Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7. Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke

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СКАЧАТЬ the Book of Covenants, the revelation upon Plural Marriage. When these are exhausted, man, seeking for God‘s will, has to turn to the principle of Utility: that which is for the happiness of mankind—that is of the church—is God‘s will, and must be done. While Utility is their only index to God‘s pleasure, they admit that the church must be ruled—that opinions may differ as to what is the good of the church, and therefore the will of God. They meet, then, annually, in an assembly of the people, and electing church officers by popular will and acclamation, they see God‘s finger in the ballot-box. They say, like the Jews in the election of their judges, that the choice of the people is the choice of God. This is what men like John Taylor or Daniel Wells appear to feel; the ignorant are permitted to look upon Brigham as something more than man, and though Brigham himself does nothing to confirm this view, the leaders foster the delusion. When I asked Stenhouse, “Has Brigham‘s re-election as prophet ever been opposed?” he answered sharply, “I should like to see the man who‘d do it.”

      Brigham‘s personal position is a strange one: he calls himself prophet, and declares that he has revelations from God himself, but when you ask him quietly what all this means, you find that for prophet you should read political philosopher. He sees that a canal from Utah Lake to Salt Lake Valley would be of vast utility to the church and people—that a new settlement is urgently required. He thinks about these things till they dominate in his mind, and take in his brain the shape of physical creations. He dreams of the canal, the city; sees them before him in his waking moments. That which is so clearly for the good of God‘s people becomes God‘s will. Next Sunday at the Tabernacle he steps to the front, and says: “God has spoken; He has said unto his prophet, ‘Get thee up, Brigham, and build Me a city in the fertile valley to the South, where there is water, where there are fish, where the sun is strong enough to ripen the cotton plants, and give raiment as well as food to My saints on earth.’ Brethren willing to aid God‘s work should come to me before the Bishops’ meeting.” As the prophet takes his seat again, and puts on his broad-brimmed hat, a hum of applause runs round the bowery, and teams and barrows are freely promised.

      Sometimes the canal, the bridge, the city may prove a failure, but this is not concealed; the prophet‘s human tongue may blunder even when he is communicating holy things.

      “After all,” Brigham said to me the day before I left, “the highest inspiration is good sense—the knowing what to do, and how to do it.”

      In all this it is hard for us, with our English hatred of casuistry and hair-splitting, to see sincerity; still, given his foundation, Brigham is sincere. Like other political religionists, he must feel himself morally bound to stick at nothing when the interests of the church are at stake. To prefer man‘s life or property to the service of God must be a crime in such a church. The Mormons deny the truth of the murder-stories alleged against the Danites, but they avoid doing so in sweeping or even general terms—though, if need were, of course they would be bound to lie as well as to kill in the name of God and His holy prophet.

      The secret polity which I have sketched gives, evidently, enormous power to some one man within the church; but the Mormon constitution does not very clearly point out who that man shall be. With a view to the possible future failure of leaders of great personal qualifications, the First Presidency consists of three members with equal rank; but to his place in the Trinity, Brigham unites the office of Trustee in Trust, which gives him the control of the funds and tithing, or church taxation.

      All are not agreed as to what should be Brigham‘s place in Utah. Stenhouse said one day: “I am one of those who think that our President should do everything. He has made this church and this country, and should have his way in all things; saying so gets me into trouble with some.” The writer of a report of Brigham‘s tour which appeared in the Salt Lake Telegraph the day we reached the city, used the words: “God never spoke through man more clearly than through President Young.”

      One day, when Stenhouse was speaking of the morality of the Mormon people, he said: “Our penalty for adultery is death.” Remembering the Danites, we were down on him at once: “Do you inflict it?” “No; but—well, not practically; but really it is so. A man who commits adultery withers away and perishes. A man sent away from his wives upon a mission that may last for years, if he lives not purely—if, when he returns, he cannot meet the eye of Brigham, better for him to be at once in hell. He withers.”

      Brigham himself has spoken in strong words of his own power over the Mormon people: “Let the talking folk at Washington say, if they please, that I am no longer Governor of Utah. I am, and will be Governor, until God Almighty says, ‘Brigham, you need not be Governor any more.’ ”

      Brigham‘s head is that of a man who nowhere could be second.

CHAPTER XV.

       MORMONDOM.

       Table of Contents

      WE had been presented at court, and favorably received; asked to call again; admitted to State secrets of the presidency. From this moment our position in the city was secured. Mormon seats in the theater were placed at our disposal; the director of immigration, the presiding bishop, Colonel Hunter—a grim, weather-beaten Indian fighter—and his coadjutors, carried us off to see the reception of the bull-train at the Elephant Corral; we were offered a team to take us to the Lake, which we refused only because we had already accepted the loan of one from a Gentile merchant; presents of peaches, and invitations to lunch, dinner, and supper, came pouring in upon us from all sides. In a single morning we were visited by four of the apostles and nine other leading members of the church. Ecclesiastical dignitaries sat upon our single chair and wash-hand-stand; and one bed groaned under the weight of George A. Smith, “church historian,” while the other bore Æsop‘s load—the peaches he had brought. These growers of fruit from standard trees think but small things of our English wall-fruit, “baked on one side and frozen on the other,” as they say. There is a mellowness about the Mormon peaches that would drive our gardeners to despair.

      One of our callers was Captain Hooper, the Utah delegate to Congress. He is an adept at the Western plan of getting out of a fix by telling you a story. When we laughingly alluded to his lack of wives, and the absurdity of a monogamist representing Utah, he said that the people at Washington all believed that Utah had sent them a polygamist. There is a rule that no one with the entry shall take more than one lady to the White House receptions. A member of Congress was urged by three ladies to take them with him. He, as men do, said, “The thing is impossible”—and did it. Presenting himself with the bevy at the door, the usher stopped him: “Can‘t pass; only one friend admitted with each member.” “Suppose, sir, that I‘m the delegate from Utah Territory?” said the Congressman. “Oh, pass in, sir—pass in,” was the instant answer of the usher. The story reminds me of poor Browne‘s “family” ticket to his lecture at Salt Lake City: “Admit the bearer and one wife.” Hooper is said to be under pressure at this moment on the question of polygamy, for he is a favorite with the prophet, who cannot, however, with consistency promote him to office in the church on account of a saying of his own: “A man with one wife is of less account before God than a man with no wives at all.”

      Our best opportunity of judging of the Mormon ladies was at the theater, which we attended regularly, sitting now in Elder Stenhouse‘s “family” seats, now with General Wells. Here we saw all the wives of the leading churchmen of the city; in their houses, we saw only those they chose to show us: in no case but that of the Clawson family did we meet in society all the wives. We noticed at once that the leading ladies were all alike—full of taste, full of sense, but full, at the same time, of a kind of unconscious melancholy. Everywhere, as you looked round the house, you met the sad eye which I had seen but once before—among the Shakers at New СКАЧАТЬ