THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1911. MORMONISH AND POLYGAMY.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13082, 17 April 1911, Page 2

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1911. MORMONISH AND POLYGAMY.

Recent evidence that polygamy is still practised extensively at the headquarters of tho Mormon Church has led to a vigorous agitation for the banishment of their missioncrs from countries in which they have been actively prosclytis'iig. Tho other day it n:ts cabled that the head of the Church admitted that a very large number oi polygamous marriages were contracted by Mormons last year, although ho declared that the practice was not new encouraged by the Church. It seems, however, that this is open to grave doubt. In the Fobruary number of "Mediae's Magazine" Mr. B. J. Hendrick describes what he calls the Mormon revival of polygamy. The usual explanation given by Mormons now is that God, through Joseph Smith, had commanded the saints to practise plural marriage j and that God, /through Wilford Woodruff, in 1890, had commanded them to give it up. No plural marriages are said to have taken place since the manifesto. Unfortunately, the facts as stated show that this is not the case. The principle of polygamy has never been, abandoned, only its practice. Tho younger generation, who owe their lives to polygamous marriages, are naturally prejudiced in its favour. Tho "apostles" were aposed to Woodruff's manifesto, and the leading members of tho Mormon Church have since 1890 taken "plural wives." The writer gives tho names of several "apostles" who have married plural wives or have performed the ceremony in polygamous marriages. The new polygamists hold high Church positions, and are honoured and promoted by the Church. There are polygamous cities of refuge in Mexico, to which, in straits, the polygamists retire. Yet I'resident Woodruff declares that his manifesto applied to the Church everywhere, inside and outside the United States. The writer declares that the Mormon Church is a great secret society. Now that Utah is a State, and a State has exclusive jurisdiction over the marriage relation, tho one thing the Mormons are afraid of is a constitutional amendment which will make polygamy a Federal crime. There has recently been a great outcry in parts of England, and especially in Liverpool, against tho activity of Mormon missioners, who, it seems, have been successful in inducing largo numbers of English girls to leave their friends and embrace the Mormon faith. The evil has attained greater dimensions on tho Continent. Even in New Zealand a few years ago agents of tho Church made a number of female converts, some of whom went to Utah. At the present time the Mormons possess a very active mission amongst the Maoris in the North, but their work in that direction appears to possess no objectionable features. The Liverpool correspondent of the London "Daily Mail" recently described tho ravages that have been and are being made in the young womanhood of the city, which are giving rise to much indignation. The protestors number among them loading citizens, social workers, clergy and the Bishop of Liverpool himself. They are up in arms at last, and they demand nothing shorfc of legislation, and stringent legislation, to help them combat tho insidious work which in the name of religion is being done in their midst. Sermons have been preached against Mormonism, pamphlets have been printed, but all to no effect. For Liverpool girls still continue to find mysterious aid for passage to Utah.

Some "mysterious friend" advances the money. Is this friend, a Mormon agency? The Mormons repudiate the suggestion. "We have no hand, in it," they say with ho.it. Yet tho girls still continue to go, and Utah continues to receive them into its bosom. The trouble in Liverpool, as it is everywhere else, is the difficulty of proving an offence against the letter of the law, a difficulty which can only be appreciated, the correspondent remarks, when it is known how "openly" and "uprightly" the luormon missioners do their work. Among the Liverpool girls who have embraced tho Mormon faith and gone to America are two sisters, aged 19 and 21. Their parents, right to tho moment of sailing, did all they could to dissuade them, and there was a despairing sceno on the landing stage. Another girl was a typist in a biscuit factory, a bonny girl, and clever in her way. She took up with the Mormons at an open-air meeting in a Liverpool suburb, and later left her mother, broken-hearted, and her brothGr, who was paralysed, to go to Utah. Another remarkable case was that of a sailor's wife, who, diiring her husband's absence at sea, was baptised a Mormon with her children. Finally she left for Utah, leaving her husband to find her as beet he could. The Mormons work virtually unchecked in Liverpool. Ministers and others preach against them, and pamphlets are circulated showing the humbug of their case, but the Mormon missioners and officials make headway in spite of it all.