limits,
one of the oldest and furthest removed conditions that had ever
environed womanhood. That such a theory should prove attractive to any
woman seems to most of us a thing in itself wonderful, that it did thus
prove attractive to many is a matter of history. It is true that the
majority of recruits to the harems--the word is as correct as
convenient--of the Mormons came from the older countries of the eastern
shores of the Atlantic: Sweden sent many women to Salt Lake City, and
even England furnished her quota, while the Latin countries, probably
because of the prevalence of the Catholic faith in their borders, the
influence of that faith being in all ways antagonistic to Mormon
theories and arguments, lost but few of their daughters to the Mormon
Minotaur. With these accessions to the seraglios of the Utah settlement
we are less concerned; but many an American woman, by birth and rearing
a child of our own land, turned from her ancient traditions to become
the "wife" of a Mormon elder. Those who look upon the Mormon practice of
polygamy as immoral are narrow and prejudiced, for morality is always a
thing of convention and agreement; but that it was a blot upon our
civilization may be admitted without cavil. At one time it became even
an actual threat to the best interests of our social structure; it
promised to engulf in its Charybdis some of the elements of our society
which we could ill spare and to make itself felt as an influence in
places where it dared not openly raise its head. Legislation--whether
justifiable by the spirit of our commonwealth, or otherwise, is
legitimate matter of dispute--at length intervened to banish all fear of
Mormon influence and to abolish the practices which were most
reprobated, and now Mormonism is shorn of its most distinctive feature
and that which lent itself most readily to the cause of proselytism.

However we may condemn the tenets and practices of Mormonism, it must be
admitted that the most representative women of the Mormons, in the
heyday of Mormon power, were thrifty, industrious, economical, and
notable workers. Moreover, though it is generally thought that among the
disciples of Joseph Smith--to whose door, however, the practice of
polygamy cannot be laid, for that was an addendum to the faith made by
Brigham Young--women were held in slight esteem, an idea generally
correct as to the mass, there were many instances of Mormon women of
influence and power in the coun