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Show 100 WESTERN WILDS. his decision after his court had been in operation twenty months ; but it was too late to save the Church from complete exposure. The good had been accomplished, the evidence had been brought out, and the guilt traced home ; and though the final decision resulted in turning a hundred and twenty- eight murderers and other criminals loose, it could not suppress the evidence already published. From that time forward the Mormon Church was on the defensive, and its speakers ceased to apologize for murder. This great work these judges accomplished; and if their law was wrong, their action was right, and its results in every way good for Utah. In time, there came to our aid many independent Mormons, men of active talents, but too much given to verbal hair- splitting. They were, one and all, infidels of the toughest stock; for the man who has been a Mormon for many years rarely takes a firm hold on any other faith. Having been so badly fooled once, he inclines to regard all religion as either fraud or delusion. I smile at thought of one such who was one of my political co- laborers. He talked long and loud of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but cursed the administration, and despaired of republican government; he quoted Tom Paine and Herbert Spencer by the hour ; was poloquent on first principles and universal law, and argued on the Supreme Good, the control of passion, and the unknowable, till he was black in the face with anger. To him, the New Testament was a myth, the Banner of Light a gos-pel ; he put his faith in Spiritual Philosophy, and believed nearly every thing but the Bible. The warring factions were at peace when I entered Utah ; but the October conference of the Mormons renewed the fight, by issuing a decree against all Gentile merchants. It was made cause of excom-munication for any Saint to patronize them in any wr ay whatever. In eight months ten Gentile firms had left the city, and in August, 1869, Salt Lake contained no more than two hundred Gentiles. The Union Pacific Railroad was completed in May of that year, and let a little light into the Territory ; soon the interest in mining revived, and we turned our eyes towards the mountains as the last hope for non- Mor-mons. Had this resource failed, I am positive there would not be a hundred Gentiles in Utah to- day. The social despotism of the Church was so great they could not have remained. In September, 1869, I made a pleasant journey to the Sevier Mines, two hundred miles south of Salt Lake, in company with some miners. My memory does not recall a more pleasant journey. All day we rolled along through grassy meads or over rocky flats, with a blue sky |