Utah and the Mormons/Chapter 17

The design of the leading Mormons in gathering their followers into one place was, as will readily be seen, to isolate them from the rest of mankind, and thus the more easily to subject them to their government. Polygamy, though at first introduced for the sole reason that the prophet Smith was a licentious man, is now sought to be extended as a matter of policy, because it renders this isolation the more complete. The man in Utah who becomes a polygamist becomes a fixture, because he is then still more unfit for any other community. In reference to this policy, the Mormon missionaries make especial efforts to gain female converts, esteeming success in this work paramount even to the acquisition of wealthy disciples. When, however, they manage to obtain a lodgment in a family where girls and money both abound, they re​gard themselves in pursuit of a prize for which they will put forth their best exertions. Such a family transferred to Salt Lake City is an object of great consideration. The wealth of the father speedily finds its way into the coffers of the Church, and the daughters are in due time distributed among the high-priests, or have the proud distinction of starting new harems.

Out of the pale of this singular society, it is often a matter for marvel that, in an age which is regarded the most enlightened since the creation of the world, men and women who have been accustomed to the usages of civilized life should remain the passive subjects of such a despotism. But the true Mormon knows little or nothing of what is going on outside of the rim of the Great Basin, except that which is derived from pulpit discourses, and the newspapers and publications which belong to his own faith. All the means of instruction within those boundaries are made instrumental in holding the consciences and bodies of the Saints in subjection. They are generally a churchgoing people. In Salt Lake City, their congregations on the Sabbath are from 2500 to 3000, which, in a population of 8000, is a large proportion.

Their devotional exercises have their peculiarities, though generally resembling those of other communities. Their discourses on these occasions are mostly stereotyped, and are made up of histories of their persecutions, and a description of the glorious destiny in store for the Saints. The reader shall have one of the most favorable specimens, which occurred on Sunday, the 9th of January, 1853.

The services commenced with music from a full ​band stationed in front of the priest's platform, accompanied with voices, the performance of which was creditable. This was followed by a prayer, which had nothing to distinguish it from similar exercises elsewhere; after which was music again. The presiding elder for the day then called upon one of the priests sitting on the platform for a sermon, who, in this instance, proved to be Parley P. Pratt, one of their most plausible sermonizers. During the discourse the sacrament was administered, which was done by one or two persons taking each a pitcher of water and a tumbler, and going around among the congregation, followed by another with a plate of broken bread, each of the assembled Saints being thus furnished with a drink of water and a piece of bread. After Elder Pratt finished his sermon, a returned missionary from the Sandwich Islands was called up, and gave a tedious and egotistical account of his doings in that part of the world; after which came a short benediction, and another tune was played by the band as the audience retired.

The discourse of Elder Pratt was thoroughly Mormon. He congratulated himself and the audience that so large a number had congregated in the House of the Lord. He then descanted at considerable length upon the persecutions which they had suffered from the Gentiles, and the miraculous exhibition at present made by the Saints in having established and built up themselves in their isolated position under such discouraging circumstances. He averred that nothing like it had ever been known before; that no other people could have done it, and that this was ev​idence of their divine mission; that this was now the great centre of attraction, and that every thing which was said or done by them was closely watched, and caught up with great eagerness and published by the rest of the world. He then discoursed upon the glorious destiny of the Saints here and hereafter, in preparing to build up kingdoms and become gods, and expressed a feeling of solemnity when he felt that he was a responsible agent in the great work. But, on the whole, he expressed himself very well satisfied that he had performed his whole duty, and that he could not better it if it were to be performed over again; that he had left wives and family to go on missions, and strongly condemned the Saint who could be kept back from such a duty by a woman; that the present actors would soon be out of the way, and then the responsibility would rest upon the boys and girls of the rising generation; that, in view of this, he thought they were spending too much time in amusements, and too little in learning the sciences and mechanical arts, and thus preparing themselves for their mission; that God was not too proud to turn his attention to the arts and sciences, of which there was abundant evidence, to wit, in having laid out the garden of Eden, planned the Temple of Solomon, &c.

He spoke with an ordinary degree of ease and fluency, and used many ad captandum expressions to excite the mirth of his hearers. With the exception of the exhortation to the young to become studious and industrious, there was not a single useful idea in the whole discourse; but it was well calculated to keep up the spiritual pride and self-glorification of the audi​ence, by reminding them of the persecutions which they had suffered, the marvelous things which they had achieved, and their glorious destinies in prospect. Humility, which forms so constant a theme in Christian pulpits, finds no abiding-place in a Mormon's mind. Why should it? He was one of the spirits who shouted for joy at the creation, and is destined to become a god and rule over a kingdom.

Parley P. Pratt is one of their ablest men; he is evidently above mediocrity in point of talent, and, with proper cultivation, and under any other than a system of imposture, would be noted as a good speaker. He has a subtle and seductive genius, is very self-possess ed, and wears a candid and friendly appearance. He wrote "The Voice of Warning," a work much esteemed among the Saints, and is, withal, a poet. At one period he had some rough weather with Brigham Young, who was jealous that he had an eye to the succession, and sent him as a missionary to the Sandwich Islands. Since his return he has been busily engaged in another work, which is to furnish the key to all religious knowledge. He was formerly a Campbellite preacher, and became noted for wild and visionary notions in regard to the Millennium. The Book of Mormon and the ready-made revelations of the prophet Joseph found a friendly soil in the peculiar idiosyncracies of his mind, and he surrendered to Mormonism at the first summons, and at an early period. His mind is thoroughly imbued with the necessity of ecclesiastical forms and machinery for salvation, such as baptism, authorized apostles, &c. The apostolic succession having, in his view, been lost, it was necessary to have ​the authority renewed, which was done in the case of Smith through an angel. He enters readily into polygamy; has a harem of eight wives; has lost eight children, and has sixteen still living. At his house he will introduce the stranger to one as Mrs. Pratt; and then, pointing with complacent nonchalance to the rest of the bevy, will say, "These are all Mrs. Pratts." The most of his brethren exhibit a kind of hang-dog look on such occasions, and seem to feel like a culprit caught in depredating upon a hen-roost; but Parley puts a bold face upon the matter, and in this is certainly consistent with his professed principles.

In addition to their means of instruction derived from the pulpit, they have organized schools, very similar to the common school district system in the States. In Great Salt Lake City there is a school-house in every ward, and schools have been kept up in the most of them; but they are wretchedly managed, and so far have proved to be hot-beds of vice rather than places of instruction. The children and youth now growing up, and for the improvement of whom these means of instruction have been provided, are ungoverned and ungovernable, in and out of school; and, so far from any effort being made to remedy the evil, this youthful turbulence is complacently regarded as evidence of their celestial descent. The Hon. J. M. Grant, Speaker of the House of Representatives, in a discourse delivered at a ward school-house on Sunday, the 20th of February, 1853, stated that the children of the Saints possessed superior minds, which made it difficult to govern them in school; and that, for his part, he was glad of it, as it manifested the dignity of their origin. ​With such notions openly preached, it is no wonder the schools are arenas of riot and disorder: they are worse than that; they are the seminaries of juvenile vice—incipient embryo hells, in which the most filthy and obscene ideas are instilled into their young minds. These children exhibit a precocity of knowledge on subjects which parents usually conceal from them which is perfectly astounding. It is a common thing for them to retail at school the disgusting intimacies which they have witnessed at home. Young men who have graduated in these primary institutions of vice are licentious to a degree that will not bear description. The openness with which these forward youths are following in the footsteps of their predecessors may find fitting comparisons with flocks and herds, but not in any branch of the human family outside of Mormondom, or since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The "Deseret News," published semi-monthly at Salt Lake City, at five dollars per year, furnishes the Saints with the most of their newspaper reading. This usually contains a curious medley; at least, such would be likely to be the judgment of any other than a Mormon. Take the one of April 30th, 1853, as a sample.

The first column is devoted to anecdotes and witticisms; after which follows a poetic effusion, by Miss E. R. Snow, "To the Saints in Europe," the first stanza of which and the chorus will be enough to show how deeply the Latter-day muse has quaffed from the "Pierian puddle:"

After the poetry, two columns are taken up with the autobiography of Joseph Smith, which is being republished in consecutive portions. Then comes a sermon by Elder P. P. Pratt before the April Conference, in which he undertakes to tell us of what stuff spirits are made:

"But what are they if they are not flesh and bones? What are they if they are not tangible to our gross organs of sense? Of what are they composed that we can neither see, hear, nor handle them, except we are quickened, or our organs touched by the principles of vision, clairvoyance, or spiritual sight? What are they? Why, they are organized intelligences. What are they made of? They are made of the element which we call spirit, which is as much an element of material existence as earth, air, electricity, or any other tangible substance recognized by man; but so subtile, so refined is its nature, that it is not tangible to our gross organs. It is invisible to us unless we are quickened by a portion of the same element, and, like electricity and several other substances, it is only known or made manifest to our senses by its effects. For instance, electricity is not always visible to us, but its existence is made manifest by its operations upon the wire or upon the nerves. We can not see the air, but we feel its effects, and without it we can not breathe.

"If a wire were extended in connection with the equatorial line of our globe in one entire circle of twen​ty-five thousand miles in extent, the electric fluid would convey a token from one intelligence to another the length of the entire circle in a very small portion of a second, or, we will say, in the twinkling of an eye. This, then, proves that the spiritual fluid or element called electricity is an actual physical and tangible power, and is as much a real and tangible substance as the ponderous rocks which were laid on yesterday in the foundation of our contemplated Temple."

Parley then goes on to give a dismal account of those who have died without having the Gospel preached to them by those who are authorized to hold the "keys," but he somehow provides a way of escape for every body except apostates from Latter-day-ism:

"Such apostates seek, in all dispensations, to bring destruction on the innocent, and to shed innocent blood, or consent thereto. For such, I again repeat, I know no forgiveness. Their children, who, by the conduct of such fathers, have been plunged into ignorance and misery for so many ages, and have lived without the privileges of the Gospel, will look down upon such a parentage with mingled feelings of horror, contempt, reproach, and pity, as the agents who plunged their posterity into the depths of misery and woe."

After the sermon comes the editorial. The leader relates to the scarcity of provisions, and some good advice is given to the Saints to save their grain, and to be charitable to each other. Under the editorial head is an abstract of news, in which the disasters of the Gentile world by fire, earthquakes, &c., are largely represented. We then have communications from sundry correspondents, and, among others, a very charac​teristic one from Edward Sayers, the Deseret gardener:

"I herewith send a few cucumbers, which you will please to accept as the first of the season with me; this I do, as I know you are always glad to see any thing like early productions in the Valley. If the little article on plants meets your approbation, I shall feel much obliged if you will give it an insertion in the News.

"'Doct. Richards, Present.'

"With the above we received a plate of cucumbers, varying from 5⁠1/2⁠ to 8⁠1/2⁠ inches—the lot averaging 6⁠2/3⁠ inches in length; large enough for table use, or about 1⁠3/4⁠ inches in diameter; the whole covered with a handful of green leaves from 7 to 10 inches in diameter. We are thankful to learn by this expression that Friend Sayers has not forgotten the texture of our eye and taste for early vegetables, though it is many years since we have had the opportunity of regaling in his botanic, flower, and vegetable kingdom."

Then follow the minutes of the General Conference, the largest portion of which is occupied with a sermon and speech from Brigham, and a few short speeches from other dignitaries. In the sermon, the reigning seer condescends to give the assembled Saints some light in reference to the Temple, of which the corner stones had been lately laid:

"I scarcely ever say much about revelations or visions; but suffice it to say, five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple, not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should ​build. Why? Because it was represented before me. I never looked upon that ground but the vision of it was there. I see it as plainly as if it was in reality before me. Wait until it is done. I will say, however, that it will have six towers to begin with instead of one. Now do not any of you apostatize because it will have six towers, and Joseph only built one. It is easier for us to build sixteen than it was for him to build one. The time will come when there will be one in the centre of temples we shall build; and on the top, groves and fish-ponds. But we shall not see them here at present."

These fish, we may be permitted to conjecture, will be gudgeons, and gulls will probably sport in the same waters.

It would seem, from the speech, as though Brigham had been rivaled a little too closely in chasing after some dowered widows to be quite agreeable:

"You may see a great many miserly persons with regard to dollars and cents; it is just as natural for men to be miserly with regard to their religious blessings. You may see hundreds of elders who say to the sisters, 'Come, and be sealed to me,' crawling round to make the holy ordinances of God a matter of speculation to administer to their avaricious dispositions. They tell you that you will go into eternity, and find yourselves without husbands, and can not get an exaltation; that you can not have this, that, or the other, unless you are sealed to them. I am free, and so are you. My advice to the sisters is, Never be sealed to any man, unless you wish to be. I say to you high-priests and elders, never, from this time, ask a woman ​to be sealed to you, unless she wants to be, but let the widows and children alone."

The following affords some insight into the mysteries of courtship and marriage, as managed in this favored region:

"I might notice many more items pertaining to this matter; but the elders going round telling the sisters they must be sealed to them, or they can not get an exaltation, particularly has wounded my feelings. How ignorant such men are! This, to me, is like a shadow; to talk about it is sheer nonsense. Let every man and woman magnify their calling in the kingdom of God, and he will take care that we have our exaltation.

"Sisters come to me and inquire what they shall do, saying, Brother A. or B. taught me so and so. They are as wild as the deer on the mountains; their ideas and calculations are derogatory to every shade of good sound sense, and to every principle of the priesthood of heaven."

The following are short speeches:

"Benjamin L. Clapp remarked, 'I have been for some time in a curious frame of mind, depressed in spirit, but I have done nothing in secret, neither blasphemed the name of God,' and called on the Saints to forgive him, that he once more might enjoy the Spirit of God; and thanks God he has been reproved, as it is for his benefit. He wants to stand in his lot and place, and magnify his calling. He feels better to-day than he has for the last two years."

"President Young presented the text, a set of fire-irons made by the brethren from the native iron in ​Iron county; also a small piece of metal, looking like silver, found at the bottom of the furnace, on which aqua fortis has no effect; and said he, 'We no longer ask any person to go to Iron county.'

"Elder George A. Smith was called upon to preach 'an iron sermon,' who rose, took in the stand one of the fire-irons, holding the same over his head, cried out 'Stereotype edition,' and descended, amid the cheers of the Saints. As many of the Saints had been in the house over five hours, the choir sung 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Benediction by Lorenzo Snow."

The last page is devoted to advertisements, of which the following are peculiar:

"Mistake corrected.—By some unaccountable operation in human affairs, the following mark (symbol characters) was recorded and published for the benefit of Lyman Hinman.

"This (symbol characters) is Lyman Hinman's brand, on the left hip, three inches long by four inches wide; residence, Richards' Mill, Davis county; and all persons will please take notice, and govern themselves accordingly.

"The members of the 31st Quorum of Seventies are requested to send in their names and genealogies in the following order, to the Clerk of said Quorum in Grand Salt Lake City: Person's name; when born; ​place of birth; parents' names; baptized; ordained into the Quorum.

is on hand when called for, to make verbatim reports of the blessings of children, confirmations, sermons, lectures, &c., &c., and may be found in the President's Office, northwest corner of the Council House, up stairs.

"P.S.—When any of the Wards call a meeting for the blessing of children, it may be found for their benefit to have G. D. W. present on such occasions."

The "Deseret News" is edited by Dr. Willard Richards, a member of the Quorum of Three, and who, it will be recollected, was an inmate of the Carthage jail when the Smiths were murdered, and narrowly escaped injury on that critical occasion. He is also the President of the Legislative Council, and, in addition, holds the important position of deputy post-master at Salt Lake City under the general government. He is of unwieldy size, and disposed to lethargy. His corpulence is a disease produced by the joint influence of gluttony and drink. He evinces much kindliness of disposition and politeness of demeanor, and is not destitute of talent. Some of his editorials read well and are sensible. His history in reference to polygamy is worth relating. When it was first introduced by the prophet, he was much annoyed. He was, it seems, married to a wife for whom he had a strong attachment, and was so fearful that it would render her un​happy, that he managed to keep all knowledge of it from her, which certainly presents the amiability of his disposition in a favorable light. His wife died in Nauvoo, after which the doctor took unto himself a goodly number of concubines, under the universal plea that it was a divinely authorized order of the Church. Was he sincere, or did he all the while suspect that the inspiration of Joseph was from a class of spirits similar to those with whom Dr. Faustus was, in popular credulity, supposed to have been in league when he invented type? He will not live with his concubines, but furnishes them with separate stalls, as a farmer would his favorite cows, and continues to reside with a maiden sister. He is an instance of an easy, good-natured man, spoiled by a profane religious system and vicious associations. His obesity and habits will soon remove him to a state where all that is good and evil, recorded in his book of life, will be fully explored.

Another medium of instruction, through the agency of which the Saints are kept in a high degree of illumination, is the "Deseret Almanac," a concern got up by W. W. Phelps, editor of the "Morning and Evening Star" when Zion was located in Missouri, since Speaker of the House of Representatives at the first session of the Legislative Assembly, and who sometimes calls himself the "King's Jester." This man, as already stated, was a broken-down political hack, who resided for a time at Cortland, and also at Canandaigua, in the State of New York. There were too many screws loose in his mind to make him efficient in any thing rational, and, soon after Smith appeared upon the ​stage with Spaulding's book, and his own machinery of seer-stones and miracles, Phelps was irresistibly attracted, and became an early convert. When the troubles came on in Missouri, and Joseph and Hyrum were arrested for treason, he apostatized, and, as a witness before Judge King, made some ugly disclosures. He was afterward restored to the bosom of the Church, and now figures among the great men of the Latter-day Saints. In the secret penetralia of Mormon Temple mysteries, he plays the part of the serpent-devil in the garden of Eden; and on such occasions, wriggles and hisses so much like a real snake, that his services are looked upon as indispensable by all true believers.

An almanac made up by such a genius must, of course, have its peculiarities. In the one for 1852 occurs the following scrap of sublime doctrine:

"The nearest 'fixed star' must be Mount Paran, mentioned in Habakkuk, the fruitful world of glory where the 'Holy One' came from; or, rather, Kolob, where our Father in the heavens resides in the midst of his glory and kingdoms. The next 'fixed star,' also mentioned by Habakkuk, must be Tamen, the world of perfection, where God came from to do the works of his Father spoken of by John the Revelator (Rev., i., 6); which Father of God and grandfather of Jesus Christ must now be living in one of the eternity of eternities, which closes the Lord's Prayer in the Greek version, and is mentioned by John (Rev., xix., 3, &c.)."

This idea of matrimony and pedigree among the Mormon gods is kept up in the Almanac for the present year, as will be seen by the following specimen page:

In the miscellaneous department we find such scraps as these:

"The experience of ages shows that 'union' makes heaven eternal, because the sun-lit, moon-tinged, starry hosts above are as they were from the beginning. ​Now I wish and pray for the 'Saints,' as they gather from the nations of the earth, to come to the same union. When this globe was organized, the 'waters were gathered into one place;' so, when we view the Great Basin, we see the waters from all points of the compass run to the centre, or Great Salt Lake, and there is no 'outlet,' but a specimen of union as to coming together, and preservation as to salt. Here, then, let every Saint preserve the union by bringing and manufacturing all that is needed, and not 'casting their pearls before swine,' by buying goods of Japheth's merchantmen, who run back to their 'sties' in the East, O eh, O eh, O eh! how easy we made $500,000 out of the d—d Mormons by charging five hundred per cent. Don't take that pitcher to the well again—'tis cracked! 'Let the dead bury their dead,' or let the world cheat the world; but, Saint, keep thyself unspotted from the world!"

"A family hell—a smoky house, a wife never suited, and a few ragged urchins playing cards and scratching their heads.

"Paradise lost—a beautiful girl, after having tasted. of the good word of God, with a prospect of the 'powers to come,' that runs away and marries a 'tare of the field.'"

The General Conference meets every six months, in April and October, which is a general meeting of the Church, and on which occasions speeches are made and sermons delivered. Lectures are also occasionally delivered before the "Female Health Society," an association for the promotion of health, in which the mysteries of curing disease by miraculous agency are more particularly descanted upon. The language of their discourses on devotional, business, and festive occasions, is often low, filthy, obscene, profane, and brutal to a degree shocking to Gentile ears.

In the summer of 1851, Brigham Young delivered a discourse intended to use up the doctors, in which, in vulgar and obscene language, he undertook to show that he was as well acquainted with the different parts of the human body as professional men. One phrase, in particular, has passed into the dignity of "household words." He said he knew that "women had legs, &c., &c., as well as the doctors." The dialect of the blackguard is so common to Brigham as to excite very little attention. In a speech of his, published in the "Deseret News" of April 2d, 1853, against the Gladdenites, such phrases as these occur: "Nasty, sneaking apostate;" "nasty little Smith and his wife;" "go to hell across lots;" "nasty, stinking ribbons." The Governor has a large harem, and sure no one can dispute his full appreciation of the meaning of the word "nasty."

​During the same summer that Brigham used up the doctors, a party of pleasure, men and women, resorted to the top of "Ensign Peak," and, among others, was an address delivered by W. W. Phelps, in which he went on to enlighten the mothers and daughters in Israel as to the proper time and manner in which the work of generation should be carried on, with a minuteness of detail and vulgarity of language which could scarcely have been more broad had he denuded himself by way of illustration. This reached the climax of Mormon obscenity in public speaking, and is often used by way of comparison. When any thing a little richer than common has been elicited, it is said to be almost equal to "Phelps's sermon on the Mount." So much remark was made about it at the time, that he reported the speech for the Deseret News, in which, though bad enough, the grosser portions are omitted.