The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-08 00:00:00

A VISIT TO BRIGHAM YOUNG,

Mr. Horace Gretley, the editor of the New York
Tribune, gives an account in his paper of a visit he
paid to Brigham Young, and of the conversation
he held with him on the doctrine of the Mormons.
When Brigham Young stated that none of the
ministers or bishops received salar.ies, Mr. Greeley
asked, " How, then, do your ministers live ?'
Brigham Young replied, " By the labour of their
own hands, like the first apostles. Every bishop,
every elder, may be daily seen at work in the field
or the shop, like his neighbours ; every minister of
the church has his proper calling, by which he earns
the bread of his family; he who cannot or will not
do the church's work for nothing is not wanted in
her service ; even our lawyers (pointing to General
Ferguson and another present), who are regular
lawyers, of the church, are paid nothing for their
services. lam the only person in the church who
has not a rtgular calling apart from the church's
service, and I never received one farthing from her
treasury. If I obtain anything from the tithing-
house I am charged with and pay for it, just as any
one else would ; the clerks in the tithing-store are
paid like other clerks, but no one is ever paid for
any service pertaining to the ministry. We think
a man who cannot make his living aside from the
ministry of Christ unsuited to that office. I am
called rich, and consider myself worth 250;000 dols. ;
but no dollar of it was ever paid me by the church,
or for any service as a minister of the everlasting
gospel."
After reporting other questions and answers, Mr.
Greeley says:—" As President Young is the first
minister of the Mormon Church, and bore the prin-
cipal part in the conversation, I have reported his
'answers alone to my questions and observations.
The others appeared uniformly to defer to his views,
and to acquiesce fully in his responws and expla-
nations. He spoke readily, not always with gram-
matical accuracy, but with no appearance of hesita-
tion or reserve, and with no apparent desire to con-
ceal anything ; nor did he repel any of my questions
as impertinent. He was very plainly dressed in
thin summer clothing, and with no air of sanctimony
or fanaticism. In appearance he is a portly, frank,
good-natured, rather thick-set man of 55, seeming
to enjoy life, and to be in no particular hurry to
get to heaven. His associates are plain then, evi-
dently born and reared to a life of labour, and look-
ing as little like crafty hypocrites or swindlers as
any body of men I ever met. The absence of cant
or snuffle from their manner was marked and
general, yet I think I may fairly say that their
Mormonism has not impoverished them—that they
were generally poor men when they embraced it,
and are now in very comfortable circumstances—as
men averaging three or four wives a piece certainly
need to be.

" If I hazard any criticisms on Mormonism gene-
rally, I,reserve them to a separate letter, being de-
termined to make this a fair and full exposé of the
doctrine and polity, in the very words of its prophet,
so far as I can_recall them. I do not believe Presi-
dent Young himself could present them in terms cal-
culated to render them less obnoxious to the Gentile
world than the above. But I have a right to add here,
because I said it to the assembled chiefs at the close
of the above colluquy, that the degradation (or, if
you please, the restriction) of woman to the single
office of child-bearing and its accessories, is an ine-
vitable consequence of the system here paramount.
I have not observed a sign in the streets, an adver-
tisement in the journals of this Mormon metropo-
lis, whereby a woman proposes to do anything what-
ever. No Mormon has ever cited to me his wife's,
or any woman's opinion on any subject; no Mor-
mon woman has been introduced or has §poken to
me ; and, though I have been asked to visit Mor-
mons in their houses, no one has spoken of his wife
(or wives) desiring to see me, or his desiring me to
Take her (or their) acquaintance, or voluntarily
indicated the existence of such a being or beings.
I will not attempt to report our talk on this sub-
ject, because, unlike what I have above given, it
assumed somewhat the character of a disputation,
and I could hardly give it impartially ; but one
remark made by President Young I think I can
give accurately, and it may serve as a sample of all
that was offered on that side. It was in these
words, I think, exactly—" If I did not consider
myself competent to transact a certain business
without taking my wife's or any woman's counsel
with regard to it, I think I ought to let that busi-
ness alone.' The spirit, with regard to women,
of the entire Mormon, as of all other polygamic
systems, is fairly displayed in this avowal. Let
any such system become established and prevalent,
and women will soon be confined to the harem, and
her appearance in the street with unveiled face will
be accounted immodest."