Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-10-25
THE MORMON SERVICES AND
HABITS.

IAAD11O.
La the tabernacle, the services are
simple, and utterly without pomp.-
A large organ, built by a Mormon,
and a numerous choir, furnishes the
music, the hymns being from the Sc
lection Of Emma Smith. If the
president breaches, he usually occu-
pies lower scat on q raised plat
form. Any one may be called upon
to pray or exhort, and the extempo-
raneous sermons resulting from this
practice are rambling, and often OBJ
jectiouable; but the president or
apostles generally extinguish any
political heresy that may thus be
published, by final address
Politics, fashions, agriculture, in
deed all the topics of present inter-
est are discussed in their Sunday
meetings; and coarseness and pro-
family often sully the lips of their
highest dignitaries. So little sacred
ness seems to be attached to the
place, that the president does not
hesitate to make a town ball of it
Whenever convenient. The Bible is
used in the sers ices and clergymen
OF different denominations, who may
be IN the city, are invited to preach.
Indeed, the pulpit, if it can so be
called, is open TO all shades of relig-
ious belief; and Mormons cast it TO
the teeth of Christians, that their
pulpits are not SO free to the disci-
pies of Joseph Smith.
Thc.vast congregation of from six
TO ten thousand souls are RECALLED
with strange food. In one sermon,
on Adams Fall, they were told, that,
had Adam not yielded to Eve, he
could not have had any progeny,
| and Gods command, increase and
multiply, could not have been fulfill
ed ; for Eve, had she alone sinned,
she must have been eternally sepa-
rated from her husband, who would
have remained in Eden. 1t was in
consequence Of his thinking of this,
that he did sacrifice himself, in order
that man might exist.
If we are to judge Mormonism
from the sermons of the present day,
such expressions as that Of Heber g.
kimball, who exhorted the mission
aries ito bring to the flock as many
owe-lambs as possible, but to be care
lul 10 keep their hands off them un-
I'll they reached the fold" must have
their weight; and it is the fact, that
such sermons are admirably adapted
to, and enjoyed by, the rude and ig-
norant populace.
The Mormon Church has 4 sort of
freemasonry, whose different stages
are attained by limitations called
endowments. These mysteries will
be performed in the temple when
that strange building is completed.
From accounts which have every APP
pearance of truth, the endowments
are wise intructions in human anat-
omy and physiology (Which might
well have a place in any religious
SYSTEM, interspersed with miracle
plays and mummery. Both sexes are
admitted to most, if not all, of these
for, in the words Of one of the apos-
ties, eff man is to be king or prince
in heaven, his wife is to be queen,
and must be fitted for that position
The gilt Of tongues among the
Mormons is simply this: A man is
inspired to utter inarticulate sounds
quite unintelligible to himself; and
another person is inspired to inter-
pref this jargon, although they can
not reproduce the original. 1t may
be added that few Of the community,
except the foreign population, under
stand any language but their native
tongue.
The saints work miracles and cast
out devils, the miracles being usually
if not exclusively, healing Their
prophecies are frequent and many
have been already fulfilled, if we
trust the church journals.
When a person joins the church,
he must pay into the treasury one
tenth of all his property, and each
year give to the same Unsuitable re-
ceptacie one tenth Of his Increase
Among q people like the Mormons,
much of this yearly tax must be paid
in kind ; and, as the early settlers of
New England contributed to the
needy college at Cambridge one man
peck of beans, another bushel of
potatatoes, so the inhabitants of the
poorer villages Of Utah bring their
wheat and fruit to the tithing house
They also have other taxes, severe
enough but they are certainly pros
porous, and soon own the land they
till so carefully.
Every one is bound to go as a
missionary, even to the utmost part
Of the earth, at the command of the
president and it is said, that, when
man becomes distasteful TO the SUI
preme authority, he is sent to preach
the Mormon gospel in some distant
land. Old and NelU.
NE<rbo Woo.orn uomap fall into