believed, in this vice alone, the sure evidences of confusion and ultimate ruin. Talk of love, he said, no man that was not stone blind, who saw the stone walls that inclosed the prison-houses of the women, could assume that there was love among these people. It was safe bind, safe find," the necessary law of such relations. Every day further developed the truth of this. The wealthy were building higher walls. It was but a repetition of the system which had proven the downfall of so many nations; and in Utah, as in these, either polygamy will be abolished, or there will be many a bloody struggle. He had met there the son of one who had once been a wealthy merchant in New York, and an alderman when that position was not synonymous with robber. The son was not as wealthy as the father had been. He had two wives, nevertheless, and one of them was the daughter of the other. The affair was looked upon quite as a matter of course by the saints, and, he supposed, worked as well as the three-cornered affair could be expected to behave itself, until he went home one day and found the young one had disappeared. She had not been heard of when he (the lecturer) had left, nor did he presume he had since recovered her. She preferred, no doubt, the favours which were not divided with her mother. He had also, even among the bishops, met several not over happy in their marital relations; one who had among his wives two of his nieces; another whose two wives (he was modest) never spoke to each other on any occasion, which made the house rather awkward to visitors. Only imagine to yourself, said the lecturer, a family of twelve children, with four or five mothers to bring them up in one house, and you have as fair a start for hell upon earth as you can well imagine. Ten years in such a purgatory would make a man long for the sound of Gabriel's trumpet.' are. An open schism has been made by one of the prophet's sons, who is his namesake, in opposition to this system; and the Josephites' are more obnoxious to the saints than the Gentiles Some regard that schism as the beginning of the end :' others invoke the strong arm of the State to put down polygamy, if not Mormonism itself. We mean to put that business of the Mormons through,' said a New England politician to Mr. Dixon; 'we have done a bigger job than that in the South; and we shall now fix up things in Salt Lake City.' 'Do you mean by force?' 'Well, that is one of our planks. The Republican platform pledges us to crush those Saints. The policy of the more moderate party, advocated by Mr. Bowles, is to await and guide the natural causes which are operating to the overthrow of polygamy and the submission of the Mormon aristocracy; to maintain a sufficient military force to keep the peace, and to protect the 'Gentiles' in that freedom which the Mormons themselves offer to all settlers; to remove all federal officers who practise polygamy; and, for the rest, to trust to the influence of free immigration, public opinion, Christian missions, and the Pacific Pacific railroad. But the same writer regards it as very doubtful whether events will not precipitate themselves. The righteous indignation against the addition of polygamy to imposture is apt to degenerate into insolence and outrage; and the Mormons make bitter complaints of the inroads made upon their harems, especially by the soldiers of the United States' camp. Mr. Bowles regards his bachelor stage-driver out of Salt Lake, who said he expected to have a revelation soon to take one of the extra wives of a Mormon saint,' as a type of the spirit that the Mormons will soon have to combat. The fair words with which Mr. Colfax was greeted have been succeeded by resentment because his mission has not hastened the reception of Utah into the Union as a State; and the discourses reported from Salt Lake City seem to defy, nay, even to threaten, an open conflict with the government. The first result of an outbreak would be a triumph of the Mormons, from their vastly superior numbers, to be avenged perhaps by a war of extermination. Such an issue would be as deplorable in the light of sound policy as the sufferings involved in it would be repulsive to humanity and the Nemesis which seems to be dogging the arrogant license of American liberty would reach a fearful climax in the reproach of a religious war. These questions, however deeply interesting to the student of human progress, belong practically to the Americans themselves. But there is an aspect of the subject which comes home to English statesmen, to English religionists, nay to the bosom of many an English family. We are not referring to fanciful cases of proselytism, but to real ones which have come within our personal knowledge of Mormons in England. The citizens of the United States receive the stream of Mormon converts in their territory, though with more of shame than satisfactionbut Great Britain supplies them, which is perhaps worse. The proportion of English converts to those of other countries is so large as to justify the saying that our soil is the nursery of the saints, and the recruiting of these English men and women is carried on with a zeal, an ability, an apt adjustment of the means to the end, which have seldom been equalled in the modern history of the art of proselytising. The converts are made among the classes low in social position, in wealth, and, above all, in knowledge. No man of learning ever became a Mormon, or is ever likely to become one. What are called the 'respectable' classes in England know little of Mormonism but through books and newspapers; such personal contact as they have with it is but slight and happens seldom. Walking near a group of girls in the streets of a manufacturing town, one may hear hear the pros and cons of going to Salt Lake discussed in a tone that shows a not remote communication with Mormon agents. Or the arrangements of a well-ordered household may be suddenly upset by the discovery that the shrewd north-country gardener is a Mormon, and has converted all the housemaids to the belief in polygamy and a material God. He will carry off his prizes successfully to Utah, hoping perhaps to secure more than one of them for himself, in which he will probably be disappointed, for sic vos non vobis is a maxim at Salt Lake as elsewhere. Even since these last words were written, a friend has informed us that Mormon ladies had been calling at her house with Mormon tracts, and attempting the conversion of a maidservant. If the reader starts at such revelations, what will he think of the fact that ten Mormon branches' or congregations assemble every Sunday in London for religious worship, which is conducted with the fervour of Methodism, and in a form and spirit most artfully adapted alike to satisfy the expectation of ordinary attendants at dissenting chapels, and to catch the attention of any stray sheep who may wander into the fold? With that spice of affectation which we hope to see weeded out of future editions of his book, Mr. Dixon volunteers a hint to 'his friends at Bishopsthorpe or Wells' to go and see in person what the Saints are doing in Whitechapel. The advice is good, though the tone of giving it might have been better, if Mr. Dixon had thought of recent proofs of sympathy with the working classes given by eminent dignitaries of the Church. At all events, we can testify to the help we have found towards seeing and feeling the spirit of the system and the sources of its power among us, by making two visits to Mormon assemblies. And not the least interesting of our observations was the striking difference between a morning service in a feeble branch, with an artisan preacher, and an evening service on a larger scale conducted by one of the heads of the body in England. The doctrine and spirit were the same; but, for the tone and manner, we seemed, at the one time, to be attending a small Methodist meeting, at the other to be listening to such a discourse as Cardinal Wiseman was wont to deliver for the special benefit of Protestants. The slow gathering of the worshippers in a roughly furnished upper room gave an opportunity for some conversation. We learned that a flourishing congregation had recently been reduced to a skeleton by the emigration of thirty-seven saints to Utah. With the exception of some few leaders, it is only the poorest who remain behind all who can save money enough take their departure for Zion. The morning gatherings are the thinnest: on this occasion we saw nine men and two women, and alas! a beautiful little child. : One One brother brought in the weekly supply of forty copies of the 'Millennial Star,' which were distributed, and the pence paid. After some waiting for an expected preacher, one of those present (all of whom had the appearance of mechanics) took his place behind a rough desk on the little platform, good-humouredly asking, 'Where are our paraphernalia?' and began the service without waiting for these mystic articles. The doubt, how far the Mormons have followed their Irvingite congeners in the paths of ritualism, was presently solved by the tardy arrival of a brother with the key of a cupboard, from which he produced the 'paraphernalia '-a velvet cushion and Bible: the latter was often referred to, but never read or even opened, during the service. Meanwhile there went on the hearty singing, to one of those Methodist tunes too familiar to us in some of our churches, of a hymn which at once set at rest the question, whether the LatterDay Saints' have outgrown the grosser features of Joseph Smith's imposture : 'An angel from on high The long, long silence broke, These gracious words he spoke : A sacred record lies concealed!" 'Sealed by Moroni's hand It shall again to light come forth To usher in Christ's reign on earth.' And so on for three more stanzas. As for the hymn-book itself, it is chiefly a mixture of old and well-known English hymns, such as the people who become converts have heard from childhood in churches and chapels, with new hymns of special Mormon cast, mostly imitated from popular songs and intended to be sung to their tunes. Hymns in execrable taste, and devoid of the least sense of poetic feeling, are unhappily common enough in England, but some of these songs parodied into new Mormon hymns are perfect marvels of badness. We give an example of their parodies of popular songs : 'Cheor, saints, cheer! we're bound for peaceful Zion; Cheer, saints, cheer! we 'll Israel's god rely on, We We will but add the first lines of No. 349, which sets forth the Mormon doctrine of a material deity:— 'The god that others worship, is not the god for me; He has no parts, nor body, and cannot hear nor see, &c.'* A prayer by a brother in the congregation differed little from what we believe may be heard at many a rustic prayer-meeting, except in the thanksgiving for the new revelation and a special petition for the Prophet'-' that he may receive revelations from time to time'-and for his two coadjutors. The prayer was offered in the name of Christ. A second hymn set forth the doctrine of the salvation of the dead by the baptism, for them, of their living friends: 'Now all ye saints rejoice to-day That you can saviours be, free, namely, from the state of the 'spirits in prison.' Then, in a quiet but confident tone, with a familiarity often falling to vulgar colloquialisms, the priest-for such, he presently informed us, was his office-began a discourse without a note and without a text. The Bible, as we have said, was not even opened, and his quotations betrayed some loss of former familiar knowledge of the sacred text-a loss which seemed not to distress the speaker. The set biblical phraseology, moreover, was constantly turned into more familiar language. He said that he had to speak unexpectedly: we don't know, when we come to worship, whether we shall have to speak or not.' But he showed a natural power to adapt his words to his audience, which no learning could have supplied. He ended by turning the tables cleverly on the Millennarians, and told what we felt to be a sad truth as to one cause of Mormonism. For, just as the foolish speculations about the ten tribes have marked out the framework of the Mormon theory, so is the curious question, 'Where is the promise of His coming?' a preparation for its practice. There's a great deal of what is called Mormonism being preached in this day; but they are unable to tell us how to escape the judgments about to be poured out. They believe that Jesus is coming in person to reign on the earth, but they don't tell us where! Whenever *To find this rubbish in the same book with some of the finest of our English hymns is simply disgusting; but so far as we can judge from the poems of Eliza R. Snow, a lady who occupies the honourable but curious position of a maiden wife sealed to Brigham Young, the poets of Utah are safer in trusting to the crutches of parody than in trying to walk alone in the halting verse of Eliza the Poetess.' -Poems: Religious, Historical, and Political. By Eliza R. Snow. Vol. i., 1856. God |