rine blue silk, with a representation of the Temple of Solomon in the centre, and a heart, surrounded by a number of emblems similar to those in use by the Masons. She told me that the oath was very similar to that which the Masons used, and that it was administered to both men and women.
Polygamy.
During my residence in Salt Lake City, I became acquainted with Brigham Young, and a number of the bishops, and other prominent Mormons, and I formed a very high opinion of them. There certainly has seldom or never been so well-governed a people as the Mormons were before the Gentiles found them out, and insisted on intruding on their domain. As for polygamy, it is a part and parcel of their religion, and has the sanction of the same Bible that the Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, acknowledge; and I cannot see why the Mormons should not be permitted to hold their religious beliefs the same as other sects. I do not believe in polygamy myself, but if other people think it is right, and choose to practise it, that is their business and not mine.
Whether polygamy, however, be right or wrong, there is this to be said in favor of the Mormons. The men marry according to the custom of their church, and they acknowledge and provide for the women who bear them children which is a good deal more than a great many people who denounce polygamy and Mormonism do. The Mormon religion professes to be based upon the Bible, what they call "The Book of Mormon" being merely a later revelation; and I have heard as good, sound, practical sermons preached in Salt Lake City by Mormons who worked hard all the week earning bread for their families, as I ever heard anywhere.
I have listened to the preaching of nearly all the principal bishops, and I never heard any of them utter a word that was not good doctrine, calculated to make men and women better and more honorable in all their dealings with their neighbors. Most of these sermons were in a much more practical vein than some I have heard in fashionable churches a good many hundred miles eastward of Salt Lake City; but I liked them none the less for that; and I respected the preachers, for, so far as I was able to see, they practised exactly what they preached, and did not have one religion for the Sabbath and another for working days.
