Chapter IX · Latter-Day Saints.—Of the Mormon Religion.

No less an authority than Alexander von Humboldt has characterized positive religions in general as consisting of an historical novelette more or less interesting, a system of cosmogony more or less improbable, and a code of morals mostly pure.[199] Two thirds of this description apply to the faith of the Latter-Day Saints: they have, however, escaped palæological criticism by adopting Genesitic history, and by “swallowing Eve’s apple” in the infancy of their spiritual life.

Before proceeding to comment upon the New Dispensation—for such, though not claiming or owning to be, it is—I may compare the two leading interpretations of the word “Mormon,”THE WORD “MORMON.” which, as has been well remarked,[200] truly convey the widely diverging opinions of the opposers and supporters of Mormonism. Mormon (μορμων) signifies literally a lamia, a maniola, a female spectre; the mandrill, for its ugliness, was called Cynocephalus mormon. “Mormon,” according to Mr. Joseph Smith’s Mormonic, or rather Pantagruelic interpretation, is the best—scil., of mankind. “We say from the Saxon good, the Dane god, the Goth goder, the German gut, the Dutch goed, the Latin bonus, the Greek kalos, the Hebrew tob, and the Egyptian mon. Hence, with the addition of More, or the contraction Mor, we have the word Mormon, which means literally “more good.” By faith it is said man can remove mountains: perhaps it will also enable him to believe in the spirit of that philology that revealed unto Mr. Joseph Smith his derivation, and rendered it a shibboleth to his followers. This is not the place to discuss a subject so broad and so long, but perhaps—the idea will suggest itself—the mind of man most loves those errors and delusions into which it has become self-persuaded, and is most fanatic concerning the irrationalities and the supernaturalities to which it has bowed its own reason.

Unaccountably enough, seeing that it means “more good,” scil., the best of mankind, the word Mormon is distasteful to its disciples, who look upon it as Jew by a Hebrew, Mohammedan by a Moslem, and Romanist or Puseyite by the sectarian Christian. They prefer to be called Latter-Day Saints, or, to give them their title in full, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in contradistinction to the Former-Day Saints. Latter Day alludes to the long-looked-for convulsion that will end the present quiescent geologic epoch. Its near approach has ever been a favorite dogma and improvement subject of the Christian Church, from the time of St. Paul to that of Mr. Joseph Smith, and Drs. Wolff and Cumming;[201] for who, inquires Panurge, “is able to tell if the world shall last yet three years?” Others read it as a prophecy that “Gentilism,” alias “the corrupted Christianity of the age,” is “on its last legs.” Even as “Saints” is a term which has been applied from time immemorial in the Apocalypse and elsewhere to the orthodox, i.e., those of one’s own doxy, and as Enoch speaks of “saints” before the Flood or Noachian cataclysm, so the honorable title has in these days been appropriated by seers, revelators, and prophets, and conferred upon the Lord’s chosen people, i.e., themselves and their followers. According to anti-Mormons, the name Latter-Day Saints was assumed in 1835 by the Mormons at the suggestion of Sidney Rigdon.

THE MORMON ELEMENT.Before beginning a description of what Mormonism really is, I would succinctly lay down a few positions illustrating its genesis.

1. The religious as well as the social history of the progressive Anglo-Saxon race is a succession of contrasts, a system of reactions; at times retrogressive, it has a general onward tendency toward an unknown development. The Unitarians of New England, for instance, arose out of Calvinism. The Puritanism of the present generation is the natural consequence of the Rationalism which preceded it.

2. In what a French author terms “le triste état de dissolution dans lequel gît le Chrétienté de nos jours”—the splitting of the Church into three grand divisions, Roman, Greek, and Eastern, the convulsion of the Northern mind, which created STATISTICS.Protestantism, and the minute subdivision of the latter into Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Lutherans and Calvinists, Quakers and Shakers, the multiform Methodists and various Baptists, and, to quote no farther variétés des églises, the Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Universalists—a rationalistic race finds reason to inquire, “What is Christianity?” and holds itself prepared for a new faith, a regeneration of human thought—in fact, a religious and social change, such as the Reformation of the sixteenth century represented and fondly believed itself to be.[202]

3. Mormonism boasts of few Roman Catholic or Greek converts; the French and Italians are rare, and there is a remarkable deficiency of Germans and Irish—those wretched races without nationality or loyalty—which have overrun the Eastern American States. It is, then, to Protestantism that we must look for the origin of the New Faith.

4. In 1800-1804, and in 1820, a mighty Wesleyan “revival,” which in Methodism represents the missions and retreats of Catholicism, had disturbed and excited the public mind in America, especially in Kentucky and Tennessee. The founder of Mormonism, Mr. Joseph Smith, his present successor, and his principal disciples and followers, were Campbellites, Millerites, Ranters, or other Methodists. Wesleyan sectarianism, like the old Arab paganism in El Islam, still shows its traces in the worship and various observances of a doxology which by literalism and exaggeration has wholly separated itself from the older creeds of the world. Thus we find Mormonism to be in its origin English, Protestant, anti-Catholic, Methodistic.

HISTORY OF MORMONISM.It may be advisable briefly to trace the steps by which we arrive at this undesirable end. The birth of Romanism, according to the Reformed writers, dates from certain edicts issued by Theodosius II. and by Valentinian III., and constituting the Bishop of Rome “Rector of the whole Church.” The newly-born hierarchy found tender nurses in Justinian, Pepin, and Charlemagne, and in the beginning of the eleventh century St. Gregory VII. (Hildebrand the Great) supplied the prime want of the age by establishing a visible theocracy, with a vicar of Jesus Christ at its head. To the existence of a mediatorial priestly caste, the officials of a spiritual despotism, claiming power of censure and excommunication, and the gift of the crown terrestrial as well as celestial, anti-papistical writers trace the various vices and corruptions inherent in a semi-barbarous age, the “melancholy duality” of faith and works of religion and morality which seems to belong to the Southern mind, and the Oriental semi-Pelagianism which taught that man might be self-sanctified or vicariously saved, with its logical deductions, penance, benefices, indulgences. An excessive superstition endured for a season. Then set in the inevitable reaction: the extreme religiousness, that characteristic of the earnest quasi-pagan age of the Christian Church, in the fullness of time fell into the opposite excess, Rationalism and its natural consequences, infidelity and irreligion.

Reformers were not wanting before the Reformation. As early as 1170, Pierre Vaud, or Valdo, of Lyons, sold off his merchandise, and appealing from popery to Scripture and to primitive Christianity, as, in a later day did Jeremy Bentham from St. Paul to his Master, attacked the Roman hierarchy. John Wicliffe (1310-1385) is claimed by his countrymen to have originated the “liberal ideas” by which British Protestantism was matured; it is owned even by foreigners that he influenced opinion from Oxford to far Bohemia. He died peaceably, but the Wicliffites, who presently were called Lollards—“tares” sown by the fiend—though supported by the Commons against Henry IV. and his party, the dignified clergy, suffered, until the repeal of the Act “de hæreticis comburendis,” the fiercest persecution. During the reign of Henry V. they gained strength, as the pronunciamento of 20,000 men in St. Giles’s Fields under Sir John Oldcastle proves: the cruel death of their leader only served to strengthen them, supported as they were by the lower branch of the Legislature in their opposition to the crown. On the Continent of Europe the great follower of Wicliffe was John Huss, who preached in Bohemia about a century before the days of Luther, and who, condemned by the Councils of Constance and Basle, perished at the stake in 1432. Jerome Savonarola, tortured and burnt in 1498, and other minor names, urged forward the fatal movement until the Northern element once more prevailed, in things spiritual as in things temporal, over the Southern; the rude and violent German again attacked the soft, sensuous Italian, and Martin Luther hatched the egg which the schools of Rabelais and Erasmus had laid. It was the work of rough-handed men; the reformer Zuingle emerged from an Alpine shepherd’s hut; Melancthon, the theologian, from an armorer’s shop, as Augustine, the monk, from the cottage of a poor miner. Such, in the 16th century, on the Continent of Europe, were the prototypes and predecessors of Messrs. Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Brigham Young, who arose nearly three centuries afterward in the New World.

In England, when the unprincipled tyranny of Henry VIII. had established, by robbing and confiscating, hanging and quartering, that “reformed new-cast religion,” of which Sir Thomas Brown “disliked nothing but the name,” the bigotry of the ultra-reformatory school lost no time in proceeding to extremes. William Chillingworth, born A.D. 1602, and alternately Protestant, Catholic, Socinian, and Protestant, put forth in his “Religion of Protestants a safe Way of Salvation,” that Chillingworthi Novissima, “the Bible and nothing but the Bible.” This dogma swept away ruthlessly all the cherished traditions of a past age—the ancient observed customs of the Church—all, in fact, that can beautify and render venerable a faith, and substituted in their stead a bald Bibliolatry which at once justifies credulity and forbids it; which tantalizes man with the signs and wonders of antiquity, and yet which, with an unwise contradictoriness, forbids him to revise or restore them. And as each man became, by Bible-reading, his own interpreter, with fullest right of private judgment, and without any infallible guide—the inherent weakness of reformation—to direct him, the broad and beaten highway of belief was at once cut up into a parcel of little footpaths which presently attained the extreme of divergence.

One of the earliest products of such “religious freedom” in England was Methodism,METHODISM. so called from the Methodistic physicians at Rome. The founder and arch-priest of the schism, the Rev. John Wesley, son of the Rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire, and born in 1703, followed Luther, Calvin, and other creedmongers in acting upon his own speculation and peculiar opinions. One of his earliest disciples—only eleven years younger than his master—was the equally celebrated George Whitfield, of Gloucester. Suffice it to remark, without dwelling upon their history, that both these religionists, and mostly the latter, who died in 1770 at Newberry, New England, converted and preached to thousands in America, there establishing field-services and camp-meetings, revivals and conferences, which, like those of the French Convulsionists in the last century, galvanized Christianity with a wild and feverish life. Falling among uneducated men, the doctrine, both in England and the colonies, was received with a bewilderment of enthusiasm, and it soon produced the usual fruits of such phrensy—prophecies that fixed the end of the world for the 28th of February, 1763, miraculous discernment of angels and devils, mighty comings of the power of God and outpourings of the Spirit, rhapsodies and prophecies, dreams and visions, accompanied by rollings, jerks, and barks, roarings and convulsions, syncope, catalepsy, and the other hysterical affections and obscure disorders of the brain, forming the characteristic symptoms of religious mania.

Thus, out of the semi-barbarous superstitions of the Middle Ages, succeeded by the revival of learning, which in the 15th century followed the dispersion of the wise men of the East from captured Byzantium, proceeded “Protestant Rationalism,” a system which, admitting the right of private judgment, protested against the religion of Southern Europe becoming that of the whole world. From Protestantism sprung Methodism, which restored to man the grateful exercise of his credulity—a leading organ in the human brain—his belief in preternatural and supernatural agencies and appearances, and his faith in miraculous communication between God and man; in fact, in that mysticism and marvel-love, which are the columns and corner-stones of religion. Mormonism thus easily arose. It will be found to contain little beyond a literal and verbal interpretation of the only book which Chillingworth recognizes as the rule for Christians, and a pointed condemnation of those who make the contents of the Bible typical, metaphysical, or symbolical, “as if God were not honest when he speaks with man, or uses words in other than their true acceptation,” or could “palter in a double sense.” It proposed as its three general principles, firstly, total immersion in the waters of baptism in the name of the three sacred names; secondly, the commissioning of prophets, apostles, and elders to administer in things holy the revelation and authority of heaven; and, thirdly, the ministering of angels. New Tables of the Law appeared in the Golden Plates. Another Urim and Thummim revealed to Mr. Joseph Smith that he was of the house of Israel and the tribe of Joseph, the inheritor of all things promised to that favored seed. It tempered the superstitions of popery with the rationalism of the Protestant; it supplied mankind with another sacred book and with an infallible interpreter. Human belief had now its weight to carry: those pining for the excitement of thaumaturgy felt satisfied. The Mormons were no longer compelled to ask “what made miracles cease,” and “why and in which A.D. was the power taken from the Church.” It relieved them from holding an apparent absurdity, viz., that the voices and visitations, the signs, miracles, and interventions—in fact, all that the Bible submitted to human faith had ended without reason about the time when one Constantine became king, and do not recommence now when they are most wanted. The Mormons are not forced to think that God is virtually dead in the world; the eminently practical tendencies of the New-World race cause them to develop into practice their contradiction of an inference from which human nature revolts. They claim to be the true Protestants,TRUE PROTESTANTS. i. e., those who protest against the doctrines of a ceased fellowship between the Creator and the creature made in his image; they gratify their self-esteem by sneering at those who confine themselves to the old and obsolete revelation, and by pitying the blindness and ignorance that can not or will not open its eyes to the new light. Hence it follows that few Catholics become Mormons, and that those few become bad Mormons. Man’s powers of faith grow, like his physical force, with exercise. He considers over-belief a venial error compared with under-belief, and he progresses more easily in belief than he can retrograde into disbelief. Thus Catholicism has spread more widely over the world than the less credulous Protestantism, and the more thaumaturgic Mormonism is better adapted to some minds—the Hindoo’s, for instance—than Catholicism.

In Mormonism, or, rather, in Mormon sacred literature, there are three epochs which bring us down to the present day. The first is the monogamic age, that of the books of Mormon, and of Doctrines and Covenants—1830-1843. The second is the polygamic, from the first revelation of “celestial marriage” to Mr. Joseph Smith in 1843, and by him communicated to three followers only, until its final establishment by Mr. Brigham Young in 1852, when secrecy was no longer deemed necessary. The third is the materialistic period; the doctrine, “not founded on modern supernatural revelation, but on reason and common sense,” was the work of 1848-1849.

The first epoch laid the foundations of the Faith. It produced the Book of Mormon,THE BOOK OF MORMON. “an abridgment written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel, and also to Jew and Gentile: written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed: to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof: sealed by the hand of Mormon, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God!”

“An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get (!) to heaven; which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever; and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself to all nations; and now, if there are faults, they are the mistakes of men; therefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ. Moroni.”

“Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.”

This extract is followed by the testimony of three witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, who declare to have seen the Golden Plates with their engravings, which were shown to them by the power of God, not of man; and that they knew by the voice of God that the records had been translated by the gift and power of God. Furthermore they “declare with words of solemnness that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon.” They conclude with these solemn words: “And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God, Amen.” Then comes “also the testimony of eight witnesses”—four Whitmers, three Smiths, and one Page[203]—who make it “known unto all nations, kindred, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our hands unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.”

The nature of the Latter-Day Saints’ Biblion will best be understood from the subjoined list of contents.[204]

THE MORMON BIBLE.The Book of Covenants and Doctrines is what the Vedanta is to the Vedas, the Talmud to the Old Testament, the Traditions to the Gospel, and the Ahadis to the Koran—a necessary supplement of amplifications and explanations. It contains two parts. The first, of sixty-four pages, is entitled “Lectures on Faith;” although published in the name of the Prophet Joseph, it was written, men say, by Sidney Rigdon. The second, which, with the Appendix, concludes the book, is called Covenants and Commandments (scil., of the Lord to his servants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints).

DOCTRINES AND COVENANTS.Of the Lectures, the first is upon “Faith itself—what it is.” It treats the subject in the normal way, showing how much faith is unconsciously exercised by man in his every-day life, and making it “the principle by which Jehovah acts.” The second is concerning “the subject on which Faith rests,” and contains an ancient chronology from Adam to Abraham, showing how the knowledge of God was preserved. The third, on the attributes of God, enlarges upon the dogma that “correct ideas of the character of God are necessary in order to the exercise of faith in him for life and salvation.” The fourth shows the “connection there is between correct ideas of the attributes of God, and the exercise of faith in him unto eternal life.” The fifth, following those that treat of the being, character, perfection, and attributes of God, “speaks of the Godhead”—meaning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—and explains the peculiarities of the “personage of tabernacle.” The sixth “treats of the knowledge which persons must have, that the tenor of life which they preserve is according to the will of God, in order that they may be enabled to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation.” The seventh and last discusses the effects of faith. Each lecture is followed by “questions and answers on the foregoing principles,” after the fashion of school catechisms, and to asterisk’d sentences a note is appended: “Let the student commit the paragraph to memory.” There is one merit in the lectures: like Wesley’s Hymns, they are written for the poor and simple; consequently, they are read where a higher tone of thought and style would remain unheeded.

The “Index in order of date to Part Second” will explain its contents.[205] The Appendix contains twelve pages of revelation on marriage, government, and laws in general, and finally the “martyrdom of Joseph Smith” (no longer junior) “and his brother Hyrum.” Respecting the connubial state, the Gentile and exoteric reads with astonishment the following sentence (no date, but between 1842 and 1843): “Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and POLYGAMY.polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”

The polygamic era directly followed the monogamic: it became the custom of the Church when, on their toil-conquered oasis in the Great Desert, the Mormons found themselves in comparative security. I give in extenso the sole command of heaven upon the subject ofPOLYGAMY REVEALED.

CELESTIAL MARRIAGE: A REVELATION ON THE PATRIARCHAL ORDER OF MATRIMONY, OR PLURALITY OF WIVES. Given to Joseph Smith, the Seer, in Nauvoo, July 12th, 1843.

1. Verily, then saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines: Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter: therefore prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same; for behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory; for all who will have a blessing at my hands shall abide the law which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as was instituted from before the foundations of the world; and as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fullness of my glory; and he that receiveth a fullness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

2. And verily I say unto you, that the conditions of this law are these: All covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations that are not made and entered into, and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, of him who is anointed, both as well for time and for all eternity, and that, too, most holy, by revelation and commandment, through the medium of mine anointed, whom I have appointed on the earth to hold this power (and I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of the priesthood are conferred), are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead; for all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead.

3. Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion. Will I accept of an offering, saith the Lord, that is not made in my name? Or will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed? And will I appoint unto you, saith the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained unto you before the world was? I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto you this commandment, that no man shall come unto the Father but by me, or by my word which is my law, saith the Lord; and every thing that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me, or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God; for whatsoever things remaineth are by me, and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed.

4. Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me, nor by my word, and he covenant with her so long as he is in the world, and she with him, their covenant and marriage is not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world; therefore they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world; therefore, when they are out of the world, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more and an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory; for these angels did not abide my law, therefore they can not be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity, and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.

5. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife, and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is not by me or by my word, which is my law, and is not sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, through him whom I have anointed and appointed unto this power, then it is not valid, neither of force, when they are out of the world, because they are not joined by me, saith the Lord, neither by my word; when they are out of the world, it can not be received there, because the angels and the gods are appointed there, by whom they can not pass: they can not, therefore, inherit my glory, for my house is a house of order, saith the Lord God.

6. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power, and the keys of this priesthood, and it shall be said unto them, ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; and if it be after the first resurrection, in the next resurrection; and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths, then shall it be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life that he shall commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood; and if ye abide in my covenant, and commit no murder whereby to shed innocent blood, it shall be done unto them in all things whatsoever my servant hath put upon them, in time and through all eternity, and shall be of full force when they are out of the world; and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.

7. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.

8. Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye can not attain to this glory; for straight is the gate and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world, neither do ye know me. But if ye receive me in the world, then shall ye know me, and shall receive your exaltation, that where I am ye shall be also. This is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. I am he. Receive ye, therefore, my law. Broad is the gate and wide the way that leadeth to death, and many there are that go in thereat, because they receive me not, neither do they abide in my law.

9. Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife according to my word, and they are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise according to mine appointment, and he or she shall commit any sin or transgression of the new and everlasting covenant whatever, and all manner of blasphemies, and if they commit no murder wherein they shed innocent blood, yet they shall come forth in the first resurrection, and enter into their exaltation, but they shall be destroyed in the flesh, and shall be delivered unto the buffetings of Satan unto the day of redemption, saith the Lord God.

10. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death after ye have received my new and everlasting covenant, saith the Lord God; and he that abideth not this law can in nowise enter into my glory, but shall be damned, saith the Lord.

11. I am the Lord thy God, and will give unto thee the law of my holy priesthood, as was ordained by me, and my Father before the world was. Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath entered into his exaltation, and sitteth upon his throne.

12. Abraham received promises concerning his seed and of the fruit of his loins—from whose loins ye are, viz., my servant Joseph—which were to continue so long as they were in the world; and as touching Abraham and his seed out of the world, they should continue; both in the world and out of the world should they continue as innumerable as the stars; or, if ye were to count the sand upon the sea-shore, ye could not number them. This promise is yours also, because ye are of Abraham, and the promise was made unto Abraham; and by this law are the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself. Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham; enter ye into my law, and ye shall be saved. But if ye enter not into my law ye can not receive the promises of my Father which he made unto Abraham.

13. God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law, and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore, was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation? Verily, I say unto you, Nay; for I, the Lord, commanded it. Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written, Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.

14. Abraham received concubines, and they bare him children, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and he abode in my law; as Isaac also, and Jacob did none other things than that which they were commanded, and because they did none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones; and are not angels, but are gods. David also received many wives and concubines, as also Solomon, and Moses my servant; and also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me.

15. David’s wives and concubines were given unto him, of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me, save in the case of Uriah and his wife; and therefore he hath fallen from his exaltation, and received his portion; and he shall not inherit them out of the world; for I gave them unto another, saith the Lord.

16. I am the Lord thy God, and I gave unto thee, my servant Joseph, an appointment, and to restore all things; ask what ye will, and it shall be given unto you, according to my word; and as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery, and shall be destroyed. If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery; and if her husband be with another woman, and he was under a vow, he hath broken his vow, and hath committed adultery; and if she hath not committed adultery, but is innocent, and hath not broken her vow, and she knoweth it, and I reveal it unto you, my servant Joseph, then shall you have power, by the power of my holy priesthood, to take her and give her unto him that hath not committed adultery, but hath been faithful, for he shall be made ruler over many; for I have conferred upon you the keys and power of the priesthood, wherein I restore all things, and make known unto you all things in due time.

17. And verily, verily I say unto you, that whatsoever you seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my name and by my word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in the heavens; and whosesoever sins you remit on earth, shall be remitted eternally in the heavens; and whosesoever sins ye retain on earth, shall be retained in heaven.

18. And again, verily I say, whomsoever you bless I will bless, and whomsoever you curse I will curse, saith the Lord; for I, the Lord, am thy God.

19. And again, verily I say unto you, my servant Joseph, that whatsoever you give on earth, and to whomsoever you give any one on earth, by my word, and according to my law, it shall be visited with blessings, and not cursings, and with my power, saith the Lord, and shall be without condemnation on earth and in heaven; for I am the Lord thy God, and will be with thee even unto the end of the world, and through all eternity; for verily I seal upon you your exaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father with Abraham your father. Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and will forgive all your sins; I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you: go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.

20. Verily I say unto you, a commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself, and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand by covenant and sacrifice; and let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they are pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God; for I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice: and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things, for he hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.

21. And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law; but if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him, and multiply him, and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds. And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses, and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.

22. And again I say, let not my servant Joseph put his property out of his hands, lest an enemy come and destroy him, for Satan seeketh to destroy; for I am the Lord thy God, and he is my servant; and behold, and lo, I am with him, as I was with Abraham thy father, even unto his exaltation and glory.

23. Now, as touching the law of the priesthood, there are many things pertaining thereunto. Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was Aaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that sent me, and I have endowed him with the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he do any thing in my name, and according to my law, and by my word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify him. Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands, for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God.

24. And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood: If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent; and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he can not commit adultery, for they are given unto him; for he can not commit adultery with that that belongeth unto them, and to none else: and if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he can not commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified. But if one, or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfill the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

25. And again, verily, verily I say unto you, if any man have a wife who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe, and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law. Therefore it shall be lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for him to receive all things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because she did not believe and administer unto him, according to my word; and she then becomes the transgressor, and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law, when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. And now, as pertaining to this law: Verily, verily I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you hereafter; therefore let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen.

Following the revelation is this explanation:

POLYGAMY EXPLAINED.Plurality of Wives is a doctrine very popular among most of mankind at the present day. It is practiced by the most powerful nations of Asia and Africa, and by numerous nations inhabiting the islands of the sea, and by the aboriginal nations of the great western hemisphere. The one-wife system is confined principally to a few small nations inhabiting Europe, and to those who are of European origin inhabiting America. It is estimated by the most able historians of our day that about four fifths of the population of the globe believe and practice, according to their respective laws, the doctrine of a plurality of wives. If the popularity of a doctrine is in proportion to the numbers who believe in it, then it follows that the plurality system is four times more popular among the inhabitants of the earth than the one-wife system.

Those nations who practice the plurality doctrine consider it as virtuous and as right for one man to have many wives as to have one only. Therefore they have enacted laws not only giving this right to their citizens, but also protecting them in it, and punishing all those who infringe upon the chastity of the marriage covenant by committing adultery with any one of the wives of his neighbor. Those nations do not consider it possible for a man to commit adultery with any one of those women to whom he has been legally married according to their laws. The posterity raised up unto the husband through each of his wives are all considered to be legitimate, and provisions are made in their laws for those children the same as if they were the children of one wife. Adulteries, fornications, and all unvirtuous conduct between the sexes are severely punished by them. Indeed, plurality among them is considered not only virtuous and right, but a great check or preventive against adulteries and unlawful connections, which are among the greatest evils with which nations are cursed, producing a vast amount of suffering and misery, devastation and death; undermining the very foundations of happiness, and destroying the frame-work of society and the peace of the domestic circle.

Some of the nations of Europe who believe in the one-wife system have actually forbidden a plurality of wives by their laws, and the consequences are that the whole country among them is overrun with the most abominable practices; adulteries and unlawful connections prevail through all their villages, towns, cities, and country places to a most fearful extent. And among some of these nations these sinks of wickedness, wretchedness, and misery are licensed by law, while their piety would be wonderfully shocked to authorize by law the plurality system, as adopted by many neighboring nations.

The Constitution and laws of the United States, being founded upon the principles of freedom, do not interfere with marriage relations, but leave the nation free to believe in and practice the doctrine of a plurality of wives, or to confine themselves to the one-wife system, just as they choose. This is as it should be: it leaves the conscience of man untrammeled, and, so long as he injures no person, and does not infringe upon the rights of others, he is free by the Constitution to marry one wife, or many, or none at all, and becomes accountable to God for the righteousness or unrighteousness of his domestic relations.

The Constitution leaves the several States and Territories to enact such laws as they see proper in regard to marriages, provided that they do not infringe upon the rights of conscience and the liberties guaranteed in that sacred document. Therefore, if any State or Territory feels disposed to enact laws guaranteeing to each of its citizens the right to marry many wives, such laws would be perfectly constitutional; hence the several States and Territories practice the one-wife system out of choice, and not because they are under any obligations so to do by the national Constitution. Indeed, we doubt very much whether any State or Territory has the constitutional right to make laws prohibiting the plurality doctrine in cases where it is practiced by religious societies as a matter of conscience or as a doctrine of their religious faith. The first Article of the Amendments to the Constitution says expressly that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Now, if even Congress itself has no power to pass a law “prohibiting the free exercise of religion,” much less has any State or Territory power to pass such an act.

The doctrine of a plurality of wives was believed and practiced by Abraham, the father of the faithful; and we find that, while in this practice, the angels of God frequently ministered to him, and at one time dined with him; and God manifested himself to him, and entered into familiar conversation with him. Neither God nor his angels reproved Abraham for being a polygamist, but, on the contrary, the Almighty greatly blessed him, and made promises unto him, concerning both Isaac and Ishmael, clearly showing that Abraham practiced what is called polygamy under the sanction of the Almighty. Now if the father of the faithful was thus blessed, certainly it should not be considered irreligious for the faithful, who are called his children, to walk in the steps of their father Abraham. Indeed, if the Lord himself, through his holy prophets, should give more wives unto his servants, as he gave them unto the prophet David, it would be a great sin for them to refuse that which he gives. In such a case, it would become a matter of conscience with them, and a part of their religion, and they would be bound to exercise their faith in this doctrine, and practice it, or be condemned; therefore Congress would have no power to prohibit the free exercise of this part of their religion, neither would the States or Territories have power constitutionally to pass a law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Now a certain religious society, called Shakers, believe it to be wrong for them to marry even one wife; it certainly would be unconstitutional for either the Congress or the States to pass a law compelling all people to marry at a certain age, because it would infringe upon the rights of conscience among the Shakers, and they would be prohibited the free exercise of their religion.

From the foregoing revelation, given through Joseph the Seer, it will be seen that God has actually commanded some of his servants to take more wives, and has pointed out certain duties in regard to the marriage ceremony, showing that they must be married for time and for all eternity, and showing the advantages to be derived in a future state by this eternal union; and showing still farther that, if they refused to obey this command, after having the law revealed to them, they should be damned. This revelation, then, makes it a matter of conscience among all the Latter-Day Saints; and they embrace it as a part and portion of their religion, and verily believe that they can not be saved and reject it. Has Congress power, then, to pass laws “prohibiting” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints “the free exercise” of this article of their religion? Have any of the States or Territories a constitutional right to pass laws “prohibiting the free exercise of the religion” which the Church of the Saints conscientiously and sincerely believe to be essential to their salvation? No, they have no such right.

The Latter-Day Saints have the most implicit confidence in all the revelations given through Joseph the Prophet, and they would much sooner lay down their lives and suffer martyrdom than to deny the least revelation that was ever given to him. In one of the revelations through him, we read that God raised up wise men and inspired them to write the Constitution of our country, that the freedom of the people might be maintained, according to the free agency which he had given to them; that every man might be accountable to God and not to man, so far as religious doctrines and conscience are concerned. And the more we examine that sacred instrument, framed by the wisdom of our illustrious fathers, the more we are compelled to believe that an invisible power controlled, dictated, and guided them in laying the foundation of liberty and freedom upon this great western hemisphere. To this land the Mohammedan—the Hindoo—the Chinese can emigrate, and each bring with him his score of wives and his hundred children, and the glorious Constitution of our country will not interfere with his domestic relations. Under the broad banner of the Constitution, he is protected in all his family associations; none have a right to tear any of his wives or his children from him. So, likewise, under the broad folds of the Constitution, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah have the right to pass laws regulating their matrimonial relations, and protecting each of their citizens in the right of marrying one or many wives, as the case may be. If Congress should repeal those laws, they could not do so on the ground of their being unconstitutional. And even if Congress should repeal them, there still would be no law in Utah prohibiting the free exercise of that religious right; neither do the citizens of Utah feel disposed to pass such an unconstitutional act which would infringe upon the most sacred rights of conscience.

Tradition and custom have great influence over nations. Long-established customs, whether right or wrong, become sacred in the estimation of mankind. Those nations who have been accustomed from time immemorial to the practice of what is called polygamy would consider a law abolishing it as the very height of injustice and oppression; the very idea of being limited to the one-wife system would be considered not only oppressive and unjust, but absolutely absurd and ridiculous; it would be considered an innovation upon the long-established usages, customs, and laws of numerous and powerful nations; an innovation of the most dangerous character, calculated to destroy the most sacred rights and privileges of family associations—to upset the very foundations of individual rights, rendered dear and sacred by being handed down to them from the most remote ages of antiquity.

On the other hand, the European nations who have been for centuries restricted by law to the one-wife theory would consider it a shocking innovation upon the customs of their fathers to abolish their restrictive laws, and to give freedom and liberty according to the plurality system. It is custom, then, in a great degree, that forms the conscience of nations and individuals in regard to the marriage relationships. Custom causes four fifths of the population of the globe to decide that polygamy, as it is called, is a good, and not an evil practice; custom causes the balance, or the remaining fifth, to decide in opposition to the great majority.

Those individuals who have strength of mind sufficient to divest themselves entirely from the influence of custom, and examine the doctrine of a plurality of wives under the light of reason and revelation, will be forced to the conclusion that it is a doctrine of divine origin; that it was embraced and practiced under the divine sanction by the most righteous men who ever lived on the earth: holy prophets and patriarchs, who were inspired by the Holy Ghost—who were enrapt in the visions of the Almighty—who conversed with holy angels—who saw God face to face, and talked with him as a man talks with his friend—were “polygamists,” that is, they had many wives—raised up many children by them—and were never reproved by the Holy Ghost, nor by angels, nor by the Almighty, for believing in and practicing such a doctrine; on the contrary, each one of these “polygamists” received by revelation promises and blessings for himself, for his wives, and for his numerous children born unto him by his numerous wives. Moreover, the Lord himself gave revelation to different wives belonging to the same man, revealing to them the great blessings which should rest upon their posterity; angels also were sent to comfort and bless them; and in no instance do we find them reproved for having joined themselves in marriage to a “polygamist.” Indeed, the Lord himself gave laws not to prohibit “polygamy,” but showing his will in relation to the children raised up by the different wives of the same man; and, furthermore, the Lord himself actually officiated in giving David all the wives of Saul; this occurred, too, when David already had several wives which he had previously taken: therefore, as the Lord did actually give into David’s own bosom all the wives of Saul, he must not only have sanctioned “polygamy,” but established and instituted it upon a sure foundation, by giving the wives himself, the same as he gave Eve to Adam. Therefore those who are completely divested from the influence of national customs, and who judge concerning this matter by the Word of God, are compelled to believe that the plurality of wives was once sanctioned for many ages by the Almighty; and by a still farther research of the divine oracles they find no intimations that this divine institution was ever repealed. It was an institution, not originated under the law of Moses, but of a far more ancient date; and instead of being abolished by that law, it was sanctioned and perpetuated; and when Christ came to fulfill that law, and to do it away by the introduction of a better covenant, he did not abolish the plurality system: not being originated under that law, it was not made null and void when that law was done away. Indeed, there were many things in connection with the law that were not abolished when the law was fulfilled; as, for instance, the Ten Commandments, which the people under the Gospel covenant were still obliged to obey; and until we can find some law of God abolishing and prohibiting a plurality of wives, we are compelled to believe it a divine institution; and we are furthermore compelled to believe, that if this institution be entered into now, under the same principles which governed the holy prophets and patriarchs, that God will approbate it now as much as he did then; and that the persons who do thus practice it conscientiously and sincerely are just as honorable in the sight of God as those who have but one wife. And that which is honorable before God should be honorable before men; and no one should be despised when he acts in all good conscience upon any principle of doctrine; neither should there be laws in any of these States or Territories to compel any individual to act in violation to the dictates of his own conscience; but every one should be left in all matters of religion to his own choice, and thus become accountable to God, and not to his fellow-man.

If the people of this country have generally formed different conclusions from us upon this subject, and if they have embraced religions which are more congenial to their minds than the religion of the Saints, we say to them that they are welcome to their own religious views; the laws should not interfere with the exercise of their religious rights. If we can not convince you by reason nor by the Word of God that your religion is wrong, we will not persecute you, but will sustain you in the privileges guaranteed in the great Charter of American Liberty: we ask from you the same generosity—protect us in the exercise of our religious rights—convince us of our errors of doctrine, if we have any, by reason, by logical arguments, or by the Word of God, and we will be ever grateful for the information, and you will ever have the pleasing reflection that you have been the instruments in the hands of God of redeeming your fellow-beings from the darkness which you may see enveloping their minds. Come, then, let us reason together, and try to discover the true light upon all subjects connected with our temporal or eternal happiness; and if we disagree in our judgments, let us impute it to the weakness and imperfections of our fallen natures, and let us pity each other, and endeavor with patience and meekness to reclaim from error, and save the immortal soul from an endless death.

Mormonism, it will be observed, claims at once to be, like Christianity, a progressive faith, with that development of spiritualism which the “Tracts for the Times” exemplified, and, like El Islam, to be a restoration by revelation of the pure and primeval religion of the world. Convinced that plurality was unforbidden by the founders of the former faiths, the Mormons, as well as the followers of the Arabian Prophet, have obeyed the command of their God to restore it, and that, too, although the Anglo-Scandinavian race every where agrees, after the fashion of pagan and monogamic Rome, to make it a common-law crime. Politically considered, the Mormons deem it necessary to their existence as a people. Contrary to the scientific modern economist, from Mr. Malthus to Mr. Mill, they hold population, not wealth, learning, civilization, nor virtue, to be the strength of a nation; they believe that numbers decide the rise and fall of empires, and that, as Nature works the extinction of her doomed races by infecundity, and as the decline of a people’s destiny is first detected in the diminution of its census, so they look upon the celestial promises of prolificity made to the patriarchs of old as the highest temporal blessing. They admit in the lawgiver only a right to legislate for the good of those who are to obey his laws, not to gratify his “whimsy whamsies,” and that the liberty which man claims by the dignity of his nature permits him to choose the tie, whether polyandric, monogamic, or polygamic, that connects him with the opposite sex. Mr. Parley P. Pratt (“Marriage and Morals in Utah,” p. 3) is explicit upon this subject:

“If we find laws, statutes, covenants, and precedents emanating from God; sworn to by himself to be everlasting; as a blessing to all nations—if we find these have to do with exceeding multiplicity of race, and with family and national organization and increase—if such institutions are older than Moses, and are found perpetuated and unimpaired by Moses and the prophets, Jesus and the apostles, then it will appear evident that no merely human legislation or authority, whether proceeding from emperor, king, or people, has a right to change, alter, or pervert them.”

MORMON MATERIALISM.The third epoch is that of Materialism. In this the Mormons are preceded, to quote but a few schools, by the classic Academics—by the Jews, who believed in a material and personal Demiurgus, and by many fathers of the Christian Church, who held the soul of man, while immortal, to be material. Matter with them, as with Newton, is an aggregate of “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, and movable particles.” Respecting the intelligence of its units and molecules—the test of true materialism—they are somewhat hazy; they deride the peripatetic dogma of perception by species or phantasms, and at the same time ignore the doctrine of Hobbes, Spinoza, Priestley, and others, who recognize no separate existence for the mind or spirit[206] except as a union of atoms or particles, which, unorganized, have neither feeling nor thought. They define matter as a something that exists in and occupies space between any two instants, and is susceptible of division, and of being removed from one portion of space to another. Unlike other metaphysicians, who confess ignorance as to the substratum of mind and matter, they boast acquaintance with the essence of all substances, solidity, which with them is not a mere property. Although the ultimate atoms of matter can not come under the cognizance of the senses, they are none the less assured of their solidity, viz., that they fill a certain amount of space, and are unable ever to fill a greater or a lesser—in fact, to believe otherwise would be impossible. They hold to different kinds of matter, for instance, the fleshly body and the spiritual body, which differ in quality as iron and oxygen. Mind and spirit, therefore, are real, objective, positive substances, which, like the astral spirit of the old alchymists, exists in close connection with the component parts of the porous, material body. Immaterialism is, with them, simply absurd; it is a belief which requires a man to put faith in a negation of time, space, and matter; in fact, in the zero of existence, in an entity whose ens admits no proof, and which can be described only by negative conditions and qualities, by saying what it is not. They contend that the materiality of spirit once taken away would negative its existence; that an “immaterial being” is a contradiction in terms; and that immateriality is another name for nothing; therefore, that the spirituality of spirit “is an unphilosophical, unscriptural, and atheistical doctrine.” The theses supported by Mr. Orson Pratt, the apostle of materialism, are the following:

I. That Immaterialism is irrational opposed to true philosophy.

II. That an Immaterial substance (i.e., a something existing which is not matter and is distinct from matter, which is not dependent upon matter for its existence, which possesses no properties nor qualities in common with matter, and which possesses properties and qualities all entirely different from those of matter) can not exist.

III. That a real material unchangeable spirit, possessing parts and extension, inhabits the body.

Immaterialists who believe in “an inexplicable, incomprehensible, imaginary something without extension or parts, as taught in the first of the Thirty-nine Articles,” are therefore the worshipers of an immortal Nihil—of a Nothing clothed with almighty powers.

It is abundantly evident that the partition between the spiritualist and the materialist is mainly philological, a dispute of words, a variation of terms, spirit and matter differing about as much as azote and nitrogen. The deductions, however, from the Mormon’s premises lead him, as the following extracts prove, far.[207]

“The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being. The substance of which he is composed is wholly material. It is a substance widely different in some respects from the various substances with which we are more immediately acquainted. In other respects, it is precisely like all other materials. The substance of his person occupies space the same as other matter. It has solidity, length, breadth, and thickness, like other matter. The elementary materials of his body are not susceptible of occupying at the same time the same identical space with other matter. The substance of his person, like other matter, can not be in two places at the same instant. It requires time for him to transport himself from place to place. It matters not how great the velocity of his movement, time is an essential ingredient to all motion, whether rapid or slow. It differs from other matter in the superiority of its powers, being intelligent, all-wise, and possessing the property of self-motion to a far greater extent than the coarser materials of nature. ‘God is a spirit;’ but that does not make him an immaterial being, a being that has no properties in common with matter.”...

“All the foregoing statements in relation to the person of the Father are equally applicable to the person of the Son.

“The Holy Spirit, being one part of the Godhead, is also a material substance, of the same nature and properties in many respects as the Spirits of the Father and Son. It exists in vast, immeasurable quantities, in connection with all material worlds. This is called God in the Scriptures, as well as the Father and Son. God the Father and God the Son can not be every where present; indeed, they can not be even in two places at the same instant; but God the Holy Spirit is omnipresent: it extends through all space, intermingling with all other matter, yet no one atom of the Holy Spirit can be in two places at the same instant, which in all cases is an absolute impossibility. It must exist in inexhaustible quantities, which is the only possible way for any substance to be omnipresent. All the innumerable phenomena of universal nature are produced in their origin by the actual presence of this intelligent, all-wise, and all-powerful material substance called the Holy Spirit. It is the most active matter in the universe, producing all its operations according to fixed and definite laws enacted by itself, in conjunction with the Father and the Son. What are called the laws of nature are nothing more nor less than the fixed method by which this spiritual matter operates. Each atom of the Holy Spirit is intelligent, and, like other matter, has solidity, form, and size, and occupies space. Two atoms of this Spirit can not occupy the same space at the same time, neither can one atom, as before stated, occupy two separate spaces at the same time. In all these respects it does not differ in the least from all other matter. Its distinguishing characteristics from other matter are its almighty powers and infinite wisdom, and many other glorious attributes which other materials do not possess. If several of the atoms of this Spirit should exist united together in the form of a person, then this person of the Holy Spirit would be subject to the same necessity” (N.B., this out-anagkes anagke) “as the other two persons of the Godhead—that is, it could not be every where present. No finite number of atoms can be omnipresent. An infinite number of atoms is requisite to be every where in infinite space. Two persons receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit do not receive at the same time the same identical particles, though they each receive a substance exactly similar in kind. It would be as impossible for them to receive the same identical atoms at the same instant as it would be for two men at the same time to drink the same identical pint of water.”

I will offer another instance of the danger of meddling with such edged tools as MIND AND MATTER.mind and matter—concerning which mankind knows nothing beyond certain properties—in the following answer addressed by Mr. Pratt to the many who have been “traditionated in the absurd doctrines of immaterialism.” “The resemblance between man and God has reference, as we have already observed, to the shape or figure: other qualities may or may not resemble each other. Man has legs, so has God, as is evident from his appearance to Abraham. Man walks with his legs; so does God sometimes, as is evident from his going with Abraham toward Sodom. God can not only walk, but he can move up or down through the air without using his legs as in the process of walking (Gen., xvii., 22, and xi., 5, and xxxv., 13)—‘a man wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of day;’ after which Jacob says, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved’ (Gen., xxxii., 24-30). That this person had legs is evident from his wrestling with Jacob. His image and likeness was so much like man’s, that Jacob at first supposed him to be a man. God, though in the figure of a man, has many powers that man has not got. He can go upward through the air. He can waft himself from world to world by his own self-moving powers. These are powers not possessed by man, only through faith, as in the instances of Enoch and Elijah. Therefore, though in the figure of a man, he has powers far superior to man.”

This part of the subject may profitably be concluded by quoting the venerable adage, “Qui nescit ignorare nescit sciri.”

MORMON DOXOLOGY.I now offer to the reader a few remarks upon the fourteen articles of the Mormon doxology,[208] leaving him to settle whether it be a kakodoxy or a kakistodoxy.

I. “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”—Of the thousand sects and systems that have used this venerable Kalmah or formula of Christian faith, none have interpreted it more peculiarly than the Mormons.

The First Person is a perfected man, once a dweller upon earth: advancing in intelligence and power, he became such that in comparison with man he may be called the Infinite. Mr. Joseph Smith, in his last sermon preached at Nauvoo, thus develops his remarkable anthropomorphosis: “First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like one of yourselves; that is the great secret. If the veil was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and upholds all things by his power, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God; Adam received instruction, walked, talked, and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.”

The Second Person is the “Son Jesus Christ,” the material offspring of the First by the Virgin Mary, who was duly married, after betrothal by the angel Gabriel, to the Eternal Father, on the plains of Palestine: the Holy Babe was the “tabernacle” prepared for and assumed by the Spirit Son. The Son is the Creator: when in the material spirit still, he took of the “unformed chaotic matter element which had an existence from the time God had, and in which dwells all the glory,” and formed and peopled this planetary world, which he afterward redeemed. He is to be worshiped as Lord of all, heir of the Father in power, creation, and dominion. “What did Jesus do?” “Why, I do the things that I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same.” (“Last Sermon,” p. 61.)

The Paraclete has already been described: it differs from the other two Persons in being a merely spirit-material soul or existence without a “tabernacle.” Thus the Mormons mingle with a Trinity a very distinct, though not a conflicting Duality.

The Mormon Godhead may be illustrated by a council composed of three men, possessing equal wisdom, knowledge, and truth, together with equal qualifications in every other respect: each would be a separate person or a substance distinct from the other two, and yet the three would compose but one body. This body consists of three, viz., Eloheim, Jehovah, and Michael, which is Adam. From the Christian apostles and the Apocalypse, the Mormons deduce the dogma of gods in an ad infinitum ascending series: man, however, must limit his obedience to the last heavenly Father and Son revealed by the Holy Spirit. And as God is perfect man, so is perfect man God: any individual, by faith and obedience, can, as the Brahminical faith asserts, rise to the position of a deity, until, attaining the power of forming a planet, peopling, redeeming it, and sitting there enthroned in everlasting power. The Mormons, like the Moslems, believe that—“things of earth, customs, and ceremonies, being patterned after things in the Spirit world and future abodes of the gods”—there are inferior glories and pleasures for “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” In the eternal heavens there are three great mansions, the celestial of the sun, the celestial of the stars, and the terrestrial: the other state is called the Lake of Fire, or the Burning Caldron.

II. “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgressions.”—Yet the Mormons hold the Son to be necessary to reconcile fallen man to the Father and the Holy Spirit, to sanctify and purify the affections of men, and also to dwell in them as a teacher of truth. “The spiritual substance of man was formed in the beginning after the same image as the spiritual substance of the persons of the Father and the Son. Previously to the fall, these spirits were all moral in their nature; by the fall the spirits of men lost their morality and virtue, but not their essence—that continued the same: by the new birth man regains his morality and virtue, while the essence remains the same; it now becomes a moral, virtuous image, whereas the same substance was before immoral. Paul (1 Cor., xv., 49), in speaking of the resurrection, says, ‘As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly!’” Unlike the more advanced faiths—El Islam and Unitarianism—the Mormons retain the doctrine of a “fall.” It contrasts strangely with their dogma of man’s perfectibility. They have not attempted to steer clear between the Scylla and Charybdis of predestination and free will.

III. “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”—After Adam had fallen from his primal purity, a council was held in heaven to debate how man should be saved or redeemed from the state of evil. The elder brother Lucifer, son of the morning, the bright star in glory, and the leader of heavenly hosts, declared, when appealed to, that he would save man in his sins. But he who is emphatically called “the Son”—Christ—answered, I will save him from his sins. Lucifer, the “archangel ruined,” rebelled, was cast out from the planetary abode of the Father, and became, under the name of Satan, the great ruler and “head devil” of evil spirits, and of the baser sort of imps and succubi. I can not say whether in their mysteries the Mormons represent Sathanas as the handsome man of El Islam, or the horned, tailed, and cloven-footed monster which monkish Europe fashioned probably after pagan Pan.

IV. “We believe these ordinances are, 1st. Faith in the Lord Jesus; 2d. Repentance; 3d. Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; 4th. Laying on of hands by the gift of the Holy Spirit; 5th. The Lord’s Supper.”—Faith is not only the “evidence of things that appear not, the substance of things to be hoped for,” the first principle of action, and an exercise of the will in intelligent beings toward accomplishing holy works and purposes, with a view to celestial glory; it is also the source of power both on earth and in heaven. We find that by faith God created the world (Heb., xi., 3); and, “take this principle or attribute away from the Deity, he would cease to exist.” (“Lectures on Faith,” sec. 1.) “Faith, then, is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things.” (Ibid.) Of the second ordinance, it was revealed, “Say nothing but repentance unto this generation” (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 37); a very comprehensive and valuable rule to those under whom their brethren must sit. As regards the third, the child succeeds its parent in moral responsibility at eight years of age, when it must be baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” into the Church. Infant baptism is regarded as a Bida’at or innovation—a sin. Baptism by immersion—any other method being considered a vain ceremony—remits our peccata, but it must be repeated after each mortal act. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 2, par. 21.) Vicarious baptism for the dead is founded upon St. Paul’s saying concerning the fathers, that they can not without us be made perfect, and “otherwise what shall they do that are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again at all? Why are they then baptized for them?” (1 Cor., xv., 29.) Immersion in water is the symbol of death, emersion of the resurrection, and the baptismal font is a simile of the grave; but baptism for the dead is acceptable only in the Temple. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 103.) There being a probationary state while the earth endures in the Spirit world—the purgatorial doctrine of Virgil and others—the dead can by proxy “fulfill all righteousness;” and the Saints are enjoined that “the greatest responsibility that God has laid upon us is to look after our dead;” so Mr. Joseph Smith, in his “Last Sermon,” says, “Every man who has got a friend in the eternal world can save him, unless he has committed the unpardonable sin; so you can see how you can be a Savior.” A man baptized for deceased relations traces back the line to one that held the priesthood among his progenitors, who, being a saint, will take the place of sponsor, and relieve him of farther responsibility. All thus admitted to salvation will be added at the resurrection to the household of the baptized person, who will reign as a patriarch forever, his rank and power among kingly spirits being proportioned to his wives and his children—adopted or begotten—and his baptizées. The fourth ordinance, or laying on of hands by the water’s side, is a perfection of the regeneration begun in baptism, and whereby the recipient is promoted to the Melchisedek priesthood; the order was revealed, or rather renewed, in 1831. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 66.) The fifth ordinance, touching the Eucharist, is instituted “in remembrance of the Lord Jesus:” the elder or priest administers it kneeling with the Church, praying and blessing first the bread and then the wine. (“Covenants and Commandments,” sec. 2.) The second element was changed by a direct revelation (Sept., 1830), saying, “You shall not purchase wine nor strong drink of your enemies,” since which time water has been substituted. Mormons, young and old, equally take the sacrament every Sabbath.

V. “We believe that man must be called of God by inspiration, and by laying on of hands from those who are duly commissioned to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.”—The Mormons hold to a regular apostolic succession. “Every elder” (which includes the apostles), “priest, teacher, or deacon, is to be ordained according to the gifts and callings of God unto him; and he is to be ordained by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the one who ordains him.”

VI. “We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive Church, viz., Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Evangelists, etc.”—The proper signification of these words will be explained when treating of the Mormon hierarchy.

VII. “We believe in the powers and gifts of the everlasting Gospel, viz., the gift of faith, discerning of spirits, prophecy, revelations, visions, healing, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, wisdom, charity, brotherly love, etc.”—The everlasting Gospel means the universal order and arrangement of things springing from the “two self-existing principles of intelligence and element, or matter,” and forming the law under which the primordial gods came into being. According to Mr. Joseph Smith, “God himself could not create himself,” and “Intelligence exists upon a self-existent principle: it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it.” In the far eternity two of the elementary material æons met, compared intelligence, and calling in a third to council, united in what became the first power, superior because prior to all others, and ever-enduring by the union of other æons. Under this union arose a “law governing itself and all things”—the everlasting Gospel. The seer has not left on record the manner in which the head god originated: the other gods, however, sprung from him as children. Heaven has not only kings, but queens—the Sakti of Hindooism, and the various Ario-pagan faiths—who are the mothers of gods, of men’s souls, and of all spiritual existences. St. John saw a portion of the everlasting Gospel in the “little book” in the hand of the angel “coming down from heaven” to proclaim again on earth the Church of Christ, a type of Moroni, who taught the fullness of knowledge to Joseph the Seer, that the gladder tidings might be preached to men with the “signs following” which were promised to the primitive apostles.

As regards the discerning of spirits, the human soul is not visible to mortal eyes without a miracle, nor is it ponderable: it passes through the body as the electric fluid through the earth. Yet, in reality, it is more substantial than the body, for it can not be changed nor destroyed; it “coexisted equal with God,” and had no beginning, which would argue the possibility of an end, and “it is immortal as God himself.” It is uncreate: “God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all—the very idea lessens man in my estimation—I know better.” (“Last Sermon,” p. 62.) Spiritual existences have a choice of two paths. Either they must remain cribbed, cabined, and confined in their own ethereal order and proper sphere, to be called and sent as angels, heralds, or ministers from one planet or planetary system to another; and thus the Mormon, as the Moslem, places angelic nature below human, saying with St. Paul (1 Cor., vi., 3), “Know you not that we shall judge angels?” or they may choose, like the precreated spirits of El Islam in the Yaum i Alast—the Day of Am-I-Not (thy God)?—the probation of an earthly tabernacle; and, ignoring their past existence, descend below all things to attain a higher than celestial glory, and perfection in the attributes of power and happiness. As with the metempsychosist, there are grades of tabernacles. The lowest of humans is the African, who, being a “servant of servants unto his brethren,” is “cursed as to the priesthood,” and therefore can not “attain to any thing above a dim-shining glory.” Above him is the Indian, for the Red Men, through repentance, obedience, and acceptance of the new Evangelism, can rebecome a “fair and delightsome people,” worthy of their Hebrew sires. Below the negro is the brute tabernacle, into which the still rebellious spirit descends, until, yielding to Gospel law, it is permitted to retrace its course through the successive changes to splendor and perfection. So, “when we are tormented by a refractory horse or an obstinate ass, it may not be amiss to reflect that they were actuated by an apostate soul, and exemplifying a few of the human infirmities.” The same words might be spoken orthodoxically by a Jain or a Banyan.

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.

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.”—INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.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.

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.

X. “We believe in the literal gathering of Israel, and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes;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.