Preaching their Gospel to All—Preaching to the Dead—Baptismal Regeneration —Baptism for the Dead—Mormon Priesthood Necessary to Salvation—Melchizedek and Aaronic Priesthood—Mormon Endowments—Blood Atonement—Doctrine of “The Fulness of Times”

168   CHAPTER XIV. THE RELIGIOUS PUZZLE (continued). Professor Coyner’s Analysis of Mormonism—Rev. Dr. McNiece’s Analysis—Reasons for the Growth and Tenacity of Mormonism—The Christian Element its Chief Source of Strength—No Mormon Converts from Heathenism—Protestantism the Source of its Recruits—Bible Doctrines in the Mormon “Catechism for Children”—The Mormon Articles of Faith—The Mormon Heresy Compared to Gnosticism in the Early Christian Church—A Clue to the Solution of the Religious Puzzle 181   CHAPTER XV. THE RELIGIOUS PUZZLE (concluded). The Character of Efforts Hitherto put Forth to Solve the Puzzle—What has been Accomplished—The Plan Somewhere Defective—Mormonism to be Reformed, not Destroyed—Why Mormons will not Listen to Christian Missionaries—Moody and Sankey’s Meetings in Salt Lake City—The Deseret Evening News on Bishop Tuttle’s Sermon—Mormonism a Perversion of Christianity—The Educational and Colonization Scheme best Fitted to Reform it—Proved by Comparing Roman Catholicism in the United States with Roman Catholicism in Mexico or Brazil—The Probable Effect of a Larger Intelligence—The Probable Effect of the Introduction of Gentile Colonies—The Religious Puzzle Solved—The Duty of the Hour 188

 

 

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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

 

 

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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

He was a sage and a seer who remarked concerning Mormonism: “It presents a problem which the wisest politician has failed to solve, and whose outcome lies in the mystery of the future.” It is acknowledged to be the Great Modern Abomination, the most pernicious heresy of this century; and yet in ten years from its origin its devotees numbered thousands, and Joseph Smith, its founder, predicted that it was to be the religious faith of the Western Continent. To-day its membership numbers its hundreds of thousands, its organizations extend over a large part of the globe, and the most careless observer of the times must realize that this institution has become one of the gravest and most difficult religious, social, and political puzzles of the day.

Throughout our whole land it is universally despised and execrated; and if popular odium could extinguish it, it would speedily be sunk in the slimy depths of the Great Salt Lake. But thus far it has successfully withstood even the fiercest opposition. That Mormonism is not the weak, empty, insignificant thing which it is so generally assumed to be must be obvious to any one who sets himself seriously to account for its origin, its growth, and its present position and influence. There must be more in the system than is popularly supposed; otherwise the organization could never have grown to be what it is, nor could it now stand up so persistently and even prosperously in the presence of such universal opposition.

Very much of what is said and written concerning Mormonism amounts to but very little because of its obvious failure to understand what it denounces; and it will be well for us at the outset to notice a few of the mistakes concerning Mormonism that are now current.

1. Most people talk as if Mormonism and polygamy are synonymous, whereas polygamy is only a comparatively trifling and non-essential part of Mormonism. For ten years after the Church was founded, it was not heard of; and it was not openly taught for twenty years. If it could be brought to a sudden conclusion either by a new revelation, or stamped out by law, Mormonism, with its preposterous claims, its absorption of things political in things ecclesiastical, its ideas, some of them more than heathenish, its intensely secular spirit, its standard of morality lamentably low—Mormonism, in its worst phases, and in what it is most damaging to souls and fullest of peril to the Republic, would still stand unscathed.

2. And then, in strict accordance with that false notion, is the idea that the Mormons are a mere horde of sensualized barbarians, and should consequently be dealt with in the most severe manner imaginable; whereas, the fact is that the great mass of Mormons do not practise polygamy, and never have done so. It is true that, as a people, they are chargeable with the gravest crimes; and yet they have been perpetrated by the few, while the many have been, and are, devoted to what they believe to be the true and the right. Contrasts are often drawn (and truthfully drawn, too) by their preachers between “the unworldly lives of the Saints and the evil practices of the Gentiles,” and pertinent examples are given of aberration from rectitude of men intrusted with the making of our laws or those who ministers at the altars of divine worship, until they regard themselves as clothed with the resplendent robes of righteousness. Perhaps the worst thing that can be said of the mass of the Mormons is that they are poor, ignorant, and superstitious, and therefore an easy prey to a corrupt and infamous priesthood. But many who are equally poor, ignorant, and superstitious can be found in every State in the Union, and in some States they are far greater in number than in Utah.

3. Then, too, there is another mistaken idea concerning Mormonism. The assertion is often made that it is an exotic—an importation from the Old World, and especially that the pollutions of polygamy may justly be charged to the English, Swedes, and Danes. But this is not true. Facts compel a conclusion far less flattering. Smith and his system are essentially a New World product. It took its rise in a region lying between the birthplace of the Rochester Rappings, from which Modern Spiritualism sprang, and the seat of the Oneida Community. It had much in common, too, with the great Campbellite movement, which antedated it only by five or ten years, and from which it received