remain, and seek a precarious livelihood, under the discouraging pressure of Church vengeance.

Any number of cases illustrative of the degrading licentiousness of the system, and of the brutality and wretchedness which it produces, might be mentioned. In a conversation with one of the missionaries (and, withal, a man of more than ordinary shrewdness), I asked him what the effect of the system was upon the domestic relations. "Why," said he, "you must be aware that human nature among the first wives is opposed to it. When a man's wife gets a little old, and he takes a fancy to a young one, why, you know, the old one will feel jealous that she is to give way to the other; but it is the order of the Church, and she must submit to it." This was accompanied with a sly leer, such as would have done credit to a satyr.

A man, by the name of Eldridge, was living with much apparent happiness with his wife at Nauvoo, at the time of the great break up there. Emma Smith, the prophet's widow, had seen enough of Mormonism, and, having secured some property out of the general wreck, resolved to remain in the States. When the Saints were on the point of removing, Emma Smith advised Mrs. Eldridge not to follow her husband to the valley of Great Salt Lake; told her he would certainly go into the plurality order, and then she would be treated with neglect; that was the case with them all. Mrs. E. replied that her husband had promised her that he would never go into it; that they were attached to each other; and that she had the utmost confidence in him. They went on together to Salt Lake, and, in 1851, the predictions of Mrs. Smith were verified.

Brigham Young, for some reason or other, desired to involve Eldridge in the meshes of spiritual wife-ism, and repeatedly importuned him on the subject. Eldridge told him he was living very happily with his wife, and that to bring another into the family would almost kill her. Young replied that, if his wife was opposed to the order of the Church, "the quicker she was damned the better." He also stated, among other things, that he was about to go off on an exploring tour in the Territory with a party (naming some of them); that he and the rest intended each to take along a new wife; that he (Eldridge) had better do so too, and they would have "a nice time of it." Eldridge finally yielded, and so worked upon his wife as to compel her to give her consent to his being sealed to a miserable drab selected for this occasion. From this period he became a perfect brute in the treatment of his wife; turned her from the best room in the house to make room for his concubine; and she, thoroughly crushed and despairing, realizes that her once peaceful and happy home has been changed into a domestic hell. This is a fair history of the fate of the first wife.

Instances of brutal insensibility on the part of the men are common, and excite but little attention. A man connected with the stage, having a number of wives, came home one evening (January, 1853) from rehearsing his part, and found one of them dead. This trifling circumstance, however, did not in the least interfere with his engagement at the theatre; he performed his part that evening; buried his deceased wife the next day; and kept on at the theatre as though nothing extraordinary had happened.

It may excite surprise that so many females can be found who are willing to be made the ready instruments of debauchery; but they are generally young, exceedingly ignorant, and are made to believe that their salvation depends upon it, and it is regarded as no disgrace in the community in which they live. This community is so completely isolated as to form a world by itself, and its habits and morals are borrowed from the cock-pit and third tier of more civilized regions. The greatest opposition comes from the first wives: there are a few instances in which they advocate it; but these are divorcés from the States, and are somewhat familiar with having "things in common."

Many of the older sealed ones are women who have been seduced to leave their husbands and families in the States. These, of course, become thorough-paced strumpets, and, when too old for use, are noted devotees. A fair type of this class is a Mrs. Cobb, whose race would embellish the pages of Peregrine Pickle. This woman was living in Boston with her husband and family when Brigham Young visited that city as a missionary. He was at that time a good-looking man, and Madam Cobb made up her mind that to aid Brigham in building up a celestial kingdom was far preferable to the humdrum of her domestic duties. She accordingly raced off, taking one of her children (a young girl), was divorced from her husband, and afterward duly sealed to Brigham. She was the reigning sultana for a time, and queened it with a high hand; but he finally tired of her, and she is now a full-blown devotee; talks solemnly of being sealed to Joseph Smith and other dead prophets; and tries hard, by the extrav

agance of her nonsense, to make herself a mother in Israel. Her daughter, in the mean time, has grown up handsome in face, and accomplished in the peculiar graces which belong to female Mormondom. The mother and daughter deal frequently in crimination and recrimination with each other, calling things by their right names in choice Billingsgate; and the parent is in a fair way of draining to the bottom that cup of bitterness which she has prepared for her own lips.

CHAPTER XVI.

Book of Mormon.-Proofs of its modern Origin.-Its Style.-Arguments in Favor of the System.

THE Book of Mormon claims to be "the history of the inhabitants of America, who are a branch of the house of Israel, of the tribe of Joseph, of whom the Indians are still a remnant; but the principal nation of them having fallen in battle in the fourth or fifth century, one of their prophets, whose name was Moroni, saw fit to make an abridgment of their history, their prophecies, and their doctrines, which he engraved on plates, and afterward being slain, the records fell into the hands of his son Moroni, who, being hunted by his enemies, was directed to deposit them safely in the earth," &c. In other words, the Book of Mormon professes to be the Bible of this ancient people, which has been exhumed by Joseph Smith for the use of "these last days," and it is upon this foundation that the whole Mormon structure has been built.

Upon examination, however, it will be seen that the book itself never could have sustained the superincumbent weight; it required certain adjuncts, such as the gift of prophecy, seership, miracles, tongues, and other popular marvels, to give any thing like success to the scheme.

There is probably no book in the world which contains within itself so many proofs of its real origin, and one but partially read in the history of human credulity is struck with wonder that the imposture should have fastened itself upon such numbers; and that, too, with such strength, that no incongruity, inconsistency, or absurdity which can be pointed out can make the least impression. At the very outset we are met with a most surprising fact: a portion of the Israelites are alleged to have found their way, in a marvelous manner, to the shores of America, and they and their descendants write a long book, in which there is not one word of the Hebrew tongue: it proves to be in a language so wholly lost as to require a miraculous translation, through the aid of a huge pair of spectacles. In addition to this, not a single Hebrew word or character can be found in the languages of these descendants of Israel upon the American continent. Miracles become very suspicious characters when they start into existence without necessity or apparent object.

A reader of the Book of Mormon will not be disposed to deny, very strenuously, that the authors must, at times, have possessed the gift of strange tongues. The religious portions are especially encumbered with gross grammatical errors, to say nothing of violations of good M