Trek of the Mormons.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 25, Issue 41, 29 May 1914, Page 2

Trek of the Mormons.

Few incidents of modern religious history are more curious than the tale of the Mormons, or “LatterDay Saints,” founded by Joseph Smith in the United States some seventy years ago. On June 27, 1844, Smith was killed by the inhabitants of Illinois, the State where he formed his “church,” and the infant sect seemed likely to

disappear. But this apparent disaster was really the foundation of the success of the enterprise. Brigham Young —then a man of forty-three, who had joined the “Saints” some eleven years before—was elected as “prophet” in the stead of Smith. Hi» declaration that no attempt should be made to revenge his predecessor’s murder failed to calm local hostility, Voung decided to leav* Nauvtxi and seek a spot in the wilder uj# West, wher* the Mormons co»k thrive free and unpersecuted. To transport 15,000 souls in country without railways was no light task. Attacked by the Red Indians, who then, ranged freely over the prairies of the centre, molested

by the white population wherever they passed, shivering amidst the snows of winter under simple canvas tents or in the huge tilted waggons—the “prairie schooners” of the “forties”—dying like flips of diseases brought on by hardship and exposure, the undaunted “ Saints” never turned back. They waited ior the spring to enable them to scale the Rocky Mountains, and in July, 1847, arrived at what is now Salt j Lake City.' ' ; Whatever may be thought of ti»e i Mormon doctrine, Brigham Young’s •, achievement, at any rate, stamps him as a man of no ordinary energy ■ and initiative.