and Grant on the Unhappiness of Mormon Wives - Acceptance of Fanatical Teachings by Women - Kimball on a Fair Division of the Converts - Church Influence in Behalf of Plural Marriages—A Prussian Convert's Dilemma ! THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY: First Measures introduced in Congress - The Act of 1862-The Cullom Bill of 1869-Its Failure in the Senate - The United States Supreme Court Decision regarding Polygamy - Conviction of John Miles-Appeal of Women of Salt Lake City to Mrs. Hayes and the Women of the United States-President Hayes's Drastic Recommendation to Congress Recommendations of Presidents Garfield and Arthur - Passage of the Edmunds Bill-Its Provisions - The Edmunds-Tucker Amendment- Appointment of the Utah Commission - Determined Opposition of the Mor- mon Church - Placing their Flags at Half Mast - Convictions under the New Law Leaders in Hiding or in Exile - Mormon Honors for those who took their Punishment - Congress asked to disfranchise All Polygamists— The Mormon Church brought to Bay-Woodruff's Famous Proclamation— How it was explained to the Church - The Roberts Case and the Vetoed Act THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY: Future Place of the Church in American History - Main Points of the Mormon Political Policy - Unbroken Power of the Priesthood-Fidelity of the Younger Members - Extension of the Member- ship over Adjoining States-Mission Work at Home and Abroad - Decreased Foreign Membership - Effect of False Promises to Converts - The Settle- ments in Canada and Mexico — Polygamy still a Living Doctrine — Reasons for its Hold on the Church-Its Appeal to the Female Members - Impor- tance of a Federal Constitutional Amendment forbidding Polygamous Mar- THE STORY OF THE MORMONS BOOK I THE MORMON ORIGIN CHAPTER I FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF SUMMING up his observations of the Mormons as he found them in Utah while secretary of the territory, five years after their removal to the Great Salt Lake valley, B. G. Ferris wrote, "The real miracle [of their success] consists in so large a body of men and women, in a civilized land, and in the nineteenth century, being brought under, governed, and controlled by such gross religious imposture." This statement presents, in concise form, the general view of the surprising features of the success of the Mormon leaders, in forming, augmenting, and keeping together their flock; but it is a mistaken view. To accept it would be to concede that, in a highly civilized nation like ours, and in so late a century, the acceptance of religious beliefs which, to the nonbelievers, seem gross superstitions, is so unusual that it may be classed with the miraculous. Investigation easily disproves this. It is true that the effrontery which has characterized Mormonism from the start has been most daring. Its founder a lad of low birth, very limited education, and uncertain morals; its beginnings so near burlesque that they drew down upon its originators the scoff of their neighbors, - the organization increased its membership as it was driven from one state to another, building up at last in an untried wilderness a population that has steadily augmented its wealth and numbers; doggedly defending its right to practise its peculiar beliefs and obey only the officers of the church, even when its course in this respect has brought it in con flict with the government of the United States. Professing only a desire to be let alone, it promulgated in polygamy a doctrine that was in conflict with the moral sentiment of the Christian world, making its practice not only a privilege, but a part of the religious duty of its members. When, in recent years, Congress legislated against this practice, the church fought for its peculiar institution to the last, its leading members accepting exile and imprisonment; and only the certainty of continued exclusion from the rights of citizenship, and the hopelessness of securing the longdesired prize of statehood for Utah, finally induced the church to bow to the inevitable, and to announce a form of release for its members from the duty of marrying more wives than one. Aside from this concession, the Mormon church is to-day as autocratic in its hold on its members, as aggressive in its proselyting, and as earnest in maintaining its individual religious and political power, as it has been in any previous time in its history. In its material aspects we must concede to the Mormon church organization a remarkable success; to Joseph Smith, Jr., a leadership which would brook no rival; to Brigham Young the maintenance of an autocratic authority which enabled him to hold together and enlarge his church far beyond the limits that would have been deemed possible when they set out across the plains. with all their possessions in their wagons. But it is no more surprising that the Mormons succeeded in establishing their church in the United States than it would have been if they had been equally successful in South America; no more surprising that this success should have been won in the nineteenth century than it would have been to record it in the twelfth. In studying questions of this kind, we are, in the first place, entirely too apt to ignore the fact that man, while comparatively a "superior being," is in simple fact one species of the animals that are found upon the earth; and that, as a species, he has traits which distinguish him characteristically just as certain well-known traits characterize those animals that we designate as "lower." If a traveller from the Sun should print his observations of the inhabitants of the different planets, he would have to say of those of the Earth something like this: "One of Man's leading traits is what is known as belief. He is a credulous creature, and is especially susceptible to appeals to his credulity in regard to |