the Mormon Tabernacle at Salt Lake City. Before I
left New York the Mormon women had sent me the invitation to preach this
sermon, and when I reached Salt Lake City and the so-called "Gentile"
women heard of the plan, they at once invited me to preach to the
"Gentiles" on the evening of the same Sunday, in the Salt Lake City
Opera House.

On the morning of the sermon I approached the Mormon Tabernacle with
much more trepidation than I usually experienced before entering a
pulpit. I was not sure what particular kind of trouble I would get into,
but I had an abysmal suspicion that trouble of some sort lay in wait for
me, and I shivered in the anticipation of it. Fortunately, my anxiety
was not long drawn out. I arrived only a few moments before the hour
fixed for the sermon, and found the congregation already assembled and
the Tabernacle filled with the beautiful music of the great organ. On
the platform, to which I was escorted by several leading dignitaries
of the church, was the characteristic Mormon arrangement of seats. The
first row was occupied by the deacons, and in the center of these was
the pulpit from which the deacons preach. Above these seats was a second
row, occupied by ordained elders, and there they too had their own
pulpit. The third row was occupied by, the bishops and the highest
dignitaries of the church, with the pulpit from which the bishops
preach; and behind them all, an effective human frieze, was the really
wonderful Mormon choir.

As I am an ordained elder in my church, I occupied the pulpit in the
middle row of seats, with the deacons below me and the bishops just
behind. Scattered among the congregation were hundreds of "Gentiles"
ready to leap mentally upon any concession I might make to the Mormon
faith; while the Mormons were equally on the alert for any implied
criticism of them and their church. The problem of preaching a sermon
which should offer some appeal to both classes, without offending
either, was a perplexing one, and I solved it to the best of my ability
by delivering a sermon I had once given in my own church to my own
people. When I had finished I was wholly uncertain of its effect, but
at the end of the services one of the bishops leaned toward me from his
place in the rear, and, to my mingled horror and amusement, offered me
this tribute, "That is one of the best Mormon sermons ever preached in
this Tabernacle."

I thanked him, but inwardly I was aghast. What had I sai