MORMONISM AND ITS TREATMENT.

Southland Times, Issue 636, 25 February 1867, Page 3

MORMONISM AND ITS TREATMENT.

In an article on this subject, the Bulletin of the 26th October says : — " That singular community which has built up a separate order of society in the heart of the United States — which has made itself a sort of inner vortice to American institutions — we mean the community of Mormons, or Latter Day Saints as it prefers to be called, is uneasy concerning the intentions towards it of the people and Government of the Union. Its journals and speakers have assumed a defensive attitude, and labor to show the sanctity and harmlessness of a system which they know is condemned by the voice of civilisation at large as well as by the voice of the country. The uneasiness to which we allude is caused partly by the rapid environment of Mormon Utah by mining, trading and farming communities, which are morally inimical, thougj^not openly hostile, to the Mormbtt||Qlity and faiths Another disturbing "Influence is the apprehension that Congress, which at its last session inquired closely into Mormon affairs and took measures to restrict Mormon influence in the Territorial Government, will, at its next session, aim a direct blow at the very fabric of their system. So far as their religious and personal freedom and rights of conscience and property are concerned, there is, of course, no reason whatever to apprehend any interference ; and it is not possible their leaders are alarmed on this score. It is only for a barbarous incident to their system, which is notoriously in conflict with the secular policy and criminal law of the United States, namely, polygamy, that they are actually concerned, whatever some of them may say to the contrary The Government has to consider whether it is better to trust to moral influences, or resort to coercion to obolish the barbarism of polygamy. It has to decide if the Mormon superstition will not be strengthened by driving its dupes into the notion that they are a persecuted people. Their history shows that they have hitherto thrived on coercion. Of course it will not be proposed to crush them out by an overwhelming exercise of power. The blockade of civilisation is being established around Mormonism by the selfacting forces of enterprise and emigration, and only needs to be strengthened and sustained bj the Government, without indulgence in irritating debates or measures, to ensure the certain decay of the Mormon hierarchy, and with it the abandonment of polgamy. It cannot be many years before there will be in Utah an enormous majority of anti-poly gamists. Brigham Young's influence, in the course of nature, must soon be lost to the polygamists, and it is doubtful if any other leader can wield as much power on their side after he is gone. The people then will give up ' the principle,' as they call it, before they will surrender their pleasant homes and their hard-earned property. Most of them were attracted from Europe to Salt Lake mainly by the prospect of improving their temporal condition, and do not practise polygamy, whatever they may think of it as a point of faith,, partly from sheer inability and partly from disinclination. There will, therefore, be but a small party, in two or three years, who can be rallied to resist the enforcement of the law against that practice, unless the sympathies of a larger number are enlisted by other coercive measures, apparently aimed at their undobted rights of property and conscience. Congress will probably take this view of the subject, and conclude to trust more to the laws of the Republic's growth than to repressive legislation for the abatement of what alone is politically odious in the Mormon system."