Chapter IX (3)

The soul is supposed to take possession of the tabernacle at the
quickening of the embryon. At baptism the Saint may ask in faith for
some particular spirit or genius--an idea familiar to the adepts and
spiritualists of this generation. Every one also has evil, false,
and seducing spirits at variance with the good, a fancy reminding
us of the poetical Moslem picture of the good guardian sitting upon
man’s right shoulder, and whispering into his ear suggestions against
which the bad spirit on the left contends. Revelations are received
by prayer and mighty faith, but only when diligence and sagacity fail
to secure the desired information--where God has appointed means he
will not work by miracles, nor will a “_de profundis_” act without a
more concrete action. Heavenly communications vouchsafed to the seer
must be registered, and kept for promulgation when the Saints can
bear them; for many “would be offended and turn back if the whole
truth”--polygamy, for instance--“were dashed down in a mass before
them.” Of prophetic times it may be observed that the habitat of
God the Father is the planet Kolob, whose revolutions--one of which
is the beginning and the end of a day equal to 1000 terrestrial
years--are the measure of heavenly time. The Deity, being finite,
employs agents and auxiliaries, _e. g._, light, sound, electricity,
inspiration, to communicate knowledge to his world of worlds. An
angel commissioned as a messenger to earth is taken either from the
chief or from a minor planet, and it naturally measures time by the
days and weeks, the months and years, of its own home--a style of
computation which must not a little confuse our poor human chronology.

“Tongues” does not signify, as at the date of the first Pentecost,
an ability to address heteroglottists in their several languages,
which would render the gift somewhat too precise and Mezzofantian
for these days. It means that man moved by the Spirit shall utter
any set of sounds unintelligible even to himself, but which, being
known to the Lord, may, by special permission to exercise the “gift
of interpretation of tongues,” be explained by another to those
addressed. The man gravid with “tongues” must “rise on his feet,
lean in faith on Christ, and open his lips, utter a song in such
cadence as he chooses, and the Spirit of the Lord will give an
interpreter, and make it a language.” The linguistic feat has of late
years been well known in England, where it was, of course, set down
to imposture. It may more charitably be explained by an abnormal
affection of the organ of language on the part of the speaker of
“tongues,” and in the interpreter by the effect of a fervent and
fooling faith.

[INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.]

VIII. “WE BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD RECORDED IN THE BIBLE; WE ALSO
BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD RECORDED IN THE BOOK OF MORMON, AND IN ALL
OTHER GOOD BOOKS.”--Some Christians have contended that the Biblia
of the Jews have been altered; that the last chapter (verse 5) of
Deuteronomy, for instance, recording the death and burial of Moses,
was not written by Moses. The Moslems assert that the Scripture of
both Hebrew and Christian has not only been misunderstood, but has
designedly been corrupted by Baulús (St. Paul) and other Greekish
Jews; that the Gospel of Infancy, and the similar compositions now
banished into the apocryphal New Testament, are mere excrescences
upon the pure commands of Jesus. The Mormons hold with the latter.
They believe, however, that the infinite errors and interpretations
have been removed by “Joseph the Seer,” to whom was given the “key
of all languages”--he has quoted in his writings only 15 out of
3500--and the following specimen of his ultra-Bentleian emendations,
borrowed from the “Last Sermon,” may suffice:

“I will make a comment on the very first sentence of the history of
the creation in the Bible” (_i.e._, “in King James’s version;” he
had probably never seen even the Douay translation). “It first read,
‘The head one of the gods brought forth the gods.’[209] If you do
not believe it, you do not believe _the learned_ man of God. And,
in farther explanation, it means, ‘The head god called together the
gods, and sat in grand council. The grand councilors sat in yonder
heavens, and contemplated the worlds that were created at that time.’
The Bible is, therefore, held to be the foundation book.” Mr. Joseph
Smith’s inspired translation or impudent _rifacciamento_ is believed
to exist in MS.: in due time it will probably be promulgated. But
the Word of God is not confined to the Bible; the Book of Mormon and
the Doctrines and Covenants are of equal authority, strands of the
“three-fold cord,” connecting by the Church God and man. If these
revelations contradict one another, the stumbling-block to the weak
in faith is easily removed by considering the “situations” under
which they were vouchsafed: “heaven’s government is conducted on
the principle of adapting revelation to the varied circumstances of
the children of the kingdom”--a dogma common to all revelationists.
Additional items may be supplied to the Mormons from day to day, a
process by which a “flood of light has poured into their souls, and
raised them to a view of the glorious things above.” The present
seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, however, shows his high
wisdom by seeing, revealing, translating, and prophesying as little
as possible. Yet he even repeats, and probably believes, that
revelation is the rock upon which the Church is founded.

[209] I need hardly say that in the original the words are “at its
head (beginning) the gods (he) created the earth and the heaven.”

IX. “WE BELIEVE ALL THAT GOD HAS REVEALED, ALL THAT HE DOES NOW REVEAL, AND WE BELIEVE THAT HE WILL REVEAL MANY MORE GREAT AND IMPORTANT THINGS PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND MESSIAH’S SECOND COMING.”--Much of this has been explained above. The second coming of Christ is for the restoration or restitution of all things, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah. When the living earth was created, the dry land emerged from the waters, which gathered by command into one place. The “Voice of Warning” draws an interesting picture of a state of things hitherto unknown to geologist and palæogeographer. “There was one vast ocean rolling around a single immense body of land, unbroken as to continents and islands; it was a beautiful plain, interspersed with gently rising hills and sloping vales; its climate delightfully varied with heat and cold, wet and dry; crowning the year with productions grateful to men and animals, while from the flowery plain or spicy grove sweet odors were wafted on every breeze, and all the vast creation of animated beings breathed naught but health, peace, and joy.” Over this paradise, this general garden, “man reigned, and talked face to face with the Supreme, with only a dimming veil between.” After the diffusion of sin, which followed the fall, came the purification of the Noachian cataclysm, and in the days of Peleg “the earth was divided,” _i.e._, the Homeric circumambient sea was interposed between portions of land rent asunder, which earthquakes and upheavals subsequently broke into fragments and islands. We learn from the whole and varied Scriptures that before the second coming of Christ the several pieces shall be dovetailed into one, as they were in the morn of creation, and the retiring sea shall reassume its pristine place, when Samudra Devta was enthroned by the Rishis. The earth is thus restored for a people purified to innocence, and is fitted for the first resurrection of the body to reign with the Savior for a thousand years.

[RESTORATION OF THE TEN TRIBES.]

X. “WE BELIEVE IN THE LITERAL GATHERING OF ISRAEL, AND IN THE RESTORATION OF THE TEN TRIBES; THAT ZION WILL BE ESTABLISHED UPON THE WESTERN CONTINENT; THAT CHRIST WILL REIGN PERSONALLY UPON THE EARTH A THOUSAND YEARS; AND THAT THE EARTH WILL BE RENEWED AND RECEIVE ITS PARADISIACAL GLORY.”--The only novelty in this article is the “location” of Zion, which has already been transferred from Palestine to the celestial regions in the Valley of the Mississippi; this, in the present era, when the old cradles of civilization upon the Ganges and Indus, the Euphrates and the Nile, have been well-nigh depopulated or exhausted, promises to become one of the vast hives from which the human swarm shall issue. The American continent, as the Book of Mormon informs us, was, at the time of the Crucifixion, shaken to its foundation: towns and cities, lakes and mountains, were buried and formed when “the earth writhed in the convulsive throes of agonizing nature.” After all the seed of Israel shall have been raised from the dead, they shall flock to Zion in Judea, and the saints of other races shall be gathered to New Jerusalem in America: both these cities shall be “built with fine stones, and the beauty of all precious things.” At the end of the millennium comes the great sabbath of rest and enjoyment; the earth shall become celestial through the baptism of fire, while the two holy cities shall be caught up (literally) into heaven, to descend with the Lord God for their light and their temple, and shall remain forever on the new earth “under the bright canopy of the new heavens.”

XI. “WE BELIEVE IN THE LITERAL RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, AND THAT THE REST OF THE DEAD LIVE NOT AGAIN UNTIL THE THOUSAND YEARS ARE EXPIRED.”--Man, it has been shown, is a duality of elements. The body is gross, the spirit--under which the intellect or mind is included--is refined matter, permeating, vivifying, and controlling the former: the union or fusion of the two constitutes the “living soul” alluded to by Moses (Gen., ii., 7) in the Adamical creation. Death followed the fall of the great patriarch, who, we are told, is called in Scripture Michael, the Ancient of Days, with hair like wool, etc. But in technical Mormon phrase, “Adam fell that man might be,” and ate the forbidden fruit with a full foreknowledge of the consequences--a Shiah belief. The “fall,” therefore, was a matter of previous arrangement, in order that spirits choosing to undertake their probations might be fitted with “tabernacles,” and be born of women. Death separates the flesh and the spirit for a useful purpose, but the latter keeps guard over every particle of the former, until, at the fiat of resurrection, the body is again “clothed upon,” and perfect man is the result--a doctrine familiar to the mediums. Such is also the orthodox Sunnite faith. The heretical peculiarity of the Mormon resurrection is this: the body will be the same as before, “except the blood,” which is the natural life, and, consequently, the principle of mortality. A man restored to flesh and blood would be subject to death; “flesh and bones,” therefore, will be the constitution of the “resurrected” body. This idea clearly derives from the Genesitic physiology, which teaches that “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Levit., xvii., 14); life being, according to the moderns, not an absolute existence nor objective entity, but a property or condition of the corporeal mechanism--the working, as it were, of the engine until arrested by material lesion. It is confirmed in the Mormon mind by the Savior bidding his disciples to handle his limbs, and to know that he had flesh and bones, not blood.

XII. “WE CLAIM THE PRIVILEGE OF WORSHIPING ALMIGHTY GOD ACCORDING TO THE DICTATES OF CONSCIENCE UNMOLESTED, AND ALLOW ALL MEN THE SAME PRIVILEGE, LET THEM WORSHIP HOW OR WHERE THEY MAY.”--This article embodies the tenets of Roger Williams, who, in establishing his simple democracy, provided that the will of the majority should rule, but “only in civil things.” The charter of Rhode Island (1644) contains the memorable words: “No person within the said colony shall be molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any differences of opinion in matters of religion who does not actually disturb the public peace.” But how often has this been mouthed--how little it has affected mankind! Would London--boasting in the nineteenth century to be the most tolerant of cities--allow the Cardinal of Westminster to walk in procession through her streets?

XIII. “WE BELIEVE IN BEING SUBJECT TO KINGS, QUEENS, PRESIDENTS, RULERS, AND MAGISTRATES, IN OBEYING, HONORING, AND SUSTAINING THE LAW.”--When treating of the hierarchy, it will be made apparent that subjection to temporals and Gentiles must be purely nominal. At the same time, it must be owned that, throughout North America, I may say throughout the New World, the Mormon polity is the only fixed and reasonable form of government. The “turnpike-road of history,” which Fisher Ames, nearly a century ago, described as “white with the tombstones of republics,” is in a fair way to receive fresh accessions, while the land of the Saints promises continuance and progress.

XIV. “WE BELIEVE IN BEING HONEST, TRUE, CHASTE, TEMPERATE, BENEVOLENT, VIRTUOUS, AND UPRIGHT, AND IN DOING GOOD TO ALL MEN; INDEED, WE MAY SAY THAT WE FOLLOW THE ADMONITION OF PAUL; WE ‘BELIEVE ALL THINGS,’ WE ‘HOPE ALL THINGS,’ WE HAVE ENDURED VERY MANY THINGS, AND HOPE TO BE ABLE TO ‘ENDURE ALL THINGS.’ EVERY THING LOVELY, VIRTUOUS, PRAISEWORTHY, AND OF GOOD REPORT, WE SEEK AFTER, LOOKING FORWARD TO THE ‘RECOMPENSE OF REWARD.’ BUT AN IDLE OR LAZY PERSON CAN NOT BE A CHRISTIAN, NEITHER HAVE SALVATION. HE IS A DRONE, AND DESTINED TO BE STUNG TO DEATH, AND TUMBLED OUT OF THE HIVE.”--All over the American Union there is an apotheosis of labor; the Latter-Day Saints add to it the damnation of osiosity.

[MORMON “AGGLOMERATION.”]

This brief outline of Mormon faith will show its strange, but, I believe, spontaneous agglomeration of tenets which, were its disciples of a more learned and philosophical body, would suggest extensive eclecticism. But, as I have already remarked, there is a remarkably narrow limit to religious ideas: the moderns vainly attempt invention when combination is now the only possible process. In the Tessarakai Decalogue above quoted, we find syncretized the Semitic Monotheism, the Persian Dualism, and the Triads and Trinities of the Egyptians and the Hindoos. The Hebrews also have a personal Theos, the Buddhists avataras and incarnations, the Brahmans self-apotheosis of man by prayer and penance, and the East generally holds to quietism, a belief that repose is the only happiness, and to a vast complication of states in the world to be. The Mormons are like the Pythagoreans in their precreation, transmigration, and exaltation of souls; like the followers of Leucippus and Democritus in their atomic materialism; like the Epicureans in their pure atomic theories, their _summum bonum_, and their sensuous speculations; and like the Platonists and Gnostics in their belief of the Æon, of ideas, and of moving principles in element. They are fetichists in their ghostly fancies, their evestra, which became souls and spirits. They are Jews in their theocracy, their ideas of angels, their hatred of Gentiles, and their utter segregation from the great brotherhood of mankind. They are Christians inasmuch as they base their faith upon the Bible, and hold to the divinity of Christ, the fall of man, the atonement, and the regeneration. They are Arians inasmuch as they hold Christ to be “the first of God’s creatures,” a “perfect creature, but still a creature.” They are Moslems in their views of the inferior status of womankind, in their polygamy, and in their resurrection of the material body: like the followers of the Arabian Prophet, they hardly fear death, because they have elaborated “continuation.” They take no leap in the dark; they spring from this sublunary stage into a known, not into an unknown world: hence also their worship is eminently secular, their sermons are political or commercial, and--religion being with them not a thing apart, but a portion and parcel of every-day life--the intervention of the Lord in their material affairs becomes natural and only to be expected. Their visions, prophecies, and miracles are those of the Illuminati, their mysticism that of the Druses, and their belief in the Millennium is a completion of the dreams of the Apocalyptic sects. Masonry has evidently entered into their scheme; the Demiurgus whom they worship is “as good at mechanical inventions as at any other business.” With their later theories, Methodism, Swedenborgianism--especially in its view of the future state--and Transcendentalism are curiously intermingled. And, finally, we can easily discern in their doctrine of affinity of minds and sympathy of souls the leaven of that faith which, beginning with the Mesmer, and progressing through the Rochester Rappers and the Poughkeepsie Seer, threatens to extend wherever the susceptible nervous temperament becomes the characteristic of the race.

The Latter-Day Saints do not deny this agglomeration.[210] They maintain that, being guided by the Spirit unto all truth, they have sifted it out from the gross mass of error that obscures it, and that whatever knowledge has been vouchsafed to man may be found in their possession. They assert that other sects were to them what the Platonists and the Essenes were to Christianity. Moreover, as has been seen, they declare their faith to be still in its infancy, and that many dark and doubtful subjects are still to be decided by better experience or revelation.

[210] “One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism” (says
Mr. Joseph Smith in his sermon preached on the 9th of July, 1843) “is
to receive truth, come whence it may.”... “Presbyterians, Baptists,
Methodists, Catholics, Mohammedans, etc., are they in possession of
any truth? Yes, they have all a little truth mixed with error. We
ought to gather together all the good and true principles which are
in the world, and keep them, otherwise we shall never become pure
Mormons.”

I borrow the following _résumé_ of Mormonism from Lieutenant Gunnison--a Christian writer--of course, without endorsing any one of his opinions.

“In Mormonism we recognize an intuition of Transcendentalism--intuition, we say, for its founder was no scholar in the idealistic philosophy. He trampled under foot creeds and formulas, and soared away for perpetual inspiration from the God; and by the will, which he calls faith, he won the realms of truth, beauty, and happiness. Such things can only be safely confided to the strong and pure-minded, and even they must isolate themselves in self-idolatry, and be ‘alone with the alone,’ and seek converse with the spirit of man’s spirit.

“But this prophet was educated by passion, and sought to be social with the weak; he therefore baptized spiritually in the waters of materialism. Instead of evolving the godlike nature of the human spirit, he endeavored to prove that humanity was already divinity by investing Deity with what is manlike--men were to be like gods by making gods men.”

[MELCHISEDEK PRIESTHOOD.]

The form of Mormon government is not new: it is the theocracy of the Jews, of the Jesuit missions in Brazil, Paraguay, and elsewhere, and briefly of all communities in which, contrary to the fitness of things, Church is made to include, or, rather, exclude State. In opposition to El Islam, they maintain that a hieratic priesthood is necessary to the well-being of a religion. They divide it into two grand heads, of which all other officers and authorities are appendages. The first is called the Melchisedek priesthood, “because Melchisedek was such a great high priest.”[211] The second, which is a supplement to the former, and administers outward ordinances, is the Aaronic or Levitical, “because it was conferred upon Aaron and his seed throughout all their generations.” To the Melchisedek belong the high priest, priests, and elders; to the Aaronic the bishops, the teachers or catechists, and the deacons.

[211] These and the following quotations are borrowed from sections 2
and 3 of “Covenants and Commandments.”

“The power and authority of the higher, or Melchisedek priesthood, is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church, to have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and Church of the first-born, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.

“The power and authority of the lesser, or Aaronic priesthood, is to hold the keys of the ministering of angels, and to administer in outward ordinances the letter of the Gospel--the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins--agreeable to the covenants and commandments.”

The apex of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidency, now Messrs. Young, Kimball, and Wells, who have succeeded to Peter, James, and John in the Gospel Church, and who correspond on earth to the Trinity in heaven--_numero Deus impare gaudet_. The presiding high priest over the high priesthood of the Church--_par excellence_, “_the_” President, also _ex-officio_ seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, is supreme. The two sub-chiefs or counselors are _quasi_-equal: the first, however, takes social precedence of the second. This quorum of the presidency of the Church, elected by the whole body, is the centre of temporal as of ecclesiastical power. It claims, under God, the right of life and death; it holds the keys of heaven and hell, and from its decrees there is no appeal except to the general assembly of all the quorums which constitute the spiritual authorities of the Church.

The second in rank is the Patriarch. The present incumbent is a nephew of the first seer, who succeeded Mr. Joseph Smith, sen., the father of Mr. Joseph Smith, jun.[212] As the sire of the Church, his chief duty is to administer blessings: it is an office of dignity held for life, whereas all others expire after the semestre.

[212] So called in revelation until the death of Mr. Joseph Smith,
sen.

Follows the “Second Presidency,” the twelve traveling counselors, “called to be the twelve apostles or special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world,” modeled with certain political modifications after the primitive Christian Church, and abbreviatively termed “The Twelve.” The President of the High Apostolic College, or, in his default, one of the members, acts as coadjutor, in the absence of a member of the First Presidency. The Twelve come nearer the masses, and, acting under direction of the highest authority, build up the Church, ordain and set in order all other officers, elders, priests, teachers, and deacons: they are empowered to baptize, and to administer bread and wine--the emblems of the flesh and blood of Christ; to confirm those who are baptized into the Church by the laying on of hands for the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost; to teach, expound, exhort, baptize, and watch over the Church, and to take the lead in all meetings. They preside over the several “Stakes of Zion;” there is one, for instance, to direct, under the title of president, the European, and another the Liverpool mission. If there be several together, the eldest is the standing president of the quorum, and they act as councilors to one another.

The fourth body in rank is the Seventies. The “Seventy” act in the name of the Lord, under direction of the “Twelve,” in building up the Church, and, like them, are traveling ministers, sent first to the Gentiles, and then to the Jews. Out of the “Seventy” are chosen seven presidents, of whom one presides over the other six councilors: these seven choose other seventy besides the first seventy, “and also other seventy, until seven times seventy, if the labor in the vineyard of necessity requires it.” In 1853 the minutes of the Mormon General Conference enumerated the “Seventies” at 1572. Practically the seventy members are seldom complete. The chief of these traveling propagandists, the working bees of the community, is the “President of all the Seventies.”

The fifth body is composed of “high priests after the order of the Melchisedek priesthood, who have a right to officiate in their own standing, under the direction of the Presidency, in administering spiritual things,” and to “officiate in all the offices of the Church when there are no higher authorities present.” Thus charged with the execution of spiritual affairs, they are usually aged and fatherly men. Among the high priests are included, _ex-officio_, the bishops and the high council.

[THE MORMON BISHOP.]

The Mormon επισκοπος is a steward, who renders an account of his stewardship both in time and eternity, and who superintends the elders, keeps the Lord’s store-house, receives the funds of the Church, administers to the wants of those beneath him, and supplies assistance to those who manage the “literary concerns,” probably editors and magazine publishers. The bishopric is the presidency of the Aaronic priesthood, and has authority over it. No man has a legal right to the office except a literal descendant of Aaron. As these, however, are _non inventi_, and as a high priest of the Melchisedek order may officiate in all lesser offices, the bishop, who never affects a _nolo episcopari_, can be ordained by the First Presidency, or Mr. Brigham Young. Thus the episcopate is a local authority in stakes, settlements, and wards, with the directorship of affairs temporal as well as spiritual. This “overseer” receives the tithes on the commutation-labor, which he forwards to the public store-house; superintends the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, makes domiciliary visits, and hears and determines complaints either laical or ecclesiastic.

[THE HIGH COUNCIL.]

The High Council was organized by revelation in Kirtland (Feb. 17, 1834) for the purpose of settling, when the Church or the “Bishop’s” council might fail, important difficulties that might arise between two believers. Revelation directed it to consist of twelve high priests, ascertained by lots or ballot, and one or three presidents, as the case might require. The first councilors, when named, were asked if they would act in that office according to the law of heaven: they accepted, and at once, _more Americano_--“voted.” After deciding that the President of the Church should also be President of the Council, it was laid down that the duty of the twelve councilors should be to cast lots by numbers, and thereby ascertain who of the twelve shall speak first, commencing with number one, and so in succession to number twelve. In an easy case only two speak; in a difficult one, six. The defendant has a right to one half of the council, and “those who draw even numbers, that is, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, are the individuals who are to stand up in behalf of the accused, and to prevent insult or injustice.” After the evidence is heard, and the councilors, as well as the accuser and the accused, have “said their say,” the president decides, and calls upon the “twelve” to sanction his decision by their vote. When error is suspected, the case is subject to a “careful rehearing;” and in peculiar difficulties the appeal is to revelation. I venture to recommend this form of special jury to those who have lost faith in a certain effete and obsolete “palladium of British liberty” that dates from the days of Ethelbert. After all, it is sometimes better, _jurare in verba magistri_, especially of an inspired master.

The High Council is a standing council. It bears the same relationship to the federal power as the university Sex viri to a court of civil law in England, and it saves the saints the expense of Gentile proceedings, which may roughly be set down at fifty per cent. The sessions take place in the Social Hall. Such an institution, which transfers to St. Peter all the duties, salaries, and honors which Justinianus gives, is, of course, most unpopular among the anti-Mormons, who call it Star-Chamber, and other ugly names. I look upon it rather as the Punchayat (_quinque viri_) Court of East India, a rough but ready instrument of justice, which, like spontaneous growths generally, have been found far superior to the exotic institutions forced upon the popular mind by professional improvers.

The Latter-Day Saint, when in a foreign land, can be punished for transgression by his own people. The presiding authority calls a council to examine the evidence for and against the offense; and if guilt be proven, the offender, after being officially suspended from his missionary functions and the fellowship of the Church, is sent, with a special report, to be tried by his own presidency at Great Salt Lake City.

The elders are those from whom the apostles are taken; they are, in fact, promoted priests charged with all the duties of that order, and with the conduct of meetings, “as they are led by the Holy Ghost, according to the commandments and revelations of God.” They hold Conferences once in every three months, receive their licenses from the elders or from the Conferences; they are liable to be sent on missions, and are solemnly enjoined, by a revelation of January, 1832, to “gird up their loins and be sober.”

The priest is the master mason of the order. It is his duty to preach, teach, expound, exhort, baptize, administer the sacrament, visit domiciliarily, exhort the saints to pray “vocally and in secret,” ordain other priests, teachers, and deacons, take the lead of meetings when there is no elder present, and assist the elder when occasion requires.

Of the Aaronic order, the head are the bishops; under them are two ranks, who form the entered apprentices of the Mormon lodge.

1st. The teachers, who have no authority to baptize, to administer the sacrament, or to lay on hands, but who “warn, expound, exhort, teach, and invite all to come unto Christ, watch over the Church, and take the lead of meetings in the absence of the elder or priest.” Of these catechists one or two is usually attached to each bishop.

2d. The deacon, or διακονος, an assistant teacher. He also acts as treasurer to the missions in the several branches of the Church, collects money for the poor, and attends to the temporal wants of converts.

The rise of the “Church of Christ in these last days dates from 1830, since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:” thus, A.D. 1861 is Annus Josephi Smithii 31. In that year Mirabilis the book of Mormon appeared, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was organized, and the Body Ecclesiastic, after the fashion of those preceding it, was exodus’d or hegira’d to Kirtland, Ohio.

[“UPPER CRUST.”]

The actual composition of the Mormon hierarchy is that of a cadre of officers to a skeleton army of saints and martyrs, which may be filled up _ad infinitum_. It is inferior in simplicity, and therefore in power, to that which the Jesuit organization is usually supposed to be, yet it is not deficient in the wherewithal of a higher grasp. It makes state government, especially that of Gentile communities, an excrescence upon the clerical body. The first president is the governor; the second is the lieutenant governor; the third is the secretary of state; the High Council is the Supreme Court; the bishops are justices of peace: briefly, the Church is legislative, judiciary, and executive--what more can be required? It has evidently not neglected the masonic, monotheistic, and monocratic element, as opposed to, and likely to temper the tripartite rule of Anglo-American civil government. The first president is the worshipful master of the lodge, the second and third are the senior and junior wardens, while the inferior ranks represent the several degrees of the master and apprentice. It symbolizes the leveling tendencies of Christianity and progressiveism, while its civil and ecclesiastical despotism and its sharp definition of rank are those of a disciplined army--the model upon which socialism has loved to form itself. In society, while all are brothers, there is a distinct aristocracy, called west of the Atlantic “upper crust;” not of titles and lands, nor of bales and boxes, but of hierarchical position; and, contrary to what might be expected, there is as little real social fusion among Mormons as between the “sixties,” the “forties,” and the “twenties” of silly Guernsey.

Having now attempted, after the measure of my humble capacity, to show what Mormonism is, I will try to explain what Mormonism is not. The sage of Norwich (“Rel. Med.,” sect. vi.) well remarked that “every man is not a proper champion of truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity;” and that “many, from the ignorance of these maxims, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies to the enemies of truth.” The doctrine may fitly be illustrated by pointing out the prodigious aid lent to Mormonism by the self-inflicted defeats of anti-Mormonism.

[THE JAREDITE EXODUS.]

The Jaredite exodus to America in dish-like “barges, whose length was the length of a tree,” and whose voyage lasted 344 days, is certainly a trial of faith. The authority of Mormonic inspiration is supposed to be weakened by its anachronisms and other errors: the mariner’s compass, for instance, is alluded to long before the fourteenth century. The Mormons, however, reply that the “Liahona” of their Holy Book is not a compass, and that if it were, nothing could be said against it: the Chinese claim the invention long before the days of Flavio, and the Moslems attribute it to one of their own saints.[213] The “reformed Egyptian” of the Golden Bible is ridiculed on the supposition that the Hebrew authors would write either in their own tongue, in the Syrian, or in the Chaldaic, at any rate in a Semitic, not in a Coptic language. But the first disciples of the Gospel Church were Jews, and yet the Evangel is now Greek. As regards the Golden Plates, it is contended that the Jews of old were in the habit of writing upon papyrus, parchment, and so on, not upon metal, and that such plates have never been found in America. But of late years Himyaritic inscriptions upon brass tablets have been forwarded from Yemen to the British Museum. Moreover, in 1843, six brass plates of a bell shape, covered with ancient glyphs, were discovered by a “respectable merchant” near Kinderhook, United States, proving that such material was not unknown to the ancient Semites and to the American aborigines. The word “Christ” often occurs (“Book of Mormon,” p. 8, etc.) long before the coming of the Savior. But the Book of Mormon was written in the “reformed Egyptian:” the proper noun in question was translated “Christ” in English by the prophet, an “unlearned young man,” according to his own understanding, and for the better comprehension of his readers. The same argument applies to such words as “synagogues,” “alpha and omega,” “steel,” “S.S.E.,” etc.; also to “elephant,” “cow,” “horse,” “ass,” “swine,” and other pachyderms and solidunguls, which were transported to America after the Columbian discovery: they are mere translations, like the fabulous unicorn of the Old Testament and the phœnix of the apocryphal New Testament (Clement I., xii., 2): elephant, for instance, manifestly means mastodon, and swine, peccary. Ptolemy’s theory of a moving earth is found anticipated. But who shall limit revelation? and has not the Mosaic Genesis, according to a multitude of modern divines, anticipated all the latest discoveries? The Lord describes America to Jared (“Book of Mormon,” p. 78) as an “isle of the sea,” and the accuracy of the geography is called in question. But in the Semitic and other Eastern tongues, insula and peninsula are synonymous. Moreover, if Dr. Kane’s open circumpolar ocean prove aught but a myth, the New World is wholly insulated even by ice from the Old. Other little contradictions and inaccuracies, which abound in the inspired books, are as easily pooh-pooh’d as objections to the conflicting genealogies, and the contradictory accounts of the Crucifixion by the professors of the elder faith.

[213] First Footsteps in East Africa, chap. i.

[OBJECTIONS TO MORMONISM.]

The “vulgarity” of Mormonism is a favorite theme with the anti-Mormon. The low origin and “plebbishness” of the apostles’ names and of their institutions (_e. g._, the “Twelve,” the “Seventies”), the snuffling Puritanic style which the learned Gibbon hated, and execrable grammar (_e. g._, in the first page, “Nephi’s brethren rebelleth against him”), and the various Yankeeisms of the New Scriptures, are cited as palpable proofs of fraud. But the primitive apostles of Christianity were of inferior social rank and attainments to the first Mormon converts, and of the reformers of Luther’s age it may be asked, “Where was then the gentleman?” The Syriac-Greek of the New Testament, with its manifold flaws of idiom and diction, must have produced upon the polite philosophers and grammarians of Greece and Rome an effect even more painful than that which the Americanisms of the Book of Mormon exercise upon English nerves. These things are palpably stumbling-blocks disposed sleeper-wise upon the railroad of faith, lest Mr. Christian’s progress should become a mere excursion. Gentiles naturally feel disposed to smile when they find in the nineteenth century prophets, apostles, saints; but the Church only gains by the restoration and reformation of her primitive discipline. The supernatural action of the Holy Spirit believed in by the Mormons as by the Seekers (1645), the Camisards (1688), the Leeites and Wilkinsonians (1776), is the best answer to that atheistic school which holds that God who once lived is now dead to man. As of the Ayat of El Islam, so of the revelations with which Mr. Joseph Smith was favored, it is remarked that their exceeding opportuneness excites suspicion. But of what use are such messages from Heaven unless they arrive _à propos_? Mr. O. Hyde contends, after the fashion of wiser men, that ambiguity, and, if I may use the word, a certain achronology, characterize inspired prophecy: it is evident that only a little more inspiration is wanted to render it entirely unambiguous.

The other sentimental objections to Mormonism may briefly be answered as follows:

“_That the holiest of words is profanely applied to man._” But as Moses (Ex., iv., 16) was “instead of God to Aaron” (Ex., vii., 1), and was “made a god” to Pharaoh, and as the Savior declared that “he called them gods unto whom the word of God came” (John, xi., 35), the Mormons evidently use the word in its old and scriptural sense. Thus they assert that Mr. Joseph Smith is the god of this generation, Jesus is his god, Michael or Adam is the god of Jesus, Jehovah is the god of Adam, and Eloheim is the god of Jehovah.

“_That credible persons have testified to the bad character of Mr. Joseph Smith, junior, as a money-digger, a cheat, a liar, a vulgar impostor, or, at best, a sincere and ignorant fanatic._” The Mormons reply that such has been the history of every prophet. They point with triumph and yearning love to the story of their martyr’s life, to his intense affection for his family, and to their devotion to him. They boast of his invincible boldness, energy, enthusiasm, and moral courage; that he never flinched from his allotted tasks, from the duties which he was commissioned to perform; that he was fifty times dragged by his enemies before the tribunals, and was as often acquitted; that he never hesitated for a moment, when such act was necessary, to cut off from the Church those who, like Oliver Cowdery, had been the depositaries of his intimate secrets; that his career was one long Bartholomew’s Day, and that his end was as glorious as his life was beautiful. In America Mr. Joseph Smith has by the general suffrage of anti-Mormons been pronounced to be a knave, while his successor, Mr. Brigham Young, has been declared by the same high authority--_vox diaboli_, the Mormons term it--to be a self-deluded but true man. I can scarcely persuade myself that great events are brought about by mere imposture, whose very nature is feebleness: zeal, enthusiasm, fanaticism, which are of their nature strong and aggressive, better explain the abnormal action of man on man. On the other hand, it is impossible to ignore the dear delights of fraud and deception, the hourly pleasure taken by some minds in finessing through life, in concealing their real selves from the eyes of others, and in playing a part till by habit it becomes a nature. In the estimation of unprejudiced persons Mr. Joseph Smith is a man of rude genius, of high courage, of invincible perseverance, fired by zeal, of great tact, of religious fervor, of extraordinary firmness, and of remarkable talent in governing men. It is conceded that, had he not possessed “strong and invincible faith in his own high pretensions and divine mission,” he would probably have renounced the unprofitable task of prophet, and sought refuge from persecution and misery in private life and honorable industry. Be that as it may, he has certainly taken a place among the notabilities of the world--he has left a footprint upon the sands of time.

“_That Mr. Joseph Smith prophesied lies_,” and that “_through greed of gain he robbed the public by appropriating the moneys of the Kirtland Bank_.” The Mormons reply that many predictions of undoubted truth undeniably passed their prophet’s lips, and that some--_e. g._, those referring to the Mormon Zion and to the end of the world--may still prove true. With reference to the fact that Martin Harris was induced by the seer to pay for the publication of the Book of Mormon, it is pleaded that the Christian apostles (Acts, iv., 35) also received money from their disciples. The failure of the Kirtland Bank (A.D. 1837) is thus explained: During the Prophet’s absence upon a visit to the Saints at Toronto, the cashier, Warren Parrish, flooded the district with worthless paper, and, fearing discovery on his master’s return, decamped with $25,000, thereby causing a suspension of payment. Regarding other peccadilloes, the Mormons remark that no prophet was ever perfect or infallible. Moses, for instance, was not suffered for his sins to enter the Promised Land, and Saul lost by his misconduct the lasting reign over Israel.

“_That the three original witnesses to the ‘Book of Mormon’ apostatized and denied its truth._” To this the Mormons add, that after a season those apostates duly repented and were rebaptized; one has died; the second, Martin Harris, is now a Saint in Kirtland, Ohio; and the third, Sidney Rigdon, to whom the faith owed so much, left the community after the Prophet’s martyrdom, saying that it had chosen the wrong path, but never rejecting Mormonism nor accusing it of fraud. The witnesses to those modern tables of the law (the Golden Plates) were but eleven _in toto_, and formed only three families interested in the success of the scheme. The same paucity, or rather absence of any testimony which would be valid in a modern court of justice, marks the birth of every new faith, not excluding the Christian. And, finally, wickedness proved against the witnesses does not invalidate the value of their depositions. The disorders in the conduct of David and Solomon, for instance, do not affect the inspiration of the Psalms and Canticles.

“_That Mormon apostles and elders, as Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, denied the existence of polygamy, even after it was known and practiced by their community._” The Mormons reply that they never attempted to evade the imputation of the true patriarchal marriage: they merely asserted their innocence of the “spiritual wifedom,” the Free Loveism and the Fanny Wrightism of the Eastern States--charges brought against them by the anti-Mormons.

Having thus disposed of the principal allegations, I will more briefly allude to the minor.

“_That the Mormons do not allow monogamy._” This I know not to be the fact, as several of my acquaintances had and have but one wife. “_That a multitude of saints, prophets, and apostles are in full chase after a woman, whom the absence of her husband releases from her vows; that the missionary on duty appoints a proxy or vicarious head to his house, and that his spouses are married_ pro tempore _to elders and apostles at home_.” Mrs. Ferris has dreamed out this “abyss of abomination,” and then uses it to declaim against. But is it at all credible? Would not such conduct speedily demoralize and demolish a society which even its enemies own to be peculiarly pure? “_That the Mormons are ‘jealous fellows’_”--a curious contradiction of the preceding charges. The Saints hold to the semi-seclusion of Athens, Rome, and Syria, where “she was the best of women of whom least is said, either of good or harm,” believing with the world generally that opportunity often makes the thief. “_That the Mormons ‘swap,’ sell, exchange, and transfer their wives to Indians._” Mrs. Ferris started the story, which carries its own refutation, by chronicling a report of the kind; and Mr. Ward improves upon it by supplying false instances and names. “_That the utmost latitude of manners is allowed in the ballroom and the theatre_,” which are compared to the private _réunions_ of Rosanna Townsend and other Aspasias. The contrary is notoriously the case. “_That the young Mormons are frequently guilty of the crimes of Absalom and other horrible offenses._” Unprejudiced Gentiles always deny the truth of such accusations. “_That the Mormon has no home, and that Mormon houses are dirty, slovenly, and uncomfortable._” The Far West is not remarkable for neatness: the only exceptions to the rule of filth which I have seen are in the abodes of the Mormons. “_That ‘plurality-families’ are in a state of perpetual storm._” I believe that many a “happy English home” is far stormier, despite the holy presence of monogamy. Even Mrs. Ferris tells of two wives, one young, the other old, “who treated each other with that degree of affectionate cordiality which properly belongs to the intercourse between mother and daughter,” and--naïvely wonder-struck by what she could not understand--exclaims, “What a strange spectacle!” “_That women must be married to be saved._” The orthodox Mormon belief is that human beings are sent into the world to sow seed for heaven; that a woman who wittingly, and for stupid social Belgravian-mother motives, fails in so doing, neglects a vital duty, and that whoso gives not children to the republic has lived in vain--an opinion which the Saints are contented to share with Moses and Mohammed, Augustus Cæsar and Napoleon Bonaparte. “_That the Mormons marry for eternity._” They believe that Adam and Eve, when wholly pure, were so married, and that redemption signifies a complete restoration to all the privileges lost by the fall. “_That Mormons are ‘sealed’ to rich old women._” The _vetula beata_ exists, I believe, almost universally. “_That Mormons marry and seal for the dead._” As has been seen, it is a principle of faith that all ordinances for the living may vicariously be performed for those departed. “_That Mormon women are pale, thin, badly and carelessly dressed, and poorly fed--that they exhibit a sense of depression and degradation._” I found them exceedingly pretty and attractive, especially Miss ----. “_That it is dangerous to be the rival of a Mormon elder in love and business._” This is true only so far that the Saint is probably a better man than the Gentile. I have been assured by Gentiles that they would rather trust the followers of Mr. Joseph Smith than their own people, and that, under Mormon rule, there never has been, and never can be, a case of bankruptcy. The hunters and Indian traders dislike the Saints for two chief reasons: in the first place, the hunting-grounds have been narrowed; and, secondly, industry and sobriety have taken the place of rollicking and dare-devilism. “_That the Mormons are bigoted and intolerant._” The Mormon’s golden rule is, “Mind your own business, and let your neighbor mind his.” At Great Salt Lake City I found all the most violent anti-Mormon books, and have often heard Gentiles talk in a manner which would not be tolerated in Paris, London, and Rome. “_That the Church claims possession of, and authority over, a dead disciple’s goods and chattels._” This is done only in cases when heirs fail. “_That it is the Mormon’s duty to lay all his possessions at the apostles’ feet._” The Mormons believe that the Lord has ordered his Church to be established on earth; that its success involves man’s salvation; that the apostles are the pillars of the sacred edifice, and that the disciple is bound, like Barnabas, when called upon, to lay his all at the apostles’ feet; practically, however, the measure never takes place. “_That the high dignitaries are enriched by tithes and by plundering the people._” I believe, for reasons before given, this assertion to be as wholly destitute of fact as of probability. “_That the elders borrow money from their Gentile disciples, and that the Saints ‘milk the Gentiles.’_” The Mormons, like sensible men, do not deny that their net has drawn up bad fish as well as good; they assert, however, and I believe with truth, that their community will bear comparison in point of honesty with any other.

[POLITICAL OBJECTIONS.]

I have already remarked how thoroughly hateful to the petulant fanatical republican of the New World is the Mormon state within state, their absolute aristocracy clothed in the wolf-skin of democracy; and I have also shown how little of that “largest liberty,” concerning which the traveler in the United States hears so often and sees so seldom, has been extended to them or to their institutions. Let us now consider a few of the political objections to Mormonism.

“_That the Mormon Church overshadows and controverts the actions and opinions, the property, and even the lives of its members._” The Mormons boast that their Church, which is their state, does so legitimately, and deny any abuse of its power. “_That the Church usurps and exercises the legislative and political business of the Territory._” The foregoing pages disprove this. “_That the Church organizes and commands a military force._” True, for her own protection. “_That the Church disposes of public lands on her own terms._” The Mormons reply that, as squatters, they have earned by their improvements the right of pre-emption, and as the federal government delays to recognize their title, they approve of the Church so doing. “_That the Church has coined money and forced its circulation._” The former clause is admitted, and the excellence of the Californian gold is warranted; the latter is justly treated with ridicule. “_That the Church levies the tenth part of every thing from its members under the charge of tithing._” The Mormons derive this practice from the laws of Moses, and assert that the gift is purely a free-will offering estimated by the donor, and never taken except from those who are in full communion. “_That the Church imposes enormous taxes upon Gentile citizens._” The Mormons own that they levy a large octroi, in the form of a regulated license system, upon ardent spirits, but they deny that more is taken from the Gentile than from the Saint. “_That the Church supervises and penetrates into the domestic circle, and enjoins and inculcates obedience to her own counsels, as articles of faith paramount to all the obligations of society and morality, allegiance and law._” The Mormons reply that the counsel and the obligations run in the same grooves.

Mormonism in England would soon have fallen to the level of Leeism or Irvingism; its teachers to the rank of the Southcoteans and Muggletonians. Its unparalleled rise and onward march could have taken place only in a new hemisphere, in another world. Its genius is essentially Anglo-American, without one taint of Gallic, Teutonic, or Keltic. It is Rationalistic: the analytic powers, sharpened by mundane practice, and wholly unencumbered by religious formal discipline, are allowed, in things ultra mundane, a scope, a perfect freedom, that savors of irreverence: thus the Deity is somewhere spoken of as a “right-hand man.” It is Exaggerative in matter as in manner: the Pentateuch, for instance, was contented with one ark, Mormonism required eight. It is Simplificative: its fondness for facilitation has led it through literalism into that complete materialism which, to choose one point only, makes the Creator of the same species as his creature. It is Imitative to an extent that not a vestige of originality appears: the Scripture names are carefully moulded in Hebrew shape; and, to quote one of many instances, the death-bed of the first patriarch (“Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” chap. xlii.) is a travestie of that of Israel, with his prayers, prophecies, and blessings; while the titles of the apostles, _e. g._, Lion of the Lord, are literally borrowed from El Islam. It has a mystic element the other side of its severe rationalism, even as the American character mixes transcendentalism with the purest literalism, as Mr. Emerson, the Sufi, contrasts with the Pilgrim fathers and Sam Slick. It is essentially Practical, though commonplaces and generalisms are no part of its composition. Finally, it is admirably puffed, as the note upon Mormon bibliography proves--better advertised than Colonel Colt’s excellent revolvers.