MORMONS 



313 



their head, had peached a wonderfully successful 

 mission in the Bntish Isles, whence they sent many 

 hundreds of converts across the Atlantic. Within 

 five years the Mormons numbered in Illinois about 

 20,000 souls. 



After a few years of comparative peace and pros- 

 perity the tempest of persecution again burst upon 

 the Mormon community. Governor Ford ordered 

 into service several hundred men, had Joseph Smith 

 arrested with his brother Hyrum, and immured in 

 Carthage gaol, Willard Richards and John Taylor 

 accompanying them. In the afternoon of June 27, 

 1 844, a mob of about 150 men with blackened faces 

 broke into the gaol and shot the two brothers Smith 

 dead, also severely wounding John Taylor. The 

 assassins were never brought to justice. Mor- 

 monism was now thought to be doomed, but under 

 the leadership of Brigliam Young it survived the 

 shock of its prophet's martyrdom : ' the blood of 

 the martyrs ' proved, as ever, to be ' the seed of the 

 church.' But the anti-Mormons were determined 

 on the removal of the entire community of Latter- 

 day Saints from the state, and the Mormon leaders, 

 seeing no alternative but to comply with this de- 

 mand or experience a repetition of the murderous 

 scenes of Missouri, finally resolved once more to 

 abandon their homes, and seek a haven of peace and 

 safety in or beyond the Rocky Mountains. Accord- 

 ingly, on 1st February isiti a thousand families left 

 Nauvoo, crossing the Mississippi on the ice. At 

 Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River, in the month 

 of July 1846, Captain J. L. Allen of the United 

 States army called on the Mormons to raise a 

 battalion for service in the Mexican war. The 

 exiles speedily raised the live hundred troops re- 

 quired, though it took nearly all their able-l>odied 

 men. The families left at 'Council Bluffs, unable 

 in the absence of the battalion to proceed farther 

 that season, crossed the Missouri and established 

 ' WinterQuarters,' now Florence, Nrbra.-!<a. Mean- 

 while the residue of the community left In-hind 

 in Nauvoo, after a gallant defence "of their city 

 against the mob, which in violation of treaty i-ame 

 upon them in overwhelming numbers, were expelled 

 from their homes and thrown shelterless upon the 

 western shore of the Mi i ippi. 



In the spring of 1H47 Brighani Young at the head 

 of a picked band of pioneers, 143 men, 3 women, 

 and 2 children, started from Winter (Quarters for 

 the Rocky Mountains. They arrived in the valley 

 of the Great Salt Lake, the site of their present 

 Iteautifnl city, on July 24, and )>egan to plough 

 the ground and put in cro|>s the same day. Seven 

 hundred more wagons arrived that autumn, and 

 1000 wagons in the autumn of 1848. In December 

 1847 Krigham Young was chosen president of the 

 church an office left vacant since the death of 

 Joseph Smith with HeW C. Kimball and Willard 

 Richards as his counsellors in the First Presidency. 

 In 1849 the provisional government of the state of 

 I c~eret was organised at Great Salt Lake City, 

 a state constitution adopted, and a delegate sent 

 to congress to ask for admission into the Union. 

 Tim petition was refused, but in September 1850 

 congress created Utah a territory, and President 

 Fillmorc appointed lirigham Young governor, 

 which office lie held from 3d February 1851 until 

 llth April 1858, when he was succeeded in that 

 office by Alfred dimming. In 1857 the Mormons 

 were falsely charged with l-ing in a state of 

 rcliclliori against the government, and President 

 Buchanan sent a considerable military force to 

 1 tali. Young and his people fearing military ex- 

 cesses, and remembering the -fate of Far West and 

 Nanvoo, kept the army east of the Wasatch Moun- 

 tains until the next spring, when arrangements 

 were made for the peaceable entry of the troops, 

 the Mormons having abandoned their city ami 



surrounding parts and removed south, with the 

 avowed determination of burning every building 

 and reducing I tali to its former condition of barren- 

 ness if vindictively pursued. They were not, how- 

 ever, molested. The troops passed quietly through 

 the city and encamped in Cedar Valley, about 40 

 miles south-west, and the people returned to their 

 homes. Since then their cities and settlements 

 j have extended from Idaho through Utah into 

 Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New and 

 OKI Mexico. The Mormons also have a settle- 

 ment in British America. In Utah they have 

 three temples in St George, Logan, and "Manti, 

 and a fourth, an imposing edifice, in Salt Lake 

 City. 



The Mormons have sent many missionaries to 

 the British Isles and nearly every other European 

 country, also to Australasia, Africa, Palestine, the 

 East and West Indies, China, Burma, Siam, South 

 America, and the Society, Sandwich, and Samoan 

 Islands, and from most of these places have 

 gathered numerous converts. In 1849 the Per- 

 petual Emigration Fund was established, to assist 

 poor Saints in distant lands to emigrate to Utah. 

 Annual and semi-annual general conferences of the 

 whole church are held, generally at Salt Lake City, 

 and quarterly conferences in the various 'stakes,' 

 and usually in the various missionary fields. 



Organisation. The ecclesiastical authorities of 

 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

 comprise two priesthoods the Melchizedek or 

 High Priesthood, and the Aaronic or Levitical, 

 which is the lesser priesthood. The latter ministers 

 in temporal things, the former in spiritual things, 

 though having general authority and snjicr 

 vision over the whole. Apostles, seventies, high- 

 priests, patriarchs, and elders lielong to the Mel- 

 chizedek priesthood, bishops, priests, teachers, 

 and deacons to the Aaronic. The president of the 

 whole church, with two counsellors, constitutes the 

 First Presidency, the highest authority. There have 

 been six of these presidents viz. Joseph Smith (mar- 

 tyred June 27, 1844), Brigham Young ( born June 1, 

 1801, died August 29, 1877), John Taylor (born No- 

 vember 1, 1808, died in exile July 23, 1887), Wilford 

 Woodruff (born March 1, 1807, died Septembers, 

 1898), Lorenzo Snow ( born April 3, 1814, died Octo- 

 ber 10, 1901), and Joseph F. Smith (born November 

 13, 1838 ). The death of the president dissolves the 

 First Presidency, the authority then devolving upon 

 the Twelve Apostles, who nominate his successor, 

 always selecting for the office, since the death of 

 Joseph Smith, the president of the Apostles. The 

 third l>ody is the Seventies, of whom there are one 

 hundred councils (commonly termed (jiiorums), 

 each of seventy niemltera, each council having 

 seven presidents, included in the seventy. The 

 seven presidents of the first council of seventies 



S reside over all the councils of seventies. The 

 uties of the above three bodies are general rather 

 than local. The cities and settlements of the 

 Saints are organised into stakes, each usually 

 covering one county. Each stake has a president, 

 assisted by two counsellors, also a high council of 

 twelve members ( who are high-priests ), presided 

 over bv the president of the stake and his two 

 counsellors. Each stake is divided into several 

 wards, presided over by a bishop and his two 

 counsellors. The high-priests of any stake form 

 a council indefinite in number. A council of 

 elders consists of 96 members ; of priests, 48 ; of 

 teachers, 24 : of deacons, 12. An apostle is a special 

 witness to all the world. The Twelve Apostles are 

 a travelling presiding high council, to build up the 

 church and regulate the affairs of the same in all 

 nations, as well as at home, under the direction of the 

 First Presidency, when there is a First Presidency. 

 A seventy's duty is to travel and minister under 



