Christendom on the east and west by plains incapable of settlement
for generations to come, and encompassed by mountain-ranges, the line
of whose summits runs above the boundary of eternal snow, it was
independent of the influences of Christian civilization. No missionary
of any Christian sect ever attempted to propagate his doctrines in
Utah,--nor, perhaps, would any such propagation have been tolerated, had
it been attempted. The Mormon religion was free to run its own course
and develop whatever elements it possessed of good and evil. When
Brigham Young and his followers from Nauvoo descended the Wahsatch range
in the summer of 1847, and took up their abode around the Great Salt
Lake, the avowed creed of the Church was different from that proclaimed
to-day. The secret doctrines entertained by its leaders were perhaps
the same as at present, but the religion of the people was a species of
mysticism which it is not impossible to conceive might commend itself
even to a refined mind. The existence of polygamy was officially denied
by the highest ecclesiastical authority, although we know to-day that
the denial was a shameless lie, and that Joseph Smith, during his
lifetime, had a plurality of wives, and at his death bequeathed them to
his successor, who already possessed a harem of his own. Property was
almost equally distributed among the people, the leaders being as poor
as their disciples. In this respect at that time they were accustomed
exultantly to compare their condition with that of the early Christians.

Ten years passed, and the change was extraordinary. The doctrines
of Mormonism, if plainly stated, are no longer such as can commend
themselves to a mind not perverted nor naturally prurient. Polygamy is
inculcated as a religious duty, without which dignity in the Celestial
Kingdom is impossible, and even salvation hardly to be obtained.
Property is distributed unjustly, the bulk of real and personal estate
in the Territory being vested in the Church and its directors, between
whom and the mass of the population there exists a difference in social
welfare as wide as between the Russian nobleman and his serf. In brief,
the Mormons no longer claim to be a Christian sect, but assert, and
truly, that their religion is as distinct from Christianity as that is
from Mahometanism. Many of the doctrines whispered in 1847 only to
those who had been admitted to the penetralia of the Nauvoo Temple are
proclaimed unblushingl