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so Brigham's wives endured the situation. His attentions to his wives in public were calculated. His first wife and a favorite sat on a sofa with him at all festivities. The other wives found places as they pleased, although he usually danced with five or six of them after he had done the duty dance with Amelia, Emineline, or the best beloved." He danced well for a man of his years, and enjoyed a break-down at the close of the evening. He was habitually an early-riser, and transacted a great deal of business before breakfast. At nine o'clock he began the routine of the day in his office, with the assistance of a private secretary. He schooled himself to settle any point in once thinking of it deliberately, then gave his decision, and never wished to hear of it again. From ten to eleven he gave audience to apostles, bishops, leading citizens, and strangers; and not infrequently to "Sisters" who had complaints to make of their husbands. Brigham had complete control over his people. He knew everything. He claimed that the Saints could do nothing without his knowledge and approval, "even to the ribbons a woman should wear. He assumed the most vital interests in every man's affairs. The only rank in Zion is the priesthood, but the "royal blood of Young overtops them all," he said. His journeys through the territory were processions of state. Banners were paraded before him bearing "Hail to Zion's Chief," "God Bless Brigham Young," and other sentiments of welcome and adulation. He took his favorite wife with him in these triumphal visits. As a preacher he was forcible and vigorous, but his language was a mixture of profanity, vulgarity, bad grammar, cheap rant, and poor cant." He was ever listened to attentively, as his hearers expected he would "say something" they were anxious to learn. The actual wealth

of this prophet will never be known. He had vast tracts of land in Utah, interests in various railways, mines, and manufactories, was the third largest depositor in the Bank of England, and had other moneys "salted away" for necessities. As he had control of the tithing, and possessed unlimited credit, he could add "house to house" and "field to field." He could have left imperishable records for the care of the sick and needy behind him ; but he never founded a hospital or institution worthy of mention. There never were people more willing to obey than the Mormons during his administration. He could have swayed them as he pleased; and if he had been a good man he had a rare opportunity for proving it. In the later years of his life an English tourist described Brigham Young as being above the middle height, portly in person, and as having a sensual expression of countenance. He had the look of a determined man and the character of an obstinate one, and, as an enthusiastic admirer once said of him, "If he makes up his mind to do a thing, all hell can't stop him." The Prophet's dress was of gray homespun cloth, with which he wore a black satin vest and cravat, with a broad, unstarched collar turned over it. He was a paragon of neatness. He slept alone; his life was ascetic; his favorite food baked potatoes, with buttermilk, and his drink water. His followers deemed him "an angel of light; his enemies a goblin damned." His two most conspicuous qualities were his selfishness and his imposture. No mortal can estimate the dreadful influence of Brigham Young's thirty-years' rule upon the Mormons.* He set them examples of robbery, perjury, open murder, and secret assassination. He often preached the neces

* Appendix No. 25.

sity of murder (blood atonement) in order to save souls. In 1857 Ann Eliza, his fifteenth wife, left him, and petitioned the United States Court for a divorce, which was denied on the ground that the marriage was polygamous, and therefore null and void. In 1871 Brigham was indicted for polygamy, but no conviction was reached through the lax enforcement of the law by the United States officials then in power. Besides his other offices, he was "Grand Archer of the Order of Danites."

He left seventy-five children, all amply provided for. According to some authorities, he had thirty-six wives. Dora Young, one of his numerous daughters, apostatized, and declared that the first thing that opened her eyes to the atrocities of Mormonism was her father's wholesale perjuries. With the bravery of spirit in which this remarkable man encountered every circumstance in his eventful career, Brigham Young arranged his temporal affairs before making his exit from life. He ordered where and how he should be buried. Evidently he feared that some of his many victims would endeavor to procure his body after death, either through motives of revenge or the desire for profit, and his wishes were carefully executed. His grave is in an otherwise unused yard in the rear of one of his houses of residence. An iron railing surrounds a flat gray stone slab, which bears no inscription. The slab is said to weigh several tons, and covers the vault wherein the remains of the second Prophet rest, in a stone sarcophagus surrounded by several outer casings that are cemented with extraordinary care. After his burial there was a report that he was still living, which probably arose from the fact that the most ignorant and deluded of the Mormons were unwilling to believe that Brigham Young was mortal. There are still people among the Saints who aver that their

great Prophet is alive and dwelling somewhere in obscurity from motives that he deems wise and prudential, and that when the time arrives for him to reappear he will return to them with renewed power and glory.

His demise to the better educated of his followers, to his partners in fraud and delusion, was an evident relief. During his life they were merely his puppets, which he swayed at his will. They accepted his policy in all directions, but could carry it out in agreement with their own ideas.

This man will always stand out as a unique character in history. His mental abilities were greater than those of Joseph Smith, but his personal powers of attractiveness were far less. Some one has written of him as follows: Brigham Young is very human. He can button himself up to an unwelcome visitor in a style that a stranger is not likely to forget; but when he is in excellent humor he is a perfect Chesterfield.” He bewailed the fact that there was silver and gold in the hills of Utah; he forbade his people from searching for it, and the first prospectors who went to Utah to look for it he ordered should be assassinated. He said: "If men grow rich they will want fine houses and horses; their women will want fine clothes, and it will be the destruction of our holy religion."

He called himself "the lion of the Lord," and he made freedom of thought as impossible to the Mormons as to idiots or slaves. In common with the elders and other Mormons, Brigham was fond of talking of the mysteries of his religion. Whether it is ever permitted to the unsanctified to gain an insight into these "mysteries' or no, this much is certain-the facts which are hidden by the sayings and writings of the Mormons are ofttimes more interesting than any, if any, which they have yet disclosed.

CHAPTER XII.

John Taylor elected as successor to the second Prophet-The trial of Rudger Clawson for bigamy-Salt Lake City-Its beautiful location —The Tabernacle and public buildings-Mormon conferencesThe freedom of the ballot in Utah-The present generation of Mormons-The Territory of Utah-Predictions regarding the future of Mormonism-Far-seeing Mormons preparing a rendezvous for the victims of the Edmunds law.

WHEN Brigham Young died, in August, 1877, it was generally believed throughout the civilized world that the disintegration of Mormonism would follow that event. With the removal of his iron and arbitrary rule, it was supposed that there would be an independence of feeling among the Saints that had not previously existed, and that as railways were constructed, mines developed, and industries established, together with the influx of a Gentile population, the founding of Christian schools, and various institutions under the patronage of Christian missions, the whole scheme of "exclusive salvation" would gradually become extinct. The fallacy of such an opinion is shown by the situation of affairs in Utah at the present time. Brigham Young, Jr., failing to secure his father's office, John Taylor was elected as the successor of the second Prophet. The office fell to Taylor, but upon the shoulders of George Q. Cannon the mantle of authority really descended.

Both men have played conspicuous roles in the history of Mormonism. Both are of English birth, and emigrated to this country when very young. John Taylor is adroit,