of art.

The Mormon High Priests returned from their frontier camp to consecrate it on the day of its completion, in May, 1846. The following sample of the consecration service will probably satisfy our readers:

This ceremony had a disastrous influence on the fortunes of the remaining citizens. It was construed,' says Colonel Kane, 'to indicate an insincerity on the part of the Mormons as to 'their stipulated departure, or at least a hope of return; and their foes set upon them with renewed bitterness.

A vindictive war was waged upon them, from which the 'weakest fled in scattered parties, leaving the rest to make a ' reluctant and almost ludicrously unavailing defence, till the 17th of September, when 1625 troops entered Nauvoo, and drove forth all who had not retreated before that time.'

Thus, once more, the lawless tyranny of a majority trampled down the rights of a minority. These instances of triumphant outrage, which have recurred so often in our narrative, are not only striking as pictures of American life, but may also furnish an instructive warning to some among ourselves. They force upon us the conclusion, that laws are not more willingly obeyed because made by universal suffrage. They teach us that in those communities where every man has an equal share in legislation, the ordinances of the legislature are treated with a contemptuous disregard, for which the history of other nations can furnish no precedent. The mob, knowing that they can enact laws when they please, infer that they may dispense with that formality at discretion, and accomplish their will directly, without the intermediate process of recording it in the statute-book. They can make the law, therefore they may break the law; as the barbarous Romans claimed the right of killing the sons they had begotten.

We must refer to Colonel Kane for a picturesque account of the appearance of Nauvoo after its desertion, and of the sufferings of its helpless citizens, who were driven across the Mississippi by their foes. It was with pain and toil that these last unfortunate exiles reached the camp of their brethren.

Like

the wounded birds of a flock fired into towards nightfall, they came straggling on with faltering steps, many of them without bag or baggage, all asking shelter or burial, and forcing a fresh ' repartition of the already divided rations of their friends.' At last, towards the close of autumn, all these emigrants had rejoined the main body, in the valley of the Missouri. And there they prepared to meet the severity of winter, in the depth of an Indian wilderness. The stronger members of the party had employed the summer in cutting and storing hay for the cattle, and in laying up such supplies of food as they could obtain. But these labours had been interrupted by a destructive fever, bred by the pestilential vapours of the marshy plain, which decimated their numbers. When winter came upon them, they were but ill prepared to meet it. For want of other shelter, they were fain to dig caves in the ground, and huddle together there for warmth. Many of the cattle died of starvation; and the same fate was hardly escaped by the emaciated owners.

At length the spring came to relieve their wretchedness. Out of twenty thousand Mormons who had formed the population of Nauvoo and its environs, little more than three thousand were now assembled on the Missouri. Of the rest, many had perished miserably; and many had dispersed in search of employment, to await a more convenient season for joining their friends. The hardiest of the saints who still adhered to the camp of Israel, were now organised into a company of pioneers; and they set out, to the number of 143 men, up the valley of the Platte, to seek a home among the Rocky Mountains. They carried rations for six months, agricultural implements, and seed grain; and were accompanied by the President and his chief counsellors. After a three months' journey, they reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake on the 21st of July. And here they determined to bring their wanderings to a close, and to establish a Stake of Zion.'* But they had small time to rest from their fatigues. Immediately on their arrival a fort was erected to secure them against the Indians, with log houses opening upon a square, into which they drove their cattle at night. In five days a field was consecrated, fenced, ploughed, and planted.' (G. 134.) Before the autumn they were re

All the Mormon settlements are called Stakes of Zion' to distinguish them from Jackson County, Missouri, which is Zion.' This is ultimately to be reconquered by the saints, and thus Joseph's prophecy (which their expulsion seemed to falsify), is to be fulfilled. Meanwhile, when speaking popularly, they apply the term Zion to Utah.

joined by their brethren whom they had left on the Missouri. This large body, consisting of about three thousand persons, including many women and children, journeyed across the unknown desert with the discipline of a veteran army. Colonel Kane, who had been an eye-witness, describes with admiration

The strict order of march, the unconfused closing up to meet attack, the skilful securing of cattle upon the halt, the system with which the watches were set at night to guard the camp... Every ten of their waggons was under the care of a captain; this captain of ten obeyed a captain of fifty; who in turn obeyed a member of the High Council of the Church.

By the aid of this admirable organisation, they triumphed over the perils of the wilderness; and after a weary pilgrimage of a thousand miles, came at last within view of their destined home. The last portion of their route, which led them into the defiles of the mountains, was the most difficult:

When the last mountain has been crossed, the road passes along the bottom of a deep ravine, whose scenery is of almost terrific gloom. At every turn the overhanging cliffs threaten to break down upon the river at their base. At the end of this defile, which is five miles in length, the emigrants come abruptly out of the dark pass into the lighted valley, on a terrace of its upper table land. A ravishing panoramic landscape opens out below them, blue, and green, and gold, and pearl; a great sea with hilly islands; a lake; and broad sheets of grassy plain; all set as in a silver-chased cup, within mountains whose peaks of perpetual snow are burnished by a dazzling sun.'

The sympathy which we so freely give to the shout of the ten thousand Greeks, hailing the distant waters of the Euxine, we cannot refuse to the rapture of these Mormon pilgrims, when at last they beheld the promised land from the top of their transatlantic Pisgah. Nor is it wonderful that their superstition discovered in the aspect of their new inheritance an assurance of blessing; for the region which they saw below them bears, in its geographical features, a resemblance singularly striking to the Land of Canaan. The mountain lake of Galilee, the Jordan issuing from its waves, and the salt waters of the Dead Sea, where the river is absorbed and lost, have all their exact parallels in the territory of Utah. Here surely was the portion of Jacob, where the wanderings of Israel might find rest!

The arrival of these way worn exiles, together with that of the disbanded volunteers from California, raised the number of the colony to nearly four thousand persons. The first thing needful was to provide that this multitude should not perish for lack of food. 6 Ploughing and planting,' says Captain Stans

bury, 'continued throughout the whole winter, and until the July following; by which time a line of fence had been con'structed enclosing upwards of six thousand acres, laid down in 'crops, besides a large tract of pasture land.' But, notwithstanding all their industry, the colonists were on the brink of starvation during the first winter. There is very little game in the country, and they were reduced to the necessity of feeding on wild roots and on carrion; and even tore off the hides with which they had roofed their cabins, to boil them down into soup. When we clambered the mountains,' says one of them, 'with the Indians, to get leeks, we were sometimes too feeble to 'pull them out of the ground.' (XV. 387.) This bitter season, however, saw the last of their sufferings; an abundant harvest relieved their wants; and since that time their agriculture has been so successful, that they have raised enough, not only for home consumption, but for the demand of the numerous emigrants who are constantly passing through their settlements to the gold diggings of California. The engineers of the Central Government who surveyed their territory, state, that although the soil capable of cultivation bears a very small proportion to that which (for want of water) is doomed to sterility, yet the strip of arable land along the base of the mountains makes up, by its prodigious fertility, for its small extent (S. 141.); and that it would support, with ease, a million of inhabitants. (G. 18.) This question is of primary importance, because a country so distant from the sea, and so far from all other civilised states, must depend entirely on its own resources. There must be a constant danger lest an unfavourable season should be followed by a famine. Against such a calamity, however, some provision is made by accumulating large quantities of grain in public storehouses, where the hierarchical government deposits the tithes which it receives in kind.

In physical prosperity, the new commonwealth, which is still (in 1854) only in the sixth year of its foundation, has advanced with a rapidity truly wonderful; especially when we consider the disadvantages under which it is placed, by the fact that every imported article has to be dragged by land carriage for a thousand miles over roadless prairies, bridgeless rivers, and snow-clad mountains. Thus reduced to self-dependence, we can imagine the straits to which the first emigrants were brought for want of those innumerable comforts of civilised life which cannot be extemporised, and need cumbersome machinery for their manufacture. We can understand why, even after some years of settlement, the new citizens complained that nineteen-twentieths of the most common articles of clothing and

furniture were not to be procured among them at any price. (XV. 395.) But before their steady energy, such difficulties have gradually vanished. When the colony had barely reached its fifth birthday, besides their agricultural triumphs already mentioned, they had completed an admirable system of irrigation, had built bridges over their principal rivers, and possessed iron-works and coal-mines, a factory of beet-sugar, a nail-work, and innumerable sawing-mills; and had even sacrificed to the graces by a manufactory of small-tooth combs!' (XV.418. and 437.) Regular mails were established with San Francisco on the Pacific, and New York on the Atlantic; public baths were erected, and copiously supplied by the boiling springs of the volcanic region, affording to the citizens that wholesome luxury so justly appreciated by the ancients and so barbarously neglected by the moderns. They were even beginning to cultivate the arts and sciences, more Americano. They had founded a University' in their capital, where one of the apostles gives lectures on astronomy, wherein he overthrows the Newtonian theory. (G. 82.) They had sculptured a monument to the memory of Washington. They had laid the foundation of a temple which is to surpass the architectural splendours of Nauvoo. They had reared a Mormon Sappho, who officiates as the laureate of King Brigham. Nay, they had even organised a dramatic association, which acts tragedies and comedies during the season.

Meanwhile, their population had increased by immigration from 4000 to 30,000, of whom 7000 were assembled in the city of Salt Lake, their capital. The rest were scattered over the country, to replenish the earth and to subdue it. This task they undertake, not with the desultory independence of isolated squatters, but with a centralised organisation, the result of which, in giving efficiency to the work of energetic men, has astonished (says Captain Stansbury) even those by whom it has been effected. He adds,

The mode which they adopt for the founding of a new town is highly characteristic. An expedition is first sent out to explore the country, with a view to the selection of the best site. An elder of the Church is then appointed to preside over the band designated to make the first improvement. This company is composed partly of volunteers, and partly of such as are selected by the Presidency, due regard being had to a proper intermixture of mechanical artisans to render the expedition independent of all aid from without.' (S. 142.)

But the effects of this system will be better understood by quoting the following letter of an emigrant, who thus describes