An Englishwoman in Utah: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism

by Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse

Every word of this hymn had a meaning peculiar to itself, relating to the distinctive doctrines of the Saints. The congregation sang with an energy and enthusiasm which made the room shake again. Self and the outer world were alike forgotten, and an ecstasy of rapture seemed to possess the souls of all present. Then all kneeled down, and prayer was offered for the Prophet, the apostles, high-priests, “seventies,” elders, priests, teachers, and deacons; blessings were invoked upon the Saints, and power to convert the Gentiles; and as the earnest words of supplication left the speaker’s lips, the congregation shouted a loud “Amen.”

There was no prepared sermon. There never is at a Mormon meeting. The people are taught that the Holy Ghost is “mouth, matter, and wisdom.” Whatever the preaching Elder may say is supposed to come directly by inspiration from heaven, and the Saints listening, as they believe, not to his utterances but to the words of God Himself, have nothing to do but to hear and obey.

The first speaker on this occasion was a young gentleman of respectable family, who had been recently baptized and ordained. He, too, was from St. Heliers, and I had known him from childhood. His address impressed me very much. He had been a member of the Baptist church, and he related his experience, told how often he had wondered why there were not inspired men to preach the glad tidings of salvation to the world to-day, as there were eighteen centuries ago. He spoke of the joy which he had experienced in being baptized into the Mormon Church and realizing that he had received the “gift of the Holy Ghost.” The simplicity with which he spoke, his evident honesty, and the sacrifice he had made in leaving the respectable Baptists and joining the despised Mormons, were, I thought, so many evidences of his sincerity.

Alas! how little could that young preacher conjecture how different the practical Mormonism in Utah was from the theoretical Mormonism which he had learned to believe in Europe, before polygamy was known among the Saints. A short time afterwards he gave up his business, married an accomplished young lady, and went with her to Salt Lake City. There they were soon utterly disgusted with what they witnessed, apostatized, and set out for England. When they had gone three-fourths of their way back to the Missouri river, the young man, his wife, child, and another apostate and his wife, were killed by “Indians:”—such, at least, was the report; but dissenting Mormons have always charged their “taking off” to the order of the leaders of the Mormon Church.

But to return to the meeting. The reader must please forgive me if I dwell a little upon the events of that particular morning, for naturally they made a deep impression upon my own mind—it was there that I saw for the first time my husband who was to be.

I had heard a good deal about a certain Elder, from my family and from the Saints who visited at our house. They spoke with great enthusiasm of the earnestness with which he preached, of the effect which his addresses produced, and of his confidence in the final triumph of “the kingdom.”

At that time—the summer of 1849—although the branch of the Mormon Church in Britain was in a most flourishing condition, there were not in England more than two or three American Elders preaching the faith, for when—two years before the period of which I speak—the Saints left Nauvoo and undertook that most extraordinary exodus across the plains to the Rocky Mountains, the missionary Elders were all called home, and the work of proselytizing in Europe was left entirely to the native Elders. To direct their labours there was placed over them an American elder named Orson Spencer, a graduate of Dartmouth University, a scholar and a gentleman—a man well calculated from his previous Christian education to give an elevated tone to the teachings of the young English missionaries.

Mormonism in England then, had no resemblance to the Mormonism of Utah to-day. The Mormons were then simply an earnest religious people, in many respects like the Methodists, especially in their missionary zeal and fervour of spirit. The Mormon Church abroad was purely a religious institution, and Mormonism was preached by the Elders as the gospel of Christianity restored. The Church had no political shaping nor the remotest antagonism to the civil power. The name of Joseph Smith was seldom spoken, and still more seldom was heard the name of Brigham Young, and then only so far as they had reference to the Church of the Saints.

About eighteen months before I visited Southampton, one of these missionaries had come into that town, “without purse or scrip.” He was quite a young man and almost penniless, but he was rich in faith and overflowing with zeal. He knew no one there; and homeless, and frequently hungry, he continued his labours. Of fasting he knew much, of feasting nothing. He first preached under the branches of a spreading beech-tree in a public park, and when more favoured he held forth in a school-room or public hall. He had come to convert the people to Mormonism, or he was going to die among them; and before such zeal and determination, discouragements, of course, soon vanished away. He troubled the ministers of other dissenting churches when they found him distributing tracts and talking to their people. He was sowing broadcast dissatisfaction and discontent wherever he could get any one to listen to him, and thus he drew down upon himself the eloquence of the dissenting pulpits and the derision of the local press. But the more they attacked him the more zealously did he labour, and defied his opponents to public discussion. Mormonism was bold then in Europe—it had no American history to meet in those days.