They KNOW that the gifts of the Holy Ghost are manifested in these days by dreams, visions, revelations, tongues, prophecies, miracles, healings. Latter Day Saints have come to a KNOWLEDGE of the truth.". (XIV. 444.)

Secondly, the success of Mormonism is due to its organization, which has enabled it to employ the obedience of its votaries to the best advantage. The submission rendered to a voice which men believe divine, supplies a motive force of unlimited power; and when this is applied by well-constructed machinery, the results which may be effected are almost incalculable. When the energies of masses are directed by a single mind, wonders will be accomplished, even though (as often happens in military achievements) the service is rendered with sullen indifference or extorted by compulsion. But when the obedience is the obedience of the will, and when the unity of action is blended with a unity of heart and purpose, the results of such a concentration of moral force upon any given point are not more really surprising than the raising of the Menai bridge by the hydrostatic paradox.

Thirdly, we may attribute the welcome which Mormonism has met from our working classes to the prevalence of discontent among the poor against the rich. The repinings of labour against capital, which have covered England with strikes and Europe with barricades, are at once sanctioned and consoled by the missionaries of the "Saints." They invite their hearers to fly from oppression to that happy land where the poor

are lords of the soil, where no cruel millowners can trample on the "rights of labour," where social inequalities are unknown, and where all the citizens are united by the bonds of a universal brotherhood and a common faith. In the minutes of a recent " General Conference" we read that "Elder Taylor related a conversation which he had held with a French Communist, wherein he proved that the Saints have done all which the French Communists have failed to establish."-(XV. 389.) And certainly they may appeal with just pride to the contrast presented by Nauvoo in its decay with the flourishing city which they abandoned. For M. Cabet's Socialists (its present possessors) have been unable even to preserve from ruin the farms and workshops which Mormon industry had left ready to their hands. To such promises of substantial comfort these skilful propagandists add glowing pictures of the millennial glories which are soon to dawn on "Zion;" gratifying, yet surpassing, the aspirations after a "good time coming," which fill the dreams of their democratic converts.

Another, and perhaps not the least influential, aid to Mormon proselytism, is the adaptation of their materialising theology to the system taught by the extreme section of popular Protestantism. That Judaizing spirit which would supersede the New Testament by the Old; which imposes Mosaic ordinances as Christian laws; which turns even the new dispensation into a string of verbal shibboleths;* prepares the mind for the corre

We have often regretted that Coleridge should have applied Lessing's term of Bibliolatry (a word sure to be misrepresented) to

sponding dogmas of Mormonism. But while the Mormon teachers fall in with this popular system, they carry out its carnal views to a more logical development. Thus they have pushed its Judaizing tendencies (as we have seen) into actual Judaism. And even while discarding the morality of the New Testament, they found their hierarchy on the most servile adherence to its letter; and maintain that any departure from its ' nomenclature in the designations of ecclesiastical officers is indefensible. It is instructive to observe how easily this formalism, which is usually regarded as preeminently Protestant, blends with their Romanising attribution of a magic power to outward rites, an inherent sanctity to earthly temples, and an efficacious virtue to offerings for the dead; for, in truth, these several modes of substituting a formal for a spiritual religion, whether patronised by Pope or Presbyter, are only diverse manifestations of the same idolatrous superstition.

Such are the principal causes which explain the rapid growth of this singular sect. But we do not believe them sufficient to secure its permanent stability; for, in the first place, when the necessity for increasing the population of Utah has passed away, the zeal for proselytism which it has bred must burn less warmly. Secondly, that agglomeration of the sect upon a single spot, which, up to a certain point, gives strength and

this tendency of popular religionism. Grammatolatry would have been a better word for that against which St. Paul protests as διακονία του γράμματος.

centralization, contains also an element of weakness; for it makes the Church of Mormon local instead of catholic, and tends to restrict the converts to that small number who intend to emigrate. Thirdly, the success of the leaders in rendering the government of Utah theocratic may ultimately prove suicidal. At present the democracy is merged in the theocracy. Even the members of the Legislature, nominally elected by universal suffrage, are really named by the President, and returned without a contest. But this very blending of the two elements of sovereignty tends to confound the one with the other. By a gradual change in the public sentiment, the Church might be swallowed up in the State; the forms might remain while the spirit was extinct; the hierarchy of Apostles and Elders might continue nominally supreme, but might become a body of mere civil functionaries; for it will be remembered that every ecclesiastical appointment is at present submitted twice a year to a popular vote. Thus even the office of President itself might, without any revolutionary change, pass quietly into an elective magistracy. Again, there is a possibility of disruption upon the death of every President. It may not always happen, as after Smith's murder, that the whole Church will support a single candidate. And (as we have already shown) the rules which fix the mode of appointment are contradictory. Lastly, we are told by those who have resided in Utah, that the younger citizens do not inherit the faith of their fathers.* A race is growing up which

* G. 160.

laughs at the plates and prophecies of Joseph. This is the symptom of a natural reaction; the credulity of one generation followed by the scepticism of the next. Meanwhile, as wealth increases, so will instruction and intelligence; and since no educated man can really believe the silly fables of Mormonism, and only a small minority can be bribed to profess a faith which they do not feel, the unbelief of the more enlightened must ultimately descend to the masses. When this happens, the theocracy must be violently broken up; unless it should be peaceably metamorphosed (as we have supposed above) into a form of civil government.

In such a case, the residuary religion of Mormonism would probably take its place among Christian sects, alongside of Swedenborgianism and Irvingism. It would easily rid itself of its more Antichristian features, by the issue of new revelations, which should supersede those of Rigdon and Brigham. The abandonment of polygamy would do less violence to the system than its introduction; for it was originally forbidden; and its subsequent permission might be explained as a temporary privilege, granted to the saints, martyrs, and apostles, who suffered and bled for the faith. The book of "Doctrines and Covenants" is mostly of so ephemeral a character, that it might easily be suffered to drop into oblivion. Thus a belief in the Book of Mormon might be left, as the only distinctive symbol of the sect; a belief which would not more affect their practice than if they believed in the history of Jack the Giant Killer.