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Show THE MORMON CHURCH. ui they could cultivate the land, they lived on beetles, and grass hoppers, and such nutritious wild herbs as could be found. They were very poorly clad, and without shelter, and a long and dreary winter, colder than they ever before experienced, was upon them. Was it surprising that they murmured ? But out of all their difficulties Brigham Young managed to deliver them. As soon as it could be done the people com menced agricultural pursuits. But when the husbandmen could not work, they were employed in other ways, and snch as could not labor advantageously on any necessary work, were made to labor on the " Bulwarks of Zion." Nothing better proves the ability of Brigham Young as the leader of a fanatical religious sect, and as a man of most extraordinary resources, than the management of the migra tion of the Mormons, and of their affairs during the first year of their arrival in the valley. At that time Utah was a part of Mexico. By a treaty between that Government and the United States, the territory was ceded to the latter, and in 1849 the Mormons met in con vention, adopted a constitution which they called u The Con stitution of the State of Deseret," and applied for immediate admission into the Union under it. There was then no recognized government in that country ; but the year follow ing Congress organized the present territory, and Mr. Fill-more, who was then President, appointed Brigham Young the first Governor as well as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. It has ever been a fundamental idea with the Mormon leaders, that the church and state should really be one gov ernment, however distinct they might nominally be made, and it has been so to this date. One would suppose, under their territorial organization, with their President as Governor, and a legislature entirely of the church, the Mormons would no longer continue their quasi State government. But nevertheless it has continued, and on the twenty- second of January last " The General Assembly of the State of Deseret " memoralized Congress for the admission of Utah into the Union, with the consti- |