MORMONISM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 664, 9 July 1870, Page 3

MORMONISM.

I {From the Times.') Before - many months elapse one of the .'strangest phenomena of our generation will either enter into some new phase, or, which is more probable, be extinguished altogether. Men still in middle life can remember the first development, not to say the origin, of Mormonism; It claimed to be a new religion, baaed upon a new revelation, but its vitality. grew from two conditions — a peculiar institution and a territorial establishment. The Mormons believe in Joe Smith, their prophet .and founder, but they would have made no more mark in the world than the believers in Johanna Southcote, except for polygamy and a settlement in the United States. It is curious to reflect that within a few years Illinois, now so important a State that it is said what Illinois thinks one day all America will, think the next, was so remote and secluded a district as to satisfy the conditions of isolation required for the existence of Mormonism. In 1 847 the local habitation of Mormonism was at Nauvoo, but a popular riot expelled the "Saints" from that country, and they then migrated into that unknown and mysterious region which passed into the possession of the Union by the results of the Mexican war. There, in the territory known as Utah, and chiefly in the city of the Great Salt Lake, they have ever since remained, a political society of themselves and with a government of their own. It is true that their independence, exists by sufferance. Their, country, though they have turned it by the labour of .their hands from a desert into a garden, belongs to the United States, and as, a people: they are as much the subjects of the Federal Government as the citizens of Ohio or Georgia. But up to this time the subjection has been nominal and the independence real. Brigham Young, the successor of the prophet and the head of the Church, rules, with the title of President, the whole .community, and his rule is despotic. In theory, Utah is not a State, but a Territory of the American Union, with a Legislature, Judges, and other authorities to correspond. In practic3 every member of the Legislature is also a member of the Mormon community, elected under the influence and retained under the control of the Mormon Church. Brigham Young, President in name, is Pope, or Prophet, or Commander of the Faithful in fact ; the Tabernacle is the seat of Government, and excommunication is the sword of the law. The President of the Mexican Republic, if there be such a State and such an officer, is not more independent of Congress than Brigham Young, so that on the soil of the Union there are a Government and a people which, though in the Union, are not of it. Naturally, such a Btate of things would attract the attention of Congress sooner or later, especially as the ■ peculiar institution of the Mormons is abhorrent to Christianity and civilisation alike. They are polygamists,. and polygamy, it was recently remarked in the House of Representatives, "was devised by, Satan himself , and has gone band-in-haud with murder, idolatry and every other abomination." With one of these crimes it has. certainly, kept company in Utah. It all stories are true/ the life of a penitent, a heretic, or a renegade was worth but little in the Salt Lake City until the other day. The Mormons, as we have said, relied on polygamy for internal cohesion and distinctiveness, and on distance for political security. The Pacific Railroad has now annihilated the latter condition ; and the Federal Government iB preparing to suppress the former. When the Mormons moved, like an ancient colony, from Nauvoo to Utah, they placed a terrible and pathless desert between them and the Americans. The passage across this desert was painful in the extreme, and the communications were in their own hands. Among the characteristics of the sect was one which might reward study now.' The Mormons had a remarkable- faculty for: organisation generally, but they organised emigration on principles more successful, than had been known forages. This, in fact, was one of the secrets of their progress. 1 To the convert they offered not only a new creed full of pretensions and confidence, but a new home, and the means of reaching it. Whether, or to what extent, the institution of polygamy operated also as an Attraction we cannot say, but the fact is that among the multitude of emigrants to the United States a certain proportion, more considerable in quality than numbers, went straight to the Salt Luke City under guides of their own to join, the community of the " Saints." There they found, in one sense j as much as they, bad been promised. All Mormons were taught to work as well as pray, skill and judgment guided their operations and under the influence of well-directed industry the settlement became a marvel of productiveness and beauty. Apart from the creed and its institutions, an emigrant could hardly have done better than cast in his lot with the Mormons; but if, as happened sometimes, and probably oftener than was known, bis conscience revolted from what he found ■ there, his position was desperate. From the City of the Saints, once entered, there was hardly an escape for man or woman, save through death, for within was despotism and without was the Great Desert. At last, however, when tho civil war ceased, and the Americans recovered from their exhaustion, the railway between the two oceans was completed, and all that the Mormons had gained by their march into the wilderness was lost for ever. The main line did not touch the Salt Lake City, but ran about 30 miles to the south of it. Even that approach would have been enough to dissolve the spell, but a branch has now been opened, and with it the secrets of the Tabernacle and the Fortress of the Latter-Day Saints. A Bill before the House of Representatives proposes to deal summarily with Mormonism.

Polygamy being the keystone of the fabric, polygamists are' proscribed,' deprived of all rights and privileges of citizenship, made liable to fine and imprisonment, and, in short, outlawed altogether. This legislation would, of course, subvert the Mormon r olity entirely, and assimilate the institutions of Utah to those of other States of the Union. But will the Mormons submit to .the treatment ? It appears inconceivable that they should resist, and yet resistance, in some form or other, U anticipated. At this moment 'the Great Salt Lake City is supposed to contain 20,000 inhabitants — a population less than that of Reading; and, as the rest of the Territory would only add as many more, the power ef the Federal Government would he opposed by a constituency less numerous than the Parliamentary electors of Birmingham. In fact, the cabulation is that Brigham Young could not command above 8000 rifles. But these men are mostly Englishmen, and Englishmen from the Eastern Counties, fanatics to the backbone, and as likely to fight as the Puritans under Cromwell. On the other hand, Brigham Young is neither fool nor madman, but as keen as a Greek, and as smart as a Yankee. That the Pacific Railroad would be the ruin of his power none knew better than he; but if it must nee Is come it was best to get what could be got from it, and so he himself took the contract for a considerable section of the line, and made an excellent thing of the job. The present menace of intervention' he has encountered by a singular expedient. He has " called" and despatched 200 missionary preachers to make a tour of the States and convert the Americans. The idea may provoke a smile, but it is exceedingly well conceived. Of all people in the world the Americans, as recent publications have taught us, are the most ardently attached to religious freedom, and, considering what sects and practices are tolerated in the Union, it may not be difficult for a clever preacher to make out a claim for polygamy. But the truth of the matter is, that Congress must deal, not with polygamy, but with the political fabric which polygamy supports. The Americans will not submit to tbe pretensions of a Mormon Government. They might tolerate citizens with more wives than one, but not citiz ns whose church supersedes the authority of the State. Under more favourable conditions-, the Mormons might repeat their exodus, and migrate once more to new homes beyond the reach of man, but the Continent contains no more such unexplored regions, and besides they have more to leave now than they left at Nauvoo. Such, however, is the present aspect of this extraordinary case. The crisis haß arrived, and with it probably the extinction of Mormonism as a faith, for it has only survived thus long through the institution which, will soon be forbidden, and the privacy which has been already invaded ; but what form the catastrophe may taks remains to be seen.