56 STEPHANISTS AND MORMONS. [CHAP. XXIII. 



Are we then to despair of the progress of the 

 human mind in inquiries in which it must ever 

 take the deepest interest, because in a land where 

 there are so many schools, and so many millions 

 of readers, a free press, arid religious toleration, 

 it is so hard to extinguish a belief in the grossest 

 impostures? By no means in the doctrines 

 taught by Stephan and Smith there was a mixture of 

 some fiction with much truth ; they adopted nearly 

 all the highest truths of theology common to the pre 

 vailing religions of the world, with the addition of 

 nearly all which Christians believe. In each sect the 

 difficulty consists in clearing away a greater or less 

 amount of human error and invention from the divine 

 truths which they obscure or conceal. The multi 

 tude are taught by their spiritual guides in three 

 fourths of Christendom, that they are not to inquire 

 for themselves. Even of the Protestant minority, 

 who profess that it is their right and duty to exercise 

 their own judgment, how many are there who annex 

 the condition &quot;provided they arrive at the conclusions 

 to which the Church has come, without which they 

 cannot be saved ! &quot; What more would a Stephanist or 

 Mormon preacher ask, than the privilege of borrow 

 ing and inculcating these maxims ? and how, if the 

 use of them be freely granted, and they have motives 

 for perpetuating some peculiar sectarian dogmas, is 

 the delusion ever to end ? 



In a Southern steamer abundant opportunities are 

 afforded of witnessing the inconveniences arising out 

 of the singular relation subsisting between the ne- 

 goes, whether free or slave, and the white race. 



