Year: 1870

WHAT Is TO BE IT'S HIsT0RY7


Polygamy is called the twin sister
of Slavery. The kinship thus sugges-
ted is certainly significant. Both
were begotten OF human sin in far
off past. Both outlived a thousand
other institutions of evil, and hand in
hand moved on through the long ages
far into the nineteenth century of the
Christian civilization. They have even
stood up together on this American
continent,-sole but hideous relics of
an old and distant barbarism confront.
ing the divine forms Of a new age and
new people. But does the rela-
tionship stop here? The same in ori
gin and antiquity, are they to be the
same in history? Is Polygany to re-
peat here among US the tragic story
of her ill-fated sister? Who dare say
No? The time was when Slavery was
every whit as feeble and unoromiSing
of future as was Mormo1ism twen-
ty-fve years ago. When Ae keel OF
that first slave ship struck the shore
of Virginia, Slavery seemed as impos-
sible an evil as did PoIygamy when
the hundred and forty Mormon exiles
from Missouri and Illinois drove their
tent stakes into the desert sands Of
Utah, and marked out in the arid
waste the site of their present city,
Slavery grew until men took notice Of
its increase. But they vitwed it with
out alarm. 1t was thought by all, by
men Of the South as well IS by those
Of the North, that Slavery would sure
/ ly though slowly disapper,-passing
away like an iceberg in a summer sea.
It's subsequent history the school-child
knows. Now how far Poygamy has
already traversed of this same history
it is we'll for US to consider. Mormon
ism is no longer q feeble thing. Its
growth during the last twenty-five
years is equal to any twenty-five
years of growth to which Slavery
once might point. 1t cover5 to-day a
vast territory with its huldred villa
ges. 1t shows a city witch, in the
beauty and fertility Of its surrounding
region, in the neatness ami order OF
its interior and in the gene>al comfort,
prosperity and physical welI-being of
its population, is unsurpassed by any
city of its size on all the continent =
The industry Of the people is marvel
lous. Their productions are vast and
various. The "BEE HIVE" well sym
bolizes both their work and its fruits.
They boast standing army. They
have men Of large braia,--equal to
the best in the arts of government
They have their missionaries in every
great city of the world, and the line
of incoming converts is as unbroken
as a rivers current. Certainly there
is something in this material growth
which carries one back TO the palmy
days Of slavery when cotton was ris-
ing TO its throne, and new empires
were opening to its demands. And
Polygamy utters the same high boast
which filled the mouth of its wicked
sister. 1t claims divinity. And men,
under this show of good order and
outward prosperousness to which Po-
lygamy points, are strangely losing
their righteous indignation against it,
and even admitting, some at least, its
high claims. So it was with slavery.
As it grew in we til it grew in grace.
until in men 5 MAIDS it became divine.


And there IS the same hostility to
the national government among these
Mormons that there was among the
| Shareholders. the same bitter hatred
and mad denunciation of its legisla.
ton, and Of its official presence
amongst them. Every preacher in the
great Mormon temple, from Brigham
Young down, is firing the heart of thi:
fanatical host with implacable wrath
against the nation. The law of the
land is spit upon. The leaders fairly
dare the government to any act which
will strip them of their unhallowed Ii
cense. They faunt their wickednes:
in the very face of the world, and
boast of the imperishableness of the,i
atrocious system.


How is all this to end? Men say
thai the Pacific Railroad, freightec
with Christian Influences, is to crusl
this thing into its grave. Men say
that it will fall apart like any other
rottenness and so disappear. Per
hap8 so. But slavery. as foul anC
rotten an affair as this, and open tc
all the forces of Christianity, did no
so pass away. A million Of men per
ished under the downfall of that insti
tuition. Is another million vet to bt
born to be crushed in that far off da,
,, when Polygamy shall follow her sis
ter's fate, her giant form falling while
the nation totters and her best son.
; lie in CORY graves ?-Watchman ant
Reflector.