i S 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



United States), and are passed subject to the approval of Congress. 

 The judges of the Territorial Supreme Court are also appointed by the 

 President, so that the control of the Federal authorities is complete 

 over all departments in the Territory, and it is natural that the Mor- 

 mon community should aspire to a more independent position. It is 

 questionable, however, whether independence would not prove a dis- 

 advantage to the Mormons, as tending to bring them into direct col- 

 lision with popular feeling, which has always been more or less hos- 

 tile to them throughout the Union, while the Federal authorities have 

 acted a friendly part. During seventeen sessions of the Utah Legis-' 

 lative Assembly, the power of disapproval has only once been exer- 

 cised by Congress, and then (as might have been expected) in rela- 

 tion to the law of marriage. The Washington Government has 

 afforded protection to the Mormons against local officers and judges, 

 President Grant, in particular, having recently braved considerable 

 unpopularity by removing the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of 

 Utah for " arbitrary and illegal conduct " in his dealings with the 

 Latter-day Saints. Again, a few yeai-s ago the United States officials 

 in Utah set at naught the Territorial law under which jurors were se- 

 lected and summoned, rejecting those who professed their belief in 

 Mormon doctrines. Where the value at issue exceeds $1,000, an ap- 

 peal lies to the Supreme Court of the United States, and a case tried 

 by a packed jury, and given against the municipal officers of Salt 

 Lake City, was accordingly appealed. The unanimous decision of 

 the Supreme Court at Washington was, that the jury had not been 

 legally impaneled, and the judgment of the Utah court was reversed. 

 Great rejoicing was caused at Salt Lake City by this decision in the 

 Engelbrecht case, as proving that the inhabitants of Tei-ritories had 

 rights in common with their countrymen, and that there was justice 

 in the United States even for the professors of a very unpopular reli- 

 gion. 



It may appear strange that in the freest of lands, and in the 

 latter half of the nineteenth century, a legal doubt should have ex- 

 isted as to whether civil disabilities were attached to any form of re- 

 ligious opinion ; but it must be remembered that the evidence of an 

 atheist was very recently rejected in English courts of justice, and 

 the Legislature of North Carolina expelled last year a member, be- 

 cause he conscientiously declared his disbelief in the existence of God. 

 The fact is that, even in Protestant countries, complete religious tol- 

 eration is limited to certain recognized persuasions, so that feeble 

 and unpopular sects have still to unite in claiming for themselves the 

 same liberty of conscience which has been conceded to all numerous 

 and powerful dissenting bodies. Science now demands from theology 

 absolute and unconditional freedom, and the clay can hardly be far 

 distant when theological heterodoxy will cease to involve any civil 

 penalties in a free country. At present the Mormon refugees of the 



