phs, and the penetrating lights
that go sifting through society everywhere in this revolutionary,
question-asking century. Most of the Mormons I have met seem to be in a
state of perpetual apology, which can hardly be fully accounted for by
Gentile attacks. At any rate it is unspeakably offensive to any free
man.

"We Saints," they are continually saying, "are not as bad as we are
called. We don't murder those who differ with us, but rather treat them
with all charity. You may go through our town night or day and no harm
shall befall you. Go into our houses and you will be well used. We are
as glad as you are that Lee was punished," etc. While taking a saunter
the other evening we were overtaken by a characteristic Mormon, "an
umble man," who made us a very deferential salute and then walked on
with us about half a mile. We discussed whatsoever of Mormon doctrines
came to mind with American freedom, which he defended as best he could,
speaking in an excited but deprecating tone. When hard pressed he would
say: "I don't understand these deep things, but the elders do. I'm only
an umble tradesman." In taking leave he thanked us for the pleasure of
our querulous conversation, removed his hat, and bowed lowly in a sort
of Uriah Heep manner, and then went to his humble home. How many humble
wives it contained, we did not learn.

Fine specimens of manhood are by no means wanting, but the number of
people one meets here who have some physical defect or who attract one's
attention by some mental peculiarity that manifests itself through the
eyes, is astonishingly great in so small a city. It would evidently be
unfair to attribute these defects to Mormonism, though Mormonism has
undoubtedly been the magnet that elected and drew these strange people
together from all parts of the world.

But however "the peculiar doctrines" and "peculiar practices" of
Mormonism have affected the bodies and the minds of the old Saints, the
little Latter-Day boys and girls are as happy and natural as possible,
running wild, with plenty of good hearty parental indulgence, playing,
fighting, gathering flowers in delightful innocence; and when we
consider that most of the parents have been drawn from the thickly
settled portion of the Old World, where they have long suffered the
repression of hunger and hard toil, the Mormon children, "Utah's best
crop," seem remarkably bright and promising.

From children one passes naturally into the blooming wi