Polygamy, As Far As I Have Observed, Exerts A More Degrading Influence
Upon Husbands That Upon Wives.
The love of the latter finds
expression in flowers and children, while the former seem to be
rendered incapable of pure love of anything.
The spirit of Mormonism
is intensely exclusive and un-American. A more withdrawn, compact,
sealed-up body of people could hardly be found on the face of the
earth than is gathered here, notwithstanding railroads, telegraphs,
and the penetrating lights that go sifting through society everywhere
in this revolutionary, question-asking century. Most of the Mormons I
have met seem to be in a state of perpetual apology, which can hardly
be fully accounted for by Gentile attacks. At any rate it is
unspeakable offensive to any free man.
"We Saints," they are continually saying, "are not as bad as we are
called. We don't murder those who differ with us, but rather treat
them with all charity. You may go through our town night or day and
no harm shall befall you. Go into our houses and you will be well
used. We are as glad as you are that Lee was punished," etc. While
taking a saunter the other evening we were overtaken by a
characteristic Mormon, "an umble man," who made us a very deferential
salute and then walked on with us about half a mile. We discussed
whatsoever of Mormon doctrines came to mind with American freedom,
which he defended as best he could, speaking in an excited but
deprecating tone. When hard pressed he would say: "I don't understand
these deep things, but the elders do. I'm only an umble tradesman."
In taking leave he thanked us for the pleasure of our querulous
conversation, removed his hat, and bowed lowly in a sort of Uriah Heep
manner, and then went to his humble home. How many humble wives it
contained, we did not learn.
Fine specimens of manhood are by no means wanting, but the number of
people one meets here who have some physical defect or who attract
one's attention by some mental peculiarity that manifests itself
through the eyes, is astonishingly great in so small a city. It would
evidently be unfair to attribute these defects to Mormonism, though
Mormonism has undoubtedly been the magnet that elected and drew these
strange people together from all parts of the world.
But however "the peculiar doctrines" and "peculiar practices" of
Mormonism have affected the bodies and the minds of the old Saints,
the little Latter-Day boys and girls are as happy and natural as
possible, running wild, with plenty of good hearty parental
indulgence, playing, fighting, gathering flowers in delightful
innocence; and when we consider that most of the parents have been
drawn from the thickly settled portion of the Old World, where they
have long suffered the repression of hunger and hard toil, the Mormon
children, "Utah's best crop," seem remarkably bright and promising.
From children one passes naturally into the blooming wilderness, to
the pure religion of sunshine and snow, where all the good and the
evil of this strange people lifts and vanishes from the mind like mist
from the mountains.
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