cils of the men. The adoption of polygamy
as part of the creed was largely the work, if not the inspiration, of a
woman who was "sealed" to Brigham Young; and the practice would never
have grown to any strength, as it had many opponents among the men, had
it not received the approbation and welcome of the women. Its adoption
caused more than one schism in the Church of the Latter-day Saints, as
the Mormons pompously style themselves, but the schismatics never
received the support of more than a few of the women of the "peculiar
people," and it may be broadly stated that the revival of polygamy among
a civilized people was at least as much the work of women as of men.

Mormonism is doomed as a faith; but its existence will always be felt in
national results. Even so limited a movement as this, when it touches
matters of descent, must ever leave its traces, and the very breaking-up
of such a community will have its effect of disseminating impure sources
among the fountains of our nation. In this instance, woman, who has done
so much for America, has brought harm to her.

As the eighteenth century approached its middle age, society in America
grew more and more distinguished and less and less distinctive. It had
long since lost all traces of provincialism; it was a power in itself
with its glamor of aristocracy, and it even had its traditions of rank,
which were not unrecognized by foreign social powers. In the earliest
days of the century, on Christmas Eve, 1803, Elizabeth Patterson, of
Baltimore, had been married to Jerome Bonaparte; and, though the
marriage was unrecognized by the all powerful Emperor Napoleon and was
thus made practically invalid, it was perfectly legitimate and
noteworthy. Though Napoleon, because of the exigencies of his peculiar
position, forced Jerome to renounce his young bride and marry as became
his station, he himself treated Miss Patterson with consideration and
even generosity, his liberality to her in the matter of a pension
enabling her to make the famous retort, when Jerome offered to provide
for her after his marriage, that she "preferred being sheltered under
the wing of an eagle to being suspended from the bill of a goose." She
never bore any rancor to Napoleon for his actions toward her, though she
strove with all her might to win her rights.

Some fifteen years later the same city of Baltimore, or, more correctly,
a place contiguous to that city, now known, from its once residents, a