's confidant, who wished to
supplant his chief. He and his partisans were assaulted and put to
death by Young's adherents. A spirit of discord also manifests itself
at times in the national elections, and there are plottings and
intrigues, especially when there seems to be hope of supremacy in
Congress, or when one of the twelve apostles offers himself as
candidate for the Senate without first consulting the Mormon Church.

Such shadows are inseparable from all human communities. What it is
important to study in the Church of the Latter-Day Saints is the
evolution of a communism which has more than half a century of activity
to its credit, and which, in contrast to so many other fruitless
attempts, has given marked proofs of a vitality that shows no sign of
diminishing.

CHAPTER II

THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS

Joe Smith was, to speak plainly, nothing but an adventurer. Having
tried more than twenty avocations, ending up with that of a
gold-digger, he found himself at last at the end of his resources, and
decided, in truly American fashion, that he would now make his fortune.
He thereupon announced that he was in close communication with Moses,
and that he had in his possession the two mosaic talismans, Urim and
Thummim, and the manuscript of the Biblical prophet, Mormon--the latter
having as a matter of fact been obtained from Solomon Spaulding, pastor
of New Salem, Ohio, in 1812.

It was different with John Alexander Dowie, who with remarkable wisdom
seized the psychological moment to appear in the United States as a
Barnum and a Pierpont Morgan of religion combined. By what was an
indisputable stroke of genius, he incorporated into his religion the
most outstanding features of American life--commerce, industry, and
finance, the tripod upon which the Union rests. What could be more
up-to-date than a commercial and industrial prophet, business man,
stock-jobber, and organiser of enterprises paying fabulous dividends?
And--surely the crowning point of the "new spirit!"--the man who now
declared himself to be the most direct representative of God upon earth
was accepted as such because people saw in him, not only the Messianic
power that he claimed, but an extraordinary knowledge of the value of
stocks and shares side by side with his knowledge of the value of souls!

He was of Scottish origin, and had reached his thirtieth year before
his name became known. As a child he was disinclined to take religion