THE CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON HIGH PRIEST.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3492, 15 September 1882, Page 4

THE CONFESSIONS OF A MORMON HIGH PRIEST.

Hawkini, an ex-High Priest of tbe Mormon persuasion, and formerly a member of the Danite band, has arrived in London for the express purpose of exposing what he forcibly, if inelegantly, calls ' the Mormon fraud. , Ex-High Priest Hawkini is an Italian by birth, but a typical Yankee in appearance. Until 1880 he followed the business of a trunk-maker in Utah ; but, getting disgusted with Mormonism as a social institution, he in that year made preparations to escape. His office in the Church •was one of considerable importance. There are probably more grades in the Mormon priesthood than in that of any other Church on earth. First of all come the deacons, who 'attend to chapel duties,' whatever that may mean. Then come the teachers, who, besides discharging the office of city missionary, look after the collection of the tithes. To these succeed the priests, who preach and ' administer,' but cannot lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. That power, however, resides in the elders, who 'preach, tench, and administer the sacrament ;' in the ' seventies,' who are sent on foreign missions ; and in the high priests, ■whose duties are somewhat vague, but who • take the load' at any meeting at which they happen to be present. Above all these, ■who may be classed together as the smaller fry of the Mormon system, stand the bishops, one of whom — tried some time ago for hie share in what is known as the Marrisite massacre—is now preaching the Gospel in England, ' the twelve apostles,' the two councillors, and the president, the latter of whom has recently been ' sealed' to his eighteenth wife, a blooming Massachusetts widow, who, on going home and finding another Mrs Taylor on the doorstep, incontiently smote that lady on the head with a broom. According to the account which he very obligingly gives of himself, ex-High Priest Hawkini escaped Utah at great peril of his life. He had to run the gauntlet of his former colleagues of the Danite band. Nor was he unaware of the risks that he would have to encounter. On his first reception as a Mormon, at the end of a marriage ceremony which lasted for more than nine hours, he was compelled to sw?ar that he ' would revenge the blood of Joseph and Hiram Smith on the nations of the earth,' under the penalty of having his throat cut from ear to ear; that he ■would do -whatsoever he was commanded by the Church, under the penalty of being disembowelled ; and that he would bring up the children ' to hate those who are against us,' under the penalty of having his legs cut off at his knees. This remarkably heavy swearing was by no means a mere formal matter, to be gone through once and forgotton. The Danite band has a very severe sense of the binding nature of an oath, and very sudden and awful methods of dealing ■with those who have foresworn. Ex-High Priest Hawkini asserts that when he attempted to leave Utah three separate attempts were made on the lives of himself and his wife. Even in England they are warned against the plots of their enemies. 'I am obliged, for the sake of your lives, to tell you that the Danites are on your track, says a letter from Utah. ' Be careful ■where you eat and drink. The day I ■write a man was shot for leaving the Church. His body wj?,s found in Big Gulch. He was going to Glasgow to expose Mormonism, and |had prepared a manuscript for the purpose.' This summary manner r of dealing with apostacy / seem to be frightfully common, in spite of the presence of the United States soldiery. Those who betray any slackening in the faith are immediately ' handed over to the buffetings of Satan, , ' and then,' says High Priest Hawkini, manfully repressing a slight shudder, ' it's a case with them.' The Danite band, which is charged to administer the Satanic buffetings, approaches the dimensions of a small army. ') here was a band of twenty-seven Danites in the Eleventh Ward in 1880, and there are twenty-one warde in the city of Salt Lake, which the Mormons unblushingly speak of as Zion. The members are armed with bowie-knives, brass-knuckles, revolvers, and clubs loaded with lead. When they have any serious business on hand, they are called together, generally at midnight, and marched to the City Hall, where a prayer is offered up that the Lord will deliver into their hands ' those who would destroy His Zion in the latter days,' and thus, with a prayer and a blessing, they are despatched on their murderous work. Among the doctrines of Mormonism there are some that, with great wisdom, its apostles do not venture to make public in England. The most fearful of these is that which declares in favor of 'blood atonement.' The work of seeing that such atonement is made is usually entrusted to the Danitn band, but occasionally the commission of murder is enjoined on private members of the Church. Here is an illustration. In 1875 a married woman had confessed to an offence for which the blood atonement was the decreed penalty, and her husband was ordered to become her executioner. The ■unfortunate woman was made aware of her impending fate, and she pathetically begged that her death might come upon lier unawares. For some time the husband had business away from home. When he returned his wife knelt beside him, and played with his watch-chain. Suddenly he 'drew a knife across her slender throat,' and this horrible crime, says ex-High Priest Hawkini, was publicly announced in, and approved by, the Mormon Church. The habit of regarding women as a domestic chattel may be in part responsible for occurrences like this. In Utah a wife is her husbands's slave, working for him, and yielding absolute submission to his will. Although polygamy is not general, it is still customary ; and it is particularly worthy of remark that the Mormons do not regard as binding any marriage which is not made according to the ceremonials of their Church. A man who had left his wife and family in Glasgow was ' sealed '' to three other women in Salt Lake City. Such a system leads to frightful' immorality, and frequently to incest. ' In one instance,' says Mr Hawkini, ' a man married three generations—mother, daughter, and granddaughter. Another married his half-sister, and a third was 'sealed-' to his aunt. Do Englishwomen who emigrate to Utah quite understand the sort of institution with which they have resolved to associate themselves? Undoubtedly not. Nor, for that matter, do Englishmen either. An earnest, formal little man who had been persuaded to ' gather,' as the Mormons call it, wrote to his friends in England—' 1 came here to find the Paradise of the Lord, and, lo and behold, I have found a den of thieves!' Ex-High Priest Hawkini explains that it is not safe for residents at Salt Lake City to write letters of this nature. They are usually shown to the elders in England, who report them to the officials of the Church in Utah, usually with \ery sad consequences to the writers. Up to within a short time of his death Brigham Young had himself control of the post-office, and he did not hesitate to use his power to the fullest extent. To report evil of the Mormon system is an offence as heinous as actual apostacy, and on many occasions has been similarly punished. It is a serious thing to contemplate that every three months or so a number of young girls from England, and eren a larger proportion from Wales, are shipped off to Salt Lake City, to become the victims of a system which is founded on gross and sensual wickedness, and from which they cannot escape. How are they caught for such a purpose ? ' fcisters here,' says ox-High Priest Hawkini, ' get acquainted with young girls, and take them to the meeting houses. After a while they ask them to be baptised. If the girls say that their parents will object, the elders quotes Scripture to the effect that whosover does not leave father and mother for the Lord's sake is not worthy of him.. Last year,' he

adds, '125 English girls arrived afc Salt Lake City, and only in ten cases did their pai'ents know what had become of them.' Thus, under cover of a frightful religion, there is practised in London and throughout England a system of deception that is only comparable in its results to those Belgian p-bductions which so recently moved the horror and indignation of the English people. The method of ' sealing' in the Mormon Church seems devised to specially impress minds of girls who may thus be lured away. The ceremony of the ' endowments,' as it is called, which usually lasts from seven o'clock in the morning to about four o'clock in the afternoon, is, if ex-High Priest Hawkini may be believed, blasphemous almost beyond the power of imagination. The bride and bridegroom are bathed and anointed, and afterwards 'endowed' with white garments, an apron of fig-leaves, and a ' new name.' Led through one room after another, they listen, awe-stricken, whilst ' Elohim ' repeats passages of Scripture to the Arch-angel Michael in the darkness. In turn they are introduced to Adam and Even, to Satan (who squirms about on the floor in token of his defeat), and to the Apostle Peter, who snips pieces from the wedding raiment with a pair of scissors ! The ceremony is completed by taking oaths to which reference has already been made.