258 AGNOSTICISM vii 



Republic, which, though comparatively insignifi- 

 cant, at that time, in territory as in the number of 

 its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments 

 of the speeches of its orators which have come 

 down to us) no less remarkable for the native 

 intelligence of its population than for the wide 

 extent of their information, owing to the activity 

 of their publishers in diffusing all that they could 

 invent, beg, borrow, or steal. Nor were they less 

 noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints 

 in thought, or speech, or deed ; except, to be sure, 

 the beneficent and wise influence of the majority, 

 exerted, in case of need, through an institution 

 known as " tarring and feathering/' the exact 

 nature of which is now disputed. 



There is a complete consensus of testimony that 

 the founder of Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was 

 a low-minded, ignorant scamp, and that he stole 

 the " Scriptures " which he propounded ; not being 

 clever enough to forge even such contemptible stuff 

 as they contain. Nevertheless he must have been 

 a man of some force of character, for a considerable 

 number of disciples soon gathered about him. In 

 spite of repeated outbursts of popular hatred and 

 violence during one of which persecutions Smith 

 was brutally murdered the Mormon body steadily 

 increased, and became a flourishing community. 

 But the Mormon practices being objectionable to 

 the majority, they were, more than once, without 

 any pretence of law, but by force of riot, arson, and 



