MORMONISM FROM A MORMON POINT OF VIEW. 171 



new colony has continued to prosper and progress with almost unex- 

 ampled rapidity, in spite- of great disadvantages as to soil, climate, 

 and situation. 



There are few countries on the face of the globe where the Lat- 

 ter-day Saints have not attempted to preach their gospel, but as a 

 rule their preaching has not been tolerated. The records of their 

 missionary efforts make it obvious enough why they obtain so large 

 a proportion of their converts from Great Britain and Denmark, 

 while so few come from the Roman Catholic countries of Europe; 

 except in Scandinavia and the British Empire, the foreign missions 

 of the Mormons have failed through the opposition of the powers 

 that be, who have not only prohibited the missionaries from preach- 

 ing, but in many cases have expelled them from the country. Even 

 in Norway, so bitterly hostile were the ecclesiastics as to decide that 

 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a Christian 

 sect, in order to deprive it of the protection guaranteed by Nor- 

 wegian law to all Christian dissenters. Three paragraphs from the 

 Mormon Creed, as stated by Joseph Smith himself, will show r the in- 

 justice of such a decision : 



" We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and 

 in the Holy Ghost. We believe that through the atonement of Christ all man- 

 kind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. We 

 believe that these ordinances are: First, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; second, 

 Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, 

 Laying on of bands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost." 



It is supposed that a larger percentage of the Danes than of any 

 other nation has hitherto embraced Mormonism, and a Danish news- 

 paper is regularly published at Salt Lake City. Since the separation 

 of Schleswisr-Holstein from Denmark, the recruitinu-sround of the 

 Mormons has been reduced, as their preaching has been rigidly sup- 

 pressed in those duchies. Of late years the immigration into Utah 

 from the European missions has varied from one to four thousand per- 

 sons annually. The most active attempts at propagandism appear to 

 have been made about the years 1852-'53, but in this country a Mor- 

 mon mission was founded as early as 1837, six years before the "Reve- 

 lation on Celestial Marriage " had given its peculiar character to Mor- 

 monism. 



It was not until 1843, thirteen years subsequent to the publication 

 of the Book of Mormon, and to the first organization of the Church of 

 Latter-day Saints, that Joseph Smith proclaimed this new and star- 

 tling revelation. The style of the document resembles that of the 

 Book of Mormon, but it reveals " a new and an everlasting covenant," 

 distinctly at variance with the teachings of that book already quoted, 

 and justifies the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, " as touching the 

 principle and doctrine of their having many wives." It is addressed 



