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Jules Remy( 1826-1893) Journey to Great Salt Lake City (London: W. Jeffs, 1861 -- English translation) |
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Go to: Volume Two of the Set (under construction)
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A JOURNEY TO GREAT-SALT-LAKE CITY. BY JULES REMY AND JULIUS BRENCHLEY, M.A. WITH A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY, RELIGION, AND CUSTOMS OF THE MORMONS, AND AN INTRODUCTION ON THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. BY JULES REMY. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. With Ten Steel Engravings and a Map. LONDON: W. JEFFS, 15 BURLINGTON ARCADE, Foreign Bookseller to the Royal Family. MDCCCLXI. Translation reserved. |
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PRINTED BY JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR. LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. [ iii ] P R E F A C E. AFTER ten years spent in travelling for a purely scientific purpose, I returned for a short time to my native country, to take a little rest, and prepare for other enterprises which I had yet to accomplish. The time thus at my disposal was too short to make it possible for me to publish a full and elaborate work. The arrangement of the materials I had collected relating to Polynesia alone, to confine myself to one point only of my investigations, would have required more leisure than I could afford. I was unwilling, however, to leave Europe without rendering an account of at least one portion of my distant wanderings. I had adundance to choose from, and my choice was soon made. The works published on Mormonism and the Mormons are so overloaded with inaccuracies, or rather with misrepresentations, that I thought it a good subject to iv P R E F A C E. treat, especially as it was one I could approach with a confidence all the greater from my having had the opportunity of studying, in their very homes, these new religionists, whose singular principles have attracted so much attention of late years, in spite of the important events which have occurred on this side of the Atlantic, and so much engrossed public attention. It is the portion I now propose to publish. Science, so justly fastidious, will perhaps find in it but little worthy of notice, and the moralist may regret that the history of this singular people should not have been written by a more experienced hand. It occurred to me, however, that the naturalist might not disdain to give a passing glance at a sketch, which is scrupulously correct, of places which were yet unexplored, or only imperfectly examined; and that the man whose pleasure it is to look on the drama of human affairs, will not see without interest the scene of a political and religious society which, once Christian and free, has broken away from Christianity and liberty, to make an experiment of living under new and radically different conditions of social existence. The greater part of the matter contained in the following work, was written from day to day, often in the open air, upon the slopes or the crests of mountains, in the heart of P R E F A C E. v deserts, amid the occupations and frequently the perils which are the necessary accompaniments of so long a journey, and must no doubt bear traces of the prculiar circumstances under which it was jotted down. It will therefore, I fear, be devoid of that literary finish on which so just a value is placed; but it struck me that, however defective it may be in form, this will be fully compensated for by its accuracy. The truth, so often perverted, will be vindicated in this work. Of those who have written on the Mormons, by far the greater number have derived their information from sources little to be relied on. The historians and travellers who have been their guides, have either never inspected the facts on the spot, or have looked at them from the point of view of their own foregone opinions, and too often of their passions. I have had the advantage of seeing with my own eyes, and my readers, I hope, will be sensible of it. Free, moreover, as far as I am aware, from all prejudice, I am able to affirm that I have contemplated the moral side of the picture with the same eye and the same impartiality as I have the physical side. The good and the bad have been exhibited; but if I correct erroroneous opinions, I am far from offering myself as an apologist. It is the consciousness of this sincerity and impartiality which has vi P R E F A C E. inspired me with some confidence, and imparted to me the desire of presenting myself before the public. With serious and earnest men, truth is always the first of considerations, and it is for such I write. Paris, August, 1860.
C O N T E N T S. OF THE FIRST VOLUME. iii PREFACE viii-b C O N T E N T S. 270 II. The Mormon Church until the Foundation of Nauvoo, 1830-1839. |
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xc I N T R O D U C T I O N. or system which will be more particularly the subject of our inquiry in the course of the present work. We have, in the highest degree in Emerson and Parker, and in a lesser degree in Channing, a religion which is wholly rational; but when we come to Joseph Smith we shall find ourselves in the presence of the coarsest form of mysticism. How does it happen that such fundamental differences should find themselves side by side in the same country? At the first blush of the thing, does it not seem as if we had met with an anomalous phenomenon which requires explanation? Nothing more simple, however, when we are once aware of the immense inequality of intelligence and knowledge which is to be found in the midst of the greatest political and social equality that ever existed. North America, moreover, is divided, as it were, into two great intellectual and moral zones, that of the east, and that of the west; and there is no more room for being surprised at finding in them differing ideas and opinions, than there is at finding in them differing ideas and opinions, than there is at finding in the vicinity of Quito, for instance, the vegetation of the poles and that of the Equator. Mormonism, born upon the frontiers of the East, has developed itself in the vast regions of the West. If we desire to ascertain the causes of its birth and its progress, with any chance of seeing things as they really occurred, we must place ourselves on the spot, and endeavour to discover what was the moral and religious state of that part of the Union at the time when I N T R O D U C T I O N. xci Smith proclaimed his new religion. By an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, it was the only medium in which it could possibly have found, if I may so express myself, favouring gods and a propitious soil. It is evident, and hardly needs being pointed out, that Mormonism could not have manifested itself in France, for many reasons which it would be superfluous to state, independently of those which have relation to the state, independently of those which have relation to the actual state of our laws and of our public opinion. Neither would it have met with more facilities or more success in England; the most it could have done there would have been to find a few recruits. The robust religious institutions on that side of the Channel, the vigilant power of the clergy, would have opposed an insuperable barrier to it, and we willingly acknowledge, with an historian by no means favourable, it is true, to the Mormons, that "had it been preached for the first time in England, it would have crawled in the dust like so many other forms of error equally impure, and the names of its prophets and its teachers would be on the same level with those of the Southcoteans and Muggletonians." Neither would it have been more fortunate in the Eastern States of America; it would there have perished in its bud, or at least have remained in the form of a fanatic sect, dotted about here and there like the Skakers. But the part of America where it first sprang into being was under very different conditions; it may be properly said to have been a field completely. xcii I N T R O D U C T I O N. prepared for receiving the new seed, and suitable to its germination and eventual maturity. What tends to impede the birth of a new religious creed, whatever it be, or at all events, what prevents its taking a great development, is, in addition to laws restraining religious liberty, the existence of a preponderating Church, and, supplementary to this, the watchfulness and control of an active and powerful public opinion. Now nothing like this existed in the Western States at the time of the apparition of Mormonism, and even for a long time previously. On the seaboard of the Atlantic the robust organization of Calvinism, brought thither by the first emigrants, or rather the firm and sincere spirit of Puritanism, had maintained itself for a long period, and even now resists, in a certain degree and with a certain amount of success, the incessant attacks of religious independence, and of the innovating and restless spirit of a great democracy full of freshness and life. The West had nothing resembling this, nor anything that could be its equivalent. Virginia, during its colonial period, had indeed possessed an established church which affected to derive from the Church of England; but this establishment had no real value whatever, even from the beginning, and episcopacy, which is the basis of the Anglican Church, was known there only by name. It s clerical staff was recruited with difficulty. The Bishop of London, in whose jurisdiction it was, occasionally sent clergymen from the mother-country; sometimes candidates I N T R O D U C T I O N. xciii for orders went to be ordained in London; but all this was slow, precarious, without moral force, incapable of making a stand against that tide of new opinions and doctrines which is always rising wherever the religious spirit breathes in liberty. Hence, sects were seen to swarm and to develop themselves on every side, while the church, -- orthodox or comparatively so, -- without discipline, without a powerful and regularly ordained clergy, without the organization of an establishment, was every day losing ground; an unavoidable result whenever the principle of authority comes into collision with the principle of liberty. For a church to maintain itself, -- of course I am not speaking of it at the time of its foundation, when it has all the warm blood and vigour of youth, -- it must have a visible and determinate centre; it must have efficacious means of remedying abuses; it must be able to ward off at once every blow that is aimed at it, if it is to have the least chance of resisting the inevitable antagonism which proceeds from the spirit of Liberty. The organization of Catholicism and Anglicanism is a powerful element of duration in these two great forms of Christianity, and were it in their destiny to perish, we might safely predict that this would only occur after the giving way of their structural system, or in consequence of the gradual diminution of their wealth, thus rendering the maintenance of their staff, and, as a direct result of this, of their whole organization, more and more difficult, and in the end impracticable. A religion abandoned xciv I N T R O D U C T I O N. to its own force, unless it be absolute truth, cannot suffice to itself. It’s leading idea, in the first moment of reaction, is not immediately imperilled; but its secondary dogmas, all its accessories, which present less resistance to the spirit of inquiry, and which, moreover, have the less hold from their not penetrating into the depths of our nature, run great risk of being unable to resist, for any length of time, the attacks directed against them. This is precisely what was seen to happen in Virginia, in no imposing way indeed, but not without advantage to the ultimate independence of human thought. When the American Revolution broke out, the episcopal church which had been established there, for a long while tottering, and never solidly set up from the moment of its origin, fell of itself; and, according to the historian whom we have cited, "resting upon sand, was soon swept away and annihilated." The new republic had neither power nor motive to react against a state of religious opinion, already of long standing and in some sort normal, which to the advantage of prescription added that of proceeding from the same principle of popular choice as the republic itself. It could not dream of re-establishing institutions swept away by time, and to which public opinion was averse. From this moment the principle of religious liberty in all its absoluteness was established without a contest, and passed into the manners and habits, into the laws and constitution of the new republic. Each form of religion was thus left to itself. I N T R O D U C T I O N. xcv without other support than the power of its principle, and suffered to go forth in a path thick-strewn with triumphs, but also with endless defeats. There is no situation more favourable to religious creativeness, than that which results from unbounded liberty of conscience, and the suppression of all ecclesiastical organization. But, on the other hand, there is also none which more easily lends itself to all the caprices of popular imagination, to all the aberrations of mystic fancy and religious passion. Unless it occurs in a society greatly enlightened, and of high intellectual culture, you will see the great mass of believers, now deprived of official guides, rush in any direction that chance suggests or the influence of the hour determines, to unfurl the banner presented to them by the first comer, or which bears the emblems most in harmony with their interests and the impulse of the moment. Nowhere was this to be more conspicuously seen than in the Western States of America at this particular point of history to which we are referring. The prestige of the Scriptures had not completely vanished, -- far from it; and the name of Christ still commanded the respect of the multitude; but Christianity was daily losing, if I may say so, its fixity and definiteness. The figure of Christ was no longer to be seen, save through a kind of vague and vaporous medium, which made it easy to give him any kind of expression that was desired, and to extend or to restrict at will the circumference of his halo; a state of things prepitious xcvi I N T R O D U C T I O N. to popular imaginativeness, and the birth of superstitions and sects. Nor did religious fantasy fail to take full advantage of the position. It is very difficult for us, in the calm and lukewarm atmosphere of Europe, where passion itself has somewhat a decency and order, to comprehend to what a degree of vertigo and excitement religious feeling was carried in the beginning of this century, and is still carried, in Western America. From 1800 to 1804 especially, it was a sort of epidemic and frenzy. In the States of Kentucky and Tennessee, for instance, were to be seen at the camp meetings, which were at that time of frequent occurrence, as they still are, the most fantastic and eccentric exhibitions. Immense numbers were to be found encamped on the same spot during the continuance of the conferences, day and night, listening to the most exciting exhortations, and giving themselves up to all sorts of pious extravagances, with which there is nothing to compare, unless it be those of our French Convulsionists in the last century. But let us here give way to an historian well acquainted with the facts:-- "The people remained on the ground day and night, listening to the most exciting sermons, and engaging in a mode of worship which consisted in alternate crying, laughing, singing, and shouting, accompanied with gesticulations of a most extraordinary character. Often there would be an unusual outcry; some bursting forth into loud ejaculations of thanksgiving; I N T R O D U C T I O N. xcvii others exhorting their careless friends to 'turn to the Lord;' some struck with terror, and hastening to escape; others trembling, weeping, and swooning away, till every appearance of life was gone, and the extremities of the body assumed the coldness of a corpse. At one meeting not less than a thousand persons fell to the ground, apparently without sense or motion. It was common to see them shed tears plentifully about an hour before they fell; they were then seized with a general tremor, and sometimes they uttered one or two piercing shrieks in the moment of falling. This latter phenomenon was common to both sexes, to all ages, and to all sorts of characters." * Towards the close of this religious epidemic, there is to say, about 1803, these convulsions were in their full swing, and then, thanks to the methodizing genius of the Americans, there was by little and little a sort of order established within disorder, and fantasy, or rather enthusiasm, was itself subjected to laws. Hence the convulsions began to classify themselves of their own accord, and to separate into different categories, the names of which are worth retaining: as for instance, the rolling exercise, the jerks, the barks, etc. † __________ * 'The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century,' by Henry Caswall, pp. 5, 6. † The rolling exercise was effected by doubling themselves up, then rolling from one side to the other like a hoop, or in extending the body horizontally and rolling over and over in the filth like so m any swine. The jerk consisted in violent spasms and twistings of every part of the body. Sometimes the head was twisted round, so that the head was turned to the back, and the countenance so much distorted that not one of its features was to be recognized. When attacked by the jerks, they sometimes hopped like frogs, and the face and limbs underwent the most xcviii I N T R O D U C T I O N. In a country like France, where it was possible to inscribe over the cemetery of St. Medard, that is, over the entrance to the very spot where somewhat similar scenes were enacted in the last century -- such lines as these, -- De faire miracle dans ce lieu,"-- It is easy to conceive how Christianity, at least in its form, its dogmas, and its essential ceremonies, must have undergone decomposition in such a medium, have lost its authority and its prestige; and how all this must pave the way for the appearance of a new religion, or rather superstition. Among the numerous prophets whom each day brought forth, who sprang up like mushrooms after a shower, and who, like so many phantasmagoric figures, passed away, it is true, but only to reappear again, it was inevitable that sooner or later some one would come __________ hideous contortions. The bark consisted in throwing themselves on all-fours, growling, showing their teeth, and barking like dogs. Sometimes a number of people crouching down in front of the minister continue to bark as long as he preached. These last were supposed to be more especially endowed with the gifts of prophecy, dreams, rhapsodies, and visions of angels. They saw heaven and the holy city. I N T R O D U C T I O N. xcix who would go to work in earnest, or be able to perform his part as if he were in earnest, and who would have some quality of mind and character by which he could get powerful hold of weak minds and be able to fix wandering imaginations. The use and abuse of religious liberty, in a society of low intellectual culture, must rapidly bring back the principle of authority, and establish, at least in the lower portions of the multitude, something analogous to Catholicism, and certainly less respectable than it. The result was inevitable. In the moral world, for the most part, liberty is a greater burden than slavery. Men have need to determinate ideas; and when those they have inherited are shaken, when authority has ceased to sway the assemblage of dogmas and principles to which they are accustomed, or the institutions which embodied these, and in which they were wont to contemplate them as in a mirror, they are startled at the solitude which reigns around them, and hasten to escape from it. Now, there are only two ways of doing this: either they must give themselves fixed ideas which they no longer have, or they must receive them from some one else. It follows, as a matter of course, that this latter process is the most common, because the most convenient. How could the multitude find out for itself truth of the highest order, when even superior intellects are not always of one mind respecting it? Hence the absolute necessity of borrowing from others; and such is the urgency of this want, and the impatience c I N T R O D U C T I O N. to satisfy it, that on the appearance of the first person who presents himself with an air of conviction and good faith, with the self-confidence of a master and a teacher, the multitude is instantly prepared to rush into his arms, at the risk of getting from him the most meagre and the coarsest food, and of being obliged to content itself with this food as though it were sound and wholesome and nutritious, -- nay, even to welcome it as though it were manna in the desert. There is in M. de Tocqueville, a remark which often suggested itself to my mind during my travels in America, and of which I had more than one opportunity of ascertaining the correctness:-- "Equality," he says, "disposes men to judge for themselves; but, on the other hand, it gives them the love and the idea of a social power, unique, simple in character, and one and the same for all. Men who live in democratic times, therefore, are very much inclined to emancipate themselves from all religious authority. But if they ever consent to submit to anything of the kind, they choose at least that it should be one and uniform. Religious powers which do not all converge to one and the same centre, naturally offend their intelligence; and it is almost as easy for them to conceive that there should be no religion at all, as that there should be several." Whence M. de Tocqueville infers, not only as respects America alone, but as applicable to a more extended area, that “our descendants will have a tendency more and more to divide I N T R O D U C T I O N. ci themselves into two parts exclusively, the one abandoning Christianity entirely, the other becoming members of the Roman Catholic Church." Without discussing this inference in its whole extent, it appears to us true at bottom as far as regards the United States. The movement and tendency of minds to divide themselves into two groups, the one quitting Christianity altogether, the other returning to the principle of authority, strikingly arrest the attention on every side. But what I ask myself with anxiety is, whether, in these vast regions, it is Catholicism which will get the benefit of the part that remains faithful to the principle of authority, or whether it will be some other and new institution? But whatever be the chances of Catholicism in the future, it had but few in that part of America, now under our observation, in that agitated and vulgar medium in which the need of unity could and was about to make itself felt, inasmuch as the hostile recollections of Popery were still too recent, and the hatred of it still too tenacious of life, or too carefully exasperated by the ministers of the different sects. It was under another form that the principle of authority must present itself in order to succeed. To tender Catholicism to the crowd as the remedy for the disease of which it wished, instinctively at least, to be cured, would have been enough to send back the patient to his bed of suffering, to exasperate his fever, and to aggravate his malady. If Catholicism has made any progress in the United States, cii I N T R O D U C T I O N. as M. de Tocqueville affirms, it is in other parts of the country, and under very different circumstancess from those in which we meet with Mormonism. Here the demand was for a popular religion, but a popular one of the coarsest materials; there was a demand also for novelty, for something strange even, but which could both satisfy the wants of a common creed, and at the same time, of the imagination, not only in its essential and legitimate aspirations, but even in those extravagant caprices which, in these regions, had been long accustomed to give themselves free scope. It was to such a state of things that the religion of Joseph Smith was admirably adapted. Joseph Smith was a man of ability: of that there can be no question. He had a perfect knowledge of the masses to which he addressed himself; he knew what would attract and what repel them, and in what degree and in what proportion it was necessary to indulge them with error in order to give them a sense of the attractiveness of truth. This coarse and vulgar man instinctively seized upon this profound truth, which has been the guide of all reformers, and even of all political or religious founders, namely, that we must never make a complete breach with the past, and that the human mind never passes abruptly from one order of ideas to another and a different one, still less to an order that is completely antagonistic. It is impossible to over-estimate the care with which this person, who was about to introduce such profound modifications I N T R O D U C T I O N. ciii into the creeds and habits of a Christian population, husbands the facts and sayings of Christianity. He takes good care not to present himself as the founder of an absolutely new religion. With him, as with everybody else, the Bible is pre-eminently the sacred book. He is but an apostle of Christ, selected by Christ to continue his work. The name of Christ is incessantly upon his lips. This great and holy figure, ever held up to view, and for the purpose of homage, thus imparts to the antagonist religion an air of resemblance, and a character of affiliation calculated to deceive the multitude, which never looks at things very critically, and is willing enough to believe that facts remain the same as long as their names continue to be used. At the beginning especially, the language of the new prophet would not have been repudiated by the most orthodox Christian. When laying the first stone of his church, it is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that he inaugurates it. The Gospel graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, -- these are what he everywhere invokes. It is Christ who saves, it is the Holy Ghost which manifests the truth. Besides, he takes care to borrow from each sect that which is most characteristic of, or most cherished by, it; caressing what is common to the different creeds, and turning them to account in some one way or other. What ever be the illusions in fashion, he makes use of them. Thus he borrows from the Campbellists baptism by immersion, civ I N T R O D U C T I O N. which just then, for some reason or other, was in great favour with the people. He instinctively understood one of the great secrets of the policy of the Roman Catholic Church, which consists in beating the enemy with his own weapons. Thus he was able to exhibit an assemblage of things hitherto dispersed in every direction. It was a sort of universal bazaar, whit wares for every taste and all comers. For the lovers of the marvellous -- and these formed the majority -- there were visions, ecstasies, revelations, miracles; singular legends, as, for instance, that concerning the first inhabitants of America; marvellous annals, like those recording the fact of Jesus Christ’s preaching on the continent of America after his resurrection. For those -- and they, too, were in great number then -- who sought, in exciting and passionate interpretations of the Scriptures, the means of satisfying their appetite for the mysterious and the unknown, as well as that craving for immortal bliss which lies at the bottom of man’s heart, there was a millennium predicted, a new Jerusalem upon earth, an actual reign of the saints, and in the far distance, and at the remotest point of the perspective, a state of equality with the Redeemer. Smith did not omit to assign as much space in his new religion to human as to religious passions themselves. He was not the man -- a worldly spirit, if ever there was one -- to neglect this element; a secondary element, indeed, but which challenges its place in every earthly institution, even in those I N T R O D U C T I O N. cv that look heavenward. I am not here alluding to polygamy, which was not established until a much later period, and which did but graft itself on the tree already grown. A long while before this he had contrived to hit upon expedients, vulgar, it is true, but certain of attracting and juggling the crowd. There is nothing which so much dazzles the multitude, and even those who are above it, as the splendour of dignities and titles, especially when there is a hope of their being reached by them, and when exhibited as prizes offered to their emulation and zeal. The sounding titles of priest, apostle, bishop, could not fail to strike and agreeably to tickle the ears of people long unaccustomed to them, and to serve at the same time as baits to vanity and ambition, the love of dominion and even of glory. It is not difficult to conceive the degree of attraction which must have been exercised over masses, not under the influence of any strong conviction, by the idea that without previous study, or preparatory instruction of any kind, a blacksmith or mason could reach the highest dignities, first of the church, then of the state, whenever the church should become the state, and that fanaticism, or the appearance of fanaticism, should stand in the place of all virtue and all knowledge. To all wavering and undecided minds, who knew not where to fix and take up their position in the sphere of religious faith, a great weight in the balance was the free scope that Mormonism gave to the passions. Still it would be a great mistake to suppose that these cvi I N T R O D U C T I O N. meaner inducements could have sufficed to form a great religious association. Humanity never falls so low as to be governed by its inferior instincts, -- so low that in the creation of great things, the best part shall belong to paltry passions and petty instruments. Mormonism would not have held its ground for an instant, had it only satisfied vulgar wants, or even nothing more than the loftier caprices of the imagination. It must be kept well in mind that, except in the matter of polygamy, which was a later addition to the primitive nucleus, Mormonism excluded none of the moral conquests made by Christian civilization. It is a syncretic system, often of gross aspect when seen from a metaphysical and theological point of view; but on the side accessible to the crowd, that through which religious really infuse their influence into minds, namely, its moral and human side, it is far from deserving those anathemas of which it has been the subject. The Christian spirit, the spirit of equality and charity, circulates through it, as it were, even to overflowing. I am of opinion that it is owing to the power of this spirit that it was at first enabled to take root in the vexed soil of Western America, and to extend itself. That which constitutes the feature of Mormonism really original is, according to some, “that it is essentially the sect of the wretched; that Smith is the representative of the pariahs of nature.” This is true; but hence the secret of its influence over the multitude, of its progress at the beginning, and of that which it is now making in all parts I N T R O D U C T I O N. cvii of the world among the castaways of society and nature. It is in some sort, indeed, a species of socialism, of religious evangelical socialism, which, a single feature excepted, unquestionably is not without moral value, however deficient in grandeur. If we insist on this characteristic of Mormonism, we do so not only because the spirit of justice and the interests of truth require it, but for the very honour of human nature. Whether Joseph Smith were in reality sincerely animated by the spirit of charity, or whether he made an instrument of it to promote his designs and his enterprise, the fact still remains that his language is uniformly marked with its divine impress. The fate of the poor is the constant object of his thoughts and his anxiety; he is incessantly appealing to the charity of the rich; but on this point he deserves to be heard himself. "Woe unto you, you rich men," he cries, "that will not give your substance to the poor; for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!" * Moreover, he puts the following words in the mouth of God:-- "And if any man shall give unto any of you a coat, or a suit, take the old and cast it unto the poor, and go your way rejoicing. †... But verily I say unto you, teach one another, __________ * The Book of Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, etc., by Joseph Smith, President, p. 226, § 5, edit. 3. Liverpool. $#134; Ibid., p. 90, § 19. cviii I N T R O D U C T I O N. according to the office wherewith I have appointed you, and let every man esteem his brother as himself, and practise virtue and holiness before me. And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself; for what man among you having twelve sons and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one, be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here, and to the other, be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there, and looketh upon his sons and saith, I am just. *... If thou lovest me, thou shalt serve me and keep all my commandments. And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou hast to impart unto them, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken; and inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me. †... Love one another; cease to be covetous; learn to share with other men as the Gospel teacheth.... Behold, this is a great commandment, and the last I will give unto you, for it would be sufficient for each day until the last day of your lives.... Distribute a part of thy possessions, yea, even a part of thy lands and everything, except what is necessary for the maintenance of thy family." I ought to observe in passing, that Smith does not confine himself to general precepts, to commonplace or simply theoretic recommendations. American as he is, he is always thinking of the practical, and giving special directions to whomsoever he has the right of directing in a special manner. Hence it is that the bishops had an __________ * The Book of Doctrine and Covenants pp. 121, 122, § 5. † Ibid., p. 125, § 8. I N T R O D U C T I O N. cix express charge, everywhere to attend to the wants of the poor and the necessitous, and to apply to their use the fund at their disposal. And this charge is still in force Everywhere among the Mormons, inquiry is made into the wants of the brethren. Brigham Young thinks it no derogation from his dignity to occupy himself in this way. It is not of him it can be said,-- Smith assigned to himself the office of continuing the work of Jesus Christ, and of accomplishing the redemption of the poor and the weak, and was well aware that therein lay his strength. Listen to the way in which he makes God speak in a revelation promulgated in the month of December, 1830: -- "Wherefore I have called upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thrash the nations by the power of my spirit; and their arm shall be my arm, and I will be their shield and their buckler; and I will gird up their loins, and they shall fight manfully for me; and their enemies shall be under their feet; and I will let fall the sword in their behalf, and by the fire of mine indignation will I preserve them. And the poor and the meek shall have the Gospel preached unto them; and they shall be looking forth for the time of my coming, cx I N T R O D U C T I O N. for it is nigh at hand; and they shall learn the parable of the fig-tree, for even now already summer is nigh, and I have sent forth the fulness of my gospel, by the hand of my servant Joseph." * But while thus speaking in favor of the poor and the weak, he is careful not to violate any one of the fundamental principles of civilized society. He is far from that perfidious and barbarous species of socialism which is called communism. If he desire that the rich should come to the assistance of the poor, he also insists that the poor should make every effort to become independent of the rich, and to find in themselves the resources they require. "Thou shalt not be idle, for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the labourer." When he preaches equality, it is moral equality he means, and not the fantastic equality of the communists. He preaches the joint responsibility of all the members of the association; but a responsibility which has nothing forced, which does no violence to personal independence, which does not overthrow the laws of nature. "Let every man stand in his own office and labour in his own calling; let not the head say unto the feet, it hath no need of feet; for without the feet, how shall the body be able to stand? Also, the body hath need of every member, that all may be edified together, that the system may be kept perfect." This language, which Smith held to his coadjutors in the beginning __________ * The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, p. 119, § 4. I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxi of his revelation, he afterwards extended to the whole community, and he never in a single instance deviated from these principles in the political or social constitution he gave his people, and which acquired its development after him. There is nothing original in the morality, whether general or special, of Smith; but there is nothing in universal morals which is omitted from it, and nothing in it which is opposed to universal morals. He did not introduce any new principle to the world, which is indeed a rare piece of good fortune; but his principles are in no respect different from those of Christianity and of reason. "We believe," he says in his creed, "in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. Indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of St. Paul, -- we 'believe all things,' we 'hope all things,' we have endured many things, and hope to be able to 'endure all things.' If there is anything lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, or virtuous, we seek after these things.” It required no great stretch of imagination to hit upon such things, which, thanks be to God, are not new, but widely enough scattered throughout the world, as far at least as theory is concerned; yet they furnish an answer to those who delight to exhibit Mormonism as a monstrosity in moral order, a sort of cesspool into which have been thrown all the degradation, all the baseness, all the absurdity which can spring from a disordered imagination further excited by the selfish calculation of a vulgar impostor. cxii I N T R O D U C T I O N. There is no need of affronting human nature, by supposing it can create anything by means of evil; we might as well say that nihility is fertile and able to produce some one thing or other from the depths of its abysses. The truth is, that good alone is operative. Into the most impure works even, evil never enters but as a secondary element, or rather as a poison which tends to their destruction; it is only because they contain that which is good and true, that they are able to come into existence, and to last when they do last. Whatever may be the part which good plays in the system of Joseph Smith, this part, even though it had been considerable and endowed with a powerful originality, would not, it is reasonable to suppose, have sufficed to give a good issue to the enterprise. It is a law that good, in order to be operative, must make use of instruments of a certain power, and of a power possessing special qualifications for diffusing it. It is requisite that a man who brings forward an idea should possess certain moral qualities, certain qualities of character, if he hopes to have it accepted, and take up a position in the world. Smith had none of those great qualities of an apostle which lay hold of all minds of whatever order they be, which radiate beyond present time and space, and penetrate even distant ages; he had not in his breast that mystic and expansive virtue which constitutes true prophets and great revealers, and which, enlisted in the service of a new I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxiii idea, produces the marvels of the moral world and the memorable events of history. But, this point excepted, he had the chief qualities requisite for the part which, whether sincerely or insincerely, he undertook. He had confidence in himself. He has somewhere said of religious faith, that it is "the principle of action in all intelligent beings;" that there "never has been a change or revolution in any of the creations of God, but it has been effected by faith;" that there "will never be a change or a revolution unless it is effected in some way, in any of the vast creations of the Almighty, for it is by faith that the Deity works." * What he thus thought or said of religious faith he felt still more sincerely with respect to faith applied to a human purpose. There he believed it to be really irresistible. As happens to all minds, great and small, in which there is abundance of energy, his temperament was full of boldness and audacity; he always relied with confidence on himself and his fortune; he had faith in his star, a condition indispensable, as it seems to me, as well as infallible for the conquest, be it of empires or minds. He had, moreover, the enthusiasm which in the long-run fills the mind of a man constantly engaged on the same subject. This it was that enabled him to acquire the language, and even the accent of a sincere faith. Hence was it too that he was able to appropriate the forms of religious fervour, and the lyrical style of the Bible, so expertly, that at times the instrument __________ * The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, p. 55, § 2. cxiv I N T R O D U C T I O N. sounded under his touch with a brilliancy and purity of tone which could very easily deceive the simple, and even produce its effect on those of higher pretensions. By a moral singularity which deserves notice, though less rare than one would be inclined to suppose, the passion which he threw into his part, and which proceded much more from the man than the prophet, as may easily be supposed, -- enabled him to find expressions worthy of the noblest cause. His confidence in himself gave him confidence in his success, and he communicated it to others like an apostle of the Gospel, and in a tone as authoritative as if he had derived his inspiration from the same source. Hear how he makes Christ speak to those charged by him to preach the new doctrine: -- "And again, I say unto you my friends, (for from henceforth I shall call you friends,) it is expedient that I give unto you this commandment, that ye become even as my friends in days when I was with them travelling to preach this Gospel in my power; for I suffered them not to have purse or scrip, neither two coats; behold, I send you out to prove the world, and the labourer is worthy of his hire. And any man that shall go and preach this Gospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue faithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, or joint; and a hair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry neither athirst. Therefore, take no thought for the morrow for what ye shall eat or I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxv what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.... Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say, but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.... Behold, I send you out to reprove the world of all their unrighteous deeds, and to teach them of a judgment which is to come. And whose receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face; I will be on your right-hand and on your left, and my spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you to bear you up." * It has been said that one of the characteristics of Mormonism, and a cause of its success is, that its revelation was presented as one special to America, and that the Gentiles were excluded from it. This is a great error which it is necessary to correct. Smith was much too clever to be exclusive. What strikes us, on the contrary, in Mormonism, is its universality, or at least its pretensions to universality; and this universality includes both persons and things. As respects things, we find in Smith nothing of that narrowness and exclusiveness to be found in most religions, even the broadest and most flexible. He adopts every principle, every doctrine which appears to bear the stamp of truth. "The most predominant point of difference,” said Joseph Smith, “between the Latter-day Saints and sectarians is, that the latter are all circumscribed by some peculiar creed, __________ * The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, p. 88, §§ 13, 14, 15. cxvi I N T R O D U C T I O N. which deprives its members of the privilege of believing anything not contained therein, whereas the Latter-day Saints have no creed, but are ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are made manifest from time to time. One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is, to receive truth, come whence it may.... Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Mohammedans, etc., are they in possession of any truth? Yes, they have all a little truth mixed with error. We ought to gather together all the good and true principles which are in the world, and keep them, otherwise we shall never become pure Mormons." * This moral and religious eclecticism is also to be found in the creed in which Smith has formulated his faith. Here is a passage which seems significant enough:-- "Everything virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy, and of good report, we seek after, looking forward to the recompense of the reward." This flexibility is one of the most remarkable features of the new faith; and in truth it has so little respect of persons, that it invites on the contrary the whole world to its embrace. Channing himself does not aim at a larger sphere. It seems even as though his church were not so universal, since it confines itself within the limits of Jewish and Christian Deism. But Smith has found this area too narrow; he has aimed at extending it at the risk of falling __________ * From a Sermon of Joseph Smith’s, July 9th, 1843, in the 'Deseret News,' January 21st, 1857. I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxvii into the void. Here is what he says in a sermon on the 9th of July, 1843:-- “It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul, -- civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race. And if by the principles of truth I succeed in uniting all denominations in the bonds of love, shall I not have attained a good object? Christians should cease wrangling and contention with each other, and cultivate the principles of union and friendship in their midst." It has been remarked that in general, a commanding point of view, a large manner of looking at things, an impartiality in the world of ideas, is rarely accompanied by a tenacious adherence to an original plan, or by a persevering pursuit of the end proposed. Ardently to attach ourselves to the mission of diffusing truth, we must believe that we along are in possession of it, and persuade ourselves that all around us is merely darkness and error. In minds especially which, though possessing breadth and flexibility, have but little intellectual culture, the desire to impose an idea scarcely ever exists: to be a fanatic, even a fanatic of moderate dimensions, a man must be narrow-minded and of one idea. This remark, just on the whole, would be contradicted by the history of the founder of Mormonism, if the founder of Mormonism had believed in anything; for never did religious innovator display a ruder fanaticism, real or feigned, combined with larger views, or persist in his work with more remarkable tenacity. We must call to mind the speculator, in order fully to comprehend such a cxviii I N T R O D U C T I O N. doggedness of purpose in such an order of ideas, and in such a cause. But at all events, Smith was a man of extraordinary firmness. Never, but once throughout his whole career, did he exhibit symptoms of flagging and discouragement, and this was on the last day but one of his life. Until then, not for a moment had any feebleness been perceptible. His design once conceived, he from the first hour pursues it without a pause, with a persistency, and fierce energy, that nothing either relaxes or appals; obstacles stimulate and redouble his courage; persecutions animate and spur him to new efforts. He even grows fond of persecutions, rejoices in them, congratulates his fellow-workers on them; he knows that they are an additional force in his favour, even a condition essential to his enterprise. Seen from afar, he would be thought a fanatic, an enthusiast, who, while marching towards death, supposes he is marching to victory; ever the same serenity, the same impassioned feeling, the same forwardness. Nevertheless, we must repeat it, he is a dealer in religion, a speculator who has thrown himself heart and soul into his enterprise, and who has made a vow that he would reach his end or die in the effort. He is nothing more, nothing less; a singular man, not so rare however as is usually supposed, but one whose congeners have not -- and this is to the honour of humanity -- either the same success, or the same power! Did I dare, I would call him a sort of savage and gigantic Tartuffe, a greater curiosity |
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I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxix than his prototype, but one who, though he has done more mischief, is perhaps less deserving of contempt. IV. The specticle presented to us by Mormonism is, we acknowledge, not an edifying specticle; and nothing is more repugnant to our better feelings, or more revolting to our reason, than the source from which it sprang. Notwithstanding, however, this untoward exception, the impression left upon us by the United States of America is not the less a great and salutary one; its effect is to give us a higher opinion of men and humanity. In fact, not to deviate from the order of ideas we have selected for our subject, there is nothing in Europe of a nature calculated more fully to comfort pious minds than what is now taking place on the opposite shores of the Atlantic, nothing which gives them better grounded hopes of the religious future of humanity. When we succeed in penatrating into the midst of that bustling, agitated, and in some sort tumultuous crowd, swept onwards by the torrent of business and the stimulus of a devouring activity; when the ear has been accustomed to the din of the interests at stake, to the uproar of the passions at strife, we discern in the minds about us the instincts of a high and powerful morality, and of religious convictions indicating an energy and depth of which we can find no examples in Europe without going back as far as our heroic age of the sixteenthcxx I N T R O D U C T I O N. century. Then, propitiated by this inner aspect of things, we easily excuse what elsewhere would offend our taste or our habits of thought, not excepting the unwholesome superstitions which a depraved imagination has been able to palm upon a weak and brainsick multitude. We feel as if we were looking at spots in some masterly and splendid picture, or on the meaner but not useless details in some grand whole, like those eccentric and fantastic forms which the genius of Michael Angelo has occasionally mingled with his loftiest and most sublime creations. This favourable impression grows stronger, especially on passing into a moral medium entirely different, and, as has happened to ourselves, on shifting the scene, almost without an intervening pause, from Boston and Baltimore to Naples and Rome. There is no argument which pleads more eloquently on behalf of the unlimited liberty of religious worship, than the striking contrast which then presents itself; and the reflection immediately occurs to us, in spite of what has been urged on the subject, -- and it is with regret we say it, -- that if ever the religious sentiment were to be extinguished in the human mind, it could only happen in the event of its having no other atmosphere to breathe but that heavy atmosphere of Rome, which a widespread tradition still declares to be essential to the existence of religious life, and the preservation of a divine fervour in the heart of man. At all events, I do not desire to leave the impression I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxi that, if Mormonism be a stain upon the United States, liberty is to be made responsible for it. Liberty has nothing to do with it. Among the causes of the development of the new religion, a prominent one was persecution, and persecution, I presume, is no part of liberty. Had it found no other obstacles than those which confront every new sect, it might possibly have been able to establish itself by attracting and grouping around it some of the impure elements which are always fermenting in the West; but it would never have gone beyond the limits of a restricted communion, a church within narrow bounds, like the Campbellist and Shakers for instance; and it is infinitely probable that it would have melted away by degrees, until it completely disappeared or had assumed an entirely different character. All religions morally inferior or even morally equal to those they aspire to supplant, unless they have within them a new principle which more than compensates for inferiority or mere equality, or unless they respond to some want demanded by the mental condition of the times, cannot strike root in the midst and by the side of superior religion, and can exercise nothing more than a restricted influence of ephemeral duration. They may make attempts at possession and conquest, but these attempts will be abortive; they will be more abortive especially wherever it is possible to discuss them, and to oppose them with the weapons of intelligence, the only ones that are legitimate in the struggle between truth and error. cxxii I N T R O D U C T I O N. Liberty is a little propitious to Mormonism, and Mormonism is so well aware of it, that one of its principal efforts is to endeavour to constitute a nation, or people apart; and should it ever maintain and extend itself, it will be because it is in the hands of a plenary authority, a sort of armed dictatorship. Now authority is a very powerful means of preventing error from penetrating into a society, but it is also an equally powerful means of fixing it there. Bears have been seen to push into the basin of their den the poisoned cakes thrown to the, to move them about for a long time in the water, and then carefully to smell them, never eating them until perfectly certain that all the poison was washed out. Under the principle of authority, men have no such opportunity. They must swallow, as a pure and wholesome substance, the cake which is cast to them. We may be quite certain that if liberty or the desire for liberty should penetrate into Utah, -- and that, I hope will one day happen, as soon as the first attraction of the new faith shall have passed away, -- Mormonism will soon give way, or, if it maintain itself, will do so only by undergoing a transformation, by diluting and washing out in the great waters of liberty the poisonous principle it has within it. The moment that discussion once finds its way into the religious community that Smith founded, and the light of truth is made to flash upon its origin, it will be consumed to ashes, and its dust scattered to the winds. For if men in America have not the refined intellectual I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxiii culture of certain classes on this side of the Atlantic, on the other hand, all are able to read, and all take a deep interest in eloquence, whether of speech or pen; and the consequence is, that free discussion has an influence there of which it is difficult for us to form an idea in the majority of our European societies, in which free speech, utterly without range and without echo, is for the most part completely lost before it reaches the threshold of the workshop and the cottage. There, it is a train of powder laid from afar, or rather, an immense light which diffuses itself everywhere, and gilds everything with its rays. Hence it would not be correct to say that Mormonism is the fruit of liberty; it is born on a free soil, but it is not liberty which gave it life, and it is liberty that will cause its death. There is a universal belief in the United States, and this belief is the principle of their greatness, that liberty is a force essentially salutary and beneficent. It would be as difficult to make the Americans comprehend that liberty of thought, for instance, could have any bad consequences, as it would be to persuade Ultramontanists that it could be good for any one purpose. They even who admit the dogma of forfeiture through sin, arrive at conclusions diametrically opposed to those drawn from the same principle by the theologians of Italy and France. They cannot conceive how liberty can be fatal to truth, and they tell us very naïvely, and with that good sense which never deserts them, that they do not see why truth has more to fear from cxxiv I N T R O D U C T I O N. liberty than good merchandise has from competition; and, God be praised, they do better than say it, they prove it by their acts. It would be impossible for them to get it into their heads that man is endowed with thought in order that he should not make use of it, or that reason is either an overgrowth which we must cut away with steel and cauterize with fire, or a light to be hid under a bushel. I have heard these people, who are so thoughtlessly accused of a sort of practical materialism, more than once say, that were liberty of thought to be expunged form life, it would not be worth while living. In matters of religion especially, liberty appears to them an essential condition, and reason the first power which has the right to make itself heard. It is, in their opinion, a singular logic which permits men to take a clear view of the affairs of this world, represented as the least important, and which interdicts them from looking inquisitively into those represented as of the highest concern to their destiny. They are fond of repeating with Rousseau, that the man who does not think is a degraded being. They carry their simplicity so far as to believe that were he for a single instant to cease to think, he would cease to exist; and without having read either Descartes or Pascal, whether it be by instinct, or reflection, by nature or education, there is not a man amongst them who does not believe that our essence is in our thought, that it is from this source all must proceed. With them, to think is to believe first in oneself; what I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxv others think is, according to their view, but a secondary consideration, and what they transmit to us, even were it truth itself, is only receivable after the severest scrutiny. "To accept tradition merely as an indication, and existing facts as a useful study training us to do otherwise and better; to seek by oneself and in oneself along the reason of things; to move towards the end without permitting ourselves to be shackled by the means, and to get at the essence through the form;-- such are the principal features which characterize what I will call the philosophical method of the Americans." * Nothing can be truer than these words of M. de Tocqueville; only it is right to add, what indeed is in harmony with the views of this distinguished writer himself, that what we see there does not simply belong to the philosophical method, but to the very genius, of the Americans. I will also observe that such is the power of this genius, such its force both of resistance and absorption, that the elements, often impure, or at all events partaking of a different genius, which are incessantly coming into it from all parts, those streams of emigrants for ever flowing into it from the Old World, break as they strike against it, and lose themselves as do mighty rivers in the fathomless plains of the Atlantic. True, it is not necessary to cross the ocean in order to discover the principles of free thought, and of the right of unfettered reason. The country which gave birth to Descartes ___________ * De la Democratie aux Etats-Unis, par M. de Tocqueville, t. ii. ch. 1. cxxvi I N T R O D U C T I O N. and Voltaire has nothing to learn in this respect, since it was among the first to proclaim them. But with us, besides these principles not having penetrated the entire mass of society, they are, in spite of the many revolutions made apparently for their advantage, hampered by an infinite number of restrictions and limitations; and it is this which places us in a position of evident inferiority as compared with the Americans. The latter go straight forward and carry out their principle; we stop halfway, so that we present the spectacle of a nation which at one and the same time puts great trust in reason, and has a great mistrust of it. This inferiority, this inconsistency of a people who pique themselves upon being the first logicians in the world, does it arise from this, that we are very reasonable in theory, or, as has been observed, "with pen in hand," and extremely unreasonable in practice, because in the one case it is intelligence, and in the other passion, which prompts us? Or is it that France is divided into two great intellectual zones, one of which is governed by reason, the other by prejudice? Or are we in this matter so far of Voltaire’s religion, as to think with him, that peace is of as high a value as truth? However this may be, it would be difficult to parry the charge of inconsistency which is often made against us; and it is certain, to confine our observations to religious matters, and to concentrate the accusation on a single point, that the Americans cannot help regarding our way of understanding religious liberty I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxvii as narrow-minded, or, to speak more correctly, puerile. One of them, a man of intelligence, said to me, "You people, in France, have the right to have no religion at all, but you have not the right to have any. You say to religions, 'As soon as you are born we will give you the right to live; but, meanwhile, it is our business to prevent your being born.' This is certainly a singular kind of liberty." My American friend, I fancy, had a thorough comprehension of what liberty of worship means among us; and it would be difficult, it strikes me, to speak more to the point than he did. The system which has prevailed among us, is it, as is sometimes asserted, the only one in harmony with our disposition and our genius? I will not enter into this question, it would carry us too far; but I greatly apprehend that this solution would be nothing better than a mezzo termine of doubtful value, and that there is in it somewhat of the illusion of the honest peasant, of whom history speaks, who fancied that the moon of Corinth was not so large as that of Athens. Is this system really the only one possible in the actual state of our opinions and our manners? I cannot say; but what unquestionably must be acknowledged is, that if it be so, we have every reason to deplore the fact, looking at it from the point of view of those religious minds who think that a public form of worship is necessaryn to the religious sentiment itself, and of those politicians who suppose it indispensable to the interests of morality, and the cxxviii I N T R O D U C T I O N. greatest possible good of society. Wherever the American principle obtains, there will be few persons who do not belong to some one form of worship or other, who do entirely without a church, and who are thus never in communion with their fellow-men for the purpose of manifesting or satisfying one of the noblest instincts of humanity. Among us it would be difficult to compute the immense numbers who are thrown out of all communionship, without a tie, without contact with others of the same views, and without a temple for their God, thus running the risk of seeing his holy image pale and disappear in the solitude of each man’s mind. We may conceive that souls of a superior nature, that minds of high intellectual culture, should suffice to themselves; their habit of reflection keeps God, as it were, always before them, and does not permit the sacred fire to be ever extinguished in their souls. But these are among the privileged of humanity. In the majority of men religious feeling has need of being roused: there must be vestals to feed the sacred fire within us. The great shadows which human passions, vulgar interests, and the spectacle of the world itself, but little edifying in general, incessantly collect and interpose between heaven and earth, require that from time to time some divine or consecrated hand should be put forth to scatter them and bring back the light. It has been said of us, "Little faith, much routine, this is the summing up of our position in religion and in almost everything else." And how should it be I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxix otherwise? It is liberty alone which, at a certain stage of civilization at least, infuses faith into the soul and fixes it there. It is an act of liberty which begets the act of faith, whatever be the nature of the belief. It is the continuity of the one which perpetuates the other; and the only reason why obstructions and resistance itself are so fruitful of results in the midst of liberty is, because they increase its energy. But where liberty is absent, where it is not developed, there is room only for mechanism, for lukewarmness and indifference. Indifference is now-a-days the ruling feature of our moral position, as it was at the time when Lamennais castigated it with so unsparing and yet so ineffectual a hand. It is absent only from those spheres of human action in which some latitude is left to liberty, that is, in the sphere of philosophical speculation, and that of material interests. And as there is but a handful of minds that belong to the former sphere, the result is that all faith, all social vitality, is concentrated in the latter. Such exclusively is the source of the evil which we have to lament in these days; I mean the passion for an easy life and material enjoyments. When Dante places in his hell souls that were indifferent, those which lived without infamy and without glory, he assigns them to the captive chorus of angels, not rebellious nor yet faithful to God, but who existed for themselves alone. And, in fact, for who can we exist but for ourselves alone __________ * Dante, Inferno, canto iii. V. 34-39. cxxx I N T R O D U C T I O N. when the source of the great passions is sealed? The love of well-being and of the material enjoyments of life is not less nor less general in America than with us; but this tendency, which indeed is not objectionable in itself, has there a counterpoise which we are without. M. de Tocqueville, whom we must always quote when we are speaking of that country, says, indeed, that the love of material comfort has become the "national and dominant taste;" but he adds these fine remarks:-- "In the United States, when the seventh day of each week comes round, the commercial and industrial life of the nation seems to be suspended; all noise ceases. A deep repose, or rather, a sort of solemn hush, succeeds; the soul, in fact, again enters into possession of itself and is wrapt in self-contemplation. During this day all the places of business are deserted; each citizen, surrounded by his children, betakes himself to a church; there he is discoursed to in a fashion which seems little adapted to his ear. They talk to him of the innumerable evils produced by pride and covetousness. They insist on the necessity of his regulating his desires, on the refined enjoyments to be derived from virtue alone, and the true happiness which attends it. When he returns home, he is not to be seen running to his ledger. He opens the volume of Holy Writ; he finds there sublime or touching pictures of the grandeur and goodness of the Creator, of the boundless magnificence of the works of God, of the lofty destiny assigned to men, of their duties, and of their I N T R O D U C T I O N. cxxxi claims to immortality. Thus it is that from time to time the American steals away, as it were, from himself, and that, tearing himself for an instant from the petty passions which agitate his life and the fleeting interests which fill it, he suddenly plunges into an ideal world where all is grand, pure and eternal." This edifying and in some respects sublime spectacle, which every well-informed person will at once recognize to be a reflection of the time-honoured usages of religious England, continues to be the same at this hour as it was when M. de Tocqueville saw and described it with such manifest satisfaction. "After this, what signify the Mormons?" as the witty and much-regretted M. Ringault said, when commenting on the Promenades en Amerique of M. Ampere. "What country is without its Mormons? Have we not our own, clandestine and cryptogamous indeed, but just as much Mormons as those of the Far-West?" Rome, May, 1859.
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