earth. His going to Congress at first was meant directly as an insult to the United States. When Brigham Young named him for the place, he said: "I will thrust polygamy down the throats of Congress;" and he did it.

With the death of Brigham Young, the American leadership of the Mormons ceased. Taylor is an Englishman, Cannon is an Englishman, and almost all the leaders are of foreign birth. The Mormon church is a foreign kingdom, hostile in all its features to a republican form of government; it is guided and controlled by foreigners, and depends upon foreigners and the children of foreigners for future expansion and power. It is absolutely un-American in all its attributes. It is a theocracy managed by a plebeian aristocracy, for intellectually the whole organization is of low order. Now, in addition to church ties, there are family ties to hold this people in unity. The organization is fanaticism and superstition solidified. It numbers, probably, one hundred and fifty thousand souls, and is increasing as fast as polygamy and immigration can accomplish the result. It is swiftly peopling all the agricultural valleys of our richest territories, and its leaders boldly proclaim their intention to subjugate the whole Union and bring it under their rule. They exalt their church, over the state; contemn all laws which conflict with any tenet of their creed; are as careless of their oaths as a Chinaman, and bear as little allegiance to the United States government as do the Chinese. The control of the chiefs, as in Mohammedan countries, is absolute; their organization superb; the discipline of the people perfect. From tithes, $1,000,000 annually is collected with which to strengthen their position; they are a hardy race, indifferent to hardships and privations; already they are such a power that demagogues in their own country, other demagogues in Congress, and great moneyed corporations, with their subsidized newspapers, pander to them, and it is plain that this institution, which was jeered at but a few years ago, has now become an absolute terror and menace to the United States.

The organization is governed by a code which is said to be a close copy of that which prevailed in Peru under the rule of the Incas. Of its completeness, an idea may be gained by a statement given to a correspondent of the San Francisco "Chronicle," last month, by Bishop Henry Lunt, of Cedar City, Utah. The bishop said:

"First, there is a President, and he has two Counselors. Second, there are Twelve Apostles. The President is one of them, and there are eleven others. Each of them receives a salary of $1500 per annum. The President wields an authority equal to that of the other eleven. Third, there are seven Presidents designated as the Presidents of the Seventies. Fourth, come the Seventies, with seven Presidents over each, and a President over each of the Sevens. Fifth, come the Seventies, each body of which consists of seventy Elders. There are eighty of these Seventies in Utah, and they are compelled to report at least annually. These constitute the general authorities of the Church. Sixth, is the Head Patriarch of the Church. This dignity is hereditary when the candidate is worthy. The Head Patriarch resides at Salt Lake City, and blesses the people by the laying on of hands. The present incumbent of that sacred position is John Smith, the nephew of Prophet Joseph Smith. Seventh, there is a Presiding Bishop, who attends to the collection of tithes. Eighth, Zion is divided into twenty-three Stakes, each of which has a President. Each Stake is subdivided into wards, and each ward into districts. Each district has a quorum of Teachers, whose business it is to visit each family periodically and look after the spiritual welfare of its members. Each district has a meeting-house, Sunday-school, day-school, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society, primary association for small children which meets on Saturdays, and usually a dramatic society. Our people at Cedar City have a brass band, a string band, a coöperative store, a coöperative tannery, and a coöperative grist-mill which cost ten thousand dollars. Ninth, come the priests and deacons. In the world the priests preach and baptize, but do not lay on hands. The wisdom of man could never have devised a church organization like that. Out of a total population of one hundred and fifty thousand there are thirty thousand children in Utah under eight years of age. We have a Sunday-school organization known as the Deseret Sunday-school Union, of which George Q. Cannon is Superintendent; he is our Delegate to Congress. Then we have a perpetual immigration fund, in charge of President Albert Carrington. With this we assist in gathering our converts to these valleys. All nations are here represented."

Of the designs of the church, to the same correspondent Bishop Lunt said:

"Like a grain of mustard was the truth planted in Zion, and it is destined to spread through all the world. Our Church has been organized only fifty years, and yet behold its wealth and power. This is our year of jubilee. We look forward with perfect confidence to the day when we will hold the reins of the United States government. That is our present temporal aim; after that we expect to control the continent."

When told by the correspondent that such a scheme seems somewhat visionary, considering the fact that Utah cannot secure recognition as a State, the bishop's reply was:

"Do not be deceived; we are looking after that. We do not care for these territorial officials sent out to govern us. They are nobodies here. We do

not recognize them. Neither do we fear any practical interference by Congress. We intend to have Utah recognized as a State. To-day we hold the balance of political power in Idaho, we rule Utah absolutely, and in a very short time we will hold the balance of power in Arizona and Wyoming. A few months ago, President Snow of St. George set out with a band of priests for an extensive tour through Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona, to proselyte. We also expect to send missionaries to some parts of Nevada, and we design to plant colonies in Washington Territory.

"In the past six months we have sent more than three thousand of our people down through the Sevier valley to settle in Arizona, and the movement still progresses. All this will help build up for us a political power which will, in time, compel the homage of the demagogues of the country. Our vote is solid, and will always remain so. It will be thrown where the most good will be accomplished for the Church. Then in some great political crisis, the two present political parties will bid for our support. Utah will then be admitted as a polygamous State, and the other territories we have peacefully subjugated will be admitted also. We will then hold the balance of power, and will dictate to the country. In time, our principles, which are of sacred origin, will spread throughout the United States. We possess the ability to turn the political scale in any particular community we desire. Our people are obedient. When they are called by the Church, they promptly obey. They sell their houses, lands, and stock, and remove to any part of the country the Church may direct them to. You can imagine the results which wisdom may bring about, with the assistance of a church organization like ours. It is the completest one the world has ever seen. We have another advantage. We are now and shall always be in favor of woman suffrage. The women of Utah vote, and they never desert the colors of the Church in a political contest. They vote for the tried friends of the Church, and what they do here they will do everywhere our principles and our institutions spread."

That tells the whole story. As the Gulf Stream mixes not with the waters of the ocean on which it rides, and which makes its banks, so this theocracy is pursuing and pressing its distinct way through and over the republic. During the past decade it has waived some of its atrocities, but has not surrendered a tenet of its creed, or abated one jot of its purpose of subjugation.

Is there any remedy? Yes; because, while the masses are sincere, the leaders know perfectly well that the foundation of the whole structure is laid in fraud, and that only its cement of superstition keeps it from toppling and going down with a crash. With them the institution is simply a commercial and political engine, which they work for the purpose of maintaining power and gaining more plunder from their dupes. Nothing can change old Mormons, men or women; but, despite the blinding and benumbing influences of this system, under which so many hearts

of women have broken and are breaking, there is among the young a growing restlessness, an increasing sense of shame and wrong. The conditions are becoming dangerous, and the leaders see it. Utah is not Turkey, or one of the Barbary states; the air is pure; the American flag is overhead; some echoes of the boom of the power-press are beginning to be heard; some flashes of the electric light of knowledge to be seen; and some of the hopes which make jubilant the souls of American youth elsewhere are causing thrills in hearts in Utah which have heretofore been stolid. The thing to do is to strike at the animalism which underlies the Mormon system, and either by a commission, as recommended by President Hayes, or some other means, while guarding carefully all personal and property rights, and shielding those from harm who have sinned through ignorance, wrest the offices (local) from polygamists, make further plural marriages impossible, and never relax until polygamy and the rule of the Mormon church in temporal affairs are forever abandoned. This can be accomplished now. If it is postponed for fifteen years longer, nothing less than an exhaustive civil war will suffice to overcome this open enemy of republican government.

C. C. GOODWIN.

THEOLOGICAL CHARLATANISM.

"THE small philosopher is a great character in New England. His fundamental rule of logical procedure is to guess at the half, and multiply by two. [Applause.]"* It is only two or three years since the "philosopher," from whom this text is quoted, was himself "a great character in New England," inasmuch as he could give a lecture once every week, in one of the largest halls of New England's principal city, and could entertain his audience of two or three thousand people with discussions of the most vast and abstruse themes of science and metaphysics. The success with which he entertained his audience is carefully chronicled for us in the volumes made up from the reports of his lectures, in which parenthetical notes of "laughter," "applause," or "sensation" occur as frequently as in ordinary newspaper reports of stump-speeches or humorous convivial harangues. As a social phenomenon, this singular career of Mr. Cook possesses considerable interest-enough, at any rate, to justify a brief inquiry as to his "fundamental rule of procedure."

Among the wise and witty sayings of the ancients with which our children are puzzled and edified in the first dozen pages of the Greek "Reader," there is a caustic remark attributed to Phokion, on the occasion of being very violently applauded by the populace: "Dear me," said the old statesman, "can it be that I have been making a fool of myself?" So, when three thousand people are made to laugh and clap their hands over statements about the origin of species, or the anatomy of the nervous system, the first impulse of any scientific inquirer of ordinary sagacity and experience is to ask in

* Cook's "Boston Monday Lectures: Biology," page 51.