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CHAPTER IX.

TWO WEEKS IN SALT LAKE CITY.

Views of the City - Temple Block - Brigham's Block - Theatre - Immigrants - Mormon arguments - Reasons for polygamy - "Book of Mormon" - First Mormon sermon - "Old" Joe Young - His beauty (?) - His sermon - Mormon style of preaching - Order of service - First impressions rather favorable - Much to learn yet.

     ON first impressions Utah seems to me to have the perfection of climates, and Salt Lake City the finest natural site in the West. Nor is this feeling much lessened by longer stay. From a point on the hill just North of the city and near the Arsenal one can take ill at a view the lake, the city, the mountains and the valley for thirty miles south and southeast. From this point Jordan valley appears nearly in the shape of a horse shoe, with the city just under the point of the northern termination of the east side, and the lake lying across the open end. But the southern point of the valley which seems to the spectator here to close, only narrows at the cañon of the Jordan, and opens beyond that to contain the Utah Lake district. Beginning northeast of the city, and extending south in the order named, are City Creek, Red Butte, Emigration, Parley's, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood cañons, all breaking through the Wasatch from the east. From this point, too, every house in the city can be seen; the plat resembles the even squares of a checker-board, the rows of trees lining all the streets, and the crystal streams of water which seem in the distance like threads of silver, combining to give a strange and fanciful beauty to the scene.

     Salt Lake City is situated in latitude 40° 46' North, and longitude 111° 53' west of Greenwich, nearly 4,300 feet above sea level, and was laid out in 1847. The streets are at exact right angles, running with the cardinal points and numbered every way from Temple Block, which is in Utah the starting point of all measurements, calculations and principles, whether of ecclesiastical, civil, political or engineering. Its exact place is ascertained to be as above given for the city.

     The street bounding it on the east is called East Temple street, the next one First East Temple, or merely First East, the next Second East and thus on; the same nomenclature is maintained in all the streets, North, South and West. Each street is forty-four yards in width, with sixteen feet pavements. leaving one hundred feet clear, and each block exactly a furlong square, containing ten acres, divided into eight lots of an acre and a quarter each. Nine squares are included in each ward, and there are twenty-one wards, beginning with the First on the southeast corner and reckoned westward to the Fifth, then backward and forward, boustropthedon, terminating with the Twentieth on the northeast. The outer wards, however, contain large additional tracts extending the jurisdiction of the city over wide limits. The greatest length of the city proper is thus, from southeast to northwest about four miles, and its greatest width, from northeast to southwest a little over two miles. But a small portion, however, of this large area is thickly settled; in two-thirds of the city the scattered dwellings are mingled with orchards, gardens, small pastures or grass-plats, and even small wheat and cornfields, like a thickly settled farming country or nursery ground, rather than a city; and to this fact the place is indebted for no small share of its beauty. Nine-tenths of the buildings are of adobes, or sun dried brick, throughout the West spelled and pronounced dobies, which material corresponds nearly with brick in the East, and where plastered and stuccoed makes an elegant and durable building.

     The western part of the city extends to the Jordan, and the ground in that vicinity is rather low and in winter and spring marshy; hence the finest residences are north and east, and all the public buildings above Third South Street. Let us note a few of them, beginning, by invariable custom, at Temple Block, which includes the usual ten acres, containing the old and new Tabernacles, the Endowment (locally known as Ondoomenit) House, and the foundation for the great Temple which is to be. The old Tabernacle is a sort of nondescript building, oblong in shape, with a third of the room underground, in the southwest corner of the block, capable of holding some 2,500 persons. The new Tabernacle is, in its way, a curiosity; there is certainly no idolatry in the reverence paid to it, for it is like nothing else in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or probably the waters under the earth. At first sight the prevailing feeling is one of astonishment, which soon yields to curiosity as to who could have designed it. It is built in the form of a complete oval, the major axis of which is 250 feet in length and the minor axis 150 feet. The lower part, or foundation for the dome, consists of a succession of forty-six pillars of red cut sand-stone, each about six feet square and ten feet high, all around the building; along the sides there are double doors between the pillars, and at the ends a heavy partition; on this structure the dome or roof rests like the half of an egg-shell. The latter is a vast frame-work, plastered within and shingled without, raised along the centre sixty-five feet above the floor. There is not a trace of the beautiful or impressive about it; it is simply a vast pile awkwardly put together, and with twice the outlay of stone and mortar that would have sufficed to provide the same room and accommodations in some other shape. As the grand worshipping hall of the Saints it is a curiosity; as a work of art a monstrosity. The Endowment House, where the secret rites of Mormonism are performed, is an unpretentious adobe building in the northwest corner of the lot. I cannot describe its interior, for the profane Gentile may not enter therein. But if the testimony of numerous witnesses may be believed, it is fitted up with various rooms, curtains, stages and scenery, for the performance of a grand drama, representing the creation, fall of man, coming of a redeemer, great apostasy and final restoration of the true priesthood through Joseph Smith.

MORMON TABERNACLE - ENDOWMENT HOUSE IN THE DISTANCE.

    The eastern half of Temple Block, fenced off from the western, contains only the foundation for the Temple, which is to be finished in great splendor just before the Saints return to Jackson County, Missouri. Ground was first broken for the work in February, 1853, with imposing ceremonies; in the seventeen years that have since elapsed, the edifice has reached a level with the ground, from which those familiar with the "Rule of Three" may calculate how long it will require for it to complete the proposed height of ninety-nine feet. The foundation is unsurpassed in strength and finish; of the finest mountain granite of a bright gray or white, slightly flecked with blue; a building of such material would indeed outlast the anticipated thousand years of Millennial reign. But work on it is slow, or rather it is suspended; the stone is very hard, and must be brought some twenty miles from the mountains, and only at rare intervals a workman or two is seen picking away at one of the huge masses which are scattered around by the ton. The entire square is surrounded by a wall, the base of stone and the upper part of adobes, and plastered, twelve feet high, with square turrets about every ten feet, and a massive gateway under stone arches at the center of each of the four sides. Crossing East Temple Street we reach the "Prophet's Block," two squares of ten acres each, the western containing the Deseret Store, the office of the Deseret News, official organ of the Church, the Tithing House and yard, the Lion House, Bee Hive House, offices and other buildings pertaining to the Prophet, Priest, Seer, Revelator, in all the world, Grand Archee, First President and Trustee-in-trust of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which titles center in and are borne by Brigham Young.

     The Lion House is an oblong building of three stories, plain in style, but quite substantially built and well finished. Its cost is reported everywhere from thirty to seventy thousand dollars. In the States it could have been built for less than the former sum. Over the pillared portico in front is a stone lion, a sad misapplication of the emblem, by the way, as that royal brute is ever content with one mate. The bull would have been more appropriate, but that is a matter of taste. The Bee Hive House, a large square building just east of the former, is surmounted by a stone carving in imitation of a bee-hive. The entire area is surrounded by a wall eleven feet high of boulders and cobble stones laid in mortar, with semi-circular buttresses at equal distances. The eastern half of the enclosure contains various buildings of no special interest. Between the two lots is the main entrance to City Creek Cañon, which was "granted" to Brigham Young by the first Territorial Legislature; the entrance is by a massive stone gateway under an arch, upon which is perched an immense eagle, carved by a Mormon artist out of native wood another perversion of a sacred emblem, the royal bird being, like his brute compeer, a strict monogamist.

    Just north of Brigham's grounds, on the first " bench," is the block owned by the late Heber C. Kimball, containing one superior mansion and a number of smaller dwellings in which eleven of the Widows Kimball still reside. The other seven live in various parts of the city, with the families to which they belong. Some fourteen or sixteen of Brigham's wives reside in the Lion House and Bee Hive House; the others live in different parts of the city, or on his farms in the country.

     From the cañon back of Brigham's grounds issues City Creek, which is there, by darns, diverted from its channel and carried along the upper part of the city in a main canal, from which side ditches convey the streams down both sides of every street, furnishing irrigation to the gardens, and pure water, in the upper part of the city, for all other purposes. Lower down, the loose black soil and the wash of the streets render the water rather impure, though it is used, and during the season when irrigation is not in progress, is still tolerably clear. Next to Temple Block and Brigham's, the Theatre is the institution of Salt Lake City. It stands one square south of Brigham's grounds, at the corner of First South and First East streets; is built of brick and rough stone, covered with stucco in front, and its' cost is variously estimated from seventy to two hundred thousand dollars. It was built while railroads were yet a thousand miles distant, probably doubling its cost. It will comfortably seat two thousand persons, and can be packed with a few hundred more; the proscenium is sixty feet deep, and the building the largest of the kind west of Chicago.

     Formerly the playing was done entirely by amateurs, under the training of old London professionals turned Mormons; then they played only on alternate nights, rehearsing one night and playing the next, pursuing their ordinary calling by day. But at present there are professional players among the Mormons, receiving a regular salary and assisted by "stars" from abroad. Just before I reached Salt Lake, one of the "leading ladies" of the home troupe, Miss Sarah Alexander, took a sudden departure for California, where she is now engaged in her profession; and quite lately another home star," Miss Asenath Adams, born and reared among the Saints, has left to become the wife of a Gentile. Her father, a bigoted Mormon, has fully realized the text, "Train up a child, and away she goes."

    The Parquet is usually occupied only by Mormons and their families; for a Gentile to be seen there is apt to create a suspicion of "jack-Mormon" tendencies. The resident Gentiles and visitors occupy the first or Dress Circle, while the second and third circles are given up to miners, transients and boys, and even Indians often find a standing " at the top of the house."

     Next in interest to the theatre among public buildings, are Social Hall, the Seventies Hall and the Court House. The last named is built entirely of adobes, but stuccoed with exquisite finish and in perfect imitation of variegated granite, making a building of fine and imposing appearance. On Main-East Temple-Street, the business houses are all included within two blocks; among them, the stone storehouse of Ransohoff & Co., the drug store of Godbe & Co., the large building of Walker Brothers, and Masonic Hall building would take respectable rank in eastern cities of the same size. The finest business house in the city is that of Wm. Jennings & Co., now devoted to the uses of "Zion's Cooperative Association." There are two well built hotels, the Revere House and Townsend, and a number of private residences of considerable taste and beauty. But it is easy to see after all, that the beauty of Salt Lake is largely by comparison. For twenty years it was the only town between the Missouri and Sacramento; to reach it, men had to plod eleven hundred weary miles, with mules or oxen, across alkali deserts, rugged mountains, and barren flats; to them it was the half-way place for rest and recruiting, and no wonder its broad, well watered streets, its green, cool gardens and orchards, and its neat white adobes, seemed a very terrestrial Eden. No wonder the Mormon emigrants who had made the weary passage from Europe, broke forth into songs and shouts of glad surprise, at sight of their "Zion." But now that one can run out in three days from the well built cities of the East, the contrast is lacking, the illusion is destroyed, and early visitors are flatly accused of having "blown the Salt Lake trumpet altogether too loud."

     Twenty-three years ago, this region was a desert of sage-brush, grease-wood and cactus, when on the 24th of July, 1847, the "pioneers" first entered the valley. Their material progress since shows that no human institution can be an unmixed evil.

    From a ramble through the city, I went to the noted Warm Springs, just outside the city to the northwest; and without the faith of the Mormons, I can safely agree with them that this pool is "for the healing of the nations." This is the season for "the emigration" to arrive, and returning to the city I found the people excited over the arrival of a train of fifty teams, bringing a large number of new and some old converts from England, Denmark and Switzerland. The train had unloaded in the church corral, or tithing yard, a large walled enclosure in the Prophet's Block; I entered under an arched stone gateway and viewed the new arrivals. Old, withered-looking women, fat, clumpy-looking girls and middle-aged "vrows" composed the female portion, and all evidently of the poorest class.

MORMON MISSIONARY PREACHING TO THE LOWER CLASSES IN LONDON - PROSELYTING.

    Their friends, and the sisters, generally, had met them with hearty hospitality, carrying in buckets of milk and baskets of fruit and provisions, to make a welcoming feast, and the corral was a scene of feasting and merriment. But there were a few sad exceptions to the universal joy. Many who started with this outfit had died by the way, and a few of the old people were so worn out by the long journey that it seemed they could not recover. I was particularly struck with the appearance of one group. An old English woman, whose features bore the impress of exhausting travel, while her hands indicated a lifetime of unremitting toil, was lying on a pile of bedding, evidently sinking with the weakness of fever. The young women had gathered around her with every delicacy to tempt the appetite, while a fair young Mormon girl supported the sinking head on her bosom, and presented a spoonful of ripe peach to the fevered lips. The dame smiled, while tears of weakness and joy ran from her eyes, and tried again and again to eat the proffered delicacy, but in vain. Nature was exhausted by the long voyage. The eyes that had so long and eagerly looked for "Zion," were soon to be dimmed, and the weary feet were hastening to an eternal rest.

    In the universal hilarity that prevailed, the Mormon girls were selecting companions from the arrivals, and taking them to their homes for a few days' rest, the travel-worn and dusty, foreign-made garments contrasting strangely with the dress of the young Saints. Female beauty is scarce in Utah. One occasionally meets a fine looking woman, but there is four-fold the beauty in many a Gentile town of 1,000 inhabitants that I can see in all this city. Fine forms are not uncommon, and some of the younger women are quite graceful in carriage, but beauty of expression is rare, and the reason is obvious. Facial beauty is aesthetic, the result of taste, sensibility and cultivation, and at least a tolerable elevation of the moral faculties. It will not result from a rude and coarse existence. Beauty of the form is more purely physical, and will naturally spring up anywhere, where woman is not abused or overworked. Given a certain amount of fresh air, moderate exercise and healthy food, and the correct womanly form is the result. But beauty of the features has more of the ideal; it is the product of a higher tone of the mental and moral nature, and other things being equal, the greatest number of fine faces will be found in a virtuous and intelligent community.

     The men were of the same brawny and red-faced foreign type, white haired boys, and simple looking old men, which every western man has so often seen; a low-browed, stiff-haired, ignorant and stolid race. In their faces could be seen much of the earnest, sincere and quiet; but not of the intellectual, bright or quick of comprehension. Every traveler through the rural districts of Utah, must have observed that, though individual Saints differ somewhat, as other people do, yet there are certain peculiar traits common to all. One of these is their almost total lack of the humorous faculty or principle; phrenologically speaking, they have no organ of wit and humor, or if they have it is so uncultivated that it is practically dormant.

     They will laugh heartily enough at a broad joke or coarse jest, but seem quite unable to appreciate keen satire, irony or delicate wit, or to perceive the ludicrous in odd associations of ideas. The Mormon is often terribly in earnest, but he is seldom funny. This defect is partly one of race, partly in lack of cultivation, but still more in the fact that few people who can understand and appreciate an absurdity would ever become Mormons. Hence we rarely see among them the genial, humorous Irishman, the keen-witted Israelite, the intellectual Swiss, or the lively and versatile Frenchman; but in their stead stolid Saxons and plodding Scandinavians. Men are, to a great extent, born to certain forms of religious belief; Boodhism is essentially Mongolian, Spiritism is of the Indian, Mohammedanism has its peculiar subjects, and though universal in its final application, the present spirit and structure of Christianity is Gothic and European. And the most gloomy forms of error, which have sprung from a corrupt Christianity, find their devotees among the most solemnly impressive and stolid of the-European races. Old residents tell me that Artemus Ward's lecture in Salt Lake was, professionally speaking, a perfect failure, simply because it was " cut too fine" for the latitude. A few laughed at his broadest jokes, then for a solid hour, while he was doing his funniest, the audience sat "like a bump on a log," not giving a smile. It's a wonder it did not kill the sensitive author. Mormonism might originate with keen witted Yankees, but it could not long continue without a broad basis of the North-European races.

     These new-comers look homely enough, but it is gratifying to observe the vast improvement even in the first generation of the native-born. Whether it is the climate, or better food, or exemption from the severe toil of the poor in Europe, most of the young girls now "coming on" in Utah exhibit a vast personal improvement over their parents, and among the very youngest, whose families have been here for twenty years, the little misses exhibit promise of the trim, graceful form, the arched instep and the light tripping step of the American girl. There are many drawbacks in the social and domestic habits of "this people," still nature is asserting her rights to some extent: She demands beauty in the female form, and even Mormonism cannot altogether prevent it. Of course, the younger generation is more quick-witted and liberal, hence the majority of young Mormons are free thinkers and antipolygamists. It is the old story of the hen hatching swans, the vulture doves, or the caterpillar giving life to the brilliant butterfly. And this rapid improvement is notable in view of the perils of young life in Utah, of which, more anon.

    In my first rambles about the city I found the Mormons rather communicative, and quite ready to enlighten me as to the peculiar features of their faith; indeed, rather anxious to prove the superiority of their institutions over those of the Gentile world. Of course, like all new comers, I looked upon polygamy as the one great evil, if not the only evil of Utah, and our discussions most often turned upon that point. The first intelligent Mormon, who gave me his views at length, was Mr. Victor Cram, educated as a physician, in Boston, but now a builder in Salt Lake City. As an "inside view," his ideas are worthy of presentation on the venerable principle, Audi alteram partem. "We have," said he, "a population of 200,000, three times the population for a new State, and have had for years; but they won't admit us. The fact is, we are a little rebellious. This law of 1862 against polygamy, we don't abide by and the people won't do so!"

     "And what do you think will be the result?" I asked.

    "The result? Why, it will be good when people get enlightened on this point. Then polygamy will become popular throughout the world."

    "But how do you justify it, or explain this?"

     "I take the ground, sir, that polygamy was absolutely necessary to purify and regenerate mankind; that such was the tendency that in no long time the world would have been depopulated, the human race become extinct, without the gracious assistance of polygamy, which inevitable destiny God foresaw, and revealed to Joseph Smith the mode of prevention."

     He then proceeded in a lengthy detail of the causes which were operating to weaken the reproductive force of nature, and destroy the young before they reached a marriageable age. His views were unique and interesting, but suffice it to say that he proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that the human race was slowly and surely tending to inevitable decay and complete extinction, through the violation of a certain inter-sexual law-which violation was causing a decline among women and their offspring; that God revealed to Joseph Smith the means of cure, which necessitated the employment of polygamy, which would in time regenerate the human race, and restore it to primal strength and beauty.

    "But how comes it," I asked, "that the Caucasian races have gone on and increased for three thousand years in single marriage?"

     Because they never run to that excess, and then this new way of killing infants before they saw the light was not known. But the present mode of living leads to excess, and America, the youngest nation, is going to lead all the rest in that excess; and when the old nations of Europe learn these new tricks and get started on this road, they will go like a flock of sheep, and melt from the face of the earth; and without a radical corrective the race would soon be extinct.

     "Mind, I say," he continued, "these are not the reasons why we practice polygamy. We do it solely because God commanded it, 'The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,' is our sole and only warrant, which we dare not disobey (!!); but these are merely a few of the reasons why God commanded it, as we think. Or to throw aside God's ordinance, and take nature for it, these reasons are sufficient to show why polygamy is according to the law and light of nature; why it is the natural order of things, and why God's chosen people were the offspring of polygamous mothers. Now, I took my second wife only last year; my circumstances did not enable me to do so before, and the good effects of the arrangement are already observable in my house, particularly in the son of my second wife, which is a brighter, healthier and stronger child than either of my other eight children. And I challenge you to go to any of our schools, and pick out at random a dozen children of polygamous mothers, and then say on your honor if they are not superior to the average children of single marriages."

    This seemed like a bold offer, but one finds in time that the Saints are very much given to the "bluff" game - nor will it be thought strange that they are not the only people who excuse their own sins by pointing out those of others.

     Without attempting to controvert his views I accepted the loan of copies of the "Book of Mormon," "Millennial Star," and "Doctrine and Covenants," which I promised to read at my earliest leisure.

    My first Sabbath in Salt Lake was bright and clear, and I determined on a visit to the Tabernacle. The early morning I devoted to the "Book of Mormon;" but two hours more than satisfied me. Of all the dull, wearisome and inconsequential books I ever dosed over, I am qualified to say that work takes the lead. It is verbose, diffuse and full of repetitions; about the size of the Old Testament, every material fact in it could be compressed within the limits of a Tribune Almanac. The Saints aver that it was composed by the angel Moroni and delivered to Joseph Smith. If so, I am sorry for Moroni, sorry that there were no grammars or "aids to composition" in his "sphere," that he might have given us a work somewhat worthy of criticism. The anti-Mormons, and a certain widow Davidson, now resident in New York, aver that it was written by her first husband, Solomon Spaulding, an invalid clergyman, merely for his own amusement. If so, he was easily amused. I sincerely hope, for the honor of her husband, that the good woman is mistaken, for if any scholar assisted in the production of that work, he must have been very invalid, in mind as well as body. I can understand how some people admire M. F. Tupper; I can even, in a dim, far-off way, appreciate those who appreciate John Tyler Junior; but that men of even average intelligence should discover literary excellence, divine philosophy or spiritual comfort in the "Book of Mormon," is beyond my powers.

    That a quarter of a million of the human race should be led to stake their hopes for eternity on the divine authenticity of such a work, is one of the most melancholy evidences of the inherent weakness of the human intellect.

     Service was held in the New Tabernacle which will seat eight or ten thousand people, but is quite a failure as far as hearing is concerned. The interior being a perfect oval, those in that portion nearest the stand and in the end farthest from it can hear quite well, while all is confused and indistinct in the central area, which includes nearly half the room. A canopy, or flat, some twenty feet square had been erected over the speaker's stand to serve as a sounding board, but helped the matter very little.

     Brigham does not preach oftener than once or twice a month, and did not favor us with his presence this morning; his brother, Joseph Young, preached the opening sermon, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing him the most inferior-looking man I ever saw in the pulpit, and I have seen some hard specimens. He is very old, very thin, very weak-eyed, and rather sallow; his general appearance suggested that he had just slept a month, been awakened by a thunder-storm and come away without changing his clothes, washed in a mudpuddle, and combed his hair by crawling through the sage brush. And yet, he has four wives. Let the homely take courage. The distinctive feature in Mormon sermons is their exceedingly rambling and discursive nature; touching here, there and everywhere, on everything which concerns man's moral, spiritual and material interests. The peculiar baldness of their style is made ten-fold more apparent by the homely words and phrases in which it is couched. Hints on stock raising, digging ditches, building fences and making "dobies," slip into the midst of moral disquisitions on "the whole duty of man."

    I could not discover what was the special subject of Joseph Young's remarks; he took no text, as they usually do not, and fired away at all the sins of the congregation very much on the " Donnybrook Fair" principle. Before beginning his sermon proper, he called for general news from any of the settlements, gave a list of foreign letters which had arrived and called for all returned missionaries to come into the stand and "give in their experience." No one responding, he commenced by stating that "man was a moral being;" enlarged on the troubles of the Saints; confessed his ignorance of the reason why these things were so, and began to "score" the young men for laziness and bad habits generally. From this he branched off to the necessity of giving liberally to aid the poor Saints in Europe to reach Utah: "They ought to come, the Saints ought all to be here, for the devil is watching where they are to take the spirit out of their minds, and they ought to come here, and be treated with brotherly love. But there is too much stubbornness here; the brethren are all stubborn. The sisters are not quite so stubborn."

    This last was news to me; but he went on to prove it by a philosophical disquisition on the peculiar difference between the masculine and feminine minds which seemed about an equal mixture of the ideas of Plato, Tennyson and Professor Fowler, and to have about as much relation to the subject in hand, as it had to the next Presidential election. He went on:

     " Now some of you old men that come here early, feel very much broke down. You're all stiff and crippled up, and here's a lot of 'young sprouts,' as I call'em, who'll hardly work at all. I tell you young fellows, it won't do. You've got to stir around and labor more. And these young fellows are so strong. Why, they are as elastic as the rabbits on yon mountain! While lots of these old men can't stoop down to pick up a hoe. I tell you, as I told my folks this morning, just after family prayer, you want knowledge of how to live in this world. Take care of your bodies! Don't eat so much of this green stuff!! Keep your stomachs clean!!! And some of you men are so very inconsistent-in fact, I'm inconsistent myself sometimes. To ask God for health, and not take care of it. Why do you ask God for such a thing? Why, that's your own business. God says, 'go ahead, and take care of your stomachs and body, and I'll guarantee the rest.' One thing I've noticed here so much; nearly everybody dies so sudden, and the old people who have died lately, almost seem as if they had just dropped dead. We have no lingering diseases among us. Come to meeting in the right spirit, and act in brotherly love and sisterly kindness. And finally, may God bless you all, brethren and sisters, is my prayer, for Jesus sake. Amen."

    He was followed by Elder Wilford Woodruff, who gave a rather able and connected address on the dangers of internal dissensions in states, nations, churches and families; after which the choir sang, " Come let us anew our journey pursue," with great force and beauty, and the meeting adjourned.

     In their mode of conducting prayer, singing and other services, the Saints follow the Methodist order; they however, stand at prayer, but forbid written sermons; they have "experience meetings" and take the sacrament every Sunday, excluding, of course, all but their own people; and finally, they immerse, repeating it after every backsliding," interpret the Scriptures literally, preach long and loud of "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," stigmatize all others as "sectarians," and in their initial principles follow the Campbellites. My second Sunday in Salt Lake, I heard Orson Pratt deliver a rather learned discourse on the various temples erected by "the Lord's peculiar people," embodying the idea that the last and most glorious one was to be that of the Latter-day Saints, to be set up in Jackson County, Missouri, "when the fullness of time had come."

    At the end of two weeks in Salt Lake City my impressions are, on the whole, rather favorable. I find the city quiet, apparently in good order, neat and pleasant to dwell in; though the people are mostly ignorant and bigoted, they did not appear contentious; I had been treated with considerable courtesy, and began to conclude the Mormons had been maligned, and often held long arguments in favor of those whom I suspected to be a much misrepresented and persecuted people. I had yet much to learn.

HOT SPRINGS NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.

SCENE ON THE UPPER PART OF BEAR RIVER, UTAH