The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-23 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 23, 1851.

productions, yet strictly suited to their time and
audience. Take the fullinsing:
I'm a Saint, I'm a Saint, on the rough world wide,
The earth is my home; and my Go I is any guide!
Up, lip, with the truth, 1,1 its ismer henai the knee;
I am s, lit, I ant omit, and ,11VAti1111 is ft,.
' I fear not old priesteraft, its dogmas can't awe:
I've a chart for to steer by, that tells me the law,—
And nc'er as a coward to falsehood I'll kneel,
While Nlormon tells truth, or God'', prophets reveal!
Up. up, with the truth, let its power touch the mind,
And I'll warrant we'll soon leave the selfish behind.
Lp, up, with the truth, let its power bend the knee,
I am sent ! I am sent ! dying Bab'lun, to thee,
I am sent ! I am sent ! take this warning and flee.
Or the jingling verses that succeed to it :
The God that others worship is not the God fur me ;
lie has no parts nor body, und cannot hear nor sec
But I've a God that lives a`save—
A God of Power and of Love—
A God of Itevelation—oh, that's the God for me ;
Oh, that's the God for me ; oh, that's the God for me !
A church without apostles is not the church for me ;
' It's like a ship damaged, afloat upon the sea ;
But I've a church that's always led
By the twelve stars round its head ;
A church with good foundations—oh, that's the church
for me ;
Oh, that's the church for me ; oh, that's the church forme.
There is something painfully ludicrous about this;
yet we must remark that in proportion to its appa-
rent ridiculousness must be the faith of the poor
fellows who conceive it a fit embodiment for what is
saddest and most earnest in their being.
To resume Joe's history. The first location which
his followers found was in Jackson county, Missouri.
Here they bean to thrive, as indeed they thrived
everywhere, famously. But there were rival sects
end fierce persecution to contend with. Methodists,
baptists, and Camplellites were furious against them;
la wild party of these zealots dragged Joe from his
bad at night, and tarred and feathered hint, In May,
15.31. the community left Missouri, and migrated to
Illinois. Here they built their city, Nauvoo, or "the
Beautiful," a city with a large temple for their
worship, with 15,090 inhabitants, with, indeed, every
prospect of a peaceful and prosperous existence. Joe
I was the spiritual and temporal head of the place.
and was now at the summit of his carver. But in-
testine discord began. One " Sidney Higdon "
broached a scandalous doctrine about "spiritual
wives." An anti-Smith faction started a newspaper
called the "Nouse° Expositor," and calumniated the
chief vilely. Joe's admirers destroyed the office in a
riot; the newspaper people fled to the neighbouring
town of Carthage, and applied fur a warrant against
Joe and his rether Hiram. They surrendered
themselves on a promise of protection from the
governor—Ford, and while in prison, waiting tltcir
trial, were murdeted by a mob of their enemies, who
broke in on them armed with muskets. Joe at-
tempted to escape by, the window, was struck by
two bullets, and fell oat on the ground. They
propped his body against a well that stood there,
and shot at it again. This was on the 2:tit of June,
1,411, when Joe was 39 years of age.
After Joe's death troubles increased. The Mor-
mons had to wander away westward. and their ene-
mies reduced the town of Nauvoo to ashes. They
crossed the Mississippi, and set out for the " Great
Salt Lake City," away beyond the Rocky Moun-
tains.
By everybody's admission this passage is one of
the most extraordinary things on record. They
began their march in mid-winter, when the " cold
was intense." they suffered, from cold, and ague,
and plague, and hunger, and the Indians ; and they
ended by founding another city, and establishing
what is now a most flourishing and prosperous state.
For a very interesting detail descriptive of this
ppaas+ssaage, we refer the reader to the description of a
Colonel Kane of the United states, quoted in Dr.
Mackay's history, at great length. (See p. 190 to
241.)

This history is written from the liberal point of
view, and in the whole in a strong spirit of sympathy.
Dr. Mackay preserves a neutrality in speaking of
Joe Smith," the extraordinary founder of this
movement ; he hesitates to consider him an irredeem-
able impostor; and as far as we can see cannot hate
Joe" 'heartily. Ilis tone is calm and cautious
generally. The style is perspicuous, lively, and
chaste. By the by, let UN note an error which lie lies
committed in one part of the work. He talks of
"SoameJenyns, whose life was writen by Dr. Johnson,"
Dr. Johnson never wrote a biography of Soame
Je nyns who died in 1757, three years offer the
doctor. Nor is there anything to couple their names
but the fact, that when herons published his Inquiry
into the Origin of Evil, Johnson most mercilessly and
brilliantly exposed its preteution and emptiness, in
the best of all his reviews.
We refer our readers to this interesting volume
fur a fuller account of the Mormon history. That
the movement is one of the greatest ...,f modern times
cannot be denied; that it is genuine as a belief
nobody can doubt. Nor will a deep inquirer hesitate
to admit that—monstrous and uncouth as is the shape
it has assumed—the real spirit of the belief itself is
another instant* of the vitality of the protestant
faith. That the said sloap should be so questionable
—that real devotional feeling should find so strange
and apparently deformed an embodiment in the 19th
century is an instructive commentary on the way in
which orthodoxy does its work. As a recent writer
in lb, fthold Iftrds on the subject remarked:
Orthodoxy should consider whose fault it is that Joe
Szaithism could crset itself into a sect : orthodoxy should
look at the three hundred thousand souls, and, refl. et on
them. The ruling powers of the world should stoop to
learn lessons of these things. Balsam learned somethinu
very important from the speaking of his poor ass. The
ass saw the angel when respectable Bulaam could nut. In
Roman history, when anything terrible was happening to
the republie, we find —6/.03 lorotas est! Things are bad in-
deed when the very us has to have his say!
An observation which seems to us to be a key to
the whole movement.

The thatoe, of Greece, frog the Earliest Records e 0 ehr
Close of the l'eloponessmu, War. By E. Pococut,
Sir Lion t- Noon Tsn.ruc all, JOHN T. Burr. Esq., and
the Rev. J. B. 0rn..., M A. (funning Vol. XV. of the
Second Edition of the " Eivveopedia Metropolitan.").
Griffin and Co., Loudon and iribuirow.
The annals of literature do not record an enter-
prise of loftier or more liberal aim than that which
proposed and accomplished the production of the
Entycloptedia Metropolitan." '.ever before had
commercial skill and resource dared to venture upon
an alliance at once so changeful and honourable as
that which then united them with a band of philo-
sopher*. historians, and poets, large enough to repre-
sent in full-orbed splendour the culture, power, and
progress of the age. But this last thought—the idol
of pr.fgress—is fatal to the finality of any literary
work not resting its claims exclusively upon the force
of genius or the refinements of taste. The moving
world carries men's thoughts forward with it ; new
:events and new necessities impel men on the !
one hand to re-explore the records of human
experience ; and. on the other, to search out new dis-
coverless in nature, and find new power. in art. To
keep paoe with knowledge thus expanding in two !
directions, to escape the risk of becoming a mere'
way-mark of a past age, it is necessary that our en-
evelopsedias should find, in the skill and ability of
tlisir proprietors, a sort of sap. capable of endowing
il them with sufficient organic life to throw off effete
elements and assimilate new nourishment from the
materials lying around. The world cannot afford to
lose the vast treasures of profound instruction and •
brilliant thought laid up in such a stork as the '• Masi
tropulitana." containing treatises which, if lost, no
money could reproduee; but• while some of the ar-
ticks included in that work could only be touched to
be spoiled, there are others, nut perliaps inferior to
them at first, which cannot be reprinted in their
original state. The sense in which the present pro-
prietors of the " Metropolitana" have comprehended
their duty to its authors. to the public, and to their
property, deserves unqualified praise.
In proposing to publish a second edition they have
not followed the accustomed course of bringing the
work down" to the present date of science by notes
contradicting the text. or interposed parenthetical
sentences destroying all continuity of thought. Some
treatises have been re-written, of course. by the
original authors, some have been replaced by worthier
productions. and the whole mass of materials has
been redeemed from the confusion of an alphabetical
arrangement and ordered methodically under sub-
jects. The stately but inconvenient quarto form has
also been abandoned for a portable size ; a broad page
displays the text in a bold type, with the convenience
of sidj notes, and an abundance of really pertinent
illustrations. Of coarse this arrangement renders
separate Malodors accorible to the public, and thus