opposition that he found it expedient, after wintering in Salt Lake City without receiving the governor- ship, to formally resign his post, and he removed with his battalion of troops to California. No wonder that Young declared in a sermon to his people, " I am and will be governor, and no power can hinder it until the Lord AlmiglUy says, ' Brigham, you need not be govern- or anj' longer.' " During the next three years the col- lisions between the United States officers and the Saints became more and more frequent, and in the spring of 185G the whole of the former were forced to tlee from the territory. A new appointment was finally made in 1857 by the Washington government, and the appointee, accompanied by 2500 picked United States troops, sent to enforce order and submission to the United States laws. The Jlormons were greatly exasperated against the federal government by this action, but were finally overa^^■ed; and after a proclamation granting pardon to all Mormons guilty of treachery, etc.. the Saints sub- mitted, and perraaiient peace was established. In 1871 some of the Mormon leaders were indicted under the United States laws against bigamy, in order to force the Mormons to abandon the institution of polygamy. More recently president Young himself has been indicted, and mainly for the self-same purpose, though avowedly on a charge of conspiracy and murder, and has escaped trial only because of some informality or uncertainty respect-
nple.-i
ing the constitution of the court. By the Saints this result is looked upon as of providential interference. The proposition, it is asserted, has been semi-officially made, as from him, to abaiulon polygamy, on condi- tion that the United States government recognize the legitimacy of children heretofore bom of polygamous marriages. This docs not seem, however, in harmony with tlieir printed declarations in very recent times. The Mormons in these assert their resolve to resist to the death all attempts to put down polygamy, and their firm belief that God will work miracles for them, as for his ancient saints, the Jews. (See MiUtnmal ^lar, vol. xxxii, passim, esp. p. 328. Comp. Kae, Westward by Rail, p. 1 16.) ISIr. T. B. H. Stenhousc, formerly a ]Mor- mon elder and missionary, and editor of a Mormon paper, has issued a history of Mormonism, whose revelations of the internal workings of Mormonism are made impressive by the calmness and moderation of his language, and the official and indis])utable evi- dence which he has with assiduity gathered to sus- tain his revelations. He insists upon it that the ^lor- mons are not really in favor of polygamy, and will gladly give it up if they can be made to see that it is not an essential religious ordinance. By others, however, equally well informed, it is rumored that Brigham Young is jjreparing for another exodus of the entire community to regions yet more remote from the incursion of 2
civilization, which has so completely changed the character of Salt ^ Lake City in the last I I'ue years. It will be Iinrne in mind that in I IMi'.) the Pacific Kail- i road opened up the roinitry, so tliat it is j no longer cut off from I civilization. (Jcntiles I tnkc up their residence 1 Salt Lake City free- . and have not the II of their lives j which was formerly, I justly or unjustly, en- tertained; missionaries are preadiing the Gos- pel of .lesus Christ in I the midst of the peo- ple, and there is no dread of any (jower able to stop them. Sev-
MORMONS
629
MORMONS
eral Protestant Christian churches have been organized there (1872), and a recent movement among the Mor- mons themselves, begun in 1869, and denominated as a body the " Church of Zion," and recently re-christened "The Liberal Institute," repudiates the authority of Brigham Young and the hierarchy ; and though, like all reactions from priestly authority, its tendency is un- mistakably towards flagrant infidelity, for it advocates freedom of thought and action, it is nevertheless a sign of the weakening of the entire system. See Rae, West- ward hj Rail, p. 157 sq. ; Ollivant, A Breeze from the Great tiult Lake, p. 82-90 ; Stenhouse, ch. Iv sq.
II. Sacred Writings of the Mormons.— (\,) Their most important publication is of course the Book of Mormon, a work which, as it professes to be a new and more re- cent revelation than the Bible, is placed above the lat- ter in import and value. Indeed, it really constitutes the Mormon Bible. In its published form it is a duo- decimo volume of 563 pages of small print. (The edition here referred to came to us from Mr. Yomig himself, and was printed at Salt Lake City in 1871.) It is divided, in imitation of the Old Testament, into fifteen books, of unequal length, bearing the names of their supposed authors — Nephi (comp. 2 Mace, i, 36), Jacob, Enos, and the like — and professing to have been written (see p. 619) at different periods, each book being divided into chapters and numbered paragraphs. We insert a list of contents for fuller information :
Book of Nephi.
Language of the Record.
Nephfs Abridgment.
Lelii's Dieam.
Lehi departs into the wil- derness.
Nephi slayeth Laban.
Sariah complains of Lehi's Vision.
Contents of the brass plates.