The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-09-08
THE MORMONS.

A recent paper in the New York Tribune
relating to the Mormons, thus discourses
els it not queer that there should have
been carved out of our Republic hierarchy,
better ofganized than the Jewish and more
tyrannous than that of the Arabian Prophet
A commonwealth of priestcraft and chican-
cry, in which the passions and Ignorance of
one mountebank preacher assume the form
of divine oracles now thunders-bolt of Jove
striking down rivals in Mormon love; now
mountains are hurled with Titan arm against
the Gentle Olympus, and anon benignant
smiles and gracious deeds radiant with his
High Mightiness, the Eloihim of the Holy
Zion. Can the readers of the Tribune be-
lieve ite Twenty-Five hundred years after
the failure of the most powerful hero of an
tiquity to rank himself among the gods as
Zeus Ammon, Brigham Young, a redheaded
glaZier from the hills of Vermont, is actually
deifed by his more Jealous disciples at Salt
Lake City in these days of science and doubt!
On the crest of our continent where the world
clasps her girdle, there lives little Napole-
on, who has made the desert to blossom as the
rose, who holds in his hand the lives and for
tunes of host of devoted followers, who
boasts that from his underground treasury
he can drop dollar for dollar with any sover-
eign in Europe, who appoints himself Gov
ernor of Utah, dictates terms to the Govern
or of the United States delivers verbose
proclamations from the throne of omnipo-
tence, puts his sacred thmb to his nose during
service in the Tabernacle, and gyrates his
apostolic fingers at the poor Morrisites
swears at the officers of the General Govern
ment in the .peroration of his L" Thus saith
the Lord )" he is the hero of more love in
trigues than Charles II or Aaron Burr ; he
has the best assorted harem this side of Tur-
key his wives are more numerous, more
beautiful, more youthful, and sooner cast
away than those of any other civilized polyg
amist his boys are the best tobacco-chew-
ers, and whiskey drinkers and wife-whippers
in Utah he takes other mems homes to make
room for his concubines president of the
Church, Prophet Seer. Revelator," ," Lord of
the Harem,"" Eloihin, or Head God," Grand
Archee of the Order of the Gods and in the
name of history the greatest of the earthly
gods. Seducer, Imposter, Swin(iler, Eaves-
dr0pper' Spy oppressor' Brigham a Young z
But whence the book of Mormon 2 1t
was stolen from Solomon Spaulding, son
of Connecticut, who was graduated at Am
herst entered the ministry, settled at New
Salem, Ohio, fell into decline, amused him
self in studying the mounds and other relics
of historic man which abounded in his neigh
borhood, dreamed out the identy of the lost
tribes of Israel and the American Indians,
wrote historic romance, another Odyssey,
wanderings and doings, the traditions and
religions of our aborigines, told mysterious
tale about the discovery of his book, and
called it the Manuscript Found" The
strange work was loaned to one Patterson. a
publisher of Pittsburg, in whose office Rig
don, printer, copied the story, and the orig
inal found its way back to the author. BY
secret process this book became the Mormon
bible, and little-minded preachers shouted it
divine with an enthusiasm worthy of Peter
or Mahommed, or the more recent Bah of
Persia. Mr.. Spaulding's widow, his partner
Mr.. Henry Lake, and his servant, together
with several other persons, who had often
read or heard the author read the Manu-
script Found" testified, some of them under
OATH that the miraculous Book of Mormon
was the same book from which they had de-
rived much amusement. The original
was produced and publicly compared to the
pretended translation of Smiths tablets,
when 10 most of the passages were identical
verbatim The romance was written about
the year 1913. The book of Mormon was
published in 1860. The Rigdon, just named
is the same man, who sat behind the blanket
with Smith, and translated the " golden tab
let's" while the pedagogue amanuensis was
not permitted to the holy things
The Salt Lake City Vidette tells US how
Brigham Young's financial matters are car
ried on, and how the faithful regularly
Snorn o1 the fruits OF their labor Accor-
ding to its laws, when a man joins his
church one-tenth of all his property has to
go to the support of it, and one tenth of all
the annual profits of the remainder If a
man has no property, one-tenth of his labor
has to go to the church one-tenth of every
trade or occupation has to be represented
and if a man should be idle thirty days the
tithing man claims the profits of three days la
Dor, on the ground that no one has right to
idle away three days belonging to the Lord.
In addition to this there are the Federal,
Territorial, county and town taxes, which
are sufficient of themselves to reduce one to
poverty. What becomes of all his money
no one knows, for no public statement of the
finances has ever been made, while it is Gu
rious fact the tithing officers have the largest
farms, the best stock, and the most wives of
any of the Inhabitants in the Territory.
THE TREATMENT OF FREEDMEN IN LOUIsI-
ANA AND TEXAs-The Houston Telegraph,