The only signs of sanctity are in the events appended to the days of the week; they naturally record the dates of local interest, and the births and deaths of prophets and patriarchs, presidents and apostles. Under the head of “Time,” however, some novel information is provided for the benefit of the benighted chronologist.

The judge then showed me an instrument upon which he had expended the thought and labor of years: it was that grand desideratum, a magnetic compass, which, pointing with a second needle to the true north, would indicate variation so correctly as to show longitude by inspection. The article, which was as rough-looking as it could be, was placed upon the table; but it would not, as the inventor explained, point to the true north unless in a particular position. I refrain from recording my hundred doubts as to the feasibility of the operation, and my own suspicions concerning the composition of the instrument. I presently took leave of Judge Phelps, pleased with his quaint kindness, but somehow suspecting him of being a little tête-montée on certain subjects.

As it was newspaper day, we passed by the “Mountaineer” office and bought a copy. The press is ably and extensively represented in Great Salt Lake City, as in any other of its Western coevals.[140] Mormonism, so far from despising the powers of pica, has a more than ordinary respect for them.[141] NEWSPAPERS.Until lately there were three weekly newspapers. The “Valley Tan,” however, during the last winter expired, after a slow and lingering dysthesis, induced by overindulgence in Gentile tendencies. It was established in 1858; the proprietor was Mr. J. Hartnett, the late federal secretary; the editor was Mr. Kirk Anderson, followed by Mr. De Wolf and others; the issue hebdomadal, and the subscription high = $10 per annum. The recognized official organ of the religion, which first appeared on the 15th of June, 1850, is the THE “DESERÉT NEWS.”“Deserét News,” whose motto is “Truth and Liberty” under a hive, over which is a single circumradiated eye in disagreeable proximity to the little busy bee. It has often changed its size, and is now printed in small folio, of eight pages, each containing four columns of close type: sometimes articles are clothed in the Mormon alphabet. It had reached in 1860 its tenth volume; it appears every Wednesday; costs at Utah $6 per annum, in England £1 13s. 8d. per annum, in advance; single number 9d.; and is superintended by Mr. Brigham Young. It is edited by Mr. Elias Smith, also a Probate judge; he is assisted by Mr. M‘Knight, formerly the editor of a paper in the United States, and now the author of the important horticultural, agricultural, and other georgic articles in the “Deserét News.” This “Moniteur” also contains corrected reports of the sermons spoken at the Tabernacle. An account of a number may not be uninteresting.

No. 28, vol. x., begins with a hymn of seven stanzas, by C. W. Bryant. Follow remarks by President Brigham Young, at Provo and in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City; the three sermons, which occupy four columns and a half, are separated by “Modern Germany, II.,” by Alexander Ott. There is an article from the “New York Sun,” entitled the “Great Eastern in Court.” It is followed by nearly half a page of “Clippings,” those little recognized piracies which make the American papers as amusing as magazines. Then come advertisements, estray notices, and others, which nearly fill the third and sixth pages, and the column at the eighth, which is the conclusion. I subjoin terms for advertising.[142] The fourth page contains “News by Eastern Mail”—Doings of the Probate Court—Special term of the Probate Court—Another excusable homicide—The season—Imprisoning convicts without labor—Discharge of the city police—Swiss Saints (lately arrived)—Arrival of missionaries at Liverpool—Drowned, Joseph Vest, etc.—Deserét Agriculturing and Manufacturing Society—Information wanted — and Humboldt’s opinion of the United States (comparing it to a Cartesian vortex, liberty a dead machinery in the hands of Utilitarianism, etc.). The fifth and sixth pages detail news from Europe, the Sicilies, Damascus, and India, proceedings of a missionary meeting in the Bowery, and tidings from Juab and Iron County, with a few stopgaps, such as an explanation of the word Zouave, and the part conversion of the fallen Boston elm into a “Mayor’s seat.” The seventh page is agricultural, and opens with the “American Autumn,” by Fanny Kemble, four stanzas. Then comes Sheep-husbandry No. iii., treating of change of pasture, separation of the flock, and fall management. The other morceaux are “Training the peach-tree,” “Stick to the Farm,” an article concluding with “We shall always sign ‘speed the plow;’ we shall always regard the American farmer, dressed for his employment (!) and tilling his grounds, as belonging to the order of real noblemen”—the less aristocratic Englander would limit himself to “Nature’s gentleman;” “Why pork shrinks in the pot,” and “Wheat-straw, its value as fodder.” The eighth and last page opens with “Correspondence,” and a letter signed Joseph Hall, headed “More results of ‘civilization,’” and dated Ogden City, Sept. 8, 1860. It contains an account of occurrences resulting in the “death of one John Cornwell, a discharged government teamster, and, as is often the case with those Christians who are sent to civilize the ‘Mormons’ of these mountains, a corrupt, profane, and quarrelsome individual, who doted on belonging to the ‘bully tribe.’” Then follows more news from San Pete County. A test of love (that capital story out of C. R. Leslie’s autobiography). Siege of Magdeburg. A hard-shell sermon (preached at Oxford, England), a scrap illustrating the marvelous growth of Quincy, Illinois, and the Legend of the origin of the Piano-forte. The latter is followed by a valuable abstract containing a summary of meteorological observations, barometric and thermometric, for the month of August, 1860, at Great Salt Lake City, Utah, by W. W. Phelps, and concluding with a monthly journal.[143] Then follow the deaths, six in number, and after one of them is inserted [Millennial Star, copy]. There are no marriages, and the Western papers, like those of the East, are still bégueules enough to consider advertising the birth of a child indelicate; at least that was the reason given to me. The last column contains the terms for advertising and the “fill-up” advertisements.

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.

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,

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.

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.

At 10 A.M. the meeting opened with a spiritual song. Then Mr. Wallace—a civilized-looking man lately returned from foreign travel—being called upon by the presiding elder for the day, opened the meeting with prayer, of which the two short-hand writers in the tribune proceeded to take notes. The matter, as is generally the case with returned missionaries delivering their budget, was good; the manner was somewhat Hibernian; the “valleys of the mountains”—a stock phrase, appeared and reappeared like the speechifying Patlander’s eternal “emerald green hills and beautiful pretty valleys.” He ended by imploring a blessing upon the (Mormon) President, and all those in authority; Gentiles of course were included. The conclusion was an amen, in which all hands joined: it reminded me of the historical practice of “humming” in the seventeenth century, which caused the universities to be called “Hum et Hissimi auditores.”

THE SERMON.Next arose Bishop Abraham O. Smoot, second mayor of Zion, and successor to the late Jedediah M. Grant, who began with “Brethering,” and proceeded at first in a low and methody tone of voice, “hardly audible in the gallery,” to praise the Saints, and to pitch into the apostates. His delivery was by no means fluent, even when he warmed. He made undue use of the regular Wesleyan organ—the nose; but he appeared to speak excellent sense in execrable English. He recalled past persecutions without over-asperity, and promised future prosperity without over-prophecy. As he was in the midst of an allusion to the President, entered Mr. Brigham Young, and all turned their faces, even the old lady—

who, dear soul! from Hanover Square to far San Francisco, placidly reposes through the discourse.

The Prophet was dressed, as usual, in gray homespun and homewoven: he wore, like most of the elders, a tall, steeple-crowned straw hat, with a broad black ribbon, and he had the rare refinement of black kid gloves. He entered the tribune covered and sat down, apparently greeting those near him. A man in a fit was carried out pumpward. Bishop Smoot concluded with informing us that we should live for God. Another hymn was sung. Then a great silence, which told us that something was about to happen: that old man held his cough; that old lady awoke with a start; that child ceased to squall. Mr. Brigham Young removed his hat, advanced to the end of the tribune, expectorated stooping over the spittoon, which was concealed from sight by the boarding, restored the balance of fluid by a glass of water from a well-filled decanter on the stand, and, leaning slightly forward upon both hands propped on the green baize of the tribune, addressed his followers.

The discourse began slowly; word crept titubantly after word, and the opening phrases were hardly audible; but as the orator warmed, his voice rose high and sonorous, and a fluency so remarkable succeeded falter and hesitation, that—although the phenomenon is not rare in strong speakers—the latter seemed almost to have been a work of art. The manner was pleasing and animated, and the matter fluent, impromptu, and well turned, spoken rather than preached: if it had a fault it was rather rambling and unconnected. Of course, colloquialisms of all kinds were introduced, such as “he become,” “for you and I,” and so forth. The gestures were easy and rounded, not without a certain grace, though evidently untaught; one, however, must be excepted, namely, that of raising and shaking the forefinger; this is often done in the Eastern States, but the rest of the world over it is considered threatening and bullying. The address was long. God is a mechanic. Mormonism is a great fact. Religion had made him (the speaker) the happiest of men. He was ready to dance like a Shaker. At this sentence the Prophet, who is a good mimic, and has much of the old New English quaint humor, raised his right arm, and gave, to the amusement of the congregation, a droll imitation of Anne Lee’s followers. The Gentiles had sent an army to lay waste Zion, and what had they done? Why, hung one of their own tribe! and that, too, on the Lord’s day![146] The Saints have a glorious destiny before them, and their morality is remarkable as the beauty of the Promised Land: the soft breeze blowing over the Bowery, and the glorious sunshine outside, made the allusion highly appropriate. The Lamanites, or Indians, are a religious people. All races know a God and may be saved. After a somewhat lengthy string of sentences concerning the great tribulation coming on earth—it has been coming for the last 1800 years—he concluded with good wishes to visitors and Gentiles generally, with a solemn blessing upon the President of the United States, the territorial governor, and all such as be in authority over us, and, with an amen which was loudly re-echoed by all around, he restored his hat and resumed his seat.

Having heard much of the practical good sense which characterizes the Prophet’s discourse, I was somewhat disappointed: probably the occasion had not been propitious. As regards the concluding benedictions, they are profanely compared by the Gentiles to those of the slave, who, while being branded on the hand, was ordered to say thrice, “God bless the State.” The first was a blessing. So was the second. But at the third, natural indignation having mastered Sambo’s philosophy, forth came a certain naughty word not softened to “darn.” During the discourse, a Saint, in whose family some accident had occurred, was called out, but the accident failed to affect the riveted attention of the audience.

Then arose Mr. Heber C. Kimball, the second President. He is the model of a Methodist, a tall and powerful man, a “gentleman in black,” with small, dark, piercing eyes, and clean-shaven blue face. He affects the Boanerges style, and does not at times disdain the part of Thersites: from a certain dislike to the Nonconformist rant and whine, he prefers an every-day manner of speech, which savors rather of familiarity than of reverence. The people look more amused when he speaks than when others harangue them, and they laugh readily, as almost all crowds will, at the thinnest phantom of a joke. Mr. Kimball’s movements contrasted strongly with those of his predecessor; they consisted now of a stone-throwing gesture delivered on tiptoe, then of a descending movement, as

He began with generalisms about humility, faithfulness, obeying counsel, and not beggaring one’s neighbor. Addressing the hand-cart emigrants, newly arrived from the “sectarian world,” he warned them to be on the look-out, or that every soul of them would be taken in and shaved (a laugh). Agreeing with the Prophet—Mr. Kimball is said to be his echo—in a promiscuous way concerning the morality of the Saints, he felt it notwithstanding his duty to say that among them were “some of the greatest rascals in the world” (a louder laugh, and N.B., the Mormons are never spared by their own preachers). After a long suit of advice, à propos de rien, to missionaries, he blessed, amen’d, and sat down.

I confess that the second President’s styleMR. KIMBALL’S STYLE. startled me. But presently I called to mind Luther’s description[147] of Tetzel’s sermon, in which he used to shout the words Bring! bring! bring! with such a horrible bellowing, that one would have said it was a mad bull rushing on the people and goring them with his horns; and D’Aubigné’s neat apology for Luther,[148] who, “in one of those homely and quaint, yet not undignified similitudes which he was fond of using, that he might be understood by the people,” illustrated the idea of God in history by a game of cards! “... Then came our Lord God. He dealt the cards:... This is the Ace of God....” Mormons also think it a merit to speak openly of “those things we know naturally:” they affect what to others appears coarseness and indelicacy. The same is the case with Oriental nations, even among the most modest and moral. After all, taste is in its general development a mere affair of time and place; what is apt to froisser us in the nineteenth may have been highly refined in the sixteenth century, and what may be exceedingly unfit for Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame is often perfectly suited to the predilections and intelligence of Wales or the Tessin. It is only fair to both sides to state that Mr. Kimball is accused by Gentiles of calling his young wives, from the pulpit, “little heifers;” of entering into physiological details belonging to the Dorcas Society, or the clinical lecture-room, rather than the house of worship; and of transgressing the bounds of all decorum when reproving the sex for its penchants and ridicules. At the same time, I never heard, nor heard of, any such indelicacy during my stay at Great Salt Lake City. The Saints abjured all knowledge of the “fact,” and—in this case, nefas ab hoste doceri—so gross a scandal should not be adopted from Gentile mouths.

After Mr. Kimball’s address, a list of names for whom letters were lying unclaimed was called from the platform. Mr. Eldridge, a missionary lately returned from foreign travel, adjourned the meeting till 2 P.M., delivered the prayer of dismissal, during which all stood up, and ended with the benediction and amen. The Sacrament was not administered on this occasion. It is often given, and reduced to the very elements of a ceremony; even water is used instead of wine, because the latter is of Gentile manufacture. Two elders walk up and down the rows, one carrying a pitcher, the other a plate of broken bread, and each Saint partakes of both.

Directly the ceremony was over, I passed through the thirty carriages and wagons that awaited at the door the issuing of the congregation, and returned home to write my notes. Before appearing in the “Deserét News” the discourses are always recomposed; the reader, therefore, is warned against the following report, which appeared in the “News” of Wednesday, the 5th of September.

The student of the subject may desire to see how one of these sermons reads; I therefore extract from the “Deserét News” oneMR. BRIGHAM YOUNG’S SERMON. spoken by Mr. Brigham Young during my stay in the city; it is chosen impartially, neither because it is better nor because it is worse than its fellows. The subject, it will be observed, is uninteresting; in fact, what negroes call “talkee-talkee”—pour passer le temps. But Mr. Brigham Young can, all admit, when occasion serves ability, “bring the house down,” and elicit thundering amens.

The gift of unknown tongues—which is made by some physiologists the result of an affection of the epigastric region, and by others an abnormal action of the organ of language—is now apparently rarer than before. Anti-Mormon writers thus imitate the “blatant gibberish” which they derive directly from Irvingism: “Eli, ele, elo, ela—come, coma, como—reli, rele, rela, relo—sela, selo, sele, selum—vavo, vava, vavum—sero, seri, sera, serum.” Lieutenant Gunnison relates[149] a facetious story concerning a waggish youth, who, after that a woman had sprung up and spoken “in tongues” as follows, “Mela, meli, melee,” sorely pressed by the “gift of interpretation of tongues,” translated the sentence into the vernacular, “My leg, my thigh, my knee.” For this he was called before the Council, but he stoutly persisted in his “interpretation” being “by the Spirit,” and they dismissed him with admonition. Gentiles have observed that whatever may be uttered “in tongues,” it is always translated into very intelligible English.