side pertinent to the subject. In giving the history of the invasion and occupation of the several sections of the Pacific States from Panamá to Alaska, I have been obliged to treat of the idiosyncrasies, motives, and actions of Roman catholics, methodists, presbyterians, episcopalians, and members of the Greek church: not of the nature or validity of their respective creeds, but of their doings, praising or blaming as praise or blame were due, judged purely from a standpoint of morals and humanity according to the highest standards of the foremost civilization of the world. It was not necessary—it was wholly outside the province of the historian, and contrary to my method as practised elsewhere—to discuss the truth or falsity of their convictions, any more than when writing the history of Mexico, California, or Oregon to advance my opinions regarding the inspiration of the scriptures, the divinity of Christ, prophecies, miracles, or the immaculate conception. On all these questions, as on the doctrines of the Mormons and of other sects, I have of course my opinions, which it were not only out of place but odious to be constantly thrusting upon the attention of the reader, who is seeking for facts only.
In one respect only I deem it necessary to go a little further here: inasmuch as doctrines and beliefs enter more influentially than elsewhere into the origin and evolution of this society, I give the history of the rise and progress of those doctrines. Theirs was not an old faith, the tenets of which have been fought for and discussed for centuries, but professedly a new revelation, whose principles are for the most part unknown to the outside world, where their purity is severely questioned. The settlement of this section sprung
