IN THE OLD WEST 307 



in " spiritual matrimony." No woman, it ap- 

 peared, would be admitted into heaven unless 

 " passed " by a saint. To qualify them for this, 

 it was necessary that the woman should first be 

 received by the guaranteeing Mormon as an 

 " earthly wife," in order that he did not pass in 

 any of whom he had no knowledge. The conse- 

 quence of this state of things may be imagined. 

 The most debasing immorality was a precept of 

 the order, and an almost universal concubinage 

 existed amongst the sect, which at this time num- 

 bered at least forty thousand. Their disregard 

 to the laws of decency and morality was such as 

 could not be tolerated in any class of civilized 

 society. 



Again did the honest Missourians set their faces 

 against this pernicious example, and when the 

 county to which the Mormons had removed be- 

 came more thickly settled, they rose to a man 

 against the modern Gomorrah. The Mormons, 

 by this time, having on their part gained con- 

 siderable accession to their strength, thought to 

 set the laws at defiance, organized and armed large 

 bodies of men, in order to maintain the ascendency 

 over the legitimate settlers, and bid fair to con- 

 stitute an imperiwm in imperio in the State, and 

 become the sole possessors of the public lands. 

 This, of course, could not be tolerated. Gover- 

 nor Boggs at once ordered out a large force of 

 State militia to put down this formidable demon- 



