MOST of our readers have heard something about the strange and dangerous American sect called the Mormons. Recently we observed in the press a note of warning given by the Anti-Mormon League to the effect that the Mormons were making a special effort at the present moment to propagate their views and advance their cause in the United Kingdom. Our Moderator of Synod in his sermon indicates that Mormon agents have extended their activity as far as the Highlands of Scotland. The arch-enemy in many forms is active in the Highlands and Lowlands in the present day, and the young, particularly, need to be warned against his subtle approaches. The subject of the Mormons is not at all a savoury or attractive one, but it may be none the less necessary that some information should be given as to the history and tenets of this deluded and pernicious sect. We have recently read a graphically-written book entitled “The Mormons Unmasked,” by C. Sheridan Jones—a telling exposure of Mormonism—and some of our facts will be culled from it.
The founder of the Mormon sect was a man named Joseph Smith. He was born in 1805. Belonging to a wild wandering class called “Money Diggers,” he became a “Money Digger” himself, and professed ability to divine where lost or hid treasures were to be found in the earth. Somehow succeeding in this sort of work, he became a force among his neighbours. When he was between twenty and thirty years of age, he turned religious, and at this critical moment fell in with the “Book of Mormon.” His followers down to the present day all profess to believe in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the latter, it is manifest, much more than the former. This Book of Mormon, it has been clearly proved, was the fictitious composition of an eccentric man named Solomon Spaulding. It purports to give the history of a prophet Mormon of the fifth century, and traces up the original inhabitants of America to the tribe of Joseph. The whole thing was the conception of a disordered brain expressed in a Biblical form of language. The manuscript of the book had lain for a considerable time neglected in a printer’s office, until at length it was brought to Joseph Smith by a man named Sidney Rigdon. Smith, who was now ambitious to gain fame in the religious world, struck upon the idea of announcing its discovery as the result of a revelation from heaven. The book was published in 1830, and Smith succeeded in gathering around him a small company of disciples whom he baptized into the new faith. Now finding that the notion of new revelations had a fascination for many misguided people, Smith published many “revelations” from time to time, and his followers largely increased in number. He used Bible phrases in abundance, and spoke of his credulous disciples as “the elect” and “the saints.”
Smith next conceived the idea of gathering the so-called elect into one place, to prepare, by the way, for the end of the world. A “revelation” came forth that Missouri was the chosen land, and at length a New Jerusalem was built at a spot called Independence. Internal strife, however, began in this city, and it ended in disaster and misery. The Mormons had to flee. Smith with his associates now led the Mormons farther west to the State of Iowa, where they built another Jerusalem which they named Nauvoo, on the east bank of the Mississippi. Here they erected a temple of great magnificence and flourished considerably for about four years. But in the winter of 1843, Smith privately emitted a “revelation” that was to prove his own ruin and the destruction of his Zion. This revelation justified and advocated Polygamy and was described as a “Revelation of the Eternity of the Marriage Covenant, including the Plurality of Wives.” Though the Mormons, as we can gather, were a pretty loose class of people before this, yet many of them were not prepared for such extraordinary views, and there was a tremendous disruption in the camp. That Smith had been leading a very immoral life now became known. Riots began, and he was arrested and put in prison, where he and a brother were shot dead by a mob that forced their way inside. Smith now came to be regarded as a martyr by those who adhered to his opinions, and even by some who opposed him at first. Wild fire is very contagious among the members of our fallen race. A man was soon found to take Smith’s place as a leader, one “in whom, like Smith, baseness and greatness were inextricably mixed.” This was Brigham Young, a sensualist after the manner of his predecessor. Young now led the Mormons to the far, far West—to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains—where they built the Salt Lake City which flourishes down to the present day. Here the doctrine of polygamy blossomed into practice to an enormous extent. Young made the plurality of wives compulsory, with the result that ere long Salt Lake City became a hell of wickedness and woe. The Mormon leaders became intolerant and cruel as well as licentious.
They used torture and murder to further their ends and to enforce their immoral principles. “Whosoever revolted was a doomed man.” “Murder, in fact, became an institution in Salt Lake City, and the Mormon ‘Reign of Terror’ lasted not for months but for years.” We cannot enlarge at present on the dreadful things that were done here in the name of this horrible religion.
It is not denied that owing to outside influences the ferocious aspect of Mormonism has been toned down during the last forty years. The Congress of the United States has passed Act after Act against polygamy, and the State of Utah, where Salt Lake City is situated, is one of the States of the Union. At the same time let it be distinctly noted and remembered by all who read these columns that polygamy is still practised to-day in Salt Lake as certainly (though perhaps not as universally) as ever it was. The law is ignored and defied. The Mormon creed has never been changed on this point, and the doctrine of polygamy is still taught there by Mormon preachers.
Missionaries of this evil cause are to be found in England and Scotland at this moment. They describe themselves as “The Latter-Day Saints,” but true saintship is far distant from them. Let not our readers suppose, however, that there is anything particularly terrible in the outward aspect of these Mormon agents. They dress for most part like any other people, and they advocate their opinions in the most plausible manner possible. Polygamy is not once mentioned as a part of their creed. In fact, they try to deceive those who listen to them by sophistical reasonings, and to convince them that polygamy is almost, if not altogether, extinct. They profess to believe in the Bible and Jesus Christ, but they maintain that there have been prophets since the Bible canon was closed who had revelations from heaven, such as Mormon and Joseph Smith. They devote their attention very particularly to young women who may be dissatisfied with their home circumstances in this country, and they paint to them in glowing colours the advantages to be got in the city by the Great Salt Lake, and the province of Utah. The membership of the Mormon Church is not, however, confined to Utah; there are thousands of its followers to be found in Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado, while there are hundreds in Nevada and New Mexico. The young woman whose attention is gained by the Mormon missionary will be told that her passage to the scene of happiness and prosperity will be paid, and this bait is frequently effectual.
Our readers will be surprised to learn that there are over 1,000 Mormon agents in England and Scotland at the present time, and that in 1910 nearly 1,000 women were baptised into their delusive faith, while upwards of 500 were persuaded to emigrate to Utah. Mormonism is therefore becoming a serious menace to the country, and it is time that warning was given to young people to be on their guard against such an evil. In fact, its agents ought to be prohibited by law from setting foot in the United Kingdom. Many are the sad stories which have come to hand, of young women deceived into emigration to the Salt Lake City, to find themselves entangled in the meshes of the Mormon net, forced into polygamous unions with wealthy sensualists there, and thus brought into a condition of unspeakable degradation and misery.
Let us observe in conclusion the extraordinary things which may be done in this fallen world under the name of religion. Satan stalks abroad as an angel of light and endeavours to deceive the unwary by a religious garb to their eternal destruction. False religion and immoral conduct frequently go hand in hand. The truth of this is exemplified in the Church of Rome; it is also exemplified in the Mormon Church (so-called). Here the doctrine is salvation by the flesh in its grossest form. The man who plunges most deeply into sensuality will have the highest place in heaven—surely a doctrine of devils indeed. And people gradually fall in with this awful opinion who are no worse than others to begin with. They and we belong to the same sinful race. What a commentary upon the Fall and its effects, and what a proof that the Bible speaks the infallible, unerring truth when it declares that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked!” Such a case also warns us to cleave to the Word of God alone as the supreme standard of faith and practice, to look entirely to the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth, and to keep us in it, and to be on our watch tower against any supposed vision or revelation from heaven that will lead us into a course of thought or action not in harmony with the plain teaching of the Holy Scriptures.
Temptation.—Always bear in mind the great danger that it is for any soul to enter into temptation. It is a woeful thing to consider what slight thoughts the most have of this thing. So men can keep themselves from sin itself in open action, they are content, they scarce aim at more. On any temptation in the world, all sorts of men will venture at any time. How will young men put themselves in any company, any society; at first being delighted with evil company, then with the evil of the company! How vain are all admonitions and exhortations to them, to take heed of such persons, debauched in themselves, corrupters of others, destroyers of souls! At first, they will venture in the company, abhorring the thoughts of practising their lewdness; but what is the issue? Unless it be here or there one whom God snatches with a mighty hand from the jaws of destruction, they are all lost and become after a while in love with the evil which at first they abhorred. This open door to the ruin of souls is too evident, and woeful experience makes it no less evident that it is almost impossible to fasten upon many poor creatures any fear or dread of temptation, who yet will profess a fear and abhorrence of sin.—Owen.