The Rocky Mountain saints, a full and complete history of the Mormons, from the first vision of Joseph Smith to the last courtship of Brigham Young : including the story of the hand-cart emigration, the Mormon war, the Mountain-Meadow massacre, the reign of terror in Utah, the doctrine of human sacrifice, the political, domestic, social, and theological influences of the saints, the facts of polygamy, the colonization of the Rocky Mountains, and the development of the great mineral wealth of the territory of Utah

Front matter

THE

ROCKY MOUNTAm SAINTS:

A FULL AND COMPLETE

Preface

Notwithstanding the frequency witli wliicli the American press has kept the name of the Mormons .before the public, few persons have any definite idea of what Mormonism claims to be, and what it actually is.

Occupying, as the Saints do, the centre of the great highway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and demanding admission into the Union as a sovereign State, Congress cannot long refuse attention to their claim. The question, therefore, of engrafting upon the Republic a Theocracy which practices polygamy^ teaches the barbarous doctrine of human sacrifice^ and is in its sentiments inimical to the constitution of the nation, demands the careful consideration of all who are interested in the honour and good name of the United States.

In the pages of this work, the politician, the preacher, the litterateur^ and the thoughtful reader, will find abundant matter for studious reflection.

It requires no prophetic inspiration to predicate that, in spite of all the crudity and ridiculous assumption of Mormonism, the highest wisdom of the national Government may yet be required to avert scenes of conflict which would be universally deplored.

Memorials demanding the admission of Utah into the Union, under the title of " The State of Deseret," have for twenty-three years engaged the attention of Congress. Last

PREFACE.

session the demand was again made, and met with a much more favourable reception than ever before. Next Session it will be repeated, and, if not then successful, it will be again and again urged, until finally Statehood is secured.

Emboldened by the encouragement of some prominent members of Congress, the Mormon Prophet has approved of the retirement of the monogamic Delegate who served the Territory for a dozen years, and, as a test of the disposition of the national mind, sends as his successor to Washington an apostle — the husband of four wives. Should the nation consent to this innovation, Statehood will soon be secured for Utah, and Brigham Young's Theocracy will be triumphant over the Republic and the National laws.

Mormonism is not dead nor dying.

Until this " Utah difficulty " is settled emphatically and finally by the voice of the people, declaring that no political or domestic institution opposed to the spirit and genius of republicanism can ever be allowed to exist within the domain of the United States, Mormonism is destined to be the disturbing dream of every occupant of the chair of Washington.

Contents

CHAPTEB 1.

MORMONISM EXPLAINED.— The First Faith bihlical—Spuitual Enthusiasm of the Elders — Establishment of a Literal Kingdom predicted — Polygamy not in the Original Programme — Mormon Errors attributable to the System and Leaders— ^Argument of the Miraculous Power of Healing — Difficulty experienced in leaving the Mormon Church — Assumption of Infallible Priesthood — Mormonism summed up, 1

CHAPTER n.

Introduction

aad membersliip therein the only passport to the presence of God.

Having contributed both by tongue and pen, from the rostrum and by the press, with the best years of his life and with whatever talents he possessed, to teach the Mormon faith while he believed it, he now considers it due equally to the Mormons as to the public to exhibit what that earnest people have accomplished, and thus exemplify the ease with which a religiously-disposed community may naturally mistake the legitimate results of united faith and labour for the special mark of Divine guidance.

The change which the Author has experienced in his views of Mormonism has not been the work of a day or a year, has not resulted from any personal injury ; neither is it due to any special gifts or miraculous conversion. There are to-day thousands of persons in the Mormon communion in Utah, travelling in the same direction, without that living faith in the announced mission of their Church which they once possessed. They still cling to it with anxious solicitude, hoping for some deliverance ; knowing not what to expect, yet realizing that "something must come." Hence the readiness with which many have listened to those who claim to have received new revelations and new missions among themselves.

While the tendency of the age has been to accept " revealed " truths " on account of their own intrinsic value only, and not from the assumption of their authority, the Mormon Church has travelled in the very opposite direction, and has resuscitated the Jewish prophets to support the teachings of modern apostles.

In the examination of Mormonism, the student will meet the reproduction of nearly every principle, doctrine and usage to be found on record from Genesis to Eevelation— if not in practice, at least in acknowledgment ; and where the practice

INTRODUCTION.

xxi is in abeyance, it is not its wrong but its expediency that furnishes the justification of its momentary neglect.

Before the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, slavery as well as polygamy existed in Utah. The nation, by the stern arbitrament of the sword, settled the one, and the other is now in controversy. Both institutions, in the Mormon faith, are ordinances of God.

No antiquity, however, is respected by the Mormon teacher, unless it is harmonious with the inspirations of the modern priesthood. This is exemplified in the unceasing use of the Old Testament in support of polygamy, the "Blood Atone- " ment," [i. e., shedding of the saintly sinner's blood as an atonement for adultery or apostacy] and kindred teaching, while the New Testament is unceremoniously set aside when it militates against the establishment of " a literal kingdom of " God " upon the earth.

The breathings of every anguish-burthen ed soul among the Hebrews, in its lonMno; for the restoration of monarchv and glory to Israel, are accepted as Divine inspiration and revelation pointing directly to the times in which we live. That disturbing dream of the King of Babylon, interpreted by Daniel, has been a perennial fountain of living waters to the Mormon preacher. The anxious monarch and the heaven-gifted interpreter may not have anticipated in that hour of solicitude in the land of Shinar, that " the stone cut out of the " mountains without hands," which was to " break in pieces " the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold " of the " great image " of the king's dream, was to find its fulfilment in the discovery of the stone box containing the plates of the Book of Mormon, by Joseph Smith, in western New York, in the year of grace 1820 ! It requires considerable faith to accept the statement that the migrations of the Mormons from Fayette County, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio ; thence to Jackson County, Missouri ; to Nauvoo, Illinois ; on to the Eocky

^y-- INTRODUCTION.

Mountains ; spreading over the Great Basin ; and the Church sending thence its missionaries to the nations, was the rolling forth of tlie stone " of prophecy, which was to " become a " great -mountain and fill the whole earth." ^

The dim light of a far distant past, added to their own revelations, preserves among the Mormons a perpetual conflict between barbarism and civilization, for the people are, in head and heart, far in advance, of their religious teachings. Hence the frequent " apostacy."

No faith could well be more liberal than written Mormonism. In the beginning of its mission it was a beautiful ideal to those thoroughly imbued with its inspiration ; yet no professors of religion in the nineteenth century could be more bitterly bigoted than the rigidly orthodox and ignorant among the Mormons to-day. Without intending it, probably, and, it may be, even without realizing it, as others do who differ from them, their profession and their practice have been the very antipodes of each other. In moments of creed-writing they are liberal and broadly cosmopolitan in sentiment, warmly inviting to '^fair freedom's feast," away up in the Eocky Mountains —

" Christian sects and pagan, Pope, and Protestant, and Priest, Worshippers of God or Dagon.t "

But when once the Plains have been traversed, there the reception of, and intercourse with, the religious stranger have been like the chilling breezes of the frigid zone. After ail, this very paradox is harmonious and consistent even in its contradictions. The written invitation is the breathing of their souls' best and divinest impulses— the Deity of their nature recognizing one common parentage in the family of man, reaching forth the hand of fellowship to humanity everywhere; but, in the practical part, in intercourse with mankind, it is the tram-

* Divine Authenticity^ pp. 85-6. f Hymn Book, page 103.

INTRODUCTION.

XXll]

pled worm still in agony, the remembrance of " persecutions " that chills every forward, generous impulse and withers the soul with the baneful teaching that "he that is not for us is " against us."

Through the first twenty years of their occupancy of the Territory of Utah, the advanced and liberal minds among them hoped for a change from the ostracizing teachings of the Tabernacle, but it was almost hoping against hope. A brighter day, however, is dawning, when the barriers that have forbidden intercourse with the rest of the world, because of differences of faith, will be gently lowered and a better understanding prevail between the favoured Saints and the unbelieving Gentiles, and in some respects the former will be the greater gainers by the change. " ITo feud," says the shrewd and witty Sydney Smith, " can withstand social intercourse."

Throughout this work there will be found no disposition to pander to the charge of "wilful imposture" against Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. The facts of their history, to the Author's mind, do not warrant that conclusion. Men who publicly utter predictions which time must verify or prove false within the scope of their own natural lives, are entitled to the credit of honestly believing in their own mission. It is safe and sound philosophy to admit that men can be, and are frequently as zealous in the propagation of an error as of a truth ; or what shall be said of the great " army of martyrs," of whom not one in a thousand ever reached the stake, the rack, or the guillotine for an absolute verity ?

"Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the western desert and to transform a barren and desolate region of a hitherto " unknown country " into a land that seems destined at no distant day to teem with millions of j^xiv INTRODUCTION.

human beings, and which promises to stand preeminent among the conquests of the republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other citizens — unmoved by religious impulses — would ever have traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by faith. That was the Providence of the Saints, and it must be conceded that as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon element has been used in the Eocky Mountain region by the Almighty Euler for developing the best interests of the nation, and for the benefit of the world at large.

Should this work contribute to encourage the feeble, doubting Mormons to persevere in the domain of thought, to cultivate the reflex of the Deity within their own humanity, to trust more to the whisperings of the " still, small voice " than to the dogmas of men ; and thus aid the downcast, sorrowing, and oppressed, to reach the peace and happiness of true liberty and manly independence, the Author will feel that his labour has not been in vain.

It will be a matter of sincere regret, if, in the following pages, any statement has been made that is incorrect in fact or unfair in inference ; but eiTors — should there be any — to which attention may be called, will be carefully eliminated from a future edition.

INCEPTION OF MORMONISM— JOSEPH SMITH'S FIRST VISION.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAINTS.