Tullidge, whose works, it must be remembered, were submitted to church revision, in his "Life of Brigham Young" thus defines the Mormon view of the political mission of the head of the church: "He is simply an apostle of a republican nationality, manifold in its genius; or, in popular words, he is the chief apostle of state rights by divine appointment. He has the mission, he affirms, and has been endowed with inspiration to preach the gospel of a true democracy to the nation, as well as the gospel for the remission of sins, and he believes the United States will ultimately need his ministration in both respects.... They form not, therefore, a rival power as against the Union, but an apostolic ministry to it, and their political gospel is state rights and self-government. This is political Mormonism in a nutshell."*
* p. 244.
Tullidge further says in his "History of Salt Lake City" (writing in 1886): "The Mormons from the first have existed as a society, not as a sect. They have combined the two elements of organization—the social and the religious. They are now a new society power in the world, and an entirety in themselves. They are indeed the only religious community in Christendom of modern birth."*
* p. 387.
Some of the closest observers of the Mormons in their earlier days took them very seriously. Thus Josiah Quincy, after visiting Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, wrote that it was "by no means impossible" that the answer to the question, "What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destiny of his countrymen," would not be, "Joseph Smith." Governor Ford of Illinois, who had to do officially with the Mormons during most of their stay in that state, afterward wrote concerning them: "The Christian world, which has hitherto regarded Mormonism with silent contempt, unhappily may yet have cause to fear its rapid increase. Modern society is full of material for such a religion.... It is to be feared that, in the course of a century, some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear and be carried away by the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mohammedanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself."*
* Ford, "History of Illinois," p. 359.
The close observers of Mormonism in Utah, who recognize its aims, but think that its days of greatest power are over, found this opinion on the fact that the church makes practically no converts among the neighboring Gentiles; and that the increasing mining and other business interests are gradually attracting a population of non-Mormons which the church can no longer offset by converts brought in from the East and from foreign lands. Special stress is laid on the future restriction on Mormon immigration that will be found in the lack of further government land which may be offered to immigrants, and in the discouraging stories sent home by immigrants who have been induced to move to Utah by the false representations of the missionaries. Unquestionably, if the Mormon church remains stationary as regards wealth and membership, it will be overshadowed by its surroundings. What it depends on to maintain its present status and to increase its power is the loyal devotion of the body of its adherents, and its skill in increasing their number in the states which now surround Utah, and eventually in other states.