Trek of the Mormons.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 12 June 1914, Page 2

Trek of the Mormons.

Few incidents of modern religious history are nmre curious than the tale of the 'Mormons, or "LatterDay Saints," founded by Joseph Smith in the United States some seventy years ago. On June 27, 1844, Smith was killed by the inhabitants of Illinois, the State where he formed his "church," and the infant sect seemed likely to disappear. But this \ apparent disaster was really the foundation of the success of the enterprise Brigham Young —then a ma?> of forty-three, who had joined the '"Saints" some eleven years before--weii; elected as "prophet" in the stead -? f Smith. His declaration that no-attempt should be made t»> revenge t'is predecessor's tnurrter failed tc w calro loc^l hostility. «jnrf Vnun« ients 1!? orV to leave N&nvo<) \nO "^en it e^ ot in the wifdero.*»«» .»* ■ r>! )10 o»rt- wher* the Mormons co - tj-^-Ve free and linpersecuted. J To transport l. r),000 souls in country without railways was no light task. Attacked by the Red Indians, who then ranged freely over the prairies of the centre, molested by the white population wherever they passed, shivering amidst the snows of winter under simple canvas tents or in the huge tilted waggons—the "prairie schooners" of the "forties" —dying like Hies of diseases brought on by hardship and exposure, the undaunted " Saints" never turned back. They waited 6or the spring to enable them to scale the Rocky Mountains., and in July, 1847, arrived at what is now Salt Lake City. Whatever may be thought of the Mormon doctrine, Brigham Young's achievement, at any rate, stamps him as a man of no ordinary energy and initiative.