The Prophet was born at Whittingham, Vermont, on the 1st of June, 1801; he was consequently, in 1860, fifty-nine years of age; he looks about forty-five. La célébrité vieillit—I had expected to see a venerable-looking old man. Scarcely a gray thread appears in his hair, which is parted on the side, light colored, rather thick, and reaches below the ears with a half curl. He formerly wore it long, after the Western style; now it is cut level with the ear-lobes. The forehead is somewhat narrow, the eyebrows are thin, the eyes between gray and blue, with a calm, composed, and somewhat reserved expression: a slight droop in the left lid made me think that he had suffered from paralysis; I afterward heard that the ptosis is the result of a neuralgia which has long tormented him. For this reason he usually covers his head, except in his own house or in the Tabernacle. Mrs. Ward, who is followed by the “Revue des Deux-Mondes,” therefore errs again in asserting that “his Mormon majesty never removes his hat in public.” The nose, which is fine and somewhat sharp-pointed, is bent a little to the left. The lips are close like the New Englander’s, and the teeth, especially those of the under jaw, are imperfect. The cheeks are rather fleshy, and the line between the alæ of the nose and the mouth is broken; the chin is somewhat peaked, and the face clean shaven, except under the jaws, where the beard is allowed to grow. The hands are well made, and not disfigured by rings. The figure is somewhat large, broad-shouldered, and stooping a little when standing.
The Prophet’s dress was neat and plain as a Quaker’s, all gray homespun except the cravat and waistcoat. His coat was of antique cut, and, like the pantaloons, baggy, and the buttons were black. A neck-tie of dark silk, with a large bow, was loosely passed round a starchless collar, which turned down of its own accord. The waistcoat was of black satin—once an article of almost national dress—single-breasted, and buttoned nearly to the neck, and a plain gold chain was passed into the pocket. The boots were Wellingtons, apparently of American make.
Altogether the Prophet’s appearance was that of a gentleman farmer in New England—in fact, such as he is: his father was an agriculturist and revolutionary soldier, who settled “down East.” He is a well-preserved man; a fact which some attribute to his habit of sleeping, as the Citizen Proudhon so strongly advises, in solitude. His manner is at once affable and impressive, simple and courteous: his want of pretension contrasts favorably with certain pseudo-prophets that I have seen, each and every of whom holds himself to be a “Logos” without other claim save a semi-maniacal self-esteem. He shows no signs of dogmatism, bigotry, or fanaticism, and never once entered—with me at least—upon the subject of religion. He impresses a stranger with a certain sense of power; his followers are, of course, wholly fascinated by his superior strength of brain. It is commonly said there is only one chief in Great Salt Lake City, and that is “Brigham.”“BRIGHAM.” His temper is even and placid; his manner is cold—in fact, like his face, somewhat bloodless; but he is neither morose nor methodistic, and, where occasion requires, he can use all the weapons of ridicule to direful effect, and “speak a bit of his mind” in a style which no one forgets. He often reproves his erring followers in purposely violent language, making the terrors of a scolding the punishment in lieu of hanging for a stolen horse or cow. His powers of observation are intuitively strong, and his friends declare him to be gifted with an excellent memory and a perfect judgment of character. If he dislikes a stranger at the first interview, he never sees him again. Of his temperance and sobriety there is but one opinion. His life is ascetic: his favorite food is baked potatoes with a little buttermilk, and his drink water: he disapproves, as do all strict Mormons, of spirituous liquors, and never touches any thing stronger than a glass of thin Lager-bier; moreover, he abstains from tobacco. Mr. Hyde has accused him of habitual intemperance: he is, as his appearance shows, rather disposed to abstinence than to the reverse. Of his education I can not speak: “men, not books—deeds, not words,” has ever been his motto; he probably has, as Mr. Randolph said of Mr. Johnston, “a mind uncorrupted by books.” In the only discourse which I heard him deliver, he pronounced impětus, impētus. Yet he converses with ease and correctness, has neither snuffle nor pompousness, and speaks as an authority upon certain subjects, such as agriculture and stock-breeding. He assumes no airs of extra sanctimoniousness, and has the plain, simple manners of honesty. His followers deem him an angel of light, his foes a goblin damned: he is, I presume, neither one nor the other. I can not pronounce about his scrupulousness: all the world over, the sincerest religious belief and the practice of devotion are sometimes compatible not only with the most disorderly life, but with the most terrible crimes; for mankind mostly believes that
“Il est avec le ciel des accommodements.”
He has been called hypocrite, swindler, forger, murderer. No one looks it less. The best authorities—from those who accuse Mr. Joseph Smith of the most heartless deception, to those who believe that he began as an impostor and ended as a prophet—find in Mr. Brigham Young “an earnest, obstinate egotistic enthusiasm, fanned by persecution and inflamed by bloodshed.” He is the St. Paul of the New Dispensation: true and sincere, he gave point, and energy, and consistency to the somewhat disjointed, turbulent, and unforeseeing fanaticism of Mr. Joseph Smith; and if he has not been able to create, he has shown himself great in controlling circumstances. Finally, there is a total absence of pretension in his manner, and he has been so long used to power that he cares nothing for its display. The arts by which he rules the heterogeneous mass of conflicting elements are indomitable will, profound secrecy, and uncommon astuteness.
Such is His Excellency President Brigham Young, “painter and glazier”—his earliest craft—prophet, revelator, translator, and seer; the man who is revered as king or kaiser, pope or pontiff never was; who, like the Old Man of the Mountain, by holding up his hand could cause the death of any one within his reach; who, governing as well as reigning, long stood up to fight with the sword of the Lord, and with his few hundred guerrillas, against the then mighty power of the United States; who has outwitted all diplomacy opposed to him; and, finally, who made a treaty of peace with the President of the Great Republic as though he had wielded the combined power of France, Russia, and England.
Remembering the frequent query, “What shall be done with the Mormons?” I often asked the Saints, Who will or can succeed Mr. Brigham Young? No one knows, and no one cares. They reply, with a singular disdain for the usual course of history, with a perfect faith that their Cromwell will know no Richard as his successor, that, as when the crisis came the Lord raised up in him, then unknown and little valued, a fitting successor to Mr. Joseph Smith—of whom, by-the-by, they now speak with a respectful reverential sotto voce, as Christians name the Founder of their faith—so, when the time for deciding the succession shall arrive, the chosen Saints will not be left without a suitable theocrat to exalt the people Israel. The Prophet professes, I believe, to hold office in a kind of spiritual allegiance to the Smith family, of which the eldest son, Mr. Joseph Smith, the third of that dynasty, has of late years, though blessed by his father, created a schism in the religion. By the persuasions of his mother, who, after the first Prophet’s death, gave him a Gentile stepfather, he has abjured polygamy and settled in the Mansion House at Nauvoo. The Mormons, though ready to receive back the family at Great Salt Lake City when manifested by the Lord, hardly look to him as their future chief. They all, however, and none more than Mr. Brigham Young, show the best of feeling toward the descendants of their founder, and expect much from David Smith, the second and posthumous son of him martyred at Carthage. He was called David, and choicely blessed before his birth by his father, who prophesied that the Lord will see to his children. Moreover, all speak in the highest terms of Mr. Joseph A. Young, the dweller at the White House, the eldest son of the ex-governor, who traveled in Europe and England, and distinguished himself in opposition to the federal troops.
After finishing with the “Lion of the Lord,” I proceeded to observe his companions. By my side was seated Daniel H., whose title is “General,” Wells, the Superintendent of Public Works, and the commander of the Nauvoo Legion. He is the third President of the Mormon triumvirate, and having been a justice of the peace and an alderman in Illinois, when the Mormons dwelt there in 1839, he is usually known as Squire Wells:“SQUIRE WELLS.” he became a Saint when the Mormons were driven from Nauvoo in 1846, and took their part in battles against the mob. In appearance he is a tall, large, bony, rufous man, and his conduct of the affair in 1857-’8 is spoken of with admiration by Mormons. The second of the Presidency, Mr. Heber C. Kimball,HEBER C. KIMBALL. was not present at that time, but on another occasion he was: Mr. Brigham Young introduced me to him, remarking, with a quiet and peculiar smile, that during his friend’s last visit to England, at a meeting of the Methodists, one of the reverends attempted to pull his chair from under him; at which reminiscence the person alluded to looked uncommonly grim. Mr. Kimball was born in the same year as Mr. Brigham Young, and was first baptized in 1832: he is a devoted follower of the Prophet, a very Jonathan to this David, a Umar to the New Islam. He is a large and powerful man, not unlike a blacksmith, which I believe he was, and is now the owner of a fine block, with houses and barns, garden and orchard, north of and adjoining that of Mr. Brigham Young. The third person present was the apostle Mr. George A. Smith, the historian and recorder of the Territory, and a cousin of the first Prophet: he is a walking almanac of Mormon events, and is still full of fight, strongly in favor of rubbing out the “wretched Irishmen and Dutchmen sent from the East to try whether the Mormons would receive federal officers.” Mr. Willford Woodruff, like Mr. Smith, one of the original apostles, has visited England as a missionary, appeared before the public as polemic and controversialist, and has now settled down as an apostle at Great Salt Lake City. Mr. Albert O. Carrington, a graduate of Dartmouth College, had acted as second assistant on the topographical survey to Captain Stansbury, who speaks of him as follows: “Being a gentleman of liberal education, he soon acquired, under instruction, the requisite skill, and by his zeal, industry, and practical good sense materially aided us in our subsequent operations. He continued with the party till the termination of the survey, accompanied it to the city (Washington), and has since returned to his mountain home, carrying with him the respect and good wishes of all with whom he was associated.” Of Mr. F. Little, who completed the septem contra Christianitatem then present, I shall have more to say in a [future chapter].
The Prophet received us in his private office, where he transacts the greater part of his business, corrects his sermons, and conducts his correspondence. It is a plain, neat room, with the usual conveniences, a large writing-desk and money-safe, table, sofas, and chairs, all made by the able mechanics of the settlement. I remarked a pistol and a rifle hung within ready reach on the right-hand wall; one of these is, I was told, a newly-invented twelve-shooter. There was a look of order, which suited the character of the man: it is said that a door badly hinged, or a curtain hung awry, “puts his eye out.” His style of doing business at the desk or in the field—for the Prophet does not disdain handiwork—is to issue distinct, copious, and intelligible directions to his employés, after which he dislikes referring to the subject. It is typical of his mode of acting, slow, deliberate, and conclusive. He has the reputation of being wealthy. He rose to power a poor man. The Gentiles naturally declare that he enriched himself by the tithes and plunder of his followers, and especially by preying upon and robbing the Gentiles. I believe, however, that no one pays Church-dues and alms with more punctuality than the Prophet, and that he has far too many opportunities of coining money, safely and honestly, to be guilty, like some desperate destitute, of the short-sighted folly of fraud. In 1859 he owned, it is said, to being possessed of $250,000, equal to £50,000, which makes a millionaire in these mountains—it is too large a sum to jeopardize. His fortunes were principally made in business: like the late Imaum of Muscat, he is the chief merchant as well as the high priest. He sends long trains of wagons freighted with various goods to the Eastern States, and supplies caravans and settlements with grain and provisions. From the lumber which he sold to the federal troops for hutting themselves at Camp Floyd, he is supposed to have netted not less than $200,000. This is one of the sorest points with the army: all declare that the Mormons would have been in rags or sackcloth if soldiers had not been sent; and they naturally grudge discomfort, hardship, and expatriation, whose only effect has been to benefit their enemies.
After the few first words of greeting, I interpreted the Prophet’s look to mean that he would not dislike to know my object in the City of the Saints. I told him that, having read and heard much about Utah as it is said to be, I was anxious to see Utah as it is. He then entered briefly upon the subjects of stock and agriculture, and described the several varieties of soil. One delicate topic was touched upon: he alluded to the “Indian wars,” as they are here called: he declared that when twenty are reported killed and wounded, that two or three would be nearer the truth, and that he could do more with a few pounds of flour and yards of cloth than all the sabres of the camp could effect. The sentiment was cordially seconded by all present. The Israelitic origin of “Lemuel,”“LEMUEL.” and perhaps the prophecy that “many generations shall not pass away among them save they shall be a white and delightsome people,”[134] though untenable as an ethnologic theory, has in practice worked at least this much of good, that the Mormons treat their step-brethren with far more humanity than other Western men: they feed, clothe, and lodge them, and attach them by good works to their interests. SLAVERY.Slavery has been legalized in Utah, but solely for the purpose of inducing the Saints to buy children, who otherwise would be abandoned or destroyed by their starving parents.[135] During my stay in the city I did not see more than half a dozen negroes; and climate, which, disdaining man’s interference, draws with unerring hand the true and only compromise line between white and black labor, has irrevocably decided that the African in these latitudes is valueless as a chattel, because his keep costs more than his work returns. The negro, however, is not admitted to the communion of Saints—rather a hard case for the Hamite, if it be true that salvation is nowhere to be found beyond the pale of the Mormon Church—and there are severe penalties for mixing the blood of Shem and Japhet with the accursed race of Cain and Canaan. The humanity of the Prophet’s followers to the Lamanite has been distorted by Gentiles into a deep and dangerous project for “training the Indians” to assassinate individual enemies, and, if necessary, to act as guerrillas against the Eastern invaders. That the Yutas—they divide the white world into two great classes, Mormon and Shwop, or American generally—would, in case of war, “stand by” their patrons, I do not doubt; but this would only be the effect of kindness, which it is unfair to attribute to no worthier cause.