Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-09-03
cREELEY's LETTERs--xxII.
AN OVERLAND JOURNEY.
THE MoMoRNs AND MoRMONIsM.

NhN'hSAs@'p
SALT LAKE CRY, July Is, 1859.
Since my interview with Brigham Young,
| have enjoyed opportunities for studying
the Mormons in their sociul and festive &
in their devotional assemblies. OF private
social intercOurse-that is, intercourse be-
tween family and family-I Judge that there
is comparatively little here between Nor
mones and GentieS or strangers, of course
still less. Their religious services are much
like those that may be shared and witness
ed in the churches of most of our popular
sectS the music rather better than you
will hear in an average worshippiug assem-
blage in the States the prayers pertinent
and full Of JUNCTION the sermons adapted
to tastes or needs different from mine.-
They seemed to me rambling, dogmatic, h
ill-digested in fact, Elder Orson Pratt
who preached in the morning, prefaced his
harangue 10y statement that he had been
hard at work on his farm throughout the
week, and labored under consequent physi-
cal exhaustion. Elder John Taylor Il be-
lieve he is one of the Twelve at all events
he is a high Church, dgnitary and man
of decided natural ability spoke likewise in
| the'afternoon with little or no generalization
Now, l believe that every preacher should
be also worker like to see one mow-
ing or pitching hay in his shrt-sleeves :;
and ] hear with edifcation an unlettered
but devout and earnest evangelist who,
having worked part of the week for the
subsistence of his family, devotes the rest
of it to preaching the gospel to small school
house or wayside gathering hearers, simply
for the good of their souls. Let him only
be sure to talk good sense and will ex-
cuSe some bad grammer. But when a
preacher is to address a congregation of
one to three thousand persons, like that
which assemblies twice each Sabbath in the
Salt Lake City Tabernacle, insist that a
due regard to the economy of time requires
that he should prepare himself by study
and reflection, if not by writing, to speak
directly to the point. This mortal life is
too short and precious to be wasted in lis
tening to rambling, loose jointed harangues,
or even those which severally consume an
hour in the utterance, when they might be
boiled down and clarified until they were
brought within the compass of half an hour
each. A thousand halfhours, Rev. Sir
have You ever pondered their value Sup
pose your time to be worth ten times that
of an average hearer still, to take au ex-
ira half-hour from a thousand hearers in
order to save yourself one or fifteen hours
labor in the due and careful preparation of
sermon, is scandalous waste, which /
see not how to justify. Be eutreated to re-
peat and amend !
The discourses to which listened were
both intensely exclusively Mormon. That
is, they assumed that the Mormons were
Gods peculiar, chosen, beloved people, and
that all the rest of mankind are out of the
ark of safety and foundering in heather
darkness. am not edited by this sort of
preaching. 1t reminds me forcbly of the
Pharisee's prayer "Lord, thank thee
that / am not as "other men are,-uniust,
eXtortioners," &c. do not think good
men delight in this assumption of an exclu-
sive patent for the grace of God, and am
quite sure it is not well adapted to the
Transformation of bad men into good. 1t
is too well calculated to puff up its disci-
pies with selt-conceit and spiritual PRIDE
That Jesus Christ is about to reappear on
the earth in all the pomp and splendor of
mighty conqueror--that he will proceed
to take vengeance on bis enemies (manknd
in general, whether heather or nominally
Christlan) and to glorify his elect (the
Latter-Day Saints or Mormons) were treat
ed by the Tabernacle preachers as propo-
sitions too selfevident to need demonstra-
ton. Having thus chastised his enemies
and gathered bis elect from the four winds
of Heaven" the Saviour is to reign over
them here on earth for thousand years /;
at the end of which period, they are together
to be transferred to heaven. OF course /
had heard the like of this before, but it al
ways seems to me very gross and wooden
perversion of the magnificent imagery
whereby the Bible foreshadows great spir-
itual transformations. But the spirit of
the Mormon religion appears to me Judaic
rather than Christian and l readily be-
lieve that Heber Kimball, or at any rate
one of the great lights of the Church. once
said in conversation with Gentle-'I do
pray for my enemies, pray that "they
may all go to hell" Neither from the pull
pit nor elsewhere have heard from Nor
mon one spontaneous, hearty recognition Of
the essential brotherhood of the entire Hu-
man Race-one generous prayer for the
enlightenment and salvation OF all man
kind. On the other hand, L have been dis
tinctly given TO understand that my inter-
locutors expect to sit on thrones aud to
1 bear rule over mnhitudes in the approach
ing kingdom of God. In fact, one sincere,
devout man has to-day assigned that 10 me
as reason for polygamy = be wants to