PREFACE.

ONE year since, with fear and trembling, I gave to the world my testimony against the Mormon delusion.* It was not a history of that people, or the rise and progress of their singular creed. It made no pretensions even to trace them as a body through their various settlements in the Western country' previous to their emigration to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. It was designed simply as a record of personal experience-a transcript of events written from memory; a faithful narrative of such hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, as any woman placed in such circumstances must necessarily feel.

The success of that venture emboldens me to send another barque in the same track, though this time it is the experience and adventures of another-of a man. Of course he takes a somewhat different view,

"Female Life Among the Mormons."

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but his account corroborates my testimony. He presents a philosophical view of the Mormons, with their moral and social condition as a community; but that neither softens nor modifies the nature of the facts which came beneath his observation. It was not from ambition or the love of gold, but a sense of duty to my country and the world, that the other book was written. The impostors are still abroad in the land 1; every month brings the arrival of their dupes from foreign shores. Again I lift the voice of warning. Beware of their arts.-Enter not the circle of their fascinations; their charms are like those of the serpent, and lead to the death of all that is holy and beautiful in this life, and all that can support the anxious soul in its moments of dissolution, and give it a happy and abundant entrance into the presence of just men made perfect.

I have been careful to preserve the thoughts and sentiments of the writer. In no case have I changed or omitted a sentence, because it did not agree with my feelings and opinions. I wished to be true to him as I had been to myself.

The writer was the nephew of my husband. Subsequent to my escape from Mormondom, but before his family were aware of the fact, he took the overland route to California, stayed among the Mormons for a

time, went on to the Gold Region, caught cold from exposure in the mines, and came home to die. He was unmarried, and in the distribution of his effects his papers were given to me. I hand them over to you, kind public, relying on your candor and generosity for a charitable appreciation of the work and the motives which prompted it.

MARIA WARD.

THE EDITOR'S DESIGN.

THE public mind has begun to appreciate, with some degree of correctness, the evil influence of the Mormon faith, and the true nature of its institutions. It has at least commenced to perceive the extent of folly and wickedness that must naturally grow up under such a system, adverse alike to democratic institutions and the truths of Christianity. Priestcraft, in its worst phase, is the soul and life of Mormonism. The United States, as well as foreign countries, teem with these men and their confederates, whose morality is even more lax, whose delusion finds readier dupes, and whose designs are more sinister and dangerous than those of Rome. Polygamy and the conversion of women are accounted among the chief instrumentalities to promote their designs. To support the one and effect the other the most strenuous exertions are made. Nor is it always the case that efforts to secure fresh victims are confined to the use of persuasion and advice, but physical assistance can be rendered when necessary to abduct and carry off, in some emigrant train or caravan, such youth of either sex as circumstances throw in their way.

If either of these volumes should be the means of warning one individual to escape their nefarious designs, I shall have been amply repaid for all my pains and labor.

* The Author here refers to the popular work entitled " Female Life among the Mormons."