toleration of religious sentiment is guaranteed. No inhabitant of this state shall ever be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship; but polygamous or plural marriages are for ever prohibited.” In March 1896 the escheated property of the Church still in possession of the United States government was restored, but the Church was not again incorporated, its legal business being transacted by its president as trustee-in-trust for the body of religious worshippers known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; each ward of the Church has, however, been incorporated, and its bishop is its executive head. In 1898 President Woodruff died and was succeeded by Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901), a native of Ohio, converted to Mormonism in 1836. In 1898 Brigham Henry Roberts (b. 1857), an Englishman by birth and a Mormon leader, was elected to Congress from Utah; as he had three wives there was objection to his taking his seat in 1899 in the 56th Congress; and on the 25th of January 1900 by a vote of 268 to 50 he was excluded from his seat. In 1903 Reed Smoot (b. 1862), an apostle of the Church, was elected to the United States Senate, where there was an attempt to exclude him (not on the ground that he was a polygamist, for there was no suspicion of his having violated the law, but because the apostles of the Church still advocated polygamy); the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections reported in favour of his exclusion; but on the 20th of February 1907 the Senate voted against his exclusion (42–28). According to Senator Smoot there were in 1906 not more than 500 householders in Utah who were polygamous; only six of the twelve apostles, and only one chosen since April 1900, were polygamous; and of the fourteen general authorities chosen between 1890 and 1906 twelve were monogamists. Joseph Fielding Smith (b. 1838), a nephew of the prophet, being a son of Hyrum Smith, succeeded to the presidency in 1901; he was a polygamist, and in March 1907, soon after the birth of what was said to be his forty-third child, he pleaded guilty when charged with breaking the law against polygamy and was fined $300.
The growth of the Latter-Day Saints has been largely in foreign countries. Missionary work in southern Canada was begun in 1833 by Orson Pratt, and in 1836 his brother, Parley P. Pratt, organized a mission in Toronto; in 1837 the work was begun in Liverpool, which is still the headquarters in Great Britain; in Ireland the work met with little success; from Germany missionaries were expelled in 1851 and in 1853; the Book of Mormon was translated into Italian by Lorenzo Snow in 1852; a Hawaiian version was made in 1856 by George Q. Cannon; and the missions in Scandinavia were begun about 1850. In the earlier years of the Church all converts were urged to migrate to Utah, and the glowing accounts of life there doubtless increased their number; the later policy of the Church, to which it was forced after 1887, when the Perpetual Emigration Fund was dissolved and assisted immigration was forbidden by the Federal government, was for converts to remain in their native countries. In England (and to a lesser degree on the Continent) the announcement of the doctrine of plural marriage was a disadvantage to the Church, and many converts transferred their allegiance to the Josephites, or Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who always opposed polygamy and attempted to prove that such doctrines had been foisted on the Church by Brigham Young, who had supplanted Joseph Smith’s true successor, Joseph Smith III.
In 1908 the total number of Latter-Day Saints in the United States (chiefly in Utah and the neighbouring states) was estimated at 350,000, and there were besides about 48,000 members of the Reorganized Church. In Utah there are four great Mormon temples—at Salt Lake City (1893), Manti (1888), Logan (1884) and St George (1877). The Reorganized Church has twice been declared by United States Courts the legal successor of the Church founded by Joseph Smith, jun.; it holds that “the doctrines of polygamy, human sacrifice, or killing men to save them, Adam being God, Utah being Zion or the gathering place of the saints, are doctrines of devils”; its headquarters are in Lamoni, Iowa, whither it was removed from Plano, Illinois, in 1881; it has several churches in Canada, the largest being at London, Ontario, and Toronto, and it is the owner of a Temple lot at Kirtland, Illinois. The Temple lot at Independence, Missouri, is owned by the small band of Mormon schismatics (organized in Illinois in 1835) who call themselves “The Church of Jesus Christ,” and are known as Hedrickites; the Utah Church considers Independence as the holy city, and made a large settlement there in 1907.
The general morality of the Mormons seems to have been high for a frontier community; there was no gambling nor drunkenness. The Saints, notably in the time of Brigham Young, were fond of dancing, and the Deseret Dramatic Association was formed and a theatre was built in the early years of the settlement in Utah.
Government.—The Mormon hierarchy is highly complicated. At the head of the body is a president, who possesses supreme authority, and is successor to Joseph Smith, jun., “Seer, Translator, Prophet”; the president is supported by two counsellors. These three are supposed to be the successors of Peter, James and John, constitute what is known as the “first presidency,” seem to typify the Trinity, and are the head of the priesthood of Melchisedec. Then comes the “patriarch,” whose chief duty is to bless and lay on hands, and after him the “twelve apostles,” forming a travelling high council. Of these the president is ex officio one, and endowed with authority equal to the other eleven. Their duties are important. They ordain all other officers, elders, priests, teachers and deacons, 'lead all religious meetings, and administer the rites of baptism and sacrament. The “quorum of the twelve” is second in power to the “quorum of the first presidency,” and acts in case the president dies or is disabled. Fourth come the seven presidents of the “seventies” or “seventies’ quorums,” each body comprising seventy elders; there are about 140 seventies in all, each of which has seven presidents, and every seven one president. These seventies make annual reports, and are the missionaries and propagandists of the body. Fifth come the “high priests,” whose chief duty is to officiate in all the offices of the church in the absence of any higher authorities. The priesthood of Melchisedec is made up of the officials just named—president, two counsellors, patriarch, apostles, presidents of seventies, elders and high priests. In the Aaronic priesthood, which is subordinate to the priesthood of Melchisedec, and is occupied rather with temporal affairs, the highest office is that of the presiding bishop, who superintends the collection of tithes; other Aaronic officials are styled priests, teachers and deacons. The Church is made up of about 50 stakes (21 in Utah), each having a presidency (a president and two counsellors), and is divided into wards, which are subdivided into districts, each of which has a certain number of teachers, a meeting-house, Sunday school, day school, and dramatic, debating and literary societies.
Doctrine.—A system of polytheism has been grafted on an earlier form of the creed, according to which there are grades among the gods, the place of supreme ruler of all being taken by the primeval Adam of Genesis, who is the deity highest in spiritual rank, while Christ, Mahomet, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young also partake of divinity. The business of these deities is the propagation of souls to people bodies begotten on earth, and the sexual relation permeates the creed. The saints on leaving this world are deified, and their glory is in proportion to the number of their wives and children; hence the necessity and justification of polygamy (although its practice is not now authorized by the Church), and the practice of having many wives sealed to one saint. Marriage, if accompanied by the ecclesiastical ceremony of “sealing,” is for eternity, and is a necessary pre-requisite to heavenly bliss. A man may be sealed to any number of women, but no woman may be sealed to more than one man. Both marriage and sealing by proxy are permitted to assure salvation to women who die unsealed. This system of spiritual wives or celestial marriage is based on the idea that a woman cannot be saved except through her husband. Polygamous marriage is supposed to make possible the procreation of enough bodies for thousands of spirits which have long awaited incarnation. Especially in their earlier years the Mormons believed in faith healing, and Joseph Smith bade them “trust in God when sick, and live by faith and not by medicine or poison.” Their distinguishing points of faith are: religiously, a belief in a continual divine revelation through the inspired medium of the prophet at the head of the Church; morally, polygamy, though this is condemned in the Book of Mormon, as has been noticed above; and, socially, a complete hierarchical organization. They believe in the Bible as supplemented by the Book of Mormon, the Book of Doctrine, and revelation through the president of the Church; in the gift of prophecy, miracles and casting out devils; in the imminent approach of the end of the world; in their own identity with the apocalyptic saints who shall reign with Christ in a temporal kingdom, either in Missouri (at Independence) or in Utah; in the resurrection of the body; in absolute liberty of private judgment in religious matters; and in the salvation of a man only if he believes in Christ’s atonement, repents, is baptized by immersion by a Christ-appointed apostle and receives the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost by duly-authorized apostles. Among their minor rules as laid down in A Word of Wisdom supposed to have been revealed to Joseph Smith (Feb. 27, 1833), are these recommendations: that it is not good to drink wine or strong drink, except at the Lord’s Supper (and even then it should be home-made grape-
