The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-31
MORMON EVANGELISM.
Talk with the Head of the Southern Branch
Who and What Are the Elders.

Chattanooga Special to Cincinnati Enquirer.
Elder John H. Morgan, the High Priest of
the Mormon evangelsts of the South being
in this city making preparations for the
grand exodus of proselytes from comfortable
childhood homes to the land of many wives
and fewer husbands, your correspondent to-
day called on the gentleman at the Floren-
tine Hotel for the purpose of learning some
thing about Mormons and Mormon habits.
The elder states that the Southern mission
comprises sixteen States, divided into confer
ences, each State constituting Q conference,
which is divided into districts, one elder pre-
siding over the entire mission, with elders of
lower degree to assist There are at present
eighty-five elders in the Southern Mission
Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina pre-
dominating as to numbers. So rapidly does
the work extend, however, that there now
have to be five to fifteen added to
the force annually. The missionaries
are men from the various vocations OF life,
embracing merchants, farmers, mechanics
day laborers, etc. They are not preachers in
the general acceptation of the term, but men
who are willing to leave their homes for
from one to three years to labor for their
chosen cause They pay all their own ex-
penses, both going and coming, as well as
their expenses while out. When arriving at
Chattanooga, which is the headquarters for
the whole Southern Mission, they are as
signed to friends of labor by the chief
elder They preach to the people in school
houses, private houses, on the roadside,
under trees-in fact, anywhere that they can
get men to listen to them.
The elders do not use tea or coffee or to-
bacco, and are strict teetotalers as to intoxi-
cants They believe that illicit intercourse
between the sexes, with murder, is one of
the objectionable sins, and he says that if
bis church had the making of civil laws they
would punish sexual intercourse outside of
the marriage state with death. The elder
claims that no missionary has ever been
proved guilty of adultery, though men and
women in the great body of the church
sometimes go astray. There have been
$50 baptisms during the last
dren, would make an addition to the
church of about 700 people. Tennessee, Vir-
ginia and North Carolina yield the largest
number of converts, who are mostly farmers
and mechanics of small means, who sell all
their real and personal property to obtain
funds TO emigrate to the West. They go
with their own free WILL which they prefer
to remaining among their former friends,
who prescribe them for embracing an I'M
popular belief While converts are received
from all denominations, more or less, pos
sibly over half who join them are persons
who never belonged to any church. These,
the elder says, will listen before condemn
ing.
The missionaries have encountered more or
less opposition from communities which they
visited-nOt only in newspapers and from the
pulpits, but on several occasions masked men
have, at the dead hour of midnight, attacked
those who had Joined them, as we'll as the
missionaries themselves. Even assassination
had been resorted to, as in the case of Elder
Joseph Standing, who was killed by an armed
mob in Whitfield county, Georgia, July 81,
1869 Elder Joseph H. Parry, a travelling
elder, while in Clay or Cherokee county,
North Carolina, was taken from his bed by
mob and brutally beaten with hickory
switches. The houses of the members were
raided by mob led by Methodist preacher
named Green, who dragged men, women and
children from their beds and beat them with
clubs and switches.
James Harrison, an old gentleman who had
formerly stood we'll in the community, was
so badly treated that he died from the effects
a few months afterward. His wife, aged
seventy years. for months carried on her per-
son marks she received on the same occasion.
This whole branch, the elder says, was forced
by the disbeievers to leave that section of
country. They made their way into Geor-
gia, near Gainesville, where they remained
until relief came from Salt Lake City, when
they emlgrated, and were located Ill Colo
RADIO, where he says they are now living and
prosperous.
Regarding this persecution, Mr.. Morgan
says: 1--WE would not be understood as be-
lievng that the Southern people indorse
those things. On the contrary, we know they
do not; and 1 will here say that more kind
hearted hospitable people never existed
than the mass of the people who inhapit the
South We have found the latch-string on
the outside and the last crust of bread at our
service"
In reply to the question as to the effect the
recent legislation OF Congress has had on the
church. the elder says its only effect was to
disfranchise all who were or had been living
in plural marriage, but as they were only
fraction of the community it did not affect
the elections in the least the Mormon candi-
date Tor Congress receiving 20, 600 votes while
the Gentle candidate received but 1000 at
an election that occurred after the disfran-
3hisement
An emigration company goes out twice
year, generallyain November and March, the
last leaving to-day, when a company of $50
took their departure. Mr.. Morgan claims
that the fortunes of his sect were never
more prosperous than now, and that in no
other church organization are so many
,nationalites represented as there are among
the Mormons.
VICTORIA'S ROMANCE,