nd to whom special
privileges were accorded in their association with the consecrated
temples and the administration of mystic ordinances therein. The
polygamous group, or cult as it may be called, soon became the ruling
factor in the organization; and it may be observed that ever since the
founding of the church almost every man of prominence in the community
has belonged to this order. It was so in the time of the martyrs, Joseph
and Hyrum Smith, who were killed at Carthage jail in Illinois, and both
of whom were polygamists, although it was denied at the time. There were
living until recently, and perhaps there are living now, women who
testified that they were married in polygamy to one or the other of
these two men, Joseph having the larger number. It has been so ever
since and is so to-day that nearly every man of the governing class has
been or is a polygamist.

Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith, and he set up a kind of kingly
rulership, not unbecoming to a man of his vast empire-building power.
The Mormons have been taught to revere Joseph Smith as a direct prophet
from God. He saw the face of the All Father. He held communion with the
Son. The Holy Ghost was his constant companion. He settled every
question, however trivial, by revelation from Almighty God. But Brigham
was different. While claiming a divine right of leadership, he worked
out his great mission by palpable and material means. I do not know that
he ever pretended to have received a revelation from the time that he
left Nauvoo until he reached the shores of the Dead Sea, nor through all
the thirty years of his leadership there. He seemed to regard his people
as children who had to be led through their serious calamities by
holding out to them the glittering thought of divine guardianship. So
firmly did Brigham establish the social order in Utah that all of the
people were equal, except the governing body. This may be said to
consist of the president and his two counsellors, they three
constituting the first presidency; the twelve apostles; the presiding
bishopric, consisting of three men, the chief bishops of the church but
much lower in rank than the apostles; the seven presidents of seventies,
who are, under the apostles, the subordinate head of the missionary
service of the church; and the presiding patriarch. These altogether
constitute a body of twenty-six men. There are local authorities in the
different stakes of Zion, as they are called,