A Flight in Spring / In the car Lucania from New York to the Pacific coast and back, during April and May, 1898

by J. Harris Knowles

It was my second visit to Salt Lake, a place which has always interested me because of the social and religious problems which one sees there. In my last visit I happened casually to meet a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and asked him offhand what he thought of things around him. He looked at me fixedly for a moment, and then said, "There is not an organization on earth that can compare to Mormonism, in its wide scope, its great grasp, and its practical application."

I am inclined to think he is right. It was my accidental privilege to be in the city, during my former visit, while the semi-annual conference of the Latter-Day Saints of Utah Valley was being held.

The huge turtle-shell Tabernacle, easily seating twelve thousand people, was filled daily. I saw the rank and file of Mormons, the sturdy agriculturists and their wives, the latter like what one remembers of Primitive Methodists, apparently utterly oblivious of all personal adornment; they were, however, crowned with a maternity of which they seemed proud, as they held their children in their arms.

At one end of the great ellipse of that Tabernacle rose up, tier on tier of church officers, grade by grade, the Seventies, the Bishops, the Angels, the Apostles, up to the tripartite headship of three Presidents, the first of which was Elder Woodruff, venerable, simple, and wise in appearance. Back of all was the great organ, and a well-trained choir of three hundred singers.

I heard a number of speeches or sermons, all offhand, and some of them rambling, but the aside excursions were usually on practical matters, or to emphasize the fact that the Latter-Day Saints were the salt of the earth, the power to lead this nation upward from its bloodshed and wrong-doing; and hints were also given, here and there, that God would yet avenge the blood of the prophet slain at Nauvoo.

The most striking speech was that made by Mr. Cannon. He looked like a well-set-up New York business man, faultlessly dressed in an Albert frock coat, with rubicund countenance and flowing mutton-chop whiskers. It was absolutely refreshing to hear him, in his clear-cut sentences, declare that he was then and there speaking under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The President, Elder Woodruff, at the conclusion of the meeting, gave his sanction to all that was said, thus sealing it as inspired, by his declaration.

A superb anthem by Gounod then floated out over that vast audience, as all remained seated, taking in the power of the music at their ease. At its close Elder Woodruff rose, and all rose with him. With a trembling voice he blessed all in the triune name of God, and the whole assembly scattered in a few moments through the surrounding doors of the Tabernacle.

The Eisteddfod of our Welsh citizens was in full blast in Salt Lake at the same time, and at night I attended the concluding concert. It was an enthusiastic occasion. There were strangers from points quite distant, and the place was packed. The acoustic qualities of the Tabernacle gave wonderful power to both organ and voices, and the effect of the whole was very fine.

While I was scanning the audience and choir with my opera-glass, one of the ushers asked me if he might look through it. Of course he could. But I noticed that he kept pretty steadily to one point in the choir. On remarking that fact to him, he laughed and said, "Yes, I was looking at my best girl; there she is, near the centre, dressed in heliotrope crêpe." I looked, too, and saw a remarkably pretty young woman. He further told me that he was a Mormon, and so was his sweetheart; that they were going to marry, and that they were both opposed to polygamy. He was a bright young fellow, and in our conversation he told me that he had been admitted to some of the higher grades in the Temple, and that there were Mormons of the lower type, who never could get inside its walls.

This leads me to speak of the strange combination of utter, naked simplicity in the ordinary worship of the Mormons, and the extreme of ritual observances which have place in the secrecy of the Temple. In the Tabernacle, when I first saw it, there was not a symbol of any kind visible, no cross, no flower, no sign. In my recent visit, however, in honor, possibly, of the new Statehood of the former Territory, the Star of Utah, draped at each side by the Stars and Stripes, appeared over the organ, and some motto, which I forget, at the other end.