DREADFUL STATE OF MORMON SOCIETY.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 66, 23 June 1863, Page 3

DREADFUL STATE OF MORMON SOCIETY.

Ie resident correspondent of the A Ita tlifornia, writes as follows on tlie Gth of arch, from Salt Lake city. He says :— A short residence in Salt Lake City un furnishes a stranger with the most iple evidence that Utah is a country jlete with interest, and probably the best hool for the study of human nature that c world affords. Here the overwhelm- % mass are brothers and sisters by faith, 1(elv cemented by ties of consanguinity. ) interlaced like a fancy web by the interable relations of marriage. No inland "ape— the oldest of the old world—prei^move striking daily prnnts of brothei a j^ins, and ancles to every man spoken h, than Utah will exhibit in a few rs. Salt Lake City, though a stirring, -y, commercial city, may yet be said to take more of the village than of the t of trade, and the city of business. •**■ settlements, or other cities, aro merous enough ; but yet so entirely cupied with agricultural pursuits, ancl thout the facilities to travel that induce c growth of interchanging commerce, at the people have not yet begun to reise much more than wide apart village istence. They must, therefore, have out the same information, pretty near c same likes and dislikes, and quite cely be of the same mind on matters nerally. lam willing to accord a great nl to faith for uniting men ; but circuminces are powerful mentors. "Faith in the future is mighty with the 3st illiterate and the most intellectual, ie people of Utah are prominently people faith— strongly so, peculiarly so; but t being united, like other professed re;ionists, to "hopes beyond the^ grave," iat enthusiasm, sincerity, devotion, and lity characterises tbeir lives in a collecw capacity are unquestionably the reIt of the combination of the two powers, cumstances and faith On faith, minds ay waver; on self-preservation, _ there n be no division ; as said a revolutionary Iher, " we must all hang together, or we ust hang separately." The citizens of tj|i,' migrating here at first in a body, eiving yearly accessions of relatives and iends, and so far removed from all other tizens of the Union, have grown up to hat they are — one people. Their speakers idently without any purpose therein, td so their writers— in fret, so every rson with whom a stranger speaks, akes use ofthe distinctive " this people." o an unaccustomed esirif sounded strangely first ; but with a short residence the sculiarity vanishes, and the terms of entiles and Mormons, as well, lose their ffshness. I meet with gentlemen, who leak of themselves as Gentiles, and the hers as Mormons, with about the same miliarity as on the Pacific we speak of hinamt/\ or Spainards, or Americans. Phen bitterness is in either the Gentile or "c Mormon, theie will doubtless be a i arkpd difference, in. the use of the dis- i octive appellations ;bu' so familiar, in I pneral intercourse, are the- terms used,

. . - that there is not probably half a dozen men in Salt Lake City who are not addressed in general intercourse vyith the familiar - prefix of the brotherhood. Nothing is more common than to hear prominent San Franciscans alluded to as Brother C, ! Brother G., and Brother S , and the same ; of any distinguished gentleman from the ! Atlantic States who have passed through here. The same faith and circumstances that bind the citizen together, as naturally make their leader the idol of their hearts. He was their prominent missionary, their devoted, labouring, self-sustaining local preacher *, and in the changes at the death of their former leader, he by the same fortuitous circumstances which decide all matters with the mass, ascended to the vacant leadership. It is very easy, therefore, when there is anj'thing of an interesting, exciting character affecting the community, for a stranger to feel its influence. There is no disguise possible. The mass keep no secrets ; and just as sure as " the household of faith" exhibit the current of their thoughts and actions, the few, not with them in faiih or in sympathy, show the unmistakeable signs of unity on their side. The neutral class, and such there is here, only have the enviable position, and their society is very agreeable. There is a bitterness of enmity that the lowest only indulge in elsewhere, which men of office and position here do not seem to discard; hence, on the outbreak of difficulties, there is an immediate threatening of force, and a great deal of personal vindictiveness. Utah is in that position just now, and what the threatening on the one side and the actions on the oihcr may produce I am unto say.