“A beautiful young lady told me.”
“I saw her; who is she?” exclaimed the artist eagerly.
“I shall present you to her. Here she is. Mr. Brown, Miss Julia Jyvecote.”
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
THE TWO PROPHETS OF MORMONISM.
Mr. T. B. H. Stenhouse, one of the Scottish converts to Mormonism, was for a quarter of a century an elder and missionary of the church of the Latter-Day Saints. He is the author of the most complete and careful history of the Mormons in the English language. Although he has “outgrown” the faith of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, and disbelieves the doctrines which he once preached, he writes of his former associates in a tone of moderation and good sense, and gives them more credit for sincerity than the rest of the world will be likely to concede them. In the introduction to his Rocky Mountain Saints he says:
“Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the western desert, and to transform a barren and desolate region of a hitherto ‘unknown country’ into a land that seems destined at no distant day to teem with millions of human beings, and which promises to stand pre-eminent among the conquests of the republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other citizens, unmoved by religious impulses, would ever have traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by faith. That was the Providence of the saints, and it must be conceded that, as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon element has been used in the Rocky Mountain region by the Almighty Ruler for developing the best interests of the nation, and for the benefit of the world at large.”
The fallacies hidden in these reflections will not escape the notice of any thoughtful Catholic reader. Mr. Stenhouse has got a feeble hold of a great truth, but, embarrassed by the materialistic ideas which form so important a part of the Mormon philosophy, he does not know how to apply it. We quote the passage as a striking illustration of the spirit in which too many of our countrymen are inclined to judge the history and character of the saints of the Great Salt Lake. Americans have a profound veneration for material prosperity, and hardly find it in their hearts to condemn a community which has built cities in the remote wilderness, planted gardens in the midst of the desert, taught brooks to run across the arid plains, and “developed the resources” of one of the least promising territories in our national domain. Any man, according to the popular theories of the emancipation of conscience, has a right to make a religion to suit himself; and whatever he may profess—unless, indeed, he should chance to concur with about 160,000,000 other persons in professing the doctrines of the holy Catholic Church, in which case there would be a fair presumption that he was dangerous to society—his fellow-citizens are bound to treat his creed respectfully and admit the purity of his motives.[[42]] Hence the world honors the founder of a new state, even though he may be also the founder of a false religion. There are 80,000 Mormons in Utah, and as a community they are rich and thrifty. It is not surprising that we have heard of late so much admiring comment upon the genius of Brigham Young, so many predictions that he will be reckoned hereafter among the great men in American history.
It may be worth while to clear our minds by a brief sketch of the rise and development of Mormonism. It is a phenomenon too important to be passed over, and it has a closer connection with the moral and intellectual tendencies of the time than most of us suspect. The general direction of Protestant theology has always been towards rationalism and materialism. Founded upon the denial of everything that man cannot perceive by his unaided natural powers, it leads irresistibly to the rejection of divine interposition in worldly affairs and of all manner of heavenly revelation. But the human mind can no more rest without belief in the supernatural than the human body can rest upon air. Superstition is consequently the offspring of infidelity. The extremes of negation produce a reaction of credulity; the worship of Baal alternates with the worship of God; we see Protestantism swaying perpetually to and fro between a cold philosophical scepticism and the wildest extravagances of fanaticism and imposture. A time of general negation and intellectual pride is followed by an epidemic of rhapsodies and convulsions. Prophets arise; spirits are seen in clouds of light; conventicles resound with the ravings of frenzied sinners and the shouting of excited saints; Swedenborg makes excursions in the body into heaven and into hell; the Shakers place Mother Ann on the throne of the Almighty; the Peculiar People look for the direct interference of God in the pettiest affairs of life, and demand a miracle every hour of the day. Mormonism was the product of such a season of spiritual riot. Fifty years ago animal magnetism and clairvoyance were at their height. The pride which refused to worship God stooped to amuse itself with ghosts and witches. The soul, emancipated from religion, became the slave of magic; and superstition, rejecting the revelations of a loving Creator, was almost ripe for the instructions of dancing tables and flying tambourines. Mesmer had excited the learned world with his mystic tubs; throngs of prophetic somnambulists had prepared the way for the oracles of Andrew Jackson Davis. In England there was even a more chaotic disturbance of minds than here. Multitudes on the one hand, disbelieving in a personal deity altogether, took refuge in pure scepticism. Multitudes on the other looked for the advent of the Lord in power and glory, to establish on earth in visible form the kingdom foretold by the inspired writers. The study of the prophecies became an absorbing passion of sectaries and enthusiasts. They muddled their brains with much reading of Isaias and the Apocalypse. They made it their mission to explain dark sayings; and having placed their own interpretation upon the divine predictions, they watched the sky for signs of their immediate fulfilment, and found in contemporary events a thousand confirmations of their crazy fancies, a thousand portents of the speedy coming of the Lord. There was no conceivable theological vagary for which they did not seek authority among the prophets. There was a wide-spread revival of the ancient belief in a terrestrial millennium, with a faith that it was close at hand. Edward Irving was setting England and Scotland aflame with fiery announcements of the Second Advent; fashionable society left its bed at five o’clock in the morning to hear him preach, for three hours at a stretch, on the impending accomplishment of what had been foretold; and although it was not until a few years later that William Miller organized in this country the first regular congregations of those who expected the speedy end of the world, and who sat in white robes listening for the judgment trump, there is no doubt that the general religious ferment which preceded this particular hallucination was felt simultaneously on both sides of the ocean, and presented on both sides the same essential characteristics.