# Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs/Chapter 13
### Chapter XIII.

* Mormonism as a religion and as a civil polity
* Cause of Mormon persecution at Missouri
* At Nauvoo
* J. Smith, a candidate for presidency of the United States
* Smith a Mohammed
* Brigham successor to his designs as well as office
* His mismanagement
* Famine v. ambition
* His cause of fall
* Mormon politics
* The objects to be accomplished with regard to Mormonism
* The Mormon polygamy
* Ethical and legal crimes
* Two methods of suppressing polygamy
* Legislation and annexatian
* Duty of Congress, in the matter
* The advantages of annexation
* On the women
* On the men
* Majority of Mormons foreigners
* Poverty and discontent
* Women would leave Utah
* Many would apostatize
* Effects of merely appointing a governor and sending troops
* Mormonism as a religious evil
* Means to uproot it
* Duty of seceders
* Of Christians
* Its fundamental errors and weakest points.
What shall be done with this strangely-infatuated people? This has become an important inquiry, as their position and developments will soon demand action.
There is a difficulty on both sides of the subject. The Mormons contend that the Constitution guaranties the fullest and freest enjoyment of religious opinion. Mormonism, say they, is our religion; to oppose our doings is an infringement of our religious rights, and that is violating the Constitution.
Others insist on viewing Mormonism as a civil polity ​alone; and as such demand the interference of the federal power.
It is ridiculous to think that the government can have a desire to oppress any portion of its citizens, or that it has the slightest motive to limit human freedom in its broadest constitutional sense. If the doings in Utah compel the Congress to regard and act toward it merely as a civil polity, irrespective of its religion, the Mormons must remember that it is themselves who have united their ecclesiastical with their civil organization. As a church, they have the extremest right to worship whom and what they please. Rites the most ridiculous and fantastic; deities the most monstrous and fiendish; altars the most costly and magnificent; dogmas the most atrocious and profane; leaders the most bigoted or corrupt; people the most fanatic and suicidal may be tolerated as to religion. But when that religion nerves the arm and grasps the sword of secular power, it comes in contact with secular authority. Its claims of toleration then merge into assumptions of sovereignty, and wise men need to hesitate before acceding to its demands.
As a religion, Mormonism can not be meddled with; as a civil polity it may. The arm of government should never be stretched to crush fanatics, but the sword of justice must attack conspirators. Men have every right in the world to be the devotees of error; but no right at all to be the devotees of crime.
It has been their constant anxiety and incessant truckling for political ascendancy that has induced much of their sufferings already. The Mormons grasped at and obtained power in Missouri, and by force of numbers, knowing no ​motive other than self-aggrandisement, outvoted, and rose at the expense of all the other inhabitants. The same policy of political wire-working first incensed the mass of the Illinoians. It is folly to suppose that in the then new country, where every emigrant added to the value of property, and every new town enhanced every other town, that the whole mass of the people, comprising men of every sect and many of no seet at all, should persecute an industrious people merely on religious grounds. It is unnatural; it is absurd. The real secret was, the efforts of the Mormons to get the county-seat removed to Nauvoo, and thus to control the county. Those living in the immediate vicinity of Nauvoo, were enraged by the thefts committed on their property; but it was the Mormon political chicanery that induced their expulsion. Smith juggled so extensively and became so inflated by his success, that he presumed to offer himself as candidate for the presidency of the United States, in 1843, '44, and cursed the country for not promising him their support. He strutted from off the stilts of a religious impostor, to the balancing-pole of a political empiric, and fell. It was not for his religion or because of his prophetic pretensions, but for his political designs and his modus operandi in endeavoring to secure them. Having imitated Mohammed in his pretended mission and revelations, like him, having become the chief of a second Medina, he wished to extend the resemblance still further, and aspired to rule the continent. Brigham Young sympathises in his views and is sanguine enough to think that he can accomplish them. With more tact and greater pertinacity, he more carefully approaches the desired goal. His little world in ​Utah grew too narrow for him, and he spread out his boundaries. San Bernardino on the south, Carson Valley on the west, and Salmon river on the north, were taken possession of. A settlement was sent into Nebraska to make a fort and permanent location, if possible. St. Louis and Cincinnati were created "Stakes of Zion, abiding-places for the Saints," in 1854. Missionaries were sent to the Indian tribes, to obtain their friendship and secure their support. Brigham said, "I will drive the wedge in with little taps; but will never draw back till the tree is split."
Hope beat high in Mormon hearts, that the Church would make a great move to retake Independence, Jackson county, Mo., which they believe they yet have to do, preparatory to conquering the world. War with England, the rising of the slaves, the triumph of the Saints, and the coming of the Messiah were prognosticated freely. The famine cooled down this boisterous effervesence. The pressure from outside began to bear heavily, and now the Carson Valley settlement is abandoned, San Bernardino is evacuated, the Saints at Cincinnati are recalled, and the St. Louis Stake is commanded to "come home." Brigham has withdrawn the foot he had planted so pompously, and, fearing difficulties at home, he is drawing his men around him. Still his ambition and belief remain unchanged. He is tired of the platform of his Tabernacle, or the paraphernalia of his endowment room; he covets the ermine and scepter of an emperor; and when he falls, it will not be because of his pretensions as a prophet, nor an infringement of his religious rights as a man; but for his criminal efforts to gratify his ridiculous ambition.
​Having invested their religion with the Nessus shirt of political jugglery; having made their ecclesiastical influence the stepping-stone to civil power; not being content with supporting the laws, but covering, under a Jesuitically-assumed veneration for the Constitution, the most treasonable designs and oaths of conspirators; determining the overthrow of their country as the rubbsh on which to build their throne, and the center from which to sway their empire; inducing thousands of poor deluded men and women to sacrifice their all in order to embrace such objects; boldly defying the power of the government, and expelling its authorized agents; educating their children, as Brigham has said, "to be able and ready to carry fire and sword, if needs be, to the very gates of the capitol;" it is themselves who have divested their system of its religious character, and, therefore, subjected themselves to political interference. It is themselves who are guilty of placing their adherents in their dangerous position; and it will be themselves who must be responsible for the consequences. Their political ambition has ever been the curse of their system, and it will prove its downfall.
What shall be done? To answer this, it is necessary, first, to see clearly what are the objects to be accomplished. Mormonism is a moral, religious, and political evil. As a moral evil, it degrades women and curses the rising generation. As a religious evil, it dooms thousands of old and young to perdition, for its ablest polemic, O. Pratt, says, "The message in the Book of Mormon, if false, is such that none who persist in believing it can be saved." As a political evil, it is a system ​of treason, sworn to subject the government, and hoping to usurp its place; an autocracy in the center of a republic.
The glaring moral evil of their system is polygamy. This is an anti-natural and a degrading practice; but still it is not a crime for the Mormons to be polygamists. There is no law against polygamy in Utah. There is a law against it in every other State and Territory, and, therefore, in every other State and Territory it is a crime. For it to become a crime, either Congress must enact a law against it extending over all the Territories, or Utah must enact such a law for herself. Until such a law be enacted it is no crime. Until it be made a legal crime, it can not be legally punished. Before the executive can inflict a penalty, the deliberative must prescribe one. Such a penalty has never been prescribed. So far, therefore, as polygamy is concerned, the people are legally innocent. The legislators of Utah are almost all polygamists; Brigham is too astute a tactician to repose much confidence, or elevate to much honor, any but those whose interests are inextricably enmeshed with that of Mormonism. They will never make polygamy a crime. If it be made criminal, Congress must do it. Till it becomes a legal wrong, it is only an ethical wrong; and for ethical wrongs there can only be ethical remedies. To attempt to adopt these in Utah would be folly. No man however informed or however eloquent would be heard. To call in question its propriety in Utah, would be as senseless as disparaging Washington in a fourth of July oration. They urge it as the perfection of purity. Outside Utah moral means may be effectual; but it has attained too strong a hold, entangled too many persons, and combined too ​many interests in Utah ever to be thus uprooted. Were it not for the fact of its being under the restraint of fanaticism, and all the Mormons being equally infatuated, it would fall to pieces of its own weight. It has become a cankering sore, but it is rigidly restrained to one spot; and excision is its only remedy. If, therefore, it is ever abolished, it must be by law. It must be made a legal wrong, or it better be let alone. Complete inaction as to Utah, or else thorough and vigorous action. It is mere child's play to blate at what can not be meddled with or improved. Polygamy must be either sanctioned or opposed; if it be sanctioned, and to ignore it is a tacit sanction, all is said; if it be opposed, it is a sign of imbecility if that opposition be not successful. For such opposition to be successful, it must be made a legal crime, and its penalty must be legally enforced.
It is a very important question, however, Is it the duty of Congress to suppress polygamy! Arbitrary exercise of power is a dangerous experiment, and would form a very dangerous precedent. Interference in domestic matters is contrary to the true policy of all governments; but do the affairs of Utah warrant this interference? Were a colony of Hindoos to emigrate to Nebraska in sufficient numbers to control the State Legislature, and to practice the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, ought they to be interfered with! The society of "free love" was resolutely suppressed by law in New York; yet they manifestly had as much right to the enjoyment of their religious conception of marriage as any. To say that their numbers were insignificant and their organization feeble compared with that of Mormon​ism, only makes Mormonism the greater evil, and, therefore, more urgently demanding an effectual remedy. For government to attempt to punish without Congress previously legislating on it, would be an infinitely more arbitrary exercise of power than to confront the question and legislate at once. To send soldiers to endeavor to seduce Mormon girls, as some suggest, and by thus enraging the Mormons provoke murderous hostilities, is fiendish. In the name of humanity, if it be suppressed, let it be done legally, and not with the passions and injustice of mob violence. The great difficulty is polygamy, it can not be evaded; if its suppression be the object desired, it must be the object attacked. If it be not done with the temperate firmness of law, any other course will only aggravate the evil.
There are two methods of making Mormon polygamy criminal. The first is by enacting a law directly against it by Congress. This is the simplest method, but open to much dispute on the score of "legislating for the Territories." The second plan is to repeal the act organizing the Territory of Utah, and to place the Mormon settlements under the jurisdiction of the adjoining States, whose laws punish polygamy; or by Congress legislating for squatters on public grounds. This method would be as directly effectual, and not open to the same objections as the others. Annex the northern portion of Utah to Oregon, and the southern and western to California. Let these States call on the Federal Government for assistance to execute their law against polygamy. If the Mormons forcibly resist the execution of law, they become traitors de facto as well as de volontas; and the duty of the government ​will be evident, while the responsibility will be on their own heads. These policies will be effectual, and one of these will be the only effectual policy to adopt.
Not only on the sole ground of polygamy is such a course justifiable. The Mormons are conspirators; the real object of Mormonism is treason. The power they have so much misused may be legitimately wrested from them. They have used their freedom as a means of founding a political as well as an ecclesiastical autocracy. It may be urged as a dangerous precedent, but should a similar case occur again, it would be a precedent that would demand to be renewed. If Congress do not make such a law, or so repeal the organization, all other efforts at abolishing polygamy will be ineffectual. Out of Utah the Mormons do not practice it; in Utah they can neither be frustrated or punished. Not only would such a course accomplish this particular object, but it would also tend materially to the breaking up of the whole system. The Mormons owe their power to their isolation; destroy their isolation and you subvert this influence. Any thing that tends to bring Utah nearer to the rest of the world tends to complete the destruction of this system of folly and fraud. The Mormons fled from the world because their principles could not prevail where monogamy obtained. Their present seclusion disables any from inspecting their domestic arrangements; it prevents right minded women from using their influence, lending their assistance, offering their advice, or urging their arguments on the poor deluded wives. It prevents these wives themselves from seeing other and happier homes, mingling with other and happier hearts, being sad​dened by other and happier faces. It makes them grow accustomed to their lots, and habit speedily engenders a species of contentment. Break this seclusion and you break the chain of their thralldom. We can not bring the Mormons to the world, but it is easy to take the world to Utah by uniting Utah to others of the States. Any thing done to encourage emigration through Utah, or to facilitate communication and intercourse, will be the most effectual means of subverting this imposture. A wagon-road and weekly mails will be much; the late official appointments, if wisely sustained, will do much; a Pacific railroad would be more; annexation to Oregon and California would do more than them all.
It must be remembered that the vast majority of the Mormons are foreigners; that they have been in this country only for several years; that the majority of them have not made the first step toward naturalization; that they did not come here in the love of republicanism; that it is not this love that retains them here; that they are by predilection, by instinct, and by preference monarchical in their feelings; that they still cling fondly to their fatherlands; that they came "not to America but to Zion;" not in the admiration of American institutions, but in the confident expectation of assisting to subvert them; that were that system proven false, many of them would return again to old homes and old friends; that while here they are the dupes and victims of designing fanatics; and that these fanatics will force them into crime and danger if not prevented. These things must be remembered.
There are large numbers of persons very desirous but quite ​unable to leave Utah, for lack of the necessary means. They, deceived by false representations, and cajoled by false promises, have spent their little all in toiling there; many of them going into debt in order to get there at all. With large families dependent on them, they have to labor wearily, to provide the barest subsistence for them; some of them just dragging out a wretched existence, and groaning in poverty and misery. Were Utah annexed to California and Oregon, the citizens of those States could not only offer inducements by land and otherwise for people to come to the western portions of their States, but also advance means to assist them. It might be done as a loan, it might be done as an act of charity, it might be paid by improvements. A dozen plans of "Emigrant Aid Societies" can suggest themselves to every one's mind. They are now a thousand miles from civilization. They need two months' food in advance, when it is more than they can do to provide a week beforehand. They need a wagon to carry that food, when many of them are sleeping in mud-hovels on stick bedsteads. They need a team to haul it, when they have now to go to the mountains and pick sage-brush and dried sunflowers for the scanty fuel to cook their shadow of a meal. They are poor and helpless, and helpless because they are poor. Could outfits be provided, and a brighter and better future shown to those poor unfortunates, hundreds of them would gladly leave. It is not protection, but assistance, that they require. The Mormons do not use any other physical restraint than by making and keeping them poor. Their chains are mental and moral duress, folly, and fanaticism. Not only are there ​men, but many women who are now suffering and sorrowing. When Colonel Steptoe's command passed through Salt Lake, dozens of women implored him to allow them to travel through to California under his protection. Six ladies were accommodated, who notwithstanding the ferocious denunciations, the malignant slanders and the soul-searing anathemas of Brigham Young and his compeers, left Salt Lake. Could fifty more have been taken, fifty more would have gone. If a means could be adopted whereby they might be assisted in leaving and protected from danger on the road, their reputations preserved from the attack of calumny or the taint of suspicion, and a hope of something brighter presented, hundreds would leave; joyfully leave. There are hundreds of as pure and virtuous women at Utah as ever lived, who would be a blessing and a comfort to as many single young men in the western States, and who only ask assistance to enable them to remove. Such a vigorous course of procedure would alarm many who are mere "summer Saints," who, while Mormonism pampers their pride, supports their idleness, or licenses their passions, will uphold it. These will willingly secede, and though their secession be no accession to the ranks of purity and truth, will still decrease the number and dispirit the remnant. The only argument that has persuaded the belief of others is the astonishing success of Mormonism. Their faith is dependent on this success. To arrest this progress would be to overturn their confidence. To prove by a firm, decided action that the authority of Congress is not to be defied with impunity, nor its institutions successfully outraged, will denude Mormonism of many of its votaries, not yet fatally entangled. This will ​render success easy, opposition ridiculous. These desiderata depend, however, on the boldness of the design, and the vigor of its execution. Vigorous and radical measures will have to be adopted; the sooner they are adopted the better will it be for the country and for the Mormons themselves. Thousands are swelling their numbers every year from Europe and the States. Hundreds are being born every year at Utah. Every year, while augmenting their force, consolidating their position, strengthening their influence, and increasing the number of polygamists, also confirms their audacity. The longer action is delayed, the worse matters become; the more expensive will be their subversion, and the more disastrous the finale. Whether Congress determines to act in the premises, or sanction, by their silence, all Mormon doings, remains to be seen. In great emergencies, tardiness is imbecility: energy is success. It is not to shed blood, but to spare it: not to sacrifice citizens, but preserve them. Let Brigham alone, and he will cause bloodshed in abundance by-and-by. To act vigorously now, is to prevent the fearful consummation of his intentions.
Notwithstanding all the bombastic menaces of Brigham, I do not think that they will resist now. They are not yet prepared to resist, but are steadily preparing. For this purpose are they calling in all their outer settlements, as San Bernardino and Carson Valley. It is but few men, however, who can not play at soldiers at parades and target excursions; it is but few men who will act as soldiers when soldierly daring is demanded. It is, therefore, not force that is demanded, but firmness. Every one must deplore the absurd and brutal violence suffered by the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois. ​They have had already too many martyrs to their creed. Hundreds of women and children, whose only sin was their credulity, have already suffered fiendish inflictions of barbarities. It is not to re-enact such ruthless scenes of mob violence and madness; but with the gentle but unyielding arm of the country to maintain the dignity of the law. The rock breaks not the sea that dashes against it, but it is the sea that breaks itself upon the rock.
It is for the government to affix their boundary with reference to these people; to let it be distinctly defined, well-chosen, and resistless. So well-defined as to be unmistakable; so well-chosen as to be universally approved, and so resistless as to intimidate opposition. When the Mormons are made to feel that resistance is madness, Brigham is too practical a genius to command rebellion, or
The mere appointment of a governor or the bare sending of troops to Utah can accomplish but little. Something more thorough is demanded. While the Legislature is Mormon; with the Mormon people to vote for and support them; with Mormon officers to baffle a United States appointed judiciary; with Mormon juries to perjure themselves, by disregarding evidence; and acquitting their friends and convicting their enemies; with the whole Mormon population to sanction and sustain them, very little can be done. Before requiring troops to do any thing it is necessary to state distinctly what they are to do. They can only enforce the law. The laws of Utah protect polygamy, and punish adultery with death: ​they must enforce the law. The troops already sent will be quartered at Rush Valley, thirty-five miles west of Salt Lake City, and will only eat, sleep, parade, or punish refractory Indians. It is said they can protect judges from personal violence, but personal violence has never been employed. If they do any thing something must be prescribed, and until such a remedial law be enacted, they had better stay at home.
The new governor, all Brigham's vaporing to the contrary notwithstanding, will be courteously received at Salt Lake, but what can he do? The people are the Church; Brigham is the head of the Church and, consequently, of the people. They elect, under their Territorial constitution, their own Legislature; they are all Mormons, and are Brigham's most obedient votaries. In ecclesiastical councils all measures are discussed and decided, and are then only enacted at the Legislative sessions. On these measures they all vote in unison. The veto of the governor can be overruled by two thirds of the two Houses, but there every thing is done by the majority of the whole. Hence his veto power would be useless. Their laws he must execute, or else arbitrarily refuse. To subject the people to the arbitrary will of any individual is certainly improper, and the people would be justified in rebellion. Give him some well-defined law to execute; make polygamy a crime; be it his to preside over the enforcement of the penalty; give him something to do, and then there is some utility in his appointment. Else, very much perplexed and aggrieved, feeling himself unable to do, any thing when so much is expected from him, he will want to return before he ​is there one year, or else, like Colonel Steptoe, resign his appointment and advise that of Brigham Young. All the good a governor can accomplish, will be to intimidate immediate and active hostilities, while their preparations are maturing under his eyes, and their endowments being a portion of their religion, he will be unable to arrest their progress.
The slightest consideration must convince all that less than such measures can only result in failure, so far as the suppression of polygamy is concerned. Many women will, doubtless, without such a law being enacted, leave, but they will be a small minority. Many more will come in to supply their places. Many men may quit, but those who are fatally entangled must remain; and hundreds of enthusiasts are flocking from Europe to strengthen their confidence by augmenting their numbers. I am very much mistaken, if after completely investigating the affairs of Utah the new governor does not advise such a course of procedure as above suggested.
Mormonism is also a religious, as well as a political evil. Philanthropy and Christianity should feel that they have some duty toward the Mormons abroad. This strange delusion is not retrograding either in boldness of assertion or in zeal of proselytism, or in the enthusiasm of its neophytes, or in its disastrous tendency. The love for Smith is toning down into a deep reverence. As time passes he will become more and more venerated. The force of prejudice often dies with the person; the force of affection clings to the memory. It is more natural for men to love than it is for men to hate; and while others forget or despise Smith and his system, the ​Mormons make it the one great object of their lives, and regard him as the regenerator of the world. They think that God has conferred upon him no ordinary authority, and sealed it with no ordinary success. They are willing to suffer any thing for this creed they neither understand nor fully obey; and are aching to retaliate the sufferings they have endured.
Bigoted in their faith, many have got beyond the pale of reason altogether. Like the Seekers of 1645, the Camisards of 1688, the Leeites of 1776, and the Wilkinsonians of the same year, the Mormons think they have received a supernatural testimony of the Spirit. This nothing can shake; being superior to all reason, it is unassailable by reason. Some have gone so far as to declare, "Even though Smith were proven a liar and were to acknowledge it, I would still believe him a prophet." (Sidney Rigdon, 1833.) "I would rather go to hell with the Mormons, than to heaven with the Christians." (Lyman Wight, 1842.) Men so completely sunk are completely hopeless. Such may see and suffer, while what they see and suffer only makes prejudice obstinacy. It is not toward these that useful efforts can be directed. There are thousands, however, who are not yet, but who are yearly becoming Mormons. Men of superior intelligence, of approved conscientiousness, and of deep sincerity, who are earnestly desiring to find truth, and restlessly roaming from party to party. These lend the prestige of respectability, the power of superior talent, the influence of position, and the assistance of wealth to the systems they adopt. Such hear Mormonism, are fascinated with its novelty, attracted by its ​pretensions, confounded by its sophistries, and seized hold on by its enthusiasm. They believe, obey, and are immediately set to preaching. Men in real earnest always arouse the sympathies of earnest men. Religious enthusiasm is a part of our nature; however dormant, it may be excited to fanaticism by a more active enthusiasm than our own. This is the case with these men, and it is the secret of Mormon success. There are more weak than wicked minds in the world; more fanatics than impostors.
These men demand our attention. They have not embraced Salt Lake Mormonism, but that taught outside Utah. This has combined Campbell's baptism by immersion for remission of sins with other dogmas, and many on hearing the Elders preach are struck with the apparent difference between the accusations and their style of address. Many admirable and scriptural objects have they incorporated in their system, Bible bait to catch the public ear, accompanied by piteous narrations of their persecutions, etc. They withhold the theories which constitute Mormonism as it is: the dogmas and doings denounced by all right-minded men. Many who embrace their ideal of Mormonism would not receive the reality. Their minds have to be Mormon-toned and Mormon-trained before they can be safely instructed in the real principles, sympathize in the positive hopes, or be initiated into the actual secrets of this system. Let the facts be circulated among such men; facts neither blackened by prejudice nor extenuated by partiality. Let them be circulated not with the narrow influence of individual exertion, but by the broad hands of general effort. Before they embrace the system, let ​them know what the system is, and not be entrapped by plausible falsehoods, and then lured to destruction by stratagetic man-management. There are hundreds who receive their doctrines in Europe who would be disgusted were they first to hear them in the filthy obscenities of Kimball, or in the menaces of Grant, or in the blasphemy of Young.
There are a great many persons who have been to and left Utah. It is a duty that they owe to God and humanity to let their testimony be known. They ought, every one of them, to write their reasons for leaving, the facts they have witnessed, the dogmas they have heard. Speak them, spread them, print them. Let them be so confirmed as to compel universal conviction as to their personal veracity, as well as the accuracy of their statements. While individual testimony is often suspected and discarded, every wise man can not but respect a "great cloud of witnesses." On as many of such as see this chapter, I would urge the importance of acting on this suggestion.
All fanaticisms feed on excitement; they must increase or they die out. Like a tumor, corruption must be in constant action or nature will heal it up. It is thus with Mormonism. There is no other system that has had so many apostates in the same length of time. Trying to maintain a constant extra-natural illumination and spiritual testimony, requires too unnatural a strain of the mental energies. It needs a constant and a constantly increasing stimulus, or it fades out. The accession of new members, boiling over with enthusiasm, and full of "testimony;" the enunciation of new dogmas, for the origin of which the Elders claim revelation to Smith; ​the excitement of continual emigration to Salt Lake, and the stirring news from their Zion; the heavy tax on their purses to "support the cause;" the fresh arrivals of new Elders from Utah; the active exertions at opening meeting-houses, and their incessant controversy, all these things rekindle their zeal already in its decadence. To arrest this progress and calm down this excitement is to destroy the system. As fever will often delay death, so to check this fever is to accelerate dissolution. Stop the accession to Mormon numbers, and the "Churches" will soon die out of themselves. Mormon proselytism is not in a steady continuous stream, but in "fits and starts," just as their enthusiasm rises to the requisite temperature.
Any thing that will tend to cool the ardor or damp the energies of this system must tend to destroy it. All their Elders feel this. When Mormonism begins to stagnate, it perishes. Hence all their efforts are directed to excite the people; hence, too, the yearly appointment of scores of new missionaries, who replace those who may have lost their first warmth of zeal. Hence, also, all their preaching is doctrinal; moral teaching they despise. To make men believe their theories is their only object. Whether their theories make men and women holier and purer is a matter of indifference to them. It is not with them to convert souls, but merely to convince minds. This accounts for the startling numbers who enlist in all species of imposture, while despising religion. Men give up their minds to the molding hands of other men very willingly, when they will not give up their hearts. A philosophical hypothesis, a religious dogma, a scientific theory, or any mere object of belief, however ridic​ulous, will gather around it scores of devoted advocates, when very often the most correct principles of moral action will be neglected and despised. Thousands, too, will admit the force, admire the beauty, and even defend the claims of such well-springs of purity and happiness; but would never dream of making them their rules of action. Any system that promises a more lax regime of morality, that allows the gratification of more sensuous if not sensual appetites, that encourages levity, self-confidence, and vain glory, that bases its dependence on the observance of mere outward forms; neither reaching our deeper instincts of mentality, nor supplying the higher necessities of our souls, will always attract most disciples, and be most enthusiastically preached.
It is thus with Mormonism. It pretends to decry all regenerating change of the heart; makes conversion merely contrition for past sins, and a resolution of amendment in future. Salvation is then the simple obedience to certain ordinances. Remission of sins is obtained by baptism; the gift of the Holy Ghost is conferred by the laying on of hands of an Elder, quite irrespective of whether that Elder have any of the Spirit himself. To go to Utah is the next law of obedience, then the payment of tithing, then their secret endowments, and baptisms for the dead, then the practice of polygamy, and all the rest of their carnal observances. It is nothing but a long string of ceremonies and especial obediences. From the liberty and light of the Gospel, back into the vague symbolism and forms of Judaism, with its robes and allegories; sacrifices and costly Temple; glittering ornaments and golden vessels; regal priesthood and absolute au​thority have the Mormons stepped. It is a return to a lower law; and their members are accordingly all of the lower order of minds. They ought to have lived in David's day. They would have made excellent Jews. Jesus has come in vain for them, for they return to the "yoke too grievous to be borne." Unable to grasp or comprehend the higher or spiritual religion, they have gravitated to their own level, and reinstated the lower or ceremonial religion.
This necessitates, and seems to justify their polygamy to them; and it is why many good men practice it with, I am satisfied, the purest of motives. Purity of motive, however, in short-sighted mortality, does not always constitute purity of action. Re-adopting the formalism of Judaism, it is natural they should re-adopt the polygamy of Judaism; and wish women to become second Ruths, as they are willing to become a Boaz. Here is the great religious error of Mormonism. It is gradual training in these material views, a great deal more attention being paid to the Old Testament than the New, that has induced Mormon men and women to sincerely believe and obey the "authorities." As a natural consequence of their stand-point, they have adopted the Aaronic and Melchisedec priesthoods as those authorities; they have literalized all the Old Testament passages about the person of the deity, till Professor Pratt has got God into "the shape, appearance, and size of a man," Smith has given him many wives, and made him physically beget Jesus Christ; and Brigham has made him into being Adam himself. It is the re-adoption of this old ceremonial law, even to a belief in sacrifices of sheep and doves, that gives their sys​tem its partial consistency, and secures attention in the world, because affording many Scripture proofs and much specious controversial argument. The building a physical Zion, a literal gathering of the Jews to Jerusalem, a literal separate hiding away, and not dispersion, of the ten tribes, and their return to Palestine, etc., etc., are Mormon dogmas, and they inevitably follow the assumption of the old law, which was instituted as a course of tuition, and intended only as a "school-master to bring men to Christ." His is the higher law of perfect liberty; the practice of right more than the observance of forms, pure morals rather than mere dogmas, holy love of truth, and not implicit obedience to priesthoods.
These forms and ceremonies, priesthoods and dogmas, were but the abacus with which God has instructed his children in their arithmetic of religion. The love of the abstract principle has been diverted to attachment for the material object; and in the worship of the truth, they have ignorantly adored the symbol. As the perception of the concrete must precede the conception of the abstract, so must the material and symbolic precede the refined and spiritual. As children can not separate the idea of "one and one make two" from the marbles or sticks with which it was illustrated and by which it was taught; so children in religion had to be taught by means of forms and ceremonies, and now many are still unable to separate the two. When the child can perceive the abstract truth as exhibited in, but not belonging to, the material illustrations, then the material illustrations are discarded. So when men can appreciate the abstract truths of religion as exhibited in, but not belonging to, certain ceremonies, then ​the mere ceremonies are discarded. They cease to be more than the representations, and are no longer the embodiments of truths. So purity was loved instead of the spotless lamb; the power of God, and not the power of priesthoods; universal worship, and not the Temple; the adoration of the Spirit, and no longer obedience to forms. Without these sticks and stones, God in the New Testament has come nearer to man, because, by his previous education, man has risen up nearer to God. To sink back into the mysticism and symbolism of the past, is a relapse into barbarism and ignorance. It is the return of the mathematician to the marbles and sticks with which he learned addition; and such a doctrine is therefore only as the drivelings of senility when sinking into second childhood.
It is on this radical and fundamental error that the whole of Mormonism is founded. Instead of ascending from the concrete and material to the abstract and spiritual, they have fallen from the abstract to the concrete. Like the children returning to the abacus of their infantile arithmetic, they have gone back to the symbols and forms of Mosaic religion. Many able and estimable ministers have completely failed in their opposition to this system, because they have not descended to Mormon ground. Fighting from different elevations, they only beat the air. It is not Mormon piety, but their contempt for it; not their moral theses, but their enunciation of law that arrests the attention of honest unthinking men and women. It is natural to prefer forms, because it is easier to obey than it is to feel; baptism of the body is easier performed than regeneration is obtained. A. Monod, the ​great French evangelical orator, uttered a wise remark when he said, "Les hommes aiment plus les sacrifices que la religion, parce que c'est plus facile de trouver des victimes que des vertus."
To successfully controvert Mormonism, it must be met on its own basis. The key to the whole system is this re-adoption of the ceremonial law. Its whole authority depends on the pretensions of Smith. These are their fundamentals; and not only, therefore, the proper places to attack, but they are also, necessarily, their weakest points to defend.
* ↑ Tract, "Divine Authenticity of Book of Mormon," p. 1.