# Utah and the Mormons/Chapter 19

CHAPTER XIX.
* Manner of making Converts.
* Doctor Cox.
* English Converts.
* Continual Loss of Members.
* Dissensions.
* Gladdenism.
* Apparent Decline of Mormonism.
* Decrease of Population.
* Present Character of its Missionaries.
* Conclusion.
The Mormons have had great success in making converts by the boldness of their pretensions, and the hardihood of their manner of recommending them. Doctor Cox, in his "Interviews," gives us a very characteristic instance of an attempt to convert him on the part of two of Joseph's missionaries. They called one Sabbath morning, and in a very solemn and imposing manner addressed him as "Brother Cox, a man of God, a friend of truth, a lover of righteousness, and a preacher of the Gospel," and announced that they had been sent on a special mission to him; and that he was to become a Latter-day Saint, and rise to great eminence in the new Zion. The doctor called for some miraculous demonstration by way of credential, which they declined exhibiting just then, although they claimed the power to do so. The Saints possess great cunning in adapting themselves to the peculiar temperaments and idiosyncracies of individuals; but in this instance they mistook their man. The interview ran into a dialogue, which warmed into animation, of which the following—No. 1 representing the Doctor, and 2 and 3 his visitors—will give the reader some idea:
1. "I shall not stir another step in this business till ​I see the evidence on which you rely, as self-vaunted envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary from the court of the King of kings, to sustain your apostolicity and vindicate your claims. Here, then, I take my stand, and call for evidence—for proof. How am I to know, gentlemen, that you are not impostors?"
3. "You had better take care, sir, what you say. The evidence may come sooner than you desire, and as you do not expect, and what you will not relish, sure enough! I would just warn you to beware!"
1. "You mean that the evidence may surprise me, coming in the way and style of some divine judgment?"
3. "Yes, sir, I do; and I hereby warn you against it."
2. "Oh! if it should come now, what would become—"
1. "Very well, gentlemen, I am ready, and quite content. Send a good rousing judgment along—a little touch of earthquake, some thunder and lightning, cholera morbus, palsy, volcano, avalanche, nightmare, gout, ship fever, neuralgia, or any thing else you please; yes, little or much of it, gentlemen, and the sooner the better, as I am ready, if you are, and quite disposed to be accommodating."
3. "Sir, are you forgetting yourself all the time?"
1. "Not at all; I am only remembering you. Let us have some of the evidence. Come! your testimonials, your seals, your signs, gentlemen."
2. "Why, I never saw or heard such a man as you!"
1. "Nor I ever read or conceived before of such men or such apostles, exactly, as are you."
2. "I fear you are a hardened old—"
​3. "Yes, and blinded, too, with darkness."
1. "Why, surely there seems to be considerable darkness in my study—more than common this afternoon—and I wish there were more air, since light seems so scarce, and heat so oppressive in it."
3. "Sir, to tell you plainly, you are a hardened man and a hypocrite—given up—reprobate."
2. "Oh, how dark—dark—dark you are!"
3. "Yes, you are a hypocrite, a liar, sir; and I know—"
1. "Stay just a moment. Pray, be quite calm. I can refute all that instantly on the authority of two apostles. Instead of liar, hypocrite, reprobate, I am, you remember, 'Brother Cox, a man of God, a friend of truth, a lover of righteousness, and a preacher of the Gospel.' This is a great honor—quite a high and a memorable endorsement. It is, at least, the exalted character I had a few hours since. If I have it not yet, but have grown so bad all at once, as you now denounce me, it must be because I have been some time in your company."
The affair ended in a very unequivocal hint for the intruders to quit the premises, which they did, muttering all sorts of maledictions. But where one experiment like that of Doctor Cox failed, hundreds of others succeeded, until the increasing numbers of their community became an inducement to join it, irrespective of any religious convictions.
The facility with which they have made converts in Great Britain has created surprise, but it is very easily accounted for. In the first place, with all her light and knowledge, there is in our mother country a lament​able mass of ignorance. Mr. Dickens, in his Household Words, says on this subject: "It has been calculated that there are in England and Wales six million persons who can neither read nor write; that is to say, about one third of the population, including, of course, infants; but, of all the children between five and fourteen, more than one half attend no place of public instruction. These statements, compiled by M'Kay from official and other authentic sources, for his work on the social condition and education of the poor in England and Europe, would be hard to believe, if we had not to encounter, in our every-day life, degrees of illiteracy which would be startling if we were not thoroughly used to it. We can not pass through the streets, we can not enter a place of public assembly, or ramble in the fields, without the gloomy shadow of ignorance sweeping over us."
In the next place, thousands, who have no fixed religious faith, are discontented with their condition, and anxious to emigrate to this country, and very willingly take advantage of the opportunity of having their expenses paid by the "Emigrating Fund Company." Deseret is described to them as a perfect paradise; and that which makes this Eden doubly attractive is, that each one can have as much as he needs without paying a cent for it. The more pretending and ambitious class of these converts are greatly elated, too, with the idea of becoming priests, bishops, &c., which, in England, are stations of importance. These foreign emigrants, after they get to Utah, make the most obedient subjects, because they are accustomed to tithing, and other features of an ecclesiastical dominion; they glide ​easily into all the wild and absurd notions of Mormonism, and are more easily kept in debt to the "Public Works," and consequently in entire dependence upon the Church. As poor as they live in Utah, they still fare better than formerly, and are contented in this respect. This is the general rule, which has its numerous exceptions. A sail-maker and boat-builder, both Englishmen, left in discontent for California in the spring of 1853, because it had been represented to them that the commerce of Great Salt Lake was so extensive as to furnish them continual employment, which they found to be a sheer falsehood.
The Mormon rulers take great pains to have it believed that their community is continually and rapidly increasing. This, however, is a very great mistake. There has always been a curious state of accumulation and loss going on with them, and the loss is at present probably the largest part of the account. There is no society in the world in which there are so few permanent members, in proportion to the converts originally made. Many of the new-born Saints very soon lose the soda-water enthusiasm which is first experienced, and fall away; many, who have zeal enough to commence the mighty pilgrimage toward the modern Zion, cool off, and lodge like drift-wood by the way. Each emigrating body tapers off, something like the army of Peter the Hermit in the first great crusade. Orson Pratt, in "The Seer," states the number of excommunications in the British Islands at 1776 for the half year ending June 30, 1853. They have, in reality, more backsliders and apostates, and are divided into more sects, for the length of time since their com​mencement, than any other known religious denomination. Any one who has ever seen a miniature whirlwind upon a dusty plain, and attentively watched its gyrations, catching up the dust, straws, leaves, and other loose materials, and gradually increasing in bulk and altitude until it is composed of a whirling and somewhat dangerous column of heterogeneous matter, throwing off and gathering up, until it somewhat suddenly subsides, can gain some idea of the association and operation of those peculiar elements which originated and have sustained Mormonism; and it needs no great degree of prophet-sagacity to foresee its subsidence in like manner.
This disposition to fall away does not end at Great Salt Lake Valley. Hundreds, after they arrive at that hitherto esteemed goal of all their wishes, find themselves bitterly disappointed in the anticipations and hopes previously formed, and seek every opportunity to make their way to California. The leaders are very anxious to gain sufficient population to raise the Territory to the rank of a state; and on this, as well as other grounds, throw every obstacle in the way of those who are disposed to leave them. California has acquired, in their dialect, the delightful sobriquet of Hell, and the pulpit and the press thunder forth their anathemas against all Saints who are turning their faces in that direction. At the near approach of every spring, which is more especially the season of emigration to the great Western El Dorado, the most untiring efforts are made to prevent their numbers from diminishing. In addition to direct and indirect obstacles thrown in the way of individuals, an appeal is gen​erally made to the Saints collectively by the "Council," of which the following, from the one published in the Deseret News of February 19, 1853, will exhibit the anxiety felt lest the Mormon ship should be deserted by her crew.
"A Word to the Saints.
"'Yes! I think I shall go south, probably to the Ranche. As I am counseled to go south, I have concluded, perhaps, that this will be the best for me.'
"This is the story of many, as it is frequently told, and comes to my ears; and it is upon this point that I wish to speak.
"Do I counsel the brethren to go to California, south or north? Not unless they want to go. If there is any man, woman, or child, who desires to go to that country, in preference to casting his or their lot among the Saints—who feels so little interest in the cause of truth as to be willing, after being delivered from the Great Babylon, to again encounter the whirlpools of sin and wickedness for the sake of gold—who prefers to dwell in the tents of wickedness than to tarry among the Saints—to any and all such persons, I say, go; for Heaven's sake, for our sake, and for the sake of the gold which you desire before all other gods, go! But to all others—to all such as have embraced the Gospel" for the love which they bear toward it—who love right-cousness and truth, and who desire the peace of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Zion, stay! hold! consider what you are doing, and remember that here, in these valleys, are the chambers of the Lord for his people for a season.
​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/333 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/334 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/335 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/336 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/337 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/338 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/339 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/340 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/341 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/342 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/343 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/344 ​Page:Utah-and-the-Mormons.djvu/345 ​which distinguished the early Mormons. They have, too, a more difficult task to perform. They have not only to overcome the repugnance so strongly felt in all Christian countries to polygamy, but to explain why they have heretofore carried on a system of deception in regard to its previous existence. From these and other causes, it is not very likely that a larger number of Saints than the present population of Utah will ever be organized into a distinct community, and these, it may well be foreseen, subject to a loss which can not be repaired, must gradually sink away and become lost in a better population. The American, therefore, who is proud of his country, may reasonably hope that the Union is not destined to be disgraced by the admission of a state in which the licentious practices of Jewry and heathendom are made a part of its religious institutions.
CONCLUSION.
Early in May, 1853, we bade adieu to Great Salt Lake City with a degree of pleasure which the reader, if he has had the patience to peruse the foregoing pages, will readily appreciate, and started for California, homeward bound. We joined a large cattle-train belonging to Messrs. Livingston and Kirkhead, under the charge of Captain Howard Egan, an experienced mountaineer. We traveled along the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake, and around its northern extremity; .looked into Oregon; climbed over the Goose Creek Mountains; threaded our way down the Mary's River to its sink; passed into Carson's Valley, and up its river to its sources in the great Sierra Nevada; gazed with wonder upon the sublime panorama of lofty mountain peaks and tremendous chasms to be seen from the summit of that mighty range; and, finally, descended from these snowy regions into the Italian climate of California.
When we reached the valley of the Mary, the ordinary emigrant road was found to be impassable, by reason of the river floods, and our train was conducted with great skill-for some distance along the base of the Humboldt Mountains, and from thence obliquely to the river, making a divergence of about one hundred and fifty miles. This led us over irregular highlands and through frightful gorges—a region, torn by earthquakes and scorched by volcanic fires, which had never ​before been traversed by a white man. Such a journey was of course made up of numerous incidents which can not be forgotten, and especially to be remembered may be mentioned the numberless kindnesses received from the proprietor (Mr. L.), the conductor, and every member of the train; the freely-tendered hospitalities of Colonel Reese, whose establishment in Carson's Valley reminds one of the comforts and conveniences of eastern life; and the friendly aid of Mr. Edwin Woolly, the conductor of the Mormon train, offered to, and gratefully received by, a small party of us who had impatiently separated from our friends, and were about entering the rugged defiles of the great Sierra.
But, however interesting all these incidents may be to the parties concerned, the reader, in view of the multiplicity of published travels, will readily excuse in this instance a more minute detail.