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Show 224 THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. IV. as in England. The conversation turned-somehow in Great Salt Lake City it generally does-upon polygamy, or rather plurality, which here is the polite word, and for the first time I heard that phase of the family tie sensibly, nay, learnedly advocated on religious grounds by fair lips. Mr. Stenhouse kindly offered to accompany me on the morrow, as the first hand-cart train was expected to enter, and to point out what might be interesting. I saw Elder and High-Priest Stenhouse almost every day during my stay at Great Salt Lake City, and found in his society both pleasure and profit. We of course avoided those mysterious points, into which, as an outsider, I had no right to enter; the elder was communicative enough upon all others, and freely gave me leave to use his information. The reader, however, will kindly bear in mind that, being a strict Mormon, Mr. Stenhouse could enlighten me only upon one side of the subject; his statements were therefore carefully referred to the "other part;" moreover, as he could never see any but the perfections of his system, the blame of having pointed out what I deem its imperfections is not to be charged upon him. His power of faith struck me much. I had once asked him what became of the Mormon Tables of the Law, the Golden Plates which, according to the Gentiles, were removed by an angel after they had done their work. He replied^ that he knew not; that his belief was independent of all such accidents ; that Mormonism is and must be true to the exclusion of all other systems. I saw before me an instance how the brain or mind of man can, by mere force of habit and application, imbue itself with any idea. Long after dark I walked home alone. There were no lamps in any but Main Street, yet the city is as safe as at St. James's Square, London. There are perhaps not more than twenty-five or thirty constables or policemen in the whole place, under their captain, a Scotchman, Mr.Sharp, "by name as well as nature so;" and the guard on public works is merely nominal. Its excellent order must be referred to the perfect system of private police, resulting from the constitution of Mormon society, which in this point resembles the caste system of Hindooism. There is no secret from the head of the Church and State; every thing, from the highest to the lowest detail of private and public life, must be brought to the ear and submitted to the judgment of the father-confessor- in-chief. Gentiles often declare that the Prophet is acquainted with their every word half an hour after it is spoken; and from certain indices, into which I hardly need enter, my opinion is that, allowing something for exaggeration, they are not very far wrong. In London and Paris the foreigner is subjected, though perhaps he may not know it, to the same surveillance, and till lately his letters were liable to be opened at the Post-office. We can not, then, wonder that at Great Salt Lake City, a stranger, before proving himself at the least to be harmless, should begin by being an object of suspicion. |
