rounding it with a few ridiculous rales, teaching it with an affected sanctity, decking it in tinsel gew-gaws, flimsy trappings and trickery of the stage; defending it with a few specious sophistries, and obeying it with devout buffoonery, it can be made respectable in the eyes of the men, sacred in the eyes of the women, infallible in the eyes of future generations. It is thus with Mormonism. Designs the most treasonable, utopias the most impracticable, dogmas the most ridiculous, and pretensions the most ill-sustained; visionary projects and outrageous tyranny, self-abnegation and disgusting sycophancy, the very worst of practices under the very best of assumptions, and the whole greedily swallowed and enthusiastically taught. Thus it comes robed in the ægis of religious prerogative which enhances its deformity, while it disarms much opposition. Mormonism in the old is ridiculous and distressing; but these are still bound by old ties to old friends, and old homes. Mormonism in the young is frightful; they know no sense of right but their Prophet's word, no standard of evidence but the Prophet's opinion, no aspirations but for the festering bathos of their impious creed, and no duty but implicit obedience to their conspirator leaders. Taught to regard all the world as their enemies, their country as their oppressors, and their duty. to destroy it; taught, too, that in the accomplishment of this object, all means are honorable, every weapon an especial providence, and every advantage a prestige of victory, they are being trained for desperate ends; and I fear, finally, to be subdued alone by desperate measures.
Mormonism has some principles of power in it, else like
