.

However, it was known that certain of his cabinet were in league with the
seceding states; and prominent among them was John Floyd, secretary of
war. The successful efforts of this officer to disarm the North, while
accumulating the munitions of war in the South; to scatter the forces by
locating them in widely separated and remote stations; and in other ways
to dispose of the regular army in the manner best calculated to favor the
anticipated rebellion, are matters of history. It is also told how, at the
commencement of the rebellion, he allied himself with the confederate
forces, accepting the rank of brigadier-general. It was through Floyd's
advice that Buchanan ordered the military expedition to Utah, ostensibly
to install certain federal officials and to repress an alleged infantile
rebellion which in fact had never come into existence, but in reality to
further the interests of the secessionists. When the history of that great
struggle with its antecedent and its consequent circumstances is written
with a pen that shall indite naught but truth, when prejudice and
partisanship are lived down, it may appear that Jefferson Davis rather
than James Buchanan was the prime cause of the great mistake.

And General Johnston who commanded the army in the west; he who was so
vehement in his denunciation of the rebel "Mormons," and who rejoiced in
being selected to chastise them into submission; who, because of his
vindictiveness incurred the ill-favor of the governor, whose posse
comitatus the army was; what became of him, at one time so popular that he
was spoken of as a likely successor to Winfield Scott in the office of
general-in-chief of the United States army? He left Utah in the early
stages of the rebellion, turned his arms against the flag he had sworn to
defend, doffed the blue, donned the grey, and fell a rebel on the field of
Shiloh.

Changes many and great followed in bewildering succession in Utah. The
people were besought to take sides with the South in the awful scenes of
cruel strife; it was openly stated in the east that Utah had allied
herself with the cause of secession; and by others that the design was to
make Salt Lake City the capital of an independent government. And surely
such conjectures were pardonable on the part of all whose ignorance and
prejudice still nursed the delusion of "Mormon" disloyalty. Moreover, had
the people been inclined to rebellion what greater opportunity could they
have wished? Already a North and a South were talked of--why not set up
also a West? A supreme opportunity had come and how was it used? It was at
this very time that the Overland Telegraph line, which had been
approaching from the Atlantic and the Pacific, was completed, and the
first tremor felt in that nerve of steel carried these words from Brigham
Young:

Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the constitution and laws of our
country.

The "Mormon" people saw in their terrible experiences and in the outrages
to which they had been subjected, only the mal-administration of laws and
the subversion of justice through human incapacity and hatred. Never even
for a moment did they question the supreme authority and the inspired
origin of the constitution of their land. They knew no North, no South, no
East, no West; they stood positively by the constitution, and would have
nothing to do in the bloody strife between brothers, unless indeed they
were summoned by the authority to which they had already once loyally
responded, to furnish men and arms for their country's need.

Following the advent of the telegraph came the railway; and the land of
"Mormondom" was no longer isolated. Her resources were developed, her
wealth became a topic of the world's wonder; the tide of immigration
swelled her population, contributing much of the best from all the
civilized nations of the earth. Every reader of recent and current history
has learned of her rapid growth; of her repeated appeals for the
recognition to which she had so long been entitled in the sisterhood of
states; of the prompt refusals with which her pleas were persistently met,
though other territories with smaller and more illiterate populations,
more restricted resources, and in every way weaker claims, were allowed to
assume the habiliments of maturity, while Utah, lusty, large and strong,
was kept in swaddling clothes. But the cries of the vigorous infant were
at length heeded, and in answer to the seventh appeal of the kind, Utah's
star was added to the nation's galaxy.

But let us turn more particularly to the history of the Church itself. For
a second time and thrice thereafter, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints has been deprived of its president, and on each occasion were
reiterated the prophecies of disruption uttered at the time of Joseph
Smith's assassination. Calm observers declared that as the shepherd had
gone, the flock would soon be dispersed; while others, comparable only to
wolves, thinking the fold unguarded, sought to harry and scatter the
sheep. But "Mormonism" died not; every added pang of grief served but to
unite the people.

When Brigham Young passed from earth, he was mourned of the people as
deeply as was Moses of Israel. And had he not proved himself a Moses, aye
and a Joshua, too? He had led the people into the land of holy promise,
and had divided unto them their inheritances. He was a man with clear
title as one of the small brotherhood we call great. As carpenter, farmer,
pioneer, capitalist, financier, preacher, apostle, prophet--in everything
he was a leader among men. Even those who opposed him in politics and in
religion respected him for his talents, his magnanimity, his liberality,
and his manliness; and years after his demise, men who had refused him
honor while alive brought their mites and their gold to erect a monument
of stone and bronze to the memory of this man who needs it not. With his
death closed another epoch in the history of his people, and a successor
arose, one who was capable of leading and judging under the changed
conditions.

But perhaps I am suspected of having forgotten or of having intentionally
omitted reference to what popular belief once considered the chief feature
of "Mormonism," the cornerstone of the structure, the secret of its
influence over its members, and of its attractiveness to its proselytes,
viz., the peculiarity of the "Mormon" institution of marriage. The Latter-
day Saints were long regarded as a polygamous people. That plural marriage
has been practised by a limited proportion of the people, under sanction
of Church ordinance, has never since the introduction of the system been
denied. But that plural marriage is a vital tenet of the Church is not
true. What the Latter-day Saints call celestial marriage is characteristic
of the Church, and is in very general practise; but of celestial marriage,
plurality of wives was an incident, never an essential. Yet the two have
often been confused in the popular mind.

We believe in a literal resurrection and an actual hereafter, in which
future state shall be recognized every sanctified and authorized
relationship existing here on earth--of parent and child, brother and
sister, husband and wife. We believe, further that contracts as of
marriage, to be valid beyond the veil of mortality must be sanctioned by a
power greater than that of earth. With the seal of the holy Priesthood
upon their wedded state, these people believe implicitly in the perpetuity
of that relationship on the far side of the grave. They marry not with the
saddening limitation "Until death do you part," but "For time and for all
eternity."(3) This constitutes celestial marriage. The thought that plural
marriage has ever been the head and front of "Mormon" offending, that to
it is traceable as the true cause the hatred of other sects and the
unpopularity of the Church, is not tenable to the earnest thinker. Sad as
have been the experiences of the people in consequence of this practise,
deep and anguish-laden as have been the sighs and groans, hot and bitter
as have been the tears so caused, the heaviest persecution, the cruelest
treatment of their history began before plural marriage was known in the
Church.

There is no sect nor people that sets a higher value on virtue and
chastity than do the Latter-day Saints, nor a people that visits surer
retribution upon the heads of offenders against the laws of sexual purity.
To them marriage is not, can never be, a civil compact alone; its
significance reaches beyond the grave; its obligations are eternal; and
the Latter-day Saints are notable for the sanctity with which they invest
the marital state. It has been my privilege to tread the soil of many
lands, to observe the customs and study the habits of more nations than
one; and I have yet to find the place and meet the people, where and with
whom the purity of man and woman is held more precious than among the
maligned "Mormons" in the mountain valleys of the west. There I find this
measure of just equality of the sexes-- that the sins of man shall not be
visited upon the head of woman.

At the inception of plural marriage among the Latter-day Saints, there was
no law, national or state, against its practise. This statement assumes,
as granted, a distinction between bigamy and the "Mormon" institution of
plural marriage. In 1862, a law was enacted with the purpose of
suppressing plural marriage, and, as had been predicted in the national
Senate prior to its passage, it lay for many years a dead letter. Federal
judges and United States attorneys in Utah, who were not "Mormons" nor
lovers of "Mormonism," refused to entertain complaints or prosecute cases
under the law, because of its manifest injustice and inadequacy. But other
laws followed, most of which, as the Latter-day Saints believe, were aimed
directly at their religious conception of the marriage contract, and not
at social impropriety nor sexual offense.

At last the Edmunds-Tucker act took effect, making not the marriage alone
but the subsequent acknowledging of the contract an offense punishable by
fine or imprisonment or both. Under the spell of unrighteous zeal, the
federal judiciary of Utah announced and practised that most infamous
doctrine of segregation of offenses with accumulating penalties.

I who write have listened to judges instructing grand juries in such terms
as these: that although the law of Congress designated as an offense the
acknowledging of more living wives than one by any man, and prescribed a
penalty therefor, as Congress had not specified the length of time during
which this unlawful acknowledging must continue to constitute the offense,
grand juries might indict separately for every day of the period during
which the forbidden relationship existed. This meant that for an alleged
misdemeanor--for which Congress prescribed a maximum penalty of six
months' imprisonment and a fine of three hundred dollars--a man might be
imprisoned for life, aye, for many terms of a man's natural life did the
court's power to enforce its sentences extend so far, and might be fined
millions of dollars. Before this travesty on the administration of law
could be brought before the court of last resort, and there meet with the
reversal and rebuke it deserved, men were imprisoned under sentences of
many years' duration.

The people contested these measures one by one in the courts; presenting
in case after case the different phases of the subject, and urging the
unconstitutionality of the measure. Then the Church was disincorporated,
and its property both real and personal confiscated and escheated to the
government of the United States; and although the personal property was
soon restored, real estate of great value long lay in the hands of the
court's receiver, and the "Mormon" Church had to pay the national
government high rental on its own property. But the people have suspended
the practise of plural marriage; and the testimony of the governors,
judges, and district attorneys of the territory, and later that of the
officers of the state, have declared the sincerity of the renunciation.

As the people had adopted the practise under what was believed to be
divine approval, they suspended it when they were justified in so doing.
In whatever light this practise has been regarded in the past, it is today
a dead issue, forbidden by ecclesiastical rule as it is prohibited by
legal statute. And the world is learning, to its manifest surprise, that
plural marriage and "Mormonism" are not synonymous terms.

And so the story of "Mormonism" runs on; its finale has not yet been
written; the current press presents continuously new stages of its
progress, new developments of its plan. Today the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints is stronger than ever before; and the people are
confident that it is at its weakest stage for all time to come. It lives
and thrives because within it are the elements of thrift and the forces of
life. It embraces a boundless liberality of belief and practise; true
toleration is one of its essential features; it makes love for mankind
second only to love for Deity. Its creed provides for the protection of
all men in their rights of worship according to the dictates of
conscience. It contemplates a millennium of peace, when every man shall
love his neighbor and respect his neighbor's opinion as he regards himself
and his own--a day when the voice of the people shall be in unison with
the voice of God.

(3. For treatment of Celestial Marraige and other Temple ordinances, see
"The House of the Lord," by the present author, Salt Lake City, Utah,
1912.)



THE PHILOSOPHY OF "MORMONISM"

CHAPTER I

In this attempt to treat the philosophy of "Mormonism" it is assumed that
no discussion of Christianity in general nor of the philosophy of
Christianity is required. The "Mormon" creed, so far as there is a creed
professed by the Latter-day Saints, is pre-eminently Christian in theory,
precept, and practise. In what respect, then, may be properly asked, does
"Mormonism" differ from the faith and practise of other professedly
Christian systems--in short, what is "Mormonism?"

First, let it be remembered that the term "Mormon," with its derivatives,
is not the official designation of the Church with which it is usually
associated. The name was originally applied in a spirit of derision, as a
nick-name in fact, by the opponents of the Church; and was doubtless
suggested by the title of a prominent publication given to the world
through Joseph Smith in an early period of the Church's history. This, of
course, is the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, the people have accepted the
name thus thrust upon them, and answer readily to its call. The proper
title of the organization is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints." The philosophy of "Mormonism" is declared in the name. The people
claim this name as having been bestowed by revelation and therefore that,
like other names given of God as attested by scriptural instances, it is
at once name and title combined.

The Church declines to sail under any flag of man-made design; it
repudiates the name of mortals as a part of its title, and thus differs
from Lutherans and Wesleyans, Calvinists, Mennonites, and many others, all
of whom, worthy though their organizations may be, elevating as may be
their precepts, good as may be their practises, declare themselves the
followers of men. This is not the church of Moses nor the prophets, of
Paul nor of Cephas, of Apollos nor of John; neither of Joseph Smith nor of
Brigham Young. It asserts its proud claim as the Church of Jesus Christ.

It refuses to wear a name indicative of distinctive or peculiar doctrines;
and in this particular, it differs from churches Catholic and Protestant,
Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Methodist and Baptist; its
sole distinguishing features are those of the Church of Christ.

In an effort to present in concise form the cardinal doctrines of this
organization, I cannot do better than quote the so-called Articles of
Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which have been
in published form before the world for over half a century.(4)

1. 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.

4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel 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, namely, 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 [the American]
continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth, and that the
earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

11. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the
dictates of our own 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 praiseworthy, we seek after these
things.--JOSEPH SMITH.

This brief summary of "Mormon" doctrine appears over the signature of
Joseph Smith--the man whom the Latter-day Saints accept as the instrument
in divine hands of re-establishing the Church of Christ on earth, in this
the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. Let it not be supposed, however,
that these Articles of Faith are, or profess to be, a complete code of the
doctrines of the Church, for, as declared in one of the "Articles," belief
in continuous revelation from Heaven is a characteristic feature of
"Mormonism." Yet it is to be noted that no doctrine has been promulgated,
which by even strained interpretation could be construed as antagonistic
to this early declaration of faith. Nor has any revelation to the Church
yet appeared in opposition to earlier revelation of this or of by-gone
dispensations.

To most of the declarations in the Articles of Faith, many sects
professing Christianity could confidently pledge allegiance; to many of
them, all Christian organizations could and professedly do subscribe.
Belief in the existence and powers of the Supreme Trinity; in Jesus Christ
as the Savior and Redeemer of mankind; in man's individual accountability
for his doings; in the acceptance of sacred writ as the Word of God; in
the rights of Worship according to the dictates of conscience; in all the
moral virtues;--these professions and beliefs are as a common creed in the
realm of Christendom. There is no peculiarly "Mormon" interpretation, in
the light of which these principles of faith and practise are viewed by
the Latter-day Saints, except in a certain simplicity and literalness of
acceptance--gross literalness, unrefined materialism, it has been called
by some critical opponents.

The gospel plan as accepted and taught by the Latter-day Saints is
strikingly simple; disappointing in its simplicity, indeed, to the mind
that can find satisfaction in mysteries alone, and to him whose love for
metaphor, symbolism, and imagery are stronger than his devotion to truth
itself, which may or may not be thus embellished. The Church asserts that
the wisdom of human learning, while ranking among the choicest of earthly
possessions, is not essential to an understanding of the gospel; and that
the preacher of the Word must be otherwise endowed than by the learning of
the schoolmen. "Mormonism" is for the wayfaring man, not less than for the
scholar, and it possesses a simplicity adapting it to the one as to the
other. A few of the characteristically "Mormon" tenets may perhaps be
profitably considered.

"Mormonism" affirms its unqualified belief in the Godhead as the Holy
Trinity, comprising Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; each of the three a
separate and individual personage; the Father and the Son each a personage
of spirit and of immortalized body; the Holy Ghost a personage of spirit.

The unity of the Godhead is accepted in the literal fulness of scriptural
declaration--that the three are one in purpose, plan and method, alike in
all their Godly attributes; one in their divine omniscience and
omnipotence; yet as separate and distinct in their personality as are any
three inhabitants of earth. "Mormonism" claims that scriptures declaring
the oneness of the Trinity admit of this interpretation; that such indeed
is the natural interpretation; and that the conception is in accord with
reason.

We hold that mankind are literally the spiritual children of God; that
even as the Christ had an existence with the Father before coming to earth
to take upon himself a tabernacle of flesh, to live and to die as a man in
accordance with the fore-ordained plan of redemption, so, too, every child
of earth had an existence in the spirit-state before entering upon this
mortal probation. We hold the doctrine to be reasonable, scriptural and
true, that mortal birth is no more the beginning of the soul's existence
than is death its end.

The time-span of mortal life is but one stage in the soul's career,
separating the eternity that has preceded from the eternity that is to
follow. And this mortal existence is one of the Father's great gifts to
his spiritual children, affording them the opportunity of an untrammeled
exercise of their free agency, the privilege of meeting temptation and of
resisting it if they will, the chance to win exaltation and eternal life.

We claim that all men are equal as to earthly rights and human privileges;
but that each has individual capacity and capabilities; that in the
primeval world there were spirits noble and great, as there were others of
lesser power and inferior purpose. There is no chance in the number or
nature of spirits that are born to earth; all who are entitled to the
privileges of mortality and have been assigned to this sphere shall come
at the time appointed, and shall return to inherit each the glory or the
degradation to which he has shown himself adapted. The gospel as
understood by the Latter-day Saints affirms the unconditional free-agency
of man--his right to accept good or evil, to choose the means of eternal
progression or the opposite, to worship as he elects, or to refuse to
worship at all--and then to take the consequences of his choice.

"Mormonism" rejects what it regards as a heresy, the false doctrine of pre-
destination as an absolute compulsion or even as an irresistible tendency
forced upon the individual toward right or wrong--as a pre-appointment to
eventual exaltation or condemnation; yet it affirms that the infinite
wisdom and fore-knowledge of God makes plain to him the end from the
beginning; and that he can read in the natures and dispositions of his
children, their destiny.

"Mormonism" claims an actual and literal relationship of parent and child
between the Creator and man--not in the figurative sense in which the
engine may be called the child of its builder; not the relationship of a
thing mechanically made to the maker thereof; but the kinship of father
and offspring. In short it is bold enough to declare that man's spirit
being the offspring of Deity, and man's body though of earthy components
yet being in the very image and likeness of God, man even in his present
degraded--aye, fallen condition--still possesses, if only in a latent
state, inherited traits, tendencies and powers that tell of his more than
royal descent; and that these may be developed so as to make him, even
while mortal, in a measure Godlike.

But "Mormonism" is bolder yet. It asserts that in accordance with the
inviolable law of organic nature--that like shall beget like, and that
multiplication of numbers and perpetuation of species shall be in
compliance with the condition "each after his kind," the child may achieve
the former status of the parent, and that in his mortal condition man is a
God in embryo. However far in the future it may be, what ages may elapse,
what eternities may pass before any individual now a mortal being may
attain the rank and sanctity of godship, man nevertheless carries in his
soul the possibilities of such achievement; even as the crawling
caterpillar or the corpse-like chrysalis holds the latent possibility,
nay, barring destruction, the certainty indeed, of the winged imago in all
the glory of maturity.

"Mormonism" claims that all nature, both on earth and in heaven, operates
on a plan of advancement; that the very Eternal Father is a progressive
Being; that his perfection, while so complete as to be incomprehensible by
man, possesses this essential quality of true perfection--the capacity of
eternal increase. That therefore, in the far future, beyond the horizon of
eternities perchance, man may attain the status of a God. Yet this does
not mean that he shall be then the equal of the Deity he now worships nor
that he shall ever overtake those intelligences that are already beyond
him in advancement; for to assert such would be to argue that there is no
progression beyond a certain stage of attainment, and that advancement is
a characteristic of low organization and inferior purpose alone. We
believe that there was more than the sounding of brass or the tinkling of
wordy cymbals in the fervent admonition of the Christ to his followers--
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." (Matt. 5:48.)

But it is beyond dispute that in his present state, man is far from the
condition of even a relatively perfect being. He is born heir to the
weaknesses as well as to the excellencies of generations of ancestors; he
inherits potent tendencies for both good and evil; and verily, it seems
that in the flesh he has to suffer for the sins of his progenitors. But
divine blessings are not to be reckoned in terms of earthly possessions or
bodily excellencies alone; the child born under conditions of adversity
may after all be richly endowed with opportunity, opportunity which,
perhaps, had been less of service amid the surroundings of luxury. We hold
that the Father has an individual interest in his children; and that
surely in the rendering of divine judgment, the conditions under which
each soul has lived in mortality shall be considered.

"Mormonism" accepts the doctrine of the Fall, and the account of the
transgression in Eden, as set forth in Genesis; but it affirms that none
but Adam is or shall be answerable for Adam's disobedience; that mankind
in general are absolutely absolved from responsibility for that "original
sin," and that each shall account for his own transgressions alone; that
the Fall was foreknown of God--that it was turned to good effect by which
the necessary condition of mortality should be inaugurated; and that a
Redeemer was provided, before the world was; that general salvation, in
the sense of redemption from the effects of the Fall, comes to all without
their seeking it; but that individual salvation or rescue from the effects
of personal sins is to be acquired by each for himself by faith and good
works through the redemption wrought by Jesus Christ. The Church holds
that children are born to earth in a sinless state, that they need no
individual redemption; that should they die before reaching years of
accountability, they return without taint of earthly sin; but as they
attain youth or maturity in the flesh, their responsibility increases with
their development.

According to the teachings of "Mormonism," Christ's instructions to the
people to pray "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven" was not a petition for the impossible, but a fore-shadowing of
what shall eventually be. We believe that the day shall yet come when the
Kingdom of God on earth shall be one with the Kingdom in heaven; and one
King shall rule in both. The Church is regarded as the beginning of this
Kingdom on earth; though until the coming of the King, there is no
authority in the Church exercising or claiming temporal rule or dominion
among the governments of earth. Yet the Church is none the less the
beginning of the Kingdom, the germ from which the Kingdom shall develop.

And the Church must be in direct communication with the heavenly Kingdom
of which the earthly Kingdom when established shall be a part. Of such a
nature was the Church in so far as it existed before the time of Christ's
earthly ministry; for the biblical record is replete with instances of
direct communication between the prophets and their God. The scriptures
are silent as to a single dispensation in which the spiritual leaders of
the people depended upon the records of earlier times and by-gone ages for
their guidance; but on the contrary, the evidence is complete that in
every stage of the Church's history the God of heaven communicated his
mind and will unto his earthly representatives. Israel of old were led and
governed in all matters spiritual and to a great extent in their temporal
affairs by the direct word of revelation. Noah did not depend upon the
record of God's dealings with Adam or Enoch, but was directed by the very
word and voice of the God whom he represented. Moses was no mere
theologian trained for his authority or acts on what God had said to
Abraham, to Isaac, or to Jacob; he acted in accordance with instructions
given unto him from time to time, as the circumstances of his ministry
required. And so on through all the line of prophets, major and minor,
down to the priest of the course of Abia unto whom the angel announced the
birth of John who was to be the direct fore-runner of the Messiah.

When the Christ came in the flesh he declared that he acted not of himself
but according to instructions given him of the Father. Thus the Messiah
was a revelator, receiving while in the flesh communication direct and
frequent from the heavens. By such revelation he was guided in his earthly
ministry; by such he instructed his disciples; unto such he taught his
apostles to look for safe guidance when he would have left them.

During his earthly ministry Christ called and ordained men to offices in
the Church. We have a record of apostles particularly, numbering twelve,
and beside these, seventy others who were commissioned to preach, teach,
baptize and perform other ordinances of the Church. After our Lord's
departure, we read of the apostles continuing their labors in the light of
continued revelation. By this sure guide they selected and set apart those
who were to officiate in the Church. By revelation, Peter was directed to
carry the gospel to the Gentiles; which expansion of the work was
inaugurated by the conversion of the devout Cornelius and his household.
By revelation, Saul of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle, a valiant defender
of the faith. Holy men of old spake and wrote as they were moved upon by
the Holy Ghost and depended not upon the precedents of ancient history nor
entirely upon the law then already written. They operated under the
conviction that the living Church must be in communication with its living
Head; and that the work of God, while it was to be wrought out through the
instrumentality of man, was to be directed by him whose work it was, and
is.

"Mormonism" claims the same necessity to exist today. It holds that it is
no more nearly possible now than it was in the days of the ancient
prophets or in the apostolic age for the Church of Christ to exist without
direct and continuous revelation from God. This necessitates the existence
and authorized ministrations of prophets, apostles, high priests,
seventies, elders, bishops, priests, teachers and deacons, now as
anciently--not men selected by men without authority, clothed by human
ceremonial alone, nor men with the empty names of office, but men who bear
the title because they possess the authority, having been called of God.

Is it unreasonable, is it unphilosophical, thus to look for additional
light and knowledge? Shall religion be the one department of human thought
and effort in which progression is impossible? What would we say of the
chemist, the astronomer, the physicist, or the geologist, who would
proclaim that no further discovery or revelation of scientific truth is
possible, or who would declare that the only occupation open to students
of science is to con the books of by-gone times and to apply the
principles long ago made known, since none others shall ever be
discovered?

The chief motive impelling to research and investigation is the conviction
that to knowledge and wisdom there is no end. "Mormonism" affirms that all
wisdom is of God, that the halo of his glory is intelligence, and that man
has not yet learned all there is to learn of him and his ways. We hold
that the doctrine of continuous revelation from God is not less
philosophical and scientific than scriptural.

(4. For extended treatment of "Mormon" doctrine see "The Articles of
Faith: a Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," by James E. Talmage. Published by the
Church: Salt Lake City, Utah; 485 pp.)



CHAPTER II

The Latter-day Saints affirm that the authority to act in the name of God--
the Holy Priesthood--has been restored to earth in this dispensation and
age, in accordance with the inspired predictions of earlier times. But, it
may be asked, what necessity was there for a restoration if the Priesthood
had been once established upon earth? None indeed, had it never been taken
away. A general apostasy from the primitive Church is conceded in effect
by some authorities in ecclesiastical history; though few admit the entire
discontinuance of priestly power, or the full suspension of authority to
operate in the ordinances of the Church. This great apostasy was foretold.
Paul warned the Saints of Thessalonica against those who claimed that the
second coming of Christ was then near at hand: "For," said he, "that day
shall not come except there come a falling away first." (II Thess. 2:3.)
"Mormonism" contends that there has been a general falling away from the
Church of Christ, dating from the time immediately following the apostolic
period. We believe that the proper interpretation of history will confirm
this view; and, moreover, that the inspired scriptures foretold just such
a condition.(5)

If the Priesthood had been once taken from the earth no human power could
re-establish it; the restoration of this authority from heaven would be
necessary. The Church claims that in the present age this restoration has
been effected by the personal ministrations of those who exercised the
authority in earlier dispensations. Thus, in 1829, Joseph Smith and Oliver
Cowdery received the Lesser or Aaronic Priesthood under the hands of John
the Baptist, who visited them as a resurrected being--the same Baptist who
by special and divine commission held the authority of that Priesthood in
the dispensation of the "Meridian of Time." Later, the Higher or
Melchizedek Priesthood was conferred upon them through the personal
ministrations of Peter, James, and John--the same three who constituted
the presidency of the apostolic body in the primitive Church, after the
departure of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom it was founded.

That the claim is a bold one is conceded without argument. The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints professes to have the Priesthood of old
restored in its fulness; and, moreover, while acknowledging the right of
every individual as of every sect or other organization of individuals to
believe and practise according to choice in matters religious, it affirms
that it is the only Church on the face of the earth possessing this
authority and Priesthood; and that therefore it is The Church and the only
Church of Christ upon the earth today. It holds as absolutely
indispensable to proper Church organization, the presence of the living
oracles of God who shall be directed from the heavens in their earthly
ministry; and these, "Mormonism" asserts, are to be found with the Church
of Jesus Christ.

"Mormonism" emphasizes the doctrine that that which is Caesar's be given
unto Caesar, while that which is God's be rendered unto him. Therefore, it
teaches that all things pertaining unto earth, and unto man's earthly
affairs, may with propriety be regulated by earthly authority, but that in
the performance of any ordinance, rite, or ceremony, claimed to be of
effect beyond, the grave, a power greater than that of man is requisite or
the performance is void. Therefore, membership in the Church, which, if of
any value and significance at all, is of more than temporal meaning, must
be governed by laws which are prescribed by the powers of heaven.
"Mormonism" recognizes Jesus Christ as the head of the Church, as the
literal Savior and Redeemer of mankind, as the King of kings and Lord of
lords, as the One whose right it is to reign on earth, who shall yet
subdue all worldly kingdoms under his feet, who shall present the earth in
its final state of redemption to the Father. It is his right to prescribe
the conditions under which mankind may be made partakers of his bounty and
of the privileges of the victory won by him over death and the grave.

The Church claims that faith in God is essential to intelligent service of
him; and that faith, trust, confidence in God as the Father of mankind, as
the Supreme Being to whom all shall render account of their deeds and
misdeeds, must lead to a desire to serve him and thus produce repentance.
Faith in God and genuine repentance of sin, of necessity, therefore
constitute the fundamental principles of the gospel. It is reasonable to
expect that after man has developed faith in God, and has repented of his
sins, he will be eager to find a means of demonstrating his sincerity; and
this means is found in the requirement concerning baptism as essential to
entrance into the Church, and as a means whereby remission of sins may be
obtained. As to the mode of baptism, the Church affirms that immersion
alone is the one method sanctioned by scripture, and that this mode has
been expressly prescribed by revelation in the present dispensation.

Water baptism, then, becomes a basic principle and the first essential
ordinance of the gospel. It is to be administered by one having authority;
and that authority rests in the Priesthood given of God. Following baptism
by water, comes the ordinance of the bestowal of the Holy Ghost by the
authorized imposition of hands, which constitutes the true baptism of the
Spirit. These requirements, designated specifically the "first principles
and ordinances of the gospel," "Mormonism" claims to be absolutely
essential to membership in the Church of Christ, and this without
modification or qualification as to the time at which the individual lived
in mortality.

Then with propriety it may be asked:--What shall become of those who lived
and died while the Priesthood was not operative upon the earth?--those who
have worked out their mortal probation during the ages of the great
apostasy? Furthermore, what shall be the destiny of those who, though
living in a time of spiritual light, perhaps had not the opportunity of
learning and obeying the gospel requirements? Here again the inherent
justice of "Mormon" philosophy shows itself in the doctrine of salvation
for the dead. No distinction is