. In its
origin Mormonism is distinctly American--a system of gross, palpable
imposture contrived by a disreputable adventurer, Joe Smith, with the
aid of three confederates, who afterward confessed the fraud and perjury
of which they had been guilty. It is a shame to human nature that the
silly lies put forth by this precious gang should have found believers.
But the solemn pretensions to divine revelation, mixed with elements
borrowed from the prevalent revivalism, and from the immediate adventism
which so easily captivates excitable imaginations, drew a number of
honest dupes into the train of the knavish leaders, and made possible
the pitiable history which followed. The chief recruiting-grounds for
the new religion were not in America, but in the manufacturing and
mining regions of Great Britain, and in some of the countries,
especially the Scandinavian countries, of continental Europe. The able
handling of an emigration fund, and the dexterous combination of appeals
to many passions and interests at once, have availed to draw together in
the State of Utah and neighboring regions a body of fanatics formidable
to the Republic, not by their number, for they count only about one
hundred and fifty thousand, but by the solidity with which they are
compacted into a political, economical, religious, and, at need,
military community, handled at will by unscrupulous chiefs. It is only
incidentally that the strange story of the Mormons, a story singularly
dramatic and sometimes tragic, is connected with the history of American
Christianity.[335:1]

To this same period belongs the beginning of the immigration of the
Chinese, which, like that of the Mormons, becomes by and by important to
our subject as furnishing occasion for active and fruitful missionary
labors.

In the year 1843 culminated the panic agitation of Millerism. From the
year 1831 an honest Vermont farmer named William Miller had been urging
upon the public, in pamphlets and lectures, his views of the approaching
advent of Christ to judgment and the destruction of the world. He had
figured it out on the basis of prophecies in Daniel and the Revelation,
and the great event was set down for April 23, 1843. As the date drew
near the excitement of many became intense. Great meetings were held, in
the open air or in tents, of those who wished to be found waiting for
the Lord. Some nobly proved their sincerity by the surrender of their
property for the support of th