This was a remarkable exode, in respect to its numbers, the motives by which they were stimulated, and the admirable manner in which it was effected; but it is still more remarkable, in a country where a ceaseless tide of emigration has been for years, and still is, surging from the east to the west, under no greater stimulus than the love of change or hope of gain, that this particular case should be singled out as "not paralleled in the history of mankind since Moses led the Israelites from Egypt." In fact, the task was comparatively an easy one. The whole history of Mormonism is a continuing illustration of the prodigious power of religious fanaticism over the mind. It required no greater effort to induce the Mormons to remove from Nauvoo to Salt Lake than from their previous homes to the gathering-place of the Saints for the time, nor so great, because the concentrated enthusiasm of the multitude easily sways and carries along individual minds. There was skill and good management in details, which enabled large masses to emigrate in safety; but the way had been fully explored. Thousands of families had previously, in small bands, performed the tedious journey to Oregon, without the stimulus of religious enthusiasm, running the gauntlet of Indian hostilities under far more discouraging circumstances, and strewing the interminable road with frequent evidences of suffering and mortality. The Mormons accomplished one half of this journey in bands too powerful to be molested by Indians, united by the same religious faith, and under the control and direction of a single will.
Perhaps the traveler who threads his way over the
