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This stream was dammed, so that the Mormon converts might be baptized by immersion. The day for the ceremony was fixed, but the boys so persistently destroyed the dam that the Mormons did not attempt to rebuild it till the night before, and then they were obliged to stand guard until the hour for the baptism had arrived.
But, a few years ago, he confessed that the Mormon system was no longer worthy of study. It had been destroyed by the greed of its rulers. Community contributions were being used for individual commercialism and the aggrandizement of leaders. The aged and infirm poor, who had contributed through all the working period of their lives, were being thrust into poor houses.
After this experience I reminded myself again that what Frances Willard so frequently said is true; All truth is our truth when it has reached our hearts; we merely rechristen it according to our individual creeds. During the visit I had an interesting conversation with a number of the younger Mormon women.
"No, indeed!" replied Edward; "Mormon theology teaches that those who are faithful Mormons, living up to their privileges, and having a plurality of wives will be kings in the celestial world, and their wives queens; while those who have but one wife though they will reach heaven, if they are faithful to the priesthood and in paying tithes will not have a place of honor there; and those who are not married at all will be slaves to the polygamists.
We had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and fowls and vegetables a great variety and as great abundance. We walked about the streets some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores; and there was fascination in surreptitiously staring at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This was fairy-land to us, to all intents and purposes a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mystery.
And those who hoped to touch Bud in a tender place through this letter knew the Squire's weakness far better than they knew the spelling-book. To see his new red barn with its large "Mormon" hay-press inside, and the mounted Indian on the vane, consumed, was too much for the Hawkins heart to stand. Evidently the danger was on the side of his niece.
Of the forty-five thousand inhabitants of the Territory, at least one-half are immigrants from England and Wales, the scum of the manufacturing towns and mining districts, so superstitious as to have been capable of imbibing the Mormon faith, though between what is preached in Great Britain and what is practised in America there exists a wide difference, and so destitute in circumstances as to have been incapable of deteriorating their fortunes by emigration.
Now the problem of food was a paramount consideration. Should they be detained by many bad places, they might be forced by the food question to abandon the river, if possible, and strike for the Mormon settlements lying to the north. The barometers were rendered useless, so that they could not determine the altitude to see what proportion of descent still remained ahead.
Then, while all promised fair, a call came from the head of the line of men, a clear, high call of command that rang to the very rear of the column: "Israel, do your duty!" Before the faces of the marching men had even shown surprise or questioning, each Mormon had turned and shot the man who walked beside him.
As a Mormon woman said, "A polygamist is the most ingenious liar imaginable."
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