It was a miserable journey. They were attacked by Red Indians, and decimated by sickness; they strayed into wrong paths where no food was to be found; they were buried in snowdrifts; and many of them perished. But the others, sustained by an invulnerable faith, and by the undying courage of their leaders, pushed on ever further and further, until in the summer of 1847, after the cruel hardships of a journey on foot over nearly three hundred leagues of salt plains, the head of the column reached the valley of the great Salt Lake. Here Brigham Young's strategic vision beheld a favourable situation for the re-establishment of the sect. He himself, with a hundred and forty-three of his companions—the elite of the church—directed the construction of the beginnings of the colony, and then returned to those who had been left behind, bringing back a caravan of about three thousand to the spot where the New Jerusalem was to be built.

It was given the name of Utah, and Filmore, the President of the United States, appointed Brigham Young as governor. The latter, however, desired to become completely autonomous. He was soon in conflict with those under him, and his open hostility to the American constitution caused him to be deposed. His successor, Colonel Stepton, finding the situation untenable, resigned almost at once, and the Mormons, recovering their former militancy and independence, then sought to free themselves altogether from the guardianship of America, and to be sole masters in their own territory. In order to reduce them to submission, President Buchanan sent them a new governor in 1857 with some thousands of soldiers. The Mormons resisted for some time, and finally demanded admittance into the Union. Not only did Congress refuse this request, but it passed a law rendering all polygamists liable to be brought before the criminal courts. The War of Secession, however, interrupted the measures taken against the sect, which remained neutral during the military operations of the North and South. Brigham Young, who had remained the Mormons' civil and religious head, occupied himself only with the economic and worldly extension of his church, until in 1870, five years after the termination of the war, the attention of Congress was once more directed towards him. For the second time the Mormons were forbidden by law to practise polygamy, under penalty of deportation from America, but they resisted energetically and refused to obey. Defying the governor of Utah, General Scheffer, they rallied fanatically round Brigham Young, who was arraigned and acquitted—and the Mormon Church remained ruler of the colony.

After Young's death, government was carried on jointly by the twelve apostles, until on October 17th, 1901, George Smith was elected universal President of all branches.

A Frenchman, Jules Rémy, who visited the Mormons some time back, has given a striking description of them:—

"Order, peace and industry are revealed on every side. All these people are engaged in useful work, like bees in a hive, thus justifying the emblem on the roof of their President's palace. There are masons, carpenters, and gardeners, all carrying out their respective duties; blacksmiths busy at the forge, reapers gathering in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers—every kind of labourer or artisan is here to be found. There are no idlers, and no unemployed. Everybody, from the humblest convert up to the bishop himself, is occupied in some sort of manual labour. It is a curious and interesting sight—a society so industrious and sober, so peaceful and well-regulated, yet built up of such divers elements drawn from such widely differing classes. . . .

All these people, born in varied and often contradictory faiths, brought up for the most part in ignorance and prejudice, having lived, some virtuously, some indifferently, some in complete abandonment to their lowest animal instincts, differing among themselves as to climate, language, customs, tastes and nationality, are here drawn together to live in a state of harmony far more perfect than that of ordinary brotherhood. In the centre of the American continent they form a new and compact nation, with independent social and religious laws, and are as little subject to the United States government that harbours them as to that, for instance, of the Turks."

Such they were, and such they have remained, ever developing their activities and industries, and—as another traveller has said—having no aim save that of turning their arid and uncultivated "Promised Land" into a fertile Judea—an aim in which they have marvellously succeeded.

III

Mormonism owes its success chiefly to its practical interpretation of the Communistic ideals, and to its determination to encourage labour by means of religion and patriotism, setting before it as object the satisfaction of each individual's social needs, under the direction of those who have proved themselves capable and vigilant and worthy of confidence. It is a republic from which are banished the two most usual causes of social collapse—idleness and egotism; a hive, according to its founder, in which each bee, having his particular function, is always under the eye of those who direct individual activities in the interests of collective welfare. The President of the Mormon Church is its moving spirit. He surveys it as a whole, encourages or moderates its energies, according to circumstances, preserves order and regularity, and exercises his paternal influence over every cell of the hive, giving counsel when needed, redressing grievances, preventing false moves, yet leaving to every corporation not only its administrative freedom but its own powers for industrial extension.

Under these conditions the Church of the Latter-Day Saints unites the social and economic advantages of individual and collective labour. The corporations are like stitches that form a net, holding together through community of interests and a general desire for prosperity, yet each having its own separate formation and the power to enlarge itself and increase its activities without compromising the others or lessening their respective importance. One of the most remarkable is the "Mercantile Co-operative Society of Sion," the central department of wholesale and retail trade. It was founded in 1863 by Brigham Young, who was its first president, and is in direct relationship with the Mormon colonies all over the world, having a capital fund of more than a million dollars which belongs exclusively to the Mormons. Its organisation, like that of all Mormon institutions, is based upon the deduction of a tithe of all profits, which practically represents income tax. The "Sugar Corporation" has an even larger capital, and was founded directly by the church through the advice of Brigham Young, who recommended that Mormon industries should be patronised to the exclusion of all others. The salt industry also is of much importance, the Inland Crystal Salt Company having at great expense erected elaborate machinery in order to work the salt marshes around the Great Lake, and to obtain, under the best possible conditions, grey salt which is converted into white in their refineries. Other corporations under the presidency of the supreme head of the Mormon Church are the "Consolidated Company of Railway Carriages and Engines," the "Sion Savings Bank," the "Co-operative Society for Lighting and Transport," and the chief Mormon paper, the Desert Evening News, which is the official organ of the church, and has a considerable circulation.