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THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



traveled, largely >|>reading their views. Though 

 they have never been numerous, yet in the 

 latter part of the Eighteenth Century and the 

 beginning of the nineteenth they acquired 

 great reputation from having a larger proportion 

 of their membership engaged in foreign missions 

 than any Christian denomination since apostolic 

 times. In 1900, the denomination in the United 

 States reported 118 ministers, 111 churches, 

 and 14,817 members. 



Mormons, a sect founded in 1830, by 

 Joseph Smith, a native of the United States. 

 The distinguishing peculiarities of the sect are 

 the belief in a continual divine revelation 

 through the inspired medium of the prophet at 

 the head of their Church, the practice of polyg- 

 amy, and a complete hierarchical organization. 

 The supreme power, spiritual and temporal, rests 

 with the president or prophet (elected by the 

 whole body of the Church), who alone works 

 miracles and receives revelations. The Mor- 

 mons accept both the Bible and the Book of 

 Mormon as divine revelations, but hold them 

 equally subject to the explanation and correction 

 of the prophet. The latter mentioned book (in 

 large part a kind of historical romance written 

 by one Solomon Spaulding, in 1812), pretends to 

 be a history of America from the first settlement 

 of the continent after the destruction of the 

 tower of Babel up to the end of the Fourth Cen- 

 tury of our era, at which time flourished the 

 legendary prophet Mormon, its reputed author. 

 1 1 \VM s sail 1 to have been written on gold plates, and 

 concealed until its hiding place was revealed to 

 Smith by an angel. The name given to it was 

 evidently owing to the important part which 

 Spaulding had assigned to Mormon and his son 

 Moroni in his novel; but Smith and his coadju- 

 tors, instead of confining themselves to the 

 original manuscript, had clumsily engrafted upon 

 it a number of maxims, prophecies, etc., evident- 

 ly garbled from the sacred volume, and interpo- 

 lated in such a manner as to involve anachron- 

 isms and contradictions. The doctrine of the 

 Mormons is a mixture of materialism and 

 millenarianism, and their most distinctive fea- 

 ture, polygamy, which, though originally con- 

 demned in the Book of Mormon, was introduced 

 under a theory of " spiritual wives/' and a mys- 

 terious system, of unrestricted marriage called 

 "sealing." The Mormons first appeared at 

 Manchester, New York, whence they were com- 

 pelled by the persevering hostility of their 

 neighbors to flee, first to Kirtland in Ohio (1831), 

 then to Nauvoo, the "City of Beauty," in Illinois 

 (1838), and finally to the Salt Lake in Utah 

 (1848). In 1844, the founder, Joseph Smith, 

 was shot by a mob in Carthage prison, where his 

 lawless behavior had brought him. The advance 

 made by Mormonism seems to have been due far 

 more to the abilities of Brigham Young, the 

 successor of Smith, than to the founder himself, 

 who was little better than a dissipated and 

 immoral scamp. Under Young's direction large 

 tracts of land at Salt Lake were brought under 

 cultivation, an emigration fund was established, 

 and a skillful system of propagandism set on foot, 

 by which large numbers of converts were brought 

 from Europe, especially from Great Britain. 

 A State was organized under the name of Deseret. 



Congress refused to recognize it. but riveted 

 I'tah into a Territory, and Brigham Young was 

 appointed governor of it. He was soon removed 

 by the United States authorities, but after a 

 time the Mormons were left pretty much to 

 themselves. Jn 1870, Congress passed a bill to 

 compel them to renounce polygamy, or quit the 

 United States. A prosecution was instituted 

 against Brigham Young, who was sentenced to 

 fine and imprisonment. In 1877, Young died 

 and was succeeded by John Taylor, an English- 

 man, during whose presidency the United States 

 Government has passed several bills for the 

 abolition of polygamy. The Reorganized 

 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 

 sometimes called non-polygamous Mormons, 

 claim to be true to the doctrines proclaimed by 

 Joseph Smith, insisting that Brigham Young's 

 followers were led by him from the truth, and 

 deny that Young's revelation in 1852 concerning 

 polygamy was genuine. 



Mosque [mosk], a Mohammedan temple or 

 house of worship. The first mosque, square 

 and capacious, erected by Mohammed at Me- 

 dina, partly with his own hands, became in its 

 plan the model for all others, which was, how- 

 ever, subsequently modified by the addition of 

 the cupola and minaret. This mosque, that at 

 Mecca, and the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem 

 are considered peculiarly holy by the Moslems. 

 The jumma musjid or great mosque at Delhi, 

 imilt by Shah Jehan in 1631-37, is generally con- 

 sidered the noblest building ever erected for 

 Mohammedan worship. The chief officer of a 

 mosque is the Nazir, under whom are two 

 Imams, a kind of religious official, in no way to 

 be compared with what we understand by a 

 clergyman of a creed, but who performs a cer- 

 tain number of religious rites as long as the 

 Nazir allows him to do so, and who, being very 

 badly remunerated, generally has to find some 

 other occupation besides. With many of tin- 

 larger mosques there are schools, academies, and 

 hospitals connected, and public kitchens, in 

 which food is prepared for the poor. 



Music. The origin of music is involved in 

 obscurity, and it has been said that speech and 

 song are coeval. From several passages in the 

 Old Testament it is evident that music was 

 made use of at an early period, but probably 

 without any regard to rhythm. The Greeks, 

 who inherited the art from the Egyptians, were 

 the first to reduce music to a system; but it was 

 not until the introduction of Christianity into 

 Western Europe that marked signs of improve- 

 ment took place, and not until the Fifteenth 

 Century that any rapid progress was made. 

 The great distinction between the music of the 

 ancients and that of modern times lies in the 

 peculiarity of the scales in which it is written. 

 The scales or modes of the ancients varied from 

 four to fourteen, and were distinguished by the 

 position of the semitones, as in our modern 

 major and minor scales. Many of our national 

 melodies are written in these ancient scales, 

 their peculiar character being derived from th<- 

 position of the semitones. Melody was probably 

 the sole characteristic of the music of the an- 

 cients, and it was not until the Seventh Century 

 that composition in harmony, either vocal or 



