The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-25 00:00:00

A MORMON PI OPTEr IN DUNDE.2.

A live re- oil prophet, fiesh from the Great Salt
Lake City, Utah Territory, United States, has made a
descent upon Dundee, with. the view of gaining converts
to the " only true" faith taught by . Joe Smith and
Brigham Young, and to whit he terms the " patriarchal"
and." primitive Christian" order of family government, a
plurality of wives. On Thersday night a meeting, called
by public placard,
,was held in Camperdown Hall,
Barrack street, at which this Mormon prophet descanted
at great length upon the faith and practices of the
dwellers at Utah, among whom he has dwelt for seven
years,. and whom he represented as a slandered and perse-
cuted people, living happily, peacefully, and prosperously,
and leading hotiourable and virtuous (?) lives, waiting
for the. second cording of the Saviour, which is
"at the door," as he expressed it. The audience,
which was at first very scanty, gradually increased
by persons evidently acuated by feelings of curiosity,
but there seemed to be a small sprinkling of enthusieetic
Morrnonites in the hall, judging from the vehemence
with which the hymns were sung; and the fervour of the
"Amen" uttered by several female voices at the close of the
brief ciening prayer. The address was a sad jumble of
rambling, disconnected sentences, uttered with somewhat
uncouth pronunciation, and with an occasional disregard
of Lindley Murray, which was sufficiently accounted for
when the prophet declaimed against the prevailing prac-
tice of training clergymen at colleges as a waste of pre-
cious time. After detailing the leading religioes doc-
trines of the Mormons, which are now sufficiently well
known, and narrating the familiar store of the discovery
of the book of Mormon, the Utah missionary referred to
the political creed of the Mormons, which he character-
ised as a theoerac3 —all the people being subject to the
government of inspired propeets, apostles, and elders,
which he maintained to be the true scriptural
mode of government. They were, he said, just now
seeking admission, as an independent State, into the
American Union, but they did not know—and, in fact,
neither did they care very much —whether their request
would be granted, as they would remain independent
whether in or out of the Union, and their principles would
continue rapidly to spre id among the nations of the earth.
Coining next to the subject of a plurality of wives, which
he called by the high-sounding name of " the patriarchal,
order of family government," he boldly advocated its
propriety and accordance with scripture, pleading the
example of Abraham, " the father of the faithful ;"
JacOle, thee" father of the twelve tribes;" and Solomon,
the " wisest of men." He even maintained that it could
be proved to be iu accordance with the New Testament ;
but hare he suddenly discovered that " time did not
pertnit" him to give dee New Testament evidence in its
favour, amid therefore he passed on to contend that if
his audience • would read " Cobhett's History of the
Reformation," they would see that this kind of " family
government" was countenanced even by Luther and
others after the reformation He repudiated the charges
of impurity brought against the inhabitants of Utah
territory, maintaining that there was no pros itution nor
drunkenness there, as in the large towns of Britain and
America, and that he had seen- more wickedness in one
night in this country than he had seen all the time he
dwelt in Utah territory. He even went the length of
arguing that if men now a-days wished to renovate anti
strengthen their physical powers and lengthen their days,
they must adopt the Mormonite " order of family govern
ment," and beware of " forbidding to marry," by which
phrase he characterised the conduct of all who oppose
polygamy. Such are the doctrines end practices openly
taught in Dundee, and evidently not without a few—
though happily a very few—being deluded by the teach-
ing,—Dundee Advertiser.