n,
she sees no avenue of retreat. To break the relation is to imply at once
that it was not ordained of God, and to cast a darker ignominy upon her
unfortunate children. Her only hope lies in her continued submission
to her husband and his Church, even after she has mentally and morally
rejected the doctrine that betrayed her. A more pitiably helpless band
of self-immolants than these Mormon women has never suffered martyrdom
in the history of the world. Heaven help them. There is no help for them
on earth.

Chapter XVIII. The Prophet of Mammon

In an earlier day among the Mormons, the ecclesiastical authorities
collected one-tenth of the "annual increase" of the faithful into "the
storehouse of the Lord;" and this was practically the entire assessment
made by the Church; although, by the same law of tithing, every Mormon
was held obliged to consecrate all his earthly possessions to "God's
work" on the demand of the Prophet. The common fund was used, then, to
promote community enterprises and to relieve the poor. The tithe-payer
saw the good result of the administration of the Church's moneys, and
was generally satisfied. He was promised eternal happiness if he paid
an honest tithe, but he was also given an earthly reward--for the
Church admitted him to many opportunities and enterprises from which
the niggardly were adroitly excluded. He was spiritually elevated
and enlarged by giving for a purpose that he considered worthy--the
fulfillment of a commandment of God and the relief of his
fellow-creatures--and the community benefited by having a part of its
yearly surplus administered for the common good.

But by the time the Church had reached its third generation of
tithe-payers, the "financial Prophets" had made a change. On the theory
that since the Mormons were paying the bulk of the taxes, they should
share in the distribution of the public relief funds, the Mormon poor
were denied assistance from "the storehouse of the Lord," and were
compelled to enter the poorhouses, to seek shelter on the "county
farms," or to take charity from their neighbors. The resulting
degradation of a sublime principle of human helpfulness is strikingly
shown in the fact that in some cases, where the county relief funds are
distributed through a Mormon clerk of paupers for out-door relief, the
Mormon bishop even collects one-tenth of this money, from the wretched
recipients, as their contribution to God Almighty!

Nor is the