THE MORMONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 498, 12 August 1857, Page 3

THE MORMONS.

(Prom the Times.)

On the borders of a great Salt Lake in the heart of one of the most terrible deserts in the world a community has established itself which ought to make us blush for our generation, and to which the history of mankind hardly furnishes a parallel. But a very few years have elapsed since an impostor named Joseph Smith professed to be tbe recipient of a new revelation from God. On the strength of this commission he produced a bible and founded a religion, and before his death, which occurred during a r i o t within the walls of a gaol, his tenets bad been adopted by a considerable number of followers. The scene of the imposture was in the United States, and Mormonism, as the new persuasion was designated, presently beoame localised in a city of its own. From this seat, however, it was expelled by the alarmed and indignant population of the vicinity, and the Mormons carried themselves and their institutions into the midst of the wilderness, where it seemed probable at the time that they would escape the cognizance and contact of their fellow-men. But these speculations were upset through the discovery of gold in California, which prodigiously accelerated tbe growth of that marvellous State, and exposed the new Mormon setttement to the visits and observation of emigrants on their overland route to the diggings., Nevertheless, the isolation of the community was still maintained, and to such effect has the imposture been propagated that the doctrines of Joe Smith are now professed and exemplified by a body of 100,000 persons, living under such conditions of moral and social existence as could hardly be credited if they were not so authentically described.

In this territory of Utah, as it is termed, and in the city of the Mormons, the direct commission of the Deity is presumed to reside in the person of a Governor, named Brigham Young, who, with other elders, administers affairs according to his will. The community is considered to be a church or body of the faithful, and all its institutions are regulated upon the model of a theocracy. All persons external to this body are " Gentiles," nor do the Mormons appear to recognise any tie or obligation except such as arise from their own creed. Such is the theory of these institutions; in practice they have been developed into usages so revolting to the natural instincts of humanity as scarcely to admit of toleration, even when buried in the trackless wilds of the Far West. The leading feature of Mormonism is polygamy, and every woman in the settlement is at the mercy of the men who may have raised themselves to authority. Thirty, forty, or fifty " wives "are claimed and appropriated by a single '• husband," and, as the power of the rulers is supposed to be identified with the direct missiqn of the Almighty, there is no escape from their decisions. The same assumption dispenses also with law, for no law can pretend to authority comparable with the will of the Supreme Being as revealed through his vicegerent upon earth. To enforce, however, an obedience which might only be theoretically rendered, or which on the abatement of delusion might very probably be refused, a system of sanguinary terrorism has been organized, and a band of men stand sworn to execute the behests, whatever they may be, of the head oft Church. To what extent these atrocities are carried we now learn from a communication of unimpeachable character. The Federal Government of the United States, in virtue of its authority over all the territories of the Union, appointed Judge Drummond to preside in the Supreme Court of Utah, in which capacity he would, of course, exercise a jurisdiction independent of the Mormon Administration. Such a commission, however, he has found it impossible to discharge, and he has resigned his office accordingly, conveying at the same time a lull explanation of the circumstances in a letter to the Attorney-General of the union, which we inserted at length in our impression of yesterday. In this astounding document Judge •Urummond affirms that the administration j« justice, in Utah was reduced to a nullity 3h if tyranny of the Mormon Governors, woo by their influence over juries acquit or condemn at their discretion, and give wapumty for homicide or instructions for assassination according to their caprices. thS gto details» this officer charges th Mormons with having commissioned wi 7T lans to murder Captain Gunnison Ta ms party of eight men, with having estroyed his own predecessor in office by J£ 1S°n> and with having deliberately murto ? iate Territorial Secretary. As if 0 chow, indeed, their independence of any

decrees but those of their own Church, the Mormons are said to have destroyed the records and archives of the Supreme : Court; and its^President, therefore, retires from a position where the authority which he represents is openly set at nought, and where all the ordinary bonds of society and (obligations of law are violently thrust aside Ito leave free scope for a despotism without example.

' The collision thus probably provoked between the American Government and the Mormon community has been long anticipated. It .has often been debated, indeed, to what extent toleration could be carried in a case like this, even on the assumption that the Mormons abstained from any offence beyond that attaching to their institutions themselves; but they have now exceeded these limits, and have violated laws to which, as citizens of the Union, they undoubtedly owed respect. It was not binding upon them to profess Christianity, and, whatever might have been the scandal attending their licence and their lies, it was doubtful on what ground they could be assailed, especially after the self-imposed exile by which they buried their brutality and blasphemy in the solitudes of a desert. But Utah, however desolate and remote, is American territory still, and the Mormons can only occupy it on the same conditions of political allegiance as are exacted from others. The soil on which'they reared their city, though untenanted, was not unowned. It pertained to the dominion of the Union as entirely as any district in Massachusetts or Georgia, and the resistance of the settlers to the authority of the Federal Government lawfully represented is an act of rebellion. It cannot be supposed that such an act will be overlooked by the Administration at Washington, and the whole question of Mormonism and its title to toleration will now probably be raised for practical solution. The Mormons are far off, but they are not out of reach. The desert is a frightful one, but it can be passed by the protectors of public order as well as by the miserable victims of spiritual delusion.

Unhappily, the whole case touches us nearly. Mormonism, if conceived in America, is propagated in England, nor do we know of any sign of our times more bewildering than the success of this shocking imposture among a civilized and instructed population. Witchcraft is a mere nothing by the side of this living and moving monstrosity. No pilgrim or crusader in past ages even ventured upon such an expedition as is now undertaken by educated Christians with a huge den of vice and wickedness awaiting them at its close. The picture now given of these abominations by Judge Drummond shows that tyranny, by a natural sequence of events, has been brought in aid of delusion, and that when once the unhappy proselytes have been entrapped no room is allowed them for repentance or return. It is this which aggravates the enormity of the institution. It is terrible enough to think of the delusion itself, but the view becomes infinitely more alarming when it is known that violence and terror are prepared to overwhelm any symptom oH penitence or remorse. This feature of Mormonism, at any rate, we may hope to see extinguished, and such an exposure as is now given may tend, we trust, to open the eyes of even the weakest and most credulous to the real nature of the snare.