A Sportsman 249 



elegant granite Temple, seated some six thousand, 

 and contained, as President Young informed us, the 

 largest organ in the world, excepting the one in Music 

 Hall of Boston, and had been made entirely by Mor- 

 mon skill and labor. The Tabernacle was crowded 

 to its extent, and the audience was garbed in some- 

 what different costumes from those seen in Eastern 

 city churches. The large poke bonnets, now unseen, 

 were in evidence, and many long-tailed blue coats 

 with brass buttons were frequent among the Elders — 

 relics of former days from foreign countries. Despite 

 the quaint costumes of severity, it was evident that 

 Gentile influences were commencing to be felt by some 

 of the younger portions of the congregation, in a dis- 

 playing of colors which were not entirely sombre. 

 These were the occasion of some remarks on the subject 

 by President Young during his address, when reviewing 

 the vanities of the world, and the tendency of the 

 female sex to follow the fashions of the ungodly, 

 which were vain and irrelevant to true piety. The 

 sticking in of gay feathers, as he designated it, while 

 appropriate to the male domestic fowl, growing where 

 nature designed, could not be availed of by the Chris- 

 tian woman without a sacrifice of modesty and re- 

 ligious regard, — this with many admonitions of being on 

 guard against some of the possibly pernicious features 

 likely to be introduced by the influx of settlers, which 

 would follow the building of the railroad in the develop- 

 ment of the mineral and agricultural wealth of the 

 region. The audience was very orderly and attentive 

 and it was clearly evident that the head of the church 

 had a powerful influence over and complete control of 

 his hearers. 



