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YOUNG, BRIGHAM. 



YOUNG, BRIGHAM. 



683 



Few men have acquired so great a reputation in the pursuit of the 

 useful arts, especially in agriculture, as Arthur Young. He began as 

 a scholar and became a master. If he was sometimes led on by a 

 sanguine disposition and lively imagination into doubtful theories, he 

 corrected this by the faithful details of his experiments. He cannot 

 be said to have founded any new system of agriculture, but he has 

 collected and brought forward all the improvements made by different 

 individuals, and thus diffused an immense mass of practical knowledge, 

 which before was scattered and isolated. 



* YOUNG, BRIGHAM, the president and 'prophet' of the Mor- 

 mous or Latter Day Saints. In our notice of the founder of Mormon- 

 ism [SMITH, JOSEPH, vol. v., col. 551.] we gave a brief sketch of the 

 progress of the system to Smith's death, and referred the reader to 

 the present article for an account of "its subsequent development and 

 present state : " this we shall now endeavour briefly to supply. 



Of Brigham Young himself we have few authentic particulars. He 

 was born about 1800, and was for some years the trusted friend and 

 colleague of Joseph Smith. On the murder of Smith (June 27, 1844) 

 Youug was elected his successor as president of the society, or 

 "prophet and revelator." The measures he adopted fully justified 

 the choice. He saw that a contest with the people of Illinois, backed 

 by the state, and perhaps by the federal government, would be utterly 

 hopeless, and he not only .applied himself to calm the excited minds 

 of the community, but as soon as it became clear that the Mormonites 

 would not be permitted to remain in Nauvoo, he took the bold resolu- 

 tion of persuading them to emigrate to an entirely new and unap- 

 propriated country far beyond the settlements of the most adventurous 

 of his countrymen, and separated from them by a vast desert tract 

 and the almost impassable Rocky Mountains. Having obtained the 

 promise of a short respite for the main body of his people, Young 

 sent forth in February 1846 the first band of 'pioneers,' to prepare a 

 way across the dreary wilderness. The perils and sufferings of this 

 bold baud were of the most dreadful kind ; but they struggled on 

 bravely, planting crops and by various means smoothing the way for 

 the brethren, who were to follow. It was not till July 1847 that the 

 pioneers reached their destination the Valley of the Great Salt Lake 

 then a nearly sterile tract inhabited only by a few scattered Indians. 

 The main body of emigrants had to endure less than the hardy 

 pioueers, but their sufferings were very great, and a large number died 

 on the way. 



In the article UTAH in the Geographical Division of the English 

 Cyclopsedia an ample description is given of the country, and an 

 account of the settlement^ &c. ; here therefore it will only be necessary 

 to state that immediately on their arrival the elders proceeded to lay 

 out their city to which they gave the name of the ' City of the Great 

 Salt Lake ' (but which is now usually called Salt Lake City), and to 

 organise a government, at the head of which they placed Brigham 

 Young. The country was a part of the northern provinces of Mexico, 

 and still nominally belonged to that republic ; but it was in February 

 1848 formally ceded to the United States of North America. As soon 

 as the cession was made the Mormons proposed to form their country 

 into a state, drew up a constitution and a body of laws, elected the 

 usual state officers, Brigham Young being governor, and formally 

 applied for admission into the Union as the sovereign state of Deseret. 

 Congress however refused the prayer, and ' remanded ' the state back 

 to a territorial condition, entitling it the ' Territory of Utah.' By the 

 Federal Constitution the appointment of territorial officers is vested in 

 the President of the Union. President Fillmore however waived his 

 right, or so used it as not to interfere with the proceedings of the 

 ' Saints.' Young was continued governor, and the entire authority, 

 civil as well as ecclesiastical, became vested in him. Armed with this 

 double authority he devoted himself to the firm establishment of the 

 settlement, the extension of the church, and the consolidation of the 

 system. 



The valley of the Salt Lake was, as we have said, chosen for the 

 ' earthly Ziou of the Saints,' because of its distance from any civilised 

 settlement, and because there the community would be, as it were, 

 naturally separated from every other people by the physical confor- 

 mation of the country a valley or series of valleys surrounded by 

 almost impassable mountains and wide deserts. Young felt that his 

 only chance of building up such a theocracy as his predecessor had 

 conceived lay in keeping his people beyond the observation and the 

 reach of any community who held any form of Christian creed or 

 established polity. Once firmly settled he doubted not that he should 

 be able to keep out any ' Gentile ' intruders. But, happily as Utah 

 seemed chosen for his purpose, a circumstance occurred which to a 

 great extent overturned his calculations. The discovery of gold in 

 California led to an immediate rush of immigrants to that country, 

 and the City of the Salt Lake lay in the direct line of the overland 

 route. It was of course impossible to arrest or to divert the stream. 

 After some futile attempts to prevent intercourse, the elders seem to 

 have decided to make the best of what could not be avoided, and a 

 profitable trade was established with the travellers. The prosperity 

 of Utah has, there can be no doubt, been greatly increased by this 

 traffic, but it has led to the settlement of numerous ' Gentiles ' in the 

 territory, and otherwise been a constant source of vexation and 

 perplexity to the authorities. 



Brigham Young was not continued in his office as governor by 



Fillmore's successor in the presidency; but for some time no very 

 serious consequences ensued from the changes which were made, the 

 officers sent acting willingly with the Mormon authorities. But later 

 in Pierce's presidency, judges were appointed who were dissatisfled at 

 seeing their judgments, where ' Saints ' were concerned, virtually set 

 aside by the superior authority of the prophet. Young moreover, 

 when the time for the election of a new president approached, took 

 a decided part in opposition to Mr. Buchanan. Charges of various 

 kinds were accumulated against him by the federal officials, who 

 at last in a body withdrew and laid their complaints before the 

 president. Mr. Buchanan has, it appears, determined on the adoption 

 of decided measures. A body of federal troops, it is said 2,500 in 

 number, has been despatched to Utah to restore there the federal 

 authority, On the other hand Young and the legislative assembly of 

 Utah profess on behalf of the Mormons the utmost loyalty to the 

 Union, and their readiness to receive such officers as may be content 

 " to attend to their own duties," but assert their firm determination 

 to resist the intrusion of any ' outside ' officials who shall be thrust 

 upon them "in defiance of their constitutional rights." What precise 

 form the dispute may take, and whether it will be permitted to pro- 

 ceed to extremities, or Young as before, at the last moment, counsel 

 submission to constituted authority, or a new migration, remains of 

 course in the future. Meanwhile the Mormons are everywhere watch- 

 ing with intense anxiety ; and it may be noticed as an illustration of 

 the serious phase which the proceedings have assumed, that after con- 

 tinually urging emigration, the Mormon authorities in England have 

 suddenly put a peremptory stop to it. In the 'Millenial Star' of 

 October 17, 1857, they announce that "In view of the difficulties 

 which are now threatening the Saints we deem it wisdom to stop all 

 emigration to the States and Utah for the present." 



Young has been singulai'ly successful in maintaining his influence. 

 Despite of opposition and reproach, the attachment of his followers 

 has been growing deeper and stronger, till he now seems to hold as 

 firm a sway as ever did Joseph Smith himself. Mr. Chandless, an 

 English traveller, who spent the autumn and winter of 1855 in Salt 

 Lake City, describes Young as " a portly man of middle height, appa- 

 rently about fifty-four; his face bespeaks common sense, and when 

 in the prayer he was spoken of as the 'prophet and revelator,' I tried 

 but in vain to discover any sign of contempt in his countenance. 

 .... He never flatters the people, nor apes the supposed mien and 



language of a prophet He rather affects coarse and common 



language He is in shrewdness and energy well fitted to be the 



head, though by no means the most intellectual or most eloquent in 

 the ' Church.' " This character, drawn by an intelligent observer, is 

 borne out by what is known of his general conduct and by his printed 

 'discourses.' In these (which are published by the authorised re- 

 porter, Elder G. D. Watt, ' Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, 

 President of the Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints, his two Coun- 

 sellors, the Twelve Apostles, and others,' and which is the authori- 

 tative " exposition of the views and policy of the Church ") we have 

 the best illustration of the character of the man, and the clearest 

 insight into his doctrines. In one of these discourses he says : " Do 

 you ask who brother Brigham is ? He is an humble instrument in 

 the hands of God, to keep His people in the path which He has 

 marked out through the instrumentality of his servant Joseph ; and 

 to travel in which is all I ask of them. I said some time since on 

 this stand, if I was not a Prophet I certainly have been profitable to 

 this people. I know I have, by the blessing of the Lord, been suc- 

 cessful in profiting them. The Lord has done it through me." But 

 besides this plain, blunt, almost jocular style, which he uses when 

 reproving as well as when advising, there is another which shows how 

 tightly he holds the reins, and the means by which he keeps in check a 

 people who look up to him as their divinely appointed ruler. In his ' Dis- 

 course delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, June 15, 1856,' 

 for instance, we come upon such a passage as this (' Discourses,' iii. 

 p. 337), " You recollect that last Sabbath, and two weeks ago to-day, 

 I told the people that it would be for their good to go and perform a 

 certain piece of work, which was just as much revelation to you as 

 would be teachings upon the subject of getting your endowment [a 

 higher kind of initiation]. It was life, and was upon the principles of 

 eternal lives. I recollect telling you when you lift your hands to 

 heaven like that [raising his hands], and say that you will perform 

 thus and so, and do not, that such a course would damn you, as sure as 



you are now living I am almost constrained by the power that 



is within me to draw the dividing line in the midst of this people, and 

 to cut many from the Church, but I plead for mercy. I have mercy 

 for the people, and I ask God to bear with the wickedness there is in 

 their midst, which can hardly be borne with by the spirit and power 

 of the Holy Ghost." And not only does he thus hold out to the people 

 that he possesses the power of cutting them off from eternal life, but 

 he claims the gifts of foreknowledge, and of something approaching 

 omnipresence at least, we find him declaring (October 6, 1854) " lc 

 is a hard matter for a man to hide himself from me in this territory; 

 the birds of the air they say carry news, and if they do not I have 

 plenty of sources of information." It is easy to understand that 

 among a people who receive such teaching, there is likely to be little 

 opposition, as there can be little inquiry. But interference of any 

 kind with the government is systematically discouraged by him. 



