THE “MOUNTAINEER.”The “Mountaineer,” whose motto is “Do what is right, let the consequence follow,” is considered rather a secular paper. It appears on Saturdays, and the terms of subscription are $6 per annum; the occasional supplement is issued gratis. It formerly belonged to three lawyers, Messrs. Stout, Blair, and Ferguson; it has now passed into the hands of the two latter. Mr. Hosea Stout distinguished himself during the Nauvoo troubles; he was the captain of forty policemen who watched over the safety of Mr. Joseph Smith, and afterward went on missions to India and China. Major S. M. Blair served under General Sam. Houston in the Texan war of independence, and was a distinguished lawyer in the Southern States. A description of the “Deserét News” will apply to the “Mountaineer.” I notice in the issue of September 15, 1860, that a correspondent, quoting an extract from the “New York Tribune”—the great Republican organ, and therefore no favorite with the Mormons—says, outspokenly enough to please any amount of John Bull, “The author of the above is a most consummate liar”—so far, so good—“and a contemptible dastardly poltroon”—which is invidious.
I passed the morning of the ensuing Sunday in a painful but appropriate exercise, reading the Books of Mormon and of Moroni the Prophet. Some writers tell me that it is the best extant imitation of the Old Testament; to me it seems composed only to emulate the sprightliness of some parts of Leviticus. Others declare that it is founded upon a romance composed by a Rev. Mr. Spaulding; if so, Mr. Spaulding must have been like Prince Puckler-Muskau of traveling notoriety, a romancer utterly without romance. Surely there never was a book so thoroughly dull and heavy: it is monotonous as a sage-prairie. Though not liable to be terrified by dry or hard reading, I was, it is only fair to own, unable to turn over more than a few chapters at a time, and my conviction is that very few are so highly gifted that they have been able to read it through at a heat. In Mormonism it now holds the same locus as the Bible in the more ignorant Roman Catholic countries, where religious reading is chiefly restricted to the Breviary, to tales of miracles, and to legends of Saints Ursula and Bridget. It is strictly proper, does not contain a word about materialism and polygamy[144]—in fact, more than one wife is strictly forbidden even in the Book of Doctrines and Covenants.[145] The Mormon Bible, therefore, is laid aside for later and lighter reading. In one point it has done something. America, like Africa, is a continent of the future; the Book of Mormon has created for it an historical and miraculous past.
[144] Behold the Lamanites (North American Indians), your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness, and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you, for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines they should have none; and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.—Book of Jacob, chap. ii., par. 9.
[145] See [Chap. IX.]
At 9 45 A.M. we entered the Bowery;THE BOWERY. it is advisable to go early if seats within hearing are required. The place was a kind of “hangar,” about a hundred feet long by the same breadth, with a roofing of bushes and boughs supported by rough posts, and open for ventilation on the sides; it can contain about 3000 souls. The congregation is accommodated upon long rows of benches, opposite the dais, rostrum, platform, or tribune, which looked like a long lane of boarding open to the north, where it faced the audience, and entered by steps from the east. Between the people and the platform was a place not unlike a Methodist “pen” at a camp-meeting: this was allotted to the orchestra, a violin, a bass, two women and four men performers, who sang the sweet songs of Zion tolerably well—decidedly well, after a moment’s reflection as to latitude and longitude, and after reminiscences of country and town chapels in that land where it is said, had the Psalmist heard his own psalms,
“In furious mood he would have tore ’em.”
MUSIC.I was told that “profane”—i. e., operatic and other—music is performed at worship, as in the Italian cathedrals, where they are unwilling that Sathanas should monopolize the prettiest airs; on this occasion, however, only hymns were sung.
SOUTH END OF THE TABERNACLE.
We—the judge’s son and I—took our seats on the benches of the eighth ward, where we could see the congregation flocking in, a proceeding which was not over—some coming from considerable distances—till 10 15 A.M. The people were all endimanchés;DRESS. many a pretty face peeped from the usual sun-bonnet with its long curtain, though the “mushroom” and the “pork-pie” had found their way over the plains, and trim figures were clad in neat stuff dresses, sometimes silk: in very few cases there was a little faded finery—gauze, feathers, and gaudy colors—such as one may see on great festivals in an Old-Country village. The men were as decently attired: the weather, being hot, had caused many of them to leave their coats at home, and to open their vests; the costume, however, looked natural to working-men, and there was no want of cleanliness, such as sometimes lurks behind a bulwark of buttons. The elders and dignitaries on the platform affected coats of black broadcloth, and were otherwise respectably dressed. All wore their hats till the address began, and then all uncovered. By my side was the face of a blear-eyed English servant-girl; en revanche in front was a charming American mother and child: she had, what I have remarked in Mormon meetings at Saville House and other places in Europe, an unusual development of the organ which phrenologists call veneration. I did not see any Bloomers “displaying a serviceable pair of brogues,” or “pictures of Grant Thorburn in petticoats.” There were a few specimens of the “Yankee woman,” formerly wondrous grim, with a shrewd, thrifty gray eye, at once cold and eager, angular in body and mind, tall, bony, and square-shouldered, now softened and humanized by transplantation and transposition to her proper place. The number of old people astonished me; half a dozen were sitting on the same bench; these broken-down men and decrepit crones had come to lay their bones in the Holy City; their presence speaks equally well for their faith and for the kind-heartedness of those who had brought the encumbrance. I remarked some Gentiles in the Bowery; many, however, do not care to risk what they may hear there touching themselves.