And what of the Mountain Meadow Massacre and the Danite band? The daring perpetrator of the former outrage was willingly given over to the just retribution which awaited him, arid the existence of the "Avenging Angels" as an organization under the direction and receiving the sanction of Mormon leaders, was long ago exploded as the fabrication of an over-excited and too active imagination. We can find no more substantial foundation remaining to it than that which underlies any other myth or tradition. "Let the dead past bury its dead." Let us take the Mormon people as we find them today and try to discover in them a little good rather than wholesale evil. Let us commend them for the benefit, however small, that they have bestowed upon their day and generation, and cover with the mantle of charity, if enough of that priceless commodity be left in the world, the unintentional evil they may have done, and the mistakes they may have made. The wrong doing of individuals should not be visited upon the heads of the entire community, and narrow, personal prejudices should not be allowed to warp our good judgment.
This is an age of wide research and broad acquirements, and we will not find our Mormon countrymen very far behind in the race for all that broadens and enlightens. They have their own poets, their own artists and their own musicians. You can find them represented in the universities and in the studios, and in the conservatories of music of more than one foreign city, as well as in those of our own fair land. Wherever education and culture congregate, you will find a colony of them; and they are not unknown in the scientific and the professional world; neither are they lacking in manufacturers and financiers. The great Tabernacle organ (second to none in the country) is presided over by one of their own young musicians, and the baton is wielded by one of their own faith, over the Tabernacle choir, which has more than once earned the wonder and applause of California audiences. It is a Mormon girl, granddaughter of one of Mormonism's great leaders, who has recently made her debut, and taken by storm one Eastern city after another, charming them alike by her personality and her ability; and whose marvelous voice a conservative Boston paper has likened to that of Patti. An exploring party, sent out by a Mormon institution of learning, has only just returned after having penetrated with infinite hardship, privation and determination, deeply into the forbidden wilds of South Africa, endeavoring to give to the world of science and research information that is valuable and rare.
One of the remarkable things about the Mormons is, that they are a travelled people. As we meet them and converse with them, we wonder at the various phases of human life with which they seem to be familiar, and the ease with which many of them are able to settle, for themselves, many vexed social problems. But they are either extremely modest, or foreign sojourn has become so ordinary a thing with them, that they attach no unusual significance to it; for it is only upon questioning them, or after having known them some time, that the secret of it is made known.
Ah, yes, we say, travel is a good schoolmaster, and we broaden and deepen under its discipline. But there are many kinds of travelers; the mere globe trotter, hastening from one capital to another, seeing much, but perceiving little, and resembling the woman who was asked by a friend what most impressed her in one of Germany's tourist-infested cities. After due consideration she replied, "Well, I think of all the things I remember with most delight, the very best were the delicious Frankfort sausages." "Ye gods and little fishes!" Frankfort sausages, indeed! If she was an American we renounce all claim to her. He who would reap lasting benefit must be possessed of the "seeing eye," and know the meaning of insight as well as sight. But if travel alone can do so much for us, of how much greater value the sojourner under many skies, and amid various manners and customs, gleaning a little here and a little there, and adding daily to our lore of people and things. Not alone is this true of the Mormon man, but in a great measure true also of the woman. They have extended their itinerary to the islands of the sea, and countries oriental. They have practically belted the globe, and gathered from the rich treasures of its world-old storehouses, that which centuries have been amassing; and they bring it all and lay it at the feet of their well-beloved home land. For they are proud of their country, proud of the flag she flies and intensely proud of their lovely "Deseret." They are proud of their heroic men and women, brave daughters of the desert, tried and true, who laid the foundations upon which they are engaged in building a superstructure that will do lasting honor to those who suffered so much in establishing it.
A great incentive for the acquisition of knowledge is given to the advocate of Mormonism by the belief that no advancement made in this life will go as naught when death overtakes him. He will go on progressing throughout the countless ages of eternity, without the power of sin to retard his efforts, and with all the vast recourses of celestial lore to accelerate his speed. He accounts for different degrees of intelligence observed in individuals in this life, by his theory of pre-existence, in which some had attained a greater advancement than had others. He does not deny salvation to any of the human race, and believes that no erring soul will be forever lost. He hopes for all his dead a chance for glorification equal to his own; and in the beautiful temples scattered over Utah, he unselfishly does for them, what is to him a work of redemption. The largest and most beautiful of them all is visible to the visitor to Salt Lake City, standing in the midst of the city. Its white and glistening towers, supporting the gilded statue of the Mormon angel "Moroni," come into sight long before the outlines of any other architecture. Built of native granite, at an outlay of nearly three million dollars, forty years were given to its construction and embellishment.
In all justice to these people, let us say, "We admire you for the progress you have made, the stern determination you have shown, and while we may not agree with you in your religious tenets, we recognize you as brother Americans and co-patriots, under a flag and constitution which is broad enough to shelter all creeds and all true men. We believe you when you say that plural marriage is a thing of the past, and we think the better of you for honoring ties already formed." So will we prove ourselves possessed of Christian toleration for those who dare dispute our pet theories, and place ourselves in a way to do a tardy justice. "We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (Articles of Faith.) Truly, if Utah and her people were one-half as bad as she has been painted, she would deserve a fate ten times more dreadful than any that her enemies have as yet devised for her. A just God could do no less than cause the thunderbolts of His wrath to fall upon her and consume her, that the earth might be purified of her polluting influence. But how different from the awful picture do we really find her!
RAYS OF LIVING LIGHT.
No. 1.
BY CHARLES W. PENROSE