MORMONISM IN RELATION TO WOMEN.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2955, 14 September 1882, Page 3

MORMONISM IN RELATION TO WOMEN.

An ex-priest of Mormoniam has been letting the outside world behind the scenes of Mormonism. The following is worthy of perusal“ It is a serious thing to contemplate that every three months or so a number of young girls from England, and even a larger pro portion 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 0 they caught for such a purpose? “The Sisters here," says ex-High Priest Hawkins, “become 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 elder quotes scripture to the effect that whosoever does not leave father and mother for the sake is not worthy of him. “Last year,” he adds, “ 125 girls arrived at Salt Lake City, and only in ten cases did their parents know what had become of them.” Thus under cover of a frightfol religion, there is practised in London and throughout England a system of deception that is only comparable in its results to those Belgian abductions, 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 the minds of girls who may thus bo lured away. The ceremony of the “ endowments,” as it is culled, which usually lasts from 7 o’clock in the morning to about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, is, if exHigh Priest Hawkins maybe believed, blasphemous almost beyond the power of imagination. The bride and bridegroom are bathed and annotated, and afterwards “ endowed ” with white gargarments, an ’ apron of fig-leaves, and a “ new name,” They are led through one room after another ; they listen, awe-stricken, whilst “Blohim” repeats passages of Scripture to the Archangel. Michael in the darkness. In turn they are introduced to Adam and Eve, 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.”