THE MORMONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 599, 31 July 1858, Page 3

THE MORMONS.

(From the ' Times,' April 2.)

The, British Empire has had to deal with very many classes of .subjects ; it has Frenchmen of the old school in Canada, and Frenchmen of the democratized type in Mauritius. There are Dutchmen in Guiana and at the Cape, with all their old laws and their quaint habits. We have Spaniards in Trinidad, Italians in Malta, Greeks hi Corfu and Zante, millions of Hindoos and Musselmans in India, Parsees and Sikhs mingled with them, Malays, Burmese, Chinese and Polynesians, in various settlements further East. We have Caffres, who make wadding of our New Testaments and cartoucheboxes of the bindings when they have a mind for an armed incursion ; we have New Zealanders, the more tenacious among whom have hardly given up, dining on their fallen enemies. All these races and kindreds have given us trouble in their time; but every thing that England has gone through with her motley array of subjects seems likely to be surpassed by the embarrasments caused to the United States by a community of their own flesh and blood. The Mormons are now in full rebellion. The Government of President Buchanan is preparing to invade a country which is Oude -and Caffreland in one. Republicans under a theocratic rule; men of European race established away from all contact with civilization ; Christians with a new_ revelation within the last 20 years ; men claiming a reputation for the highest purity, and restoring the practice of polygamy, —these are the enemies against, whom the forces of the United States are marshalled. The Mormons are beyond a desert which is-well-nigh impassable; the road is said to be whitened with the bones of men and women and beasts of burden; they are resolute, confident in their numbers, and, it may be, devoted to their cause. . Attachment to a creed is not to be measured by its truth ; it is -the most hideous idol which has the warmest worshippers; and as the Mormons fled from the older States, first to Missouri.and then to the Salt Lake, and preached their strange Gospel all the more fervently for persecutions and murders, it is quite possible that they will resist with their whole force and to the last any interference with their independence and the rights they claim. A memorial has been sent from the members and officers of the territory of Utah to the President and Congress of the United States. This decument is not openly warlike in its tone, but it expresses sufficiently the resolution of the Saints not to yield without a struggle.^ The composition is enough to show how illiterate are the men who are now the vicegerents of God in the Western desert. The sentiments and style are those of an angry community bf

labouring men, possessed of some shrewdness and no weak feeling of independence, but unversed in political writing, or indeed in any writing at all. Brigham Yonng, Heber Kimball, and the rest, complain that the Federal officers pent to administer the territory of Utah have not the confidence of its inhabitants—that they are not only not Saints, but that they are very disreputable representatives of the outer world—in short, demagogues, intriguers, and place-hunters of the lowest class, who have taken appointments which no one else thought it worth while to solicit. Whether the Saints have hit the truth on this point we cannot say, but still, as their country is only a territory, and consequently is legally governed by the nominees of the President, they have no legal right to deny the validity of the Washington appointments, and their resistance is nothing less than high treason. The memorial then complains that no answer had been sent to the last resolutions which were forwarded to Washington, but that, instead, their communication with the East had been cut off and an army sent against them. The Mormons then ask whether their last memorial was in anyway disrespectful or defiant, and answer for themselves thatit was not; nor had they, they say, any objection to be ruled by good men, their antipathy being to " corrupt demagogues who are a disgrace to the Government." They then dwell on their services to the general cause. They are, it appears, patriots and Filibusters. " True," say the Saints, " this territory is pai-t of the public domain of the United States, but how was it acquired? Did not the people!of Utah furnish at the call of Government an altogether unprecedented quota of troops to aid ; in the war against Mexico, and did not the people settle this territory while it was still under the dominion of Mexico ?" The force of patriotism could no further go. How can the United States have the heart to disturb a people who took possession of a neighbour's country and baought it under the Stars and Stripes ? After a great display of indignant eloquence the memorial concludes:—"Withdraw your troops, give us our constitutional rights, and we are at home."

The practical comment on this document is given in the news from the Salt Lake. The Mormons are said to be making active preparations for resistance. They were manufacturing ammunition, cannon, and revolvers, and drilling their troops. Nor had active hostilities been wanting. Some of the Mormons had had a slight skirmish with one of the pickets of the camp. There seems, then, no doubt that this deluded people will endeavour to defend their system from the attacks of the Federal Government. The result will perhaps he a bitter and unrelenting crusade. The Americans as a race are sufficiently excitable, not to say vendictive ; and it is hardly doubtful that the news of any disas^-er sustained by the United States' troops will be the signal for a general movement to exterminate the Saints. That this cannot be accomplished without a long struggle is clear enough. The distances are enormous; the heat and dust in summer, the bitter cold in winter, are enough to check the most active troops and the most determined avengers. It is probable, too, that the Mormons are sufficiently strong to harass tlie march of their enemies, and perhaps, by their superior knowledge of the localities, to defeat them in detail. But of the Americans giving in and become re • conciled with a community which has defied the Federal power there is little chance. Brother Heber Kimball probably sealed the fate of the Saints when he said 'r Tlie^Thry-of - our seperation has come, and we are a free and independent poeple." This Declaration of Independence is not likely to pass unpunished by the United States. Indeed the arm}', as the Mormons complain, have repeatedly declared their intention of hanging Brigham Young and his lieutenants, and, unless some great change takes place in the Mormon community, it must support a desperate struggle or acquiesce in the reform of its institutions.

An alternative certainly remains to the citizens of Utah. They may again strike their tents, leave the fiields they have planted and the city they have built, and seek a refuge beyond the dominion of the United States. We cer.tainly cannot desire their presence within the British territory, and a recent' speech, comparing their present condition with " British colonial bondage," make us hope that Queen Victoria's Empire will not be favoured with a new race of polgamists. They may, however, migrate into the Mexican territory, drive out the Indians, and set up their sensual theocracy in the place of native superstitions. But tins will only defer the day of the inevitable struggle. The tide of American settlement will follow them, and Brigham Young or his successor will be threatened with extirpation by a new generation of citizens. Our only hope is that the Mormon body will, under the pressure of necessity, overthrow their priests and prophets, and accept the merely human nominees of Mr. Buchauan. Mormon ism is said to have already undergone some changes. The book _ written on the goldeu plates is fallen into disrepute, and the Bible is being restored to its old supremacy. Why should notthedoctine ofDivinecommunication through Brigham Young and the practice of polgamy also pass away ? If that were the case, then Mormonism would be as harmless as the creed of the Shakers or the Southcotians, If the citizens of Utah will anticipate the resolve of the United States and dethrone their prophets, and if they will give guarantees for a more moral course of life, they may still be left iv possession of the regions which it is said they have won from the wilderness with almost unexampled industry and perseverance.