Brigham and Wives Multitudinous

Brigham was away. We were told he always is away when trouble is expected, and collision between the United States troops and the Mormons was likely to occur on the Fourth of July. But still Brigham had left his institution behind, and all his wives and children; for no trunk that was ever manufactured would be large enough to contain the wearing apparel of seventeen wives and forty children. So very inconvenient would it have been to take them.

The temple of granite is slowly rising. It will cost three millions of dollars, and be more glorious than Solomon’s — so they tell us. One of the elders informed us that the architecture was an especial revelation to Brigham, and that, after many thousand dollars had been expended on the structure, the president appeared on the ground one morning and told the masons that the foundations must all come up. The workmen protested; but Brigham’s revelation must have its way. The foundations were lifted, and, lo! under them was

BRIG HAM AND WIVES MULTITUDINOUS. l6l

found a wooden roller, which after a while would have decayed and let down the whole structure. “Now,” says the elder, “you must see that it was a divine revelation to Brigham, for no human judgment could have guessed the presence of the roller!”

I find no difficulty in explaining the philosophy of Mormonism. There is a large class of people all the world over who seem to delight in being deceived; the Mormons have merely turned gullibility into a religion.

At eveningtide, on the hill back of the city, we met an intelligent Englishman who had become a Mormon. We intimated to him that we thought that the Pacific Railroad and the large influx of Gentiles to the newly-discovered mines would do Mormonism no good; but that the locomotive would run over it, and the Gentile’s spade undermine it. “No, no!” he said. “This Pacific Railroad is to be the highway on which all people will gather to our church. Mormonism was never so strong as to-day!”

‘Question. — “What apology have you to make for polygamy?”

Answer. — “The Gentiles are a corrupt generation, and that race will die out. Our object is to fill the land with a rapidly-increasing generation of Mormons, who will be a superior race, physicaily as well as spiritually. I would have no hope for the triumph of our Church except through polygamy.”

Turning to his boy, that stood by him, he put his hand under the youngster’s chin, and said to us: “Look there! See what an eve that bov has, and what a face! You see no such beautv as that outside of Mormonism!” The fact was that the child looked like a half-breed Indian, and gave no promise of ever being bright enough to learn his letters. We saw two boys of about the same size and promise at the Holy Communion, of which they had just partaken in the Mormon tabernacle, making spit-balls of the consecrated bread and throwing them at each other.

Nothing impressed us more in Salt Lake City than the homeliness of the women. It may be unallant to mention it; but, as even’ one that goes there thinks it, here goes the statement of the fact. Now. homeliness of feature is not always a disadvantage. There is a handsome ugliness and a pious homeliness; but with these Mormon women it is a vicious and outrageous uncomeliness, indicative of moral disfigurement. The tabernacle was alive with them. They made us shudder. It is “assault and battery” to have them look at you. What Briorham or any other man would want of seventeen such looking creatures I cannot imagine. One of them, I should think, would be a great horror. Such dislocation of noses, and misplacement of mouths, and ruin of eyebrows, are not gathered together in any other place on this planet. There must be a good many witches among them. We would not have been much surprised to see them riding home on a broomstick. The only excuse we can see for polygamy is that it would take at least fifty such women to make one wife.

We saw none of the halo around Salt Lake City that many writers have described. Admitting, as we do, the genius of Brigham Young for organization; and the fact that no place has seen such wonders of irrigation, which have turned a desert of wild sage into bloom; and that a fabulous sum of money has been expended in aqueducts for bringing the snow-water from the mountain and pouring it through the gardens and along every street of the city; and that many thousand people of the territory are completely under the supremacy of one man, so that if he winks they wink, and if he frowns they frown, — yet there is a dark shadow of crime that hovers over all, and the day of doom is swiftly coming.

The rebellion in Mormondom began on the morning when, in opposition to the sign which Mormons put over the door of their stores and shops, inscribed with “Holiness to the Lord.” a Gentile by the name of Trumbo swuno- out his sign with the inscription:

TRUMBO’ S CREED:

I AM THE LORD THY God.

THY REDEEMER.
THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL.
LORD OF LORDS AND KING OF KINGS.

A Mr. God by. an influential Mormon and wealthy citizen of Sale Lake City, offended at the demand of Brigham for one-tenth of all the products of the soil., and indignant at the opposition of Brigham to the mining interests, swung off from the regular establishment, and. with his followers, has built a church of “Comeouters.” Some of the Mormons begin to talk about where Brigham gets so much money from, and feel the weight of the taxes, and have strong suspicions that he has the resources of the settlement deposited in the Bank of England in his own name, ready for any personal emergency.

The machinery of Mormonism bee-ins to creak in every joint. There are not enough tons of salt washed up on the shore of its lake to save the institution. If forty millions of dollars more than now were spent in aqueducts, there would not be enough water to cleanse the pollution. All that the Government of the United States expends in shot and shell by way of exterminating

this most gigantic libertinism of the world is

wasted. It is rotten, and will soon drop from the

bough without any violent shaking. For the sake

of all that is pure and good, God speed the day!

The analogy between Salt Lake City and Sodom

is perfect. Both situate on a plain, surrounded by

mountains, wild, grand, volcanic. Both near a

lake so bitter that no living thing can dwell there.

The crime of one was the crime of the other.

The doom of the ancient city in the smoke of the

Sulphur Springs seems to hover over the modern.

And if we had not been too weary to accept the

invitation to preach, we would have taken for our

text the words of the angel to Lot:” Escape for

thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou

in all the plain: escape to the mountain lest thou

be consumed!”
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