THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAINTS: A FULL AND COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MORMONS, FROM THE FIRST VISION OF JOSEPH SMITH TO THE LAST INCLUDING THE STORY OF THE HAND-CART EMIGRATION-THE MORMON WAR-THE OF THE SAINTS-THE FACTS OF POLYGAMY -THE COLONIZATION OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT MINERAL WEALTH BY T. B. H. STENHOUSE, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A MORMON ELDER AND MISSIONARY, AND EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR OF THE ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY-FOUR FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS, A STEEL PLATE FRONTISPIECE, NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1873. BOOKS written by thinkers-men who thought and dared to express their thoughts are always worth reading. I care not whether their authors were Atheists or Methodists, Heathen or Mohammedan; the life's blood of the author circulates through them, and in reading you feel its pulsations. But books written by men who never saw through their own eyes, who never put out their hands, and felt the world for themselves, nor took one manly step, are the faintest echoes from the distant hills compared with the heavenshaking thunder that produced them.—DENTON, ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, BY D. APPLETON & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. NOTWITHSTANDING the frequency with which the American press has kept the name of the Mormons before the public, few persons have any definite idea of what Mormonism claims to be, and what it actually is. Occupying, as the Saints do, the centre of the great highway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and demanding admission into the Union as a sovereign State, Congress cannot long refuse attention to their claim. The question, therefore, of engrafting upon the Republic a Theocracy which practices polygamy, teaches the barbarous doctrine of human sacrifice, and is in its sentiments inimical to the constitution of the nation, demands the careful consideration of all who are interested in the honour and good name of the United States. In the pages of this work, the politician, the preacher, the littérateur, and the thoughtful reader, will find abundant matter for studious reflection. It requires no prophetic inspiration to predicate that, in spite of all the crudity and ridiculous assumption of Mormonism, the highest wisdom of the national Government may yet be required to avert scenes of conflict which would be universally deplored. Memorials demanding the admission of Utah into the Union, under the title of "The State of Deseret," have for twenty-three years engaged the attention of Congress. Last session the demand was again made, and met with a much. more favourable reception than ever before. Next Session it will be repeated, and, if not then successful, it will be again and again urged, until finally Statehood is secured. Emboldened by the encouragement of some prominent members of Congress, the Mormon Prophet has approved of the retirement of the monogamic Delegate who served the Territory for a dozen years, and, as a test of the disposition of the national mind, sends as his successor to Washington an apostle-the husband of four wives. Should the nation consent to this innovation, Statehood will soon be secured for Utah, and Brigham Young's Theocracy will be triumphant over the Republic and the National laws. Mormonism is not dead nor dying. Until this "Utah difficulty" is settled emphatically and finally by the voice of the people, declaring that no political or domestic institution opposed to the spirit and genius of republicanism can ever be allowed to exist within the domain of the United States, Mormonism is destined to be the disturbing dream of every occupant of the chair of Washington. |