The history of the Mormons has ever since been an unbroken record of prosperity. It has looked as though the elements of fortune, obedient to a law of natural re-action, were struggling to compensate their undue share of suffering. They may be pardoned for deeming it miraculous. But, in truth, the economist accounts for it all, who explains to us the speedy recuperation of cities, laid in ruin by flood, fire, and earthquake. During its years of trial, Mormon labor had subsisted on insufficient capital, and under many difficulties, but it has subsisted, and survives them now, as intelligent and powerful as ever it was at Nauvoo; with this difference, that it has in the mean time been educated to habits of unmatched thrift, energy, and endurance, and has been transplanted to a situation where it is in every respect more productive. Moreover, during all the period of their journey, while some have gained by practice in handicraft, and the experience of repeated essays at their various halting-places, the minds of all have been busy framing designs and planning the improvements they have since found opportunity to execute. Their territory is unequalled as a stock-raising country; the finest pastures of Lombardy are not more estimable than those on the east side of the Utah Lake and its tributary rivers, and it is scarcely less rich in timber and minerals than the most fortunate portions of the continent.
From the first the Mormons have had little to do in Deseret, but attend to mechanical and strictly agricultural pursuits. They have made several successful settlements; the farthest north is distant more than forty miles, and the farthest south, in a valley called the Sanpeech, two hundred, from that first formed. A duplicate of the Lake Tiberias empties its waters into the innocent Dead Sea of Deseret, by a fine river, which they have named the Western Jordan. It was on the right bank of this stream, on a rich table land, traversed by exhaustless waters falling from the highlands, that the pioneers, coming out of the mountains in the night of the 24th of July, 1847, pitched their first camp in the Valley, and consecrated the ground. This spot proved the most favorable site for their chief settlement, and after exploring the whole country, they founded on it their city of the New Jerusalem. Its houses are diffused, to command as much as possible the farms, which are laid out in wards or cantons, with a common fence to each. The farms in wheat already cover a space nearly as large as Rhode Island. The houses of New Jerusalem, or Great Salt Lake City, as it is commonly called, are distributed over an area nearly as great as that of New York. The foundations have been laid for a temple more vast and magnificent than that which was erected at Nauvoo. The Deseret News, a paper established under the direction of the ecclesiastical authority came to us lately with several columns descriptive of the fourth anniversary celebration of the arrival of the disciples in their Promised Land.
Since the preceding paragraphs were written some important information has been received from Utah, justifying apprehensions that the ambition of the chief of the sect, and territorial governor, Brigham Young, will be continually productive of difficulties. It appears that in consequence of his unwarrantable assumptions of authority, the larger and most respectable portion of the territorial officers, including B. O. Harris, Secretary of the Territory, G. K. Brandenburg, Chief Justice, E. P. Bracchas, Associate Justice, H. R. Day, Indian Agent, and Messrs. Gillette and Young, were preparing to leave for the Atlantic States.
The particulars of the difficulty are not stated, but it is said that $20,000 appropriated by Congress for territorial purposes had been squandered by Young, and an attempt made by him to take $24,000 from the Treasurer, who refused, and applied to the Court to support him. This was done, and an injunction granted restraining the proceedings of the Governor.
WINDSOR CASTLE.
Of the numerous objects of interest with which the banks of the Thames are so thickly studded, none are of such surpassing grandeur and regal magnificence as Windsor Castle, with its adjacent chapel of St. George, and Eton College. This massive and stately pile is richly storied with poetic associations, and venerable for its antiquity, in having proudly defied the ravages of Time for some eight centuries. Here kings were born; here they kept royal state amid the blaze of fashion and luxurious indulgence; and here in the adjoining mausoleum, they were buried. Here deeds of chivalry and high renown that shine on us from ancient days were enacted; and it is here the most exemplary of England's monarchy still prefers to hold her suburban residence. This brave old fortress, unlike the Tower of London, with its dark records of crime, is rife with pleasant memories. Not only is the edifice itself, with its gigantic towers, its broad bastions, and its kingly halls, sacred with incident and story, but Shakespeare has also rendered classical the very ground on which it stands.
DISTANT VIEW OF WINDSOR CASTLE.