# The Overland Monthly/Volume 5/Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY.
ONCE upon a time" there dwelt in Nauvoo a man whose name was Brigham Young. Tribulations numberless surrounded him and his Saints: the chosen and peculiar people of our latter days. They were in the midst of a generation which knew not Joseph Smith. And it then came to pass that Brigham had a vision. He had wandered far away into an inhospitable wilderness—a region of mountains and deserts, of savages and alkali. Suddenly before him rose a majestic peak—a peak of singular conformation, its summit rounded and leaning forward like the full crest of an ocean wave. As the dreamer surveyed the scene, the heavens above the mountain were opened, and a mighty Star-Spangled Banner appeared; it floated through the air with stately grace until it alighted on the mountain-top, when a voice from heaven spoke in our dear Anglo-Saxon tongue: "Build your city at the foot of this mountain, and you shall have prosperity and rest."
The trials and perturbations of the Saints became too mighty to be borne. They were driven from their homes across the Missouri River, marking their route from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs with the graves of those whom famine and exposure had caused to perish by the way. Then it was that Brigham Young, the undismayed leader of the straggling host, announced his reception of the heavenly vision. Said he to his well-nigh disheartened followers: "Somewhere in the unknown and undiscovered West; somewhere in the bosom of the far-off mountains of Mexico, there remaineth prosperity and a rest for the people of God."
He put himself at the head of 143 stalwart men, with a few women to cook, and nurse the sick, and set forth to the unknown occident to search for the mountain of his dream. For months they continued their weary journey: fording unknown rivers, pulling their wagons with ropes through well-nigh impassable cañons, until they had traveled twelve hundred miles from Council Bluffs. Through a narrow defile in the Wahsatch Mountains they entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and immediately beside them rose a mountain which Brigham at once designated as the scene of his prophetic dream. In remembrance of the flag which had descended upon it, it was christened "Ensign Peak," which name it bears to the present day. The work of building the city was commenced on the very day of their arrival, July 24th, 1347, and the sacred mountain to-day looks kindly down upon a city of 20,000 people nestling at its foot.
Such, O reader! is the tale which you would hear from Brigham Young or any of his principal subordinates to-day, were you to interrogate them as to the cause of their location in their Happy Valley. But it will be difficult for you, if you are not also a professional writer for the press, to realize the relish and gusto with which we have penned this legend. "We live," in the touching words of another, "in a practical age." Commerce is King. The past has its abounding wealth of legendary lore, from which are built the poems, and prophecies, and romances of to-day. Trade and its necessities dictate where shall be built the commercial centres of the world. It need not be demonstrated that all the great cities of our day owe their importance to some base worldly advan​tage, visible to the eyes of uninspired men, and are liable to lose their position and power in the world by any trivial circumstance. Not so, however, with the city whose career we chronicle. Founded by inspiration, Salt Lake City must be eternal. It despises the factitious aids by which other cities attain to greatness. For it Nature has done nothing except in the raw material for essence of sage-brush, or oil of greasewood. Without a harbor, its capacious tabernacle is the pharos from whence radiates the light which godly Saints believe alone shines for the vivifying and illuminating of all the world.
The tourist who shall hereafter visit Salt Lake City will survey this Mecca with far other feelings and emotions than his more adventurous predecessor. Luxuriantly ensconced in the 'palace-cars of the ubiquitous Pullman, after a delightful ride of three or four days, he alights at the City of the Saints. Of the country passed over for a thousand miles before reaching it, he knows almost nothing. He has looked from his window occasionally to survey a herd of antelopes, or a picturesque mountain landscape. He compares the mountain town with the gities of the East or West, where time, and taste, and wealth, and a Nature less niggardly of her favors have combined to create and develop artistic beauties: and his verdict is that Salt Lake is but a dull and prosaic village. Before the advent of the Railroad, however, the traveler prepared himself by a dreary experience to value the beauties of the desert-circled town. A weary journey for weeks or months over apparently endless plains, fearful in their unvarying monotony; over sage-brush deserts, parched and gray; over alkaline marshes, whitened with the bones of poisoned herds, and through mountain ranges, grand indeed, but with the grandeur of blackness and total desolation, prepared the tourist to appreciate the
welcome Sight of human habitations, of well-tilled gardens and thrifty farms. A few weeks' diet of rusty bacon and doubtful beans, familiarly known to travelers as "Ben Holladay's chickens," made doubly succulent and delicious the fruits and vegetables of the Mormon gardens. And above all, the pilgrim saw and spied out in full the horrible barrenness of the land, and knew the cost of its redemption from its first estate.
The pioneers of the Great Basin will never again receive full credit for their toils and sacrifices. The transcontinental railroad is a great enchanter—a steam Merlin. The tourist reads up for his journey from ocean to ocean of the cares and toils of the California immigrants and the Mormon pioneers; of Bitter Creek and the Stinking Water; of Humboldt Desert and Rattlesnake Pass. He stops at Bitter Creek Station, firmly resolved to drink none of the poisoned water, but sits down at a table well supplied with venison from the Platte Basin, cranberries from Alaska, and Sonoma grapes. He passes Rattlesnake Gulch unconsciously while enjoying his cigar in the smoking-car, and as he prepares for a comfortable sleep across the Humboldt Desert, placidly compares himself with Fremont, or Lewis and Clarke, or the Mormon pioneers, and decides that their accounts of the fatigues and dangers of an exploration across the continent were highly colored, for that he did the like without the loss of a night's repose, and without grievous dietetic hardship.
The great basin in which Salt Lake City is situated is nearly circular, and not far from five hundred miles in diameter. his basin has, as is well known, no visible outlet to the sea. In it are many considerable rivers, all of which sink, or flow, into lakes having no outlets. The Carson and Humboldt Rivers, in Nevada, and the Sevier River, in southern Utah, lose themselves in ​
marshy lakes. The waters' of these lakes are fresh, thus indicating the possibility of subterranean outlets. The saltness of the waters of Great Salt Lake, however, indicates that no such outlet exists. Four large rivers —the Jordan, Weber, Ogden, and Bear—pour their contents into this reservoir. The soil of Utah contains everywhere a slight proportion of salt, which impregnates, in an almost imperceptible degree, the waters of all these rivers. The evaporation, for ages, of the water of the lake concentrates the salt, and explains its saline character without the necessity of the theories of salt mountains, or springs, in its hidden depths. This lake was, in former times, of much greater extent than at present, covering a large proportion of the Great Basin, as is shown by the pebbly lines marking its former beach, more than seven hundred feet above its present level, and which stretch for hundreds of miles unbroken along the bases of the mountains. Mr. Clarence King, in his explorations during the year 1869, discovered and traced the former outlet of this vast inland sea, which was through the Snake, or Shoshone River, to the Pacific Ocean. Few places can vie with Salt Lake City in natural beauty of location. It is at the north-east corner of a valley nearly elliptical in form, about twenty-five miles in length and fifteen miles in breadth. Immediately behind the city, on the north and east, rise the lofty peaks of the Wahsatch range of mountains. This range extends southward, forming the eastern boundary of the valley, its highest peaks— within an easy day's ride of the city—being covered with perpetual snow. On the west, the Oquirrh range of mountains extends southerly, for some distance nearly parallel with the Wahsatch, but the two ranges, at the southern terminus of the valley, are only separated by the narrow canon through which the Jordan River
enters the valley. The Great Salt Lake forms the north-western boundary of the valley. Several large island mountains rise abruptly from the surface of the lake. From its great density —nearly one-fourth its weight being pure salt — the waters of this lake, viewed from a distance, are of a much deeper blue than any waters elsewhere found. The Jordan River flows from the south through the valley, the city being situated upon its eastern bank, and reaches the lake about ten miles northerly from the city. The Wahsatch Range, at several points near the city, is pierced by vast and rugged caftons, from which, fed by the snows upon the summits, flow the streams of water used in irrigating the land. The scenery in these cafons is of unsurpassed grandeur. A visit to any one of the half-dozen accessible from the city by a ride of a single day, will furnish an experience never to be forgotten by the student of Nature. i
In the northern portion of the city is a warm, saline, sulphur spring, possessing valuable medicinal virtues. The temperature of the water is 102° Fakrenheit. Comfortable bathing-houses have been erected by the city, and the baths are much frequented by residents and visitors. The waters seem highly efficacious for the treatment of rheumatism in its various forms, and for nearly all diseases arising from vitiated blood. The spring discharges a large volume of water, and, with increasing facilities for travel, will doubtless become a place of great resort.
The streets of the city, crossing each other at right angles, are 132 feet wide; the blocks, forty rods square, and containing ten acres each, are divided into eight lots, each containing one and onefourth acres. In the business portions of the town, these large lots have been, of course, subdivided; but nearly all the citizens own a full lot for a residence, which enables them to produce an am ​ple supply of fruit and vegetables for family use, from their own gardehs. Rented property is extremely rare; in no city of the world do so large a proportion of the people own the houses in which they live. The size of the lots causes the city to cover an area probably ten times as great as an ordinary city of the same population.
In a country where, for half the year, rain is nearly unknown, a most delightful feature is the abundant supply of water in every part of the city. On each side of every street flows a stream of pure, crystal water, fresh from the melting snows of the mountains. The canals, for the distribution of the water, were first constructed by a general tax. The water is furnished to all without charge, except an annual tax of about $1 per lot, which is usually paid in labor by the parties immediately interested in the water supply, and is solely for the purpose of keeping the canals and ditches in repair.
The city presents the appearance of a vast garden, the scattered houses being embowered in luxuriant forests of fruittrees—principally the peach and apple. Ornamental trees are planted along both sides of the streets, beside the watercourses. Outside the city plat, several thousand acres are laid out into five and ten-acre farms, owned and cultivated by people residing in the city.
Salt Lake City, as has already been stated, was founded on the 24th day of July, 1847. Utah was then a portion of the Mexican Empire. The pioneers made their first camp on a slight eminence near the present residence of Brigham Young, and, within a few hours after their arrival, had unloaded their plows, tools, and seed- grain, and were plowing the land for the first crop ever raised in the Great Basin. A small piece of wheat —about two acres—was sowed, near the present site of the theatre, on the following day. The seed grain and potatoes, brought in the wagons from Council Bluffs, were soon in the ground, and the erection of a fort was commenced. This was for protection against the Indians, and was formed by building a considerable number of small adode houses around a square, within which the cattle and horses of: the people were secured.
Late in the autumn of the same year, several thousand people followed the pioneers into the valley. They were further reinforced by the arrival of the "Mormon Battalion," a body of some five hundred soldiers, serving in the army during the Mexican war, who had been mustered out of the service in southern California, at the cessation of hostilities, and marched thence to the Salt Lake Valley. The ensuing winter and spring were seasons of great and often terrible privation: the entire community were put upon light rations, and the utmost effort on the part of the authorities was required to prevent the starving people from devouring their supplies of seed- grain, upon the preservation of which hinged their future prosperity. Many people lived for weeks upon wild roots and the hides of animals. A supply of seed-grain was thus saved, and a considerable area of land sown in the spring of 1848. Their crops were soon attacked by myriads of large crickets, which swarmed from the mountains. The entire population rallied and fought, in every manner, these hungry invaders, but with only moderate success, until they were reinforced by a vast army of sea-gulls, which, tempted by the prospect of a feast of such delicacy and abundance, came from the islands of the Great Salt Lake. More by the effortsof the gulls than by those of the people was the cricket army defeated, which result all loyal and devout Mormons attribute to a direct interposition of Providence in their behalf. The settlers were farmers from the Eastern States, ​
and unfamiliar with the processes of irrigation, by which it was necessary to grow their crops: which fact, together with the ravages of the crickets, resulted in but a moderate harvest for 1848. In 1849, the benefits of a larger experience were felt: the crops were abundant, and for the first time the prospect of starvation ceased to haunt the hardy pioneers.
From that time, although the crops have several times been in large part destroyed by the grasshoppers, an ample supply for their own wants, and for furnishing the markets of the adjoining Territories, has always rewarded the labors of the Utah farmers. With the excitement consequent upon the discovery of gold in California, sprang up a large migration across the continent. The worn and weary seekers for the new El Dorado found, at the City of the Saints, reasonable supplies of what they
especially required. Their thin and footsore cattle were exchanged for fresh animals, and vegetables in abundance, with fresh meat, recruited the health of the
future millionaires. California is to-day richer by thousands of its most valued and cherished lives, from the existence of this half-way house upon the desert.
The moderate abundance of this world's goods acquired by the Saints, has been gained by the hardest and most persistent labor. It is the triumph of Muscle over the hostile powers of Nature. Few are aware of the vast labor necessary to reclaim the stubborn wastes of the Great Basin. Water is carried for miles to reach a small tract, possessing a soil of sufficient strength tomatureacrop. The surface must be brought to a uniform grade, to make practicable the flow of water over its entire area, and the crop must be watered at intervals of one or two weeks during the season. It is not too much to say that had it not been for the religious fanaticism, which assembled and banded together the Mormon
people in this locality, the country would have remained a desert for generations. Even since the advent of the Railroad, and the consequent opening of the country, there is not, so far as we are aware, a single Gentile farmer in the Territory. The fertile lands of our North-western States, and of California and Oregon, are as yet too cheap and abundant to warrant our settlers in seeking a home in the parched and barren wastes of Utah. The average size of a Utah farm will not exceed ten acres, and upon this it is necessary to expend as much labor as would be required to thoroughly cultivate fifty acres in California or Illinois.
The Mormons reached Salt Lake Valley in an utterly impoverished condition. The cash capital of the entire community would not probably have exceeded $1,000. The California migration furnished them a market for their surplus products; but, as they had but small use for money, they preferred taking of the miners instead something which they could either eat, drink, or wear, and not procurable at home. As they increased in numbers and means, merchants established themselves among them, thus enabling them to use their small stores of money in the purchase of needed supplies. Their great distance from market, and the small proportion of their crops which would bear transportation, have, however, at all times made money extremely scarce, and have led to the perpetration of a complicated and often amusing system of barter. Hundreds of farmers, living in reasonably comfortable circumstances, and having large families to clothe and educate, will not see a dollar in money for years. Such a farmer wishes to purchase a pair of shoes for his wife. He consults the shoemaker, who avers his willingness to furnish the same for one load of wood. He has no wood, but sells a calf for a quantity of adobes, the adodes for an order on the merchant payable in goods, and ​
the order for a load of wood, and straightway the matron is shod. Seven watermelons purchase a ticket of admission to the theatre. He pays for the tuition of his children seventy-five cabbages per quarter. The dressmaker receives for her services four squashes per day. He settles his Church dues in sorghum molasses. Two loads of pumpkins pay his annual subscription to the newspaper. He buys a "Treatise on Celestial Marriage" for a load of gravel, and a bottle of soothing-syrup for the baby with a bushel of string-beans. In this primitive method, until the advent of the Railroad, was nine-tenths of the business of the Territory conducted. And even now, in the more remote settlements, a majority of all transactions are of this character. The merchants, purchasing their goods in New York or San Francisco, must, of course, have money to pay for the same; but they sell their goods for cattle, flour, and dairy products, which are then marketed for cash in the adjoining mining Territories.
A sketch of the business of any other of our representative cities, which was composed principally of details of farming, would be an anomaly; but Salt Lake is rather an aggregation of small farmers than a city, in the ordinary acceptation of the word—nearly all its inhabitants being farmers. Its merchants and mechanics have small farms, and endeavor, at least, to raise their own breadstuffs. Their daily conversation is of the prospect of crops—of the probable demand for their surplus products. Being farmers—and very small farmers—their gains have been, of course, but moderate. The average wealth of the people of Salt Lake City is probably much less than in any other city of the same population in the Union. There is, however, but little abject poverty. They have neither poverty nor riches—all have an abundance of the necessaries of life—few have wealth. The sterility of the land,
their distance from markets, the high price they have been heretofore obliged to pay for whatever articles of use were not raised in their own Territory, sufficiently account for the smallness of their average gains.
The difficulties of the settlement and upbuilding of Salt Lake City would not, however, entitle it to a place among the representative cities of our continent. Other citizens have endured equal or greater hardships in developing nearly every portion of our common country. From the days of John Smith, the Hol!and pilgrims, or the heroic La Salle, the lot of all pioneers who have preceded the westward course of empire has been, in many features, grievous to be borne. But, aside from the struggles, toils, and experiments of its founders, Salt Lake is, in many important features, a city entirely unique in the history of our colonization. It is a city founded and built from an adherence to a peculiar religious idea, and it owes whatever measure of prosperity it possesses to the iron will and dogged persistency of a single man.
There is no person in any degree familiar with the Mormon people but will give them the credit of being, from their stand-point, the most religious people of the continent. Without reference to the question whether their faith be founded in truth or be @ pure delusion, it is undeniable that for it, such as it is, they have endured toils and privations and welcomed sacrifices and sufferings such as have fallen, for the same cause, to the lot of no other religious community of our generation. While, however, Salt Lake may with propriety be deemed a city founded on a religious creed, it is based more upon the Old Testament ideas and formulas than upon the New. The Master, whose kingdom was not of this world, but in the inmost hearts of men, here gives place, and Moses comes forth as the interpreter of the will of God. As in the days of the Hebraic theoc ​racy, religion permeates and governs in all the concerns of life. Nothing is above its dictation—nothing too trivial for its watchful care. The laws of Moses were far more minute, both as regards questions of morals and matters of commercial law, and the every-day affairs of life, than the statutes of any of our States: and all this legislation was a portion of the Jewish religious faith
Inlike manner, to-day, the President of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, and his elders, preach to their followers, not only upon questions of ethics, but upon almost all the concerns of our daily life. In the great Tabernacle, one will hear sermons upon the culture of sorghum; upon infant baptism; upon the best manure for cabbages; upon the perseverance of the Saints; upon the wickedness of skimming milk before its sale; upon the best method of cleaning water - ditches; upon bed-bug poison; upon the price of real estate; upon teething in children; upon the martyrdom of Joseph Smith; upon olive-oil as a cure for the measles; upon the ordination of the priesthood; upon the character of Melchisedec; upon worms in dried peaches; upon abstinence from plug tobacco; upon the crime of foeticide; upon chignons and the Grecian Bend. While civil laws are recognized and enforced, this is virtually considered as in deference to public opinion, in consequence of the presence among and around them of unbelievers, and because of the present imperfection of their own faith and lives. So soon as the world shall be converted to the true faith, and religious theory and practice made to accord, the necessity of civil laws and judicial tribunals will cease —the world will be one great brotherhood, and the laws of God as expounded by the priesthood will be the only needed rules of life and morals.
Religion, and a deference to its dictates, being thus the recognized standard whereby all the occupations of life
are measured, many peculiar results have followed. All amusements are conducted with a singular mingling of frolic and devotion. Dancing," say the Saints, "is a diversion for which all men and women have a native fondness." So dancing - parties, during the winter months especially, are numerous, and are usually under the care and supervision of some of the church dignitaries. Round dances are ostracized, as involving too large an amount of miscellaneous hugging. When the frolickers are assembled, some one calls them to order and opens the exercises with a fervent prayer. The fiddles then strike up; cotillions and old-fashioned square dances have the floor. The Mormons are opposed to all asceticism in religious life: the most religious man, having best fulfilled the object of his existence, is, therefore, entitled to the greatest percentage of fun in the world; and one of the Twelve Apostles, or a President of the Quorum of Seventies, will dance oftener, and with greater unction and relish, than a man of lesser sanctity. When the party is about to break up, order is again restored, and the dancers dismissed with a benediction. So of theatrical performances. "As all people have a fondness for dramatic representations," say the Saints, "it is well to so regulate and govern such exhibitions, that they may be instructive and purifying in their tendencies. If the best people absent themselves, the worst will dictate the character of the exercises." So, in the elegant theatre at Salt Lake City, may be seen at all performances many of the leading officers of the church; many of the actresses are their wives and daughters, against whose purity no one has breathed a whisper; and the plays presented are uniformly of a character to instruct and amuse, but not to demoralize the taste. The founders of Mormonism were all from Puritan New England; and it would be an interesting ​
subject of inquiry to trace to what extent their theories regarding recreations were based upon a revolt—a protest against the rigid Calvinism which regarded a smile as sinful; condemned a dancer to languish in outer darkness, and a theatre-goer to endless wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was a man of far inferior powers, as an organizer and leader, to his successor, Brigham Young. During the life-time of Smith, some of his followers were in almost perpetual revolt: numerous schisms appeared, threatening often to entirely destroy the infant community. The Mormon converts have not, as a class, been made up from the ranks of irreligious men, but rather from the dissatisfied membership of the various orthodox churches: men whose ideas upon predestination, baptism, future punishment, prophecy, or some of the numerous doctrines pertaining to their original faiths, were too broad, or too peculiar, to permit them to remain in the fold. A community of zealous religionists, possessing nearly as many hobbies as individuals, would necessarily be difficult to harmonize: yet such has been the task imposed upon Brigham Young for the past twenty-five years, and in its prosecution he has attained to a remarkable degree of success. He is one of the exceptional instances, to be occasionally met in history, where a profound knowledge of men, rare executive ability, an inflexible will, a quick and ready insight into all commercial and business transactions, and a remarkable aptitude therefor, are combined with a capacity for the most extreme fanaticism in religious matters. In every thing pertaining to the Mormon religion he is thoroughly sincere. This fact has sometimes been questioned, but not by any person possessing sufficient acquaintance to make his opinion of value. No hypocrite could have stood for a moment the test to
which he nas been subjected for twentyfive years. By dint of superior zeal he has ruled unquestioned a whole community of zealots. His faith is evidenced by his labors to bring the Mormon community into contact with the outside world, having constructed hundreds of miles of railroad and telegraph lines for that purpose, when it has been evident to intelligent observers that such contact must result in the disappearance from the Mormon faith of its most cherished and peculiar doctrines and practices. His contro] over the Mormon people has been almost absolute; and this power has been exerted, as a rule, to promote the healthy development of the resources of the Territory; to stimulate the multitudes who, discouraged by the barrenness of the land, were desirous to abandon it for more fertile localities, and to secure an orderly and economical management of all Territorial affairs. Salt Lake City is by far the most quiet, orderly, and peaceable city west of New England. Drunkenness among its people is almost unknown. Deeds of violence occur at rare intervals. Burglaries and robberies are almost unheard of, and, when taking place, are usually traceable to some demoralized sportingman from the mining Territories. Gambling-houses are strictly forbidden; the observance of the Sabbath almost universal. The taxes in Utah are much lighter than elsewhere on the Pacific Coast; and Salt Lake City, as well as all the counties, and the Territory itself, are entirely free from debt.
The most noticeable peculiarity relative to Salt Lake City, and the one which, more than all others combined, has given to it a world-wide notoriety, is its revival, in an Anglo- Saxon commonwealth, of a marriage system utterly at variance with our modern civilization.
It may with safety be assumed that the polygamic theory of marriage is contrary to human nature. Were men and ​
women entirely free from jealousy and selfishness, such a parceling out of the affections might be endured; but so long as Nature is unchanged, it must result in suffering and sorrow to the wife. It is believed to be a relic of the age of Force —of the semi-barbaric days when Might was the sole arbiter of Right, and when man, by reason of his superior, selfish strength and a supposed proprietorship, crushed and repressed all the nobler aspirations of woman, and made her, as feeling or passion dictated, a petted or a neglected slave. It should be remembered that the monogamous system of marriage is the growth of modern civilization, and is not the direct result of any system of religious teaching. Fourfifths of the human race to-day believe in polygamy; and in the days of the Jewish prophets, through whom we derive our religious faith, polygamy was the universal belief, practiced, as they believed, by the absolute sanction and command of God. Christ made no direct assault upon a marriage system which, in his day, was universal. But he taught, as never had been taught before, the sacredness of individual rights; the greatness and equality of our humanity; the priceless value of each human soul. Through long ages the leaven worked: His teachings, even yet, have not reached full fruition; but one of their noblest results is the substantial recognition of the equality of woman in right and before the law. We have learned, after ages of misconception and suffering, that the relations between the sexes are so intimate and vital, that woman must be elevated and ennobled, to ennoble man; that if her affections are dwarfed and crushed, and her legitimate field of labor and of influence curtailed —if, in aught, the full development of her powers be hampered—man, as well as woman, incurs the penalty of such abuse. In importance to the progress of our humanity, their fields of labor are equal, but diverse.
These results are the legitimate fruits of the Christian doctrines in their fuller development. Polygamy can not be coexistent with the observance of the Golden Rule.
The Mormon people, both men and women, are unquestionably sincere in the belief that polygamy is an essential portion of their religious faith, and that it is right. Upon no other theory can we account for the long submission of their women to its practice, and their earnest advocacy of the rightfulness of the doctrine. It is one of the supposed revelations to Joseph Smith; is, in their eyes, the will of God; and religious sentiment and enthusiasm enable them, uncomplainingly, to bear this great and grievous cross.
The days of the system are, however, rapidly drawing toaclose. Its strength heretofore has been in the isolation of their community. They have been for twenty years almost as separate from our social system as if they had been residents of another planet. In that period half their population has been born in Salt Lake Valley; and these have never had, before the coming of the Railroad, an opportunity to contrast their social life with any other. But all is now changed. Thousands of the outside world yearly visit Salt Lake with their families. The Mormon women feel for the first time their doubtful social position: their self-respect is wounded. A formidable breach has already appeared in the hitherto unbroken ranks of the believers. For the past year scarcely any new polygamous marriages have occurred. Although the system is still theoretically defended, its practice will be quietly abandoned; and hundreds of young girls and women are now open in their avowals that they will marry no man whois a believerin polygamy. The advocates of the Government subsidy to the Pacific Railroad predicted that its construction would, among other things, ​
settle the Mormon question; and their prophecies are in course of rapid fulfillment.
While the railroad and the intercourse consequent to its completion have thus inaugurated a revolution soon to be complete in public sentiment among the Mormons, they have likewise made them more widely and favorably known. The public, while none the less vigorous in its condemnation of their social system, begins to give to them the honor which is their due for their persistent energy, industry, economy, temperance, and order. The people of the Pacific Coast, especially of our newer mining districts, have always been ready in their admissions of the vast national value of the Utah agricultural settlements at their very doors. This cheap source of supply to the miners of the necessaries of life has enabled them early to develop large districts, and add vastly to the common wealth. It is something for which we may all justly congratulate ourselves that during the last session of Congress, when a bill was pending relative to the forcible suppression of the Mormon 'marriage system—a bill so cruel, unjust, and vindictive in its provisions that it should condemn its authors to endless infamy—every member of the Pacific Coast delegation, to whom alone the subject was in anywise familiar, was found in the ranks of the opposition. We may hope that the day for an armed crusade against any form of religious belief has forever passed. Cutting throats, however valuable an exercise for the discipline of an army, can scarcely be deemed a missionary work.
The solution of the Mormon problem is simple; in fact, if let alone, it will speedily solve itself. Unjust persecution has no other result than to strength en religious fanaticism. The murder of Smith, the Mormon Prophet, gave a new lease of life to his tottering church. Their subsequent persecutions were a perpetual advertisement, drawing to their ranks great numbers of fanatical people who considered that whom the Lord loved He chastened, and whose sympathies were intuitively with the weaker side.
As we have already illustrated, our own marriage system is the fruit of our modern civilization and a truer appreciation of the Christian doctrine. Religious persecutions and wars have ever moved backward upon the dial-plate the hands which mark the onward progress of the race. Mormon polygamy, its evils and its cure, are questions in morals outside the field of political action. It is the department of the missionary rather than of the jurist, statesman, or soldier. Our clergy, and not our Congressmen, should take this evil in hand. Already several eminent divines have taken this position, and warned us that this is not the age when Catholics can broil Protestants, Protestants grill Catholics, or Presbyterians hang Quakers for the glory of God. The faith of the forty millions of American Christians is not endangered by the presence among them of one hundred thousand people heretical upon the marriage question. It should rather be quickened into zealous action that these guasi-heathens are at their doors. And although the transfer of this great debate from Congress to the pulpits of the land may destroy the entire capital of a considerable number of obscure politicians, otherwise unknown, and thus perchance still forever the plash and babble of these several fountains of dish-water, yet even then have we faith to believe that the Republic and Salt Lake City shall live.