The conversation, which lasted about an hour, ended by the Prophet asking me the line of my last African exploration, and whether it was the same country traversed by Dr. Livingstone. I replied that it was about ten degrees north of the Zambezi. Mr. A. Carrington rose to point out the place upon a map which hung against the wall, and placed his finger too near the equator, when Mr. Brigham Young said, “A little lower down.” There are many educated men in England who could not have corrected the mistake as well: witness the “London Review,” in which the gentleman who “does the geography”—not having the fear of a certain society in Whitehall Place before his eyes—confounds, in all the pomp of criticism upon the said exploration, lakes which are not less than 200 miles apart.
When conversation began to flag, we rose up, shook hands, as is the custom here, all round, and took leave. The first impression left upon my mind by this short séance, and it was subsequently confirmed, was, that the Prophet is no common man,THE PROPHET NO COMMON MAN. and that he has none of the weakness and vanity which characterize the common uncommon man. A desultory conversation can not be expected to draw out a master spirit, but a truly distinguished character exercises most often an instinctive—some would call it a mesmeric—effect upon those who come in contact with it; and as we hate or despise at first sight, and love or like at first sight, so Nature teaches us at first sight what to respect. It is observable that, although every Gentile writer has represented Mr. Joseph Smith as a heartless impostor, few have ventured to apply the term to Mr. Brigham Young. I also remarked an instance of the veneration shown by his followers, whose affection for him is equaled only by the confidence with which they intrust to him their dearest interests in this world and in the next. After my visit many congratulated me, as would the followers of the Tien Wong, or heavenly King, upon having at last seen what they consider “a per se” the most remarkable man in the world.
Before leaving the Prophet’s Block I will describe the rest of the building. The grounds are surrounded by a high wall of large pebble-like stones and mortar—the lime now used is very bad—and strengthened with semicircular buttresses. The main entrance faces south, with posts and chains before it for tethering horses. The “Lion House,” occupied by Mrs. Young and her family, is in the eastern part of the square: it is so called from a stone lion placed over the large pillared portico, the work of a Mr. William Ward, who also cut the block of white limestone, with “Deserét” beneath a bee-hive, and other symbols, forwarded for the Washington Monument in 1853. It is lamentable to state that the sculptor is now an apostate. The house resembles a two-storied East Indian tenement, with balcony and balustrade, here called an observatory, and is remarkable by its chunamed coat; it cost $65,000—being the best in the city, and was finished in one year. Before building it the Prophet lived in the White House, a humbler bungalow farther to the east; he has now given it up to his son, Joseph A. Young.
On the west of the Lion House lies the private office in which we were received, and farther westward, but adjoining and connected by a passage, is the public office, where the Church and other business is transacted. This room, which is larger than the former, has three desks on each side, the left on entering being those of the public, and the right those of the private clerks. The chief accountant is Mr. Daniel O’Calder, a Scotchman, whose sagacity in business makes him an alter ego of the President. At the end opposite the door there is a larger pupitre railed off, and a gallery runs round the upper wall. The bookcases are of the yellow box-elder wood, which takes a fine polish; and all is neat, clean, and business-like.
Westward of the public office is the Bee House, so named from the sculptured bee-hive in front of it. The Hymenopter is the Mormon symbol of industry; moreover, Deserét (pronounced Des-erétt) is, in “reformed Egyptian,” the honey-bee; the term is applied with a certain violence to Utah, where, as yet, that industrious insect is an utter stranger.[136] The Bee House is a large building, with the long walls facing east and west. It is double storied, with the lower windows, which are barred, oblong: the upper, ten in number, are narrow, and shaded by a small acute ogive or gable over each. The color of the building is a yellowish-white, which contrasts well with the green blinds, and the roof, which is acute, is tiled with shingles. It was finished in 1845, and is tenanted by the “plurality wives” and their families, who each have a bedroom, sitting-room, and closet simply and similarly furnished. There is a Moslem air of retirement about the Bee House; the face of woman is rarely seen at the window, and her voice is never heard from without. Anti-Mormons declare it to be, like the state-prison at Auburn, a self-supporting establishment, for not even the wives of the Prophet are allowed to live in idleness.
[136] “And they (scil. Jared and his brother) did also carry with them Deserét, which by interpretation is a honey-bee; and they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind.”—Book of Ether, chap. i., par. 3.
THE PROPHET’S BLOCK.
I was unwilling to add to the number of those who had annoyed the Prophet by domestic allusions, and therefore have no direct knowledge of the extent to which he carries polygamy; some Gentiles allow him seventeen, others thirty-six, out of a household of seventy members; others an indefinite number of wives scattered through the different settlements. Of these, doubtless, many are but wives by name, such, for instance, as the widows of the late Prophet; and others are married more for the purpose of building up for themselves spiritual kingdoms than for the normal purpose of matrimony. When treating of Mormon polygamy I shall attempt to show that the relation between the sexes as lately regulated by the Mormon faith necessitates polygamy. I should judge the Prophet’s progenyTHE PROPHET’S PROGENY. to be numerous from the following circumstance: On one occasion, when standing with him on the belvidere, my eye fell upon a new erection: it could be compared externally to nothing but an English gentleman’s hunting stables, with their little clock-tower, and I asked him what it was intended for. “A private school for my children,” he replied, “directed by Brother E. B. Kelsey.” The harem is said to have cost $30,000.
On the extreme west of this block, backed by a pound for estrays, which is no longer used, lies the Tithing House and Deserét Store, a long, narrow, upper-storied building, with cellars, store-rooms, receiving-rooms, pay-rooms, and writing offices. At this time of the year it chiefly contains linseed, and rags for paper-making; after the harvest it is well stuffed with grains and cereals, which are taken instead of money payment. There is nothing more unpopular among the American Gentiles, or, indeed, more unintelligible to them, than these Mosaic tithes,TITHES. which the English converts pay, from habit, without a murmur. They serve for scandalous insinuations, viz., that the chiefs are leeches that draw the people’s golden blood; that the imposts are compulsory, and that they are embezzled and peculated by the principal dignitaries. I have reason to believe that the contrary is the case. The tithes which are paid into the “Treasury of the Lord” upon the property of a Saint on profession, and afterward upon his annual income, or his time, or by substitute, are wholly voluntary. It sometimes happens that a man casts his all into the bosom of the Church; in this case the all is not refused, but—may I ask—by what Church body, Islamitic, Christian, or pagan, would it be? If the Prophet takes any thing from the Tithing House, he pays for it like other men. The writers receive stipends like other writers, and no more; of course, if any one—clerk or lawyer—wishes to do the business of the Church gratis, he is graciously permitted; and where, I repeat, would he not be? The Latter-Day Saints declare that if their first Presidency and Twelve Apostles—of whom some, by-the-by, are poor—grow rich, it is by due benevolence, not by force or fraud. Much like the primitive college, and most unlike their successors in this modern day, each apostle must have some craft, and all live by handiwork, either in house, shop, or field, no drones being allowed in the social hive. The tithes are devoted in part to Church works, especially to “building up temples or otherwise beautifying and adorning Zion, as they may be directed from on high,” and in part to the prosperity of the body politic, temporal, and spiritual; by aiding faithful and needy emigrants, and by supporting old and needy Saints. Perhaps the only true charge brought by the Gentiles against this, and, indeed, against all the public funds in the Mormon City, is, that a large portion finds its way eastward, and is expended in “outside influence,” or, to speak plain English, bribes. It is believed by Mormons as well as Gentiles that Mr. Brigham Young has in the States newspaper spies and influential political friends, who are attached to him not only by the ties of business and the natural respect felt for a wealthy man, but by the strong bond of a regular stipend. And such is their reliance upon this political dodgery—which, if it really exists, is by no means honorable to the public morality of the Gentiles—that they deride the idea of a combined movement from Washington ever being made against them. In 1860 Governor Cumming proposed to tax the tithing fund; but the Saints replied that, as property is first taxed and then tithed, by such proceeding it would be twice taxed.