out with roses and sun flowers, smother up the roofs.

are yet to come and fill it with the pride of life.

In First South Street stand the Right and left from Main Street, Theatre and the City Hall, both fine crossing it, parallel to it, lie a multi-structures, and for Western America remarkable in style.

tude of streets, each like its fellow; a hard, dusty road, with tiny becks, and rows of locust, cotton-wood, and philarea, and the building-land laid down in blocks. In each block stands a cottage, in the midst of fruit trees. Some of these houses are of goodly appearance as to size and style, and would let for high rentals in the Isle of Wight. Others are mere cots of four or five rooms, in which the polygamous families, should they ever quarrel, would find it difficult to form a ring and fight. In some of these orchards you see two, three houses; pretty Swiss cottages, like many in St. John's Wood as to gable, roof, and paint these are the dwellings of different wives. "Whose houses are these?" we asked a lad in East Temple Street, pointing to some pretty-looking villas. "They belong," says he, "to Brother Kimball's family." Here, on the bench, in the highest part of the city, is Hiram Clawson's garden; a lovely garden, red with delicious peaches, plums, and apples, on which, through the kindness of his youngest wife, we have been hospitably fed during our sojourn with the Saints; a large house stands in front, in which live his first and second wives, with their nurseries of twenty children. But what is yon dainty white bower in the corner, with its little gate and its smother of roses and creepers? That is the house of the youngest wife, Alice, a daughter of Brigham Young. She has a nest of her own, apart from the other women-a nest in which she lives with her four little boys, and where she is supposed to have as much of her own way with her lord, as the daughter of a Soltan enjoys in the harem of a Pasha. Elder Naisbit, one of the "Mormon" poets, an English convert to the faith as it is in Joseph, lives with his two wives and their brood of young children, on the high ground opposite to Elder Clawson, in a very pretty mansion, something like a cottage on the Under Cliff. Much of the city is only green glade and orchard, waiting for the people who

The City Hall is used as head-quarters of police, and as a court of justice. The "Mormon" police are swift and silent, with their eyes in every corner, their grip on every rogue. No fact, however slight, appears to escape their notice. A Gentile friend of mine, going through the dark streets at night towards the theatre, spoke to a "Mormon" lady of his acquaintance whom he overtook; next day a gentleman called at his hotel, and warned him not to speak with a 'Mormon" woman in the dark streets unless her father should be with her. In the winter months there are usually seven or eight hundred miners in Salt Lake City, young Norse gods of the Denver stamp; every man with a bowie-knife in his belt, and a revolver in his hand, clamoring for beer and whisky, for gaming-tables and lewd women, comforts which are strictly denied to them by these Saints.

these violent spirits to repress; that The police have all they hold them in decent order with so little bloodshed, is the wonder of every western governor and judge. William Gilpin, governor elect of Colorado, and Robert Wilson, sheriff of Denver and justice of the peace, have nothing but praise to give these stern and secret, but most able and effective ministers of police.

A few

With this court of justice we have scarcely made acquaintance. nights ago we met the judge, who kindly asked us to come and see his court; but while we were chatting in his ante-room, before the cases were called, some one whispered in his ear that we were members of the English bar, on which he slipped out of sight, when he is not sitting on the bench, is and adjourned his court. This judge, engaged in vending drugs across counter in Main Street; and as we know where to find him in his store, we sometimes drop in for soda-water and a cigar; but we have not yet been able to fix a time for seeing his method of administering justice at Salt Lake.

a

The city has two sulphur-springs,

A DEFENCE OF

over which Brigham Young has built wooden shanties. One bath is free. The water is refreshing and relaxing, the beat 92°.

No beggar is seen in the streets; scarcely ever a tipsy man; and the drunken fellow, when you see one, is always either a miner or a soldier-of course a Gentile. No one seems poor. The people are quiet and civil, far more so than is usual in these western parts. From the presence of trees, of water, and of cattle, the streets have a pastoral character, seen in no other city of the mountains and the plains. Here, standing under the green locust trees, is an ox come home for the night; yonder is a cow at a gate being milked by a child. Light mountain-wagons stand about, and the sun-burnt emigrants, who have just come in from the prairies, thankful for shade and water, sit under the acacias, and dabble their feet in the running creeks.

the men are eager and excited, having finished their long journey across the sea, across the States, across the prairies, across the mountains; the women and little folks are scorched and wan; dirt, fatigue, privation, give them a wild, unearthly look; and you would hardly recognise in this picturesque and ragged group, the sober Monmouth farmer, the clean Woolwich artizan, the smart London smith. Mule-teams are being unloaded at the stores. Miners from Montana and Idaho, in huge boots and belts, are loafing about. A gang of Snake Indians, with their long hair, their scant drapery, and their proud reserve, are cheapening the dirtiest and cheapest lots. Yon fellow in the broad sombrero, dashing up the dust with his wiry little horse, is a New Mexican; here comes a heavy Californian swell; and there, in the blue uniform, go two officers from the

camp.

More than all other streets, perhaps, The air is wonderfully pure and Main Street, as the business quarter, bright. Rain seldom falls in the valoffers picture after picture to an artist's ley, though storms occur in the mouneye; most of all when an emigrant- tains almost daily; a cloud coming up train is coming in from the plains. in the western hills, rolling along the Such a scene is before me now; for crests, and threatening the city with a the train which we passed in the gorge deluge; but when breaking into wind above Bear River, has just arrived, and showers, it seems to run along the with sixty wagons, four hundred bull-hill-tops into the Wasatch chain, and ocks, six hundred men, women, and sail away eastward into the snowy children, all English and Welsh. The range. Mr. W. Hepworth Dixon's wagons fill the street: some of the "New America." cattle are lying down in the hot sun;

A

DEFENCE

OF

"MORMONISM."

(From the Morning Star, Jan. 28th, 1867.)

The Herald remarks, that by all the criteria in use to judge of a great people in America, this is a great community. Its foundation has been a source of strength to the Union, for it completes the chain of empire from sea to sea. A depot has been built in the heart of the desert, which has cost not a cent to the Government. St Louis has been joined to San Francisco, to the incalculable advantage of the Union. The "Mormons" have caused the wilderness to smile with orchard and garden. They have built a great

city were there was a desolate swamp, and founded a community of peace and industry in the heart of what seemed hopeless savagery. All this the Saints have done not only without the aid, but with the positive discouragement of the United States Government. And are they to be harried by fire and sword, because some of their doctrines are not in accord with those of the American people? What more monstrous tyranny can we conceive, than such an act would be? What more brutal and barbarous pur

THE Times and other English papers consider "Mormondom," as they term it, "in great peril :" they are jubilant over the idea of the approaching downfall of "Mormonism" in Utah. They inform the public, with exulting joy, that Congress is about to pass laws against the "Mormon" religion, and crush out their religious faith by Congressional enactments and heavy penalties. Christendom is delighted with these choice bits of information: she greedily swallows these delicious morsels, and longs to see one of the American Territories deprived of all her domestic and religious rights, to behold her broken up, despoiled, plundered, robbed, and her citizens driven from their hardearned homes, to die of starvation in the dens and caves of mountains, or perish by the hands of savage hordes.

What harm have we done to the Christian world, that you so earnestly desire our destruction? For which of our good deeds do you desire to martyr a hundred thousand men, women, and children? What Bible doctrine or Bible in-stitution have we been guilty of believing and practicing, that is so extremely offensive to you? We have taught you faith in Christ; we have taught you to repent and reform from all evil; we have pointed out baptism as a sacred ordinance; we have preached the necessity of being born of the Spirit; we believe and practice the Lord's supper; we exhort all men and women to live honestly, soberly, virtuously, prayerfully before God and all men; we believe in all the commands, sayings, ordinances, and blessings of the glorious Gospel of the Son of God; we believe in the ministry of angels, inspired visions and dreams, prophesyings and new revelations; we believe in the utmost purityand virtue among the sexes; we believe in the Bible order of domestic institutions; we believe in the Divine ordinance of marriage-in the Bible institution of either polygamy or monogamy; and finally we believe in everything

that is good, and in nothing that is evil or criminal. For which of all these good things do Christians desire a whole people to be crushed and refused an existence on earth? We pause-we wait for an answer. The reply comes from the four quarters of Christendom, saying, "We do not wish to persecute you for any good work, nor destroy you for any good institution; but because you believe and practice plural marriage: this all Christians believe to be a crime and you should be punished for your crimes."

We inquire, by what right do you call polygamy a crime? Neither the Old nor the New Testament has intimated it to be criminal or even sinful; neither God nor angels, Patriarchs nor Prophets, Revelators nor Apostles, Jews nor early Christians, have made it criminal; but on the contrary, God himself instituted and commanded the practice; gave laws regulating the same, protecting the legal rights of the wives, and the legal rights of their respective children: God himself gave wives to the Prophet David, whose Psalms you sing God himself chose Abraham as "the father of the faithful," conversed with him, sent his angels to eat and drink with him, made him his intimate friend, and sent angels to converse with his wives. Jacob with his four wives laid the foundation of the twelve tribes, and enjoyed all the blessings of his grandfather Abraham. These holy polygamic families, Jesus said were in the kingdom of God, and that many should come from the east, west, north, and south, and sit down with them in that kingdom. These patriarchal polyga

mists were not living in a dark age; but Paul says, they had the Gospel preached to them, even the same Gospel taught in the Apostles' days by which the heathen were blessed. The families of these inspired polygamist Prophets were represented by Paul, as model families-as perfect patterns after which Christian families should copy: indeed, Christian families were all adopted into these polygamic families, and became the seed of Abraham and of Israel by such adoption, and the legal heirs to all the promises made to these holy polygamists.

Paul says, "That the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord :" hence, marriage was essential to the perfection of the two sexes. And Paul considered it so very important, that he gave instructions to Timothy that both Bishops and Deacons must each have at least one wife before they were to be entrusted with those sacred offices. Unmarried or single men were unfitted for the duties of the office, and none were to be appointed, till they became "the husband of one wife," thus learning by actual experience how to rule their own households, before the household of faith was committed to their charge.

Before David was exalted to the throne of Israel, God gave him many wives, and wrought special miracles by his hand, and he was pronunced to be a man after God's own heart; his prophecies and Psalms were referred to and quoted by the Son of God and his Apostles. God himself, therefore, not only sanctioned, but did actually give to David his wives.

If polygamy be a crime, would the Lord have been guilty of giving to David something that would render him a criminal? If such institution be is a crime, would the Lord have expressly commanded the surviving brother to marry all of his deceased brothers' widows? If plural marriage be a crime, would he have ordained and issued a law to the great nation of Israel, commanding them, under the most dreadful curse, to carry out such family relationships from generation to generation?

Christ came, not to destroy the law of Moses, but to fulfil it. This had reference to the carnal commendments-the ceremonial law of offerings and sacrifices but he did not come to do away the ten commandments, nor justice, nor righteousness, nor faith, nor repentance, nor to break up family relations, nor to dissolve polygamous marriages, nor to denounce the Jews for keeping the same. He did not require that portion of the Jews, who were compelled by their law to be polygamists, to break up and dissolve their marriage relations in order to enter the Christian Church. Marriage was considered of more force, than the fluctuating every day trifles of life. It was a permanent institution, involving the welfare of thousands of Jewish polygamists and their families. Plural marriage, like faith, repentance, prayer, &c., is of that nature, that if it is right under one dispensation, it is right under all others : its relations are the same under Christianity as under the Mosaic or Patriarchal dispensation. It was not a type or shadow of things to come, like the ceremonial law, to be fulfilled in Christ, and done away. The polygamic Jew, embracing the Gospel under the preaching of Jesus, owed the same duties to his wives and children, in the Christian Church, as in the Jewish Church. His union with the Christian Church did not require him to turn his polygamic children and wives out of doors, and cleave to one only.

Marriage, under divine authority, is believed by the Latter-day Saints in Utah, to be as sacred now as in all former dispensations, whether such marriages are monogamic or polygamic. A divinely authorized marriage, celebrated by the ordinance of heaven, and administered by those called and authorized of God, always was considered, under every dispensation, as a duty enjoined upon both sexes, to fulfil in a legal manner, the great divine law of the multiplication of our species. Without this, the sexes do not fulfil the purpose of their creation; without this, they live in open defiance to the first great law given to man. Wilful neglect or disobedience to this divine command, will receive its punishment in the great future state to which we are all hastening. Marriage, like baptism and the Lord's supper, has a bearing upon our future exaltation and happiness. He that keeps the law is certainly more justified, than he who heedlessly or wilfully disregards it; and if more justified, his reward in heaven must be greater.

Marriage, therefore, is a matter of conscience with all true Saints; its bearings upon eternity are of such a nature, that they dare not neglect this divine institution.

But what do Congress, in free America, propose to do? They propose to take away this divine religious right from the whole Territory of Utah; to deprive all marriagable persons of the religious right of being officially united by their own ministers. Gentile officers and ministers who never pretended to any divine authority, must officiate in this divine ordinance. Why not also appoint Gentile officials to baptize all who wish to join any denomination in the Territory? Why do not Congress send Gentile officials to minister the sacrament, to confirm the Churches, to ordain ecclesiastical ministers, and take special charge of all the religious denominations in Utah ? Why do they not enact Congressional laws to punish all Jews in Utah who may be found practicing circumcision, or any other ordinance or institution in the Old Testament? If a great fundamental institution of the Bible is to be prohibited, under heavy penalties of fine and imprisonment, why not Congress point