The Women of Mormondom

by Edward W. Tullidge

"Jehovah speaks! Let Earth give ear!
And gentile nations turn and live!"

First the woman would come out to listen, on the threshold of her cottage, after supper; then she would draw near, and wonder about this boy-preacher—to her eyes so much like her own boy, who, perhaps, is playing at some evening game with his companions, near by. Next comes her husband, and after awhile the boys themselves leave their games, and with their sisters, gather to listen. And so are also gathered other family groups of the village to swell the impromptu congregation. This is a truthful picture, for the author is describing a literal experience.

Now comes the supplemental story of this boy-elder, that he is out in the world preaching the gospel without purse or scrip, that he has eaten nothing that day since breakfast, that he has journeyed miles and is tired out, and that he has no place in which to lay his head that night.

The mother and her daughters whisper. They have conceived an idea that will exactly fit that poor boy's case. Father is approached. At first he will not listen to the proposition; but at last he yields. What else could he do? When did woman fail if her sympathies were enlisted? To their home the boy-missionary is taken. A supper is gleaned from the humble peasant's leavings. Water is furnished to bathe the sore and blood-stained feet. The woman is half converted by the sight of so much youthful heroism. Mother and daughters dream of the boy-missionary that night.

'Tis a simple story; but from that house Mormonism is destined to spread through all the village, until the aged clergyman, educated at college, in his pulpit which he has occupied for a quarter of a century, fears that boy as much as a second Goliath might have feared the stripling David.

And thus Mormonism ran from village to town, and from town to city; carried, of course, to the larger places by the "veterans;" but in all cases very similar. How much the sisters—mothers and daughters—had to do in this work may be seen at a glance.

But the most salient view to be taken of Mormonism abroad is, as the great spiritual movement of the age. The reader may be assured that it was the beautiful themes of a new dispensation—themes such as angels might have accompanied with their hosannas—that charmed disciples into the Mormon Church. Spiritual themes and the gifts of the Holy Ghost were what converted the tens of thousands in Great Britain; not a cold materialism, much less a sensual gospel. Even to the simplest, who scarcely knew the meaning of idealities, the spiritual and the ideal of Mormonism were its principal charms. Indeed, it is to the fact that Mormonism was, in its missionary history, such a unique and extraordinary spiritual, and yet matter-of-fact, movement, that it owes its principal and rare successes.

In America, the splendid ambitions of empire-founding, the worldly opportunities presented by a migrating people and a growing commonwealth, sometimes charmed the dominating mind; but in the foreign missions, especially in Great Britain, where it received its highest intellectual interpretation from elders who championed it on the public platform against the best orthodox disputants in the land, it was Mormonism as a great spiritual work that captivated most, and above all it was this aspect of it that most captivated the sisterhood. In this view, and in this view only, can the explanation be found of how it took such a deep and lasting hold upon the female portion of society.

In the early rise of the Church abroad the disciples knew nothing of the society-founding successes of Brigham Young, which to-day make Mormonism quite potent in America and a periodical sensation to the American Congress. Nothing of this; but much of the divine, much of the spiritual, much of the angels' coming to reign with them in a millennium, with Christ on earth.

Such was Mormonism abroad. Such has it ever been, with the sisters, at home. Its success in making converts among women, both old and young, has no parallel in the history of churches. Its all-potent influence on the heart and brain of woman was miraculous. She received it in as great faith as was that of the woman who laid hold of the skirt of Christ's garment and was healed. She exulted in its unspeakably beautiful themes; she reveled in its angelic experiences; she multiplied its disciples.