THERE is an article in the March number of the North American Review upon the relations of our people to the government. It was written by Judge C. C. Goodwin, and is characterized by a flippancy of statement, a dearth of argument and a degree of bitterness, but little consonant with the dignity and solidity of the admirable monthly, in which, by some means, it found a place. With what unanimity do reverend divines forget their cardinal principles of charity and persuasion, and stoop to excess of abuse and volumes of misrepresentation, when they deal with the despised "Mormon," absolving their consciences, no doubt, with the convenient sophism that the end justifies the means! These ministers are Christian fathers to their flocks, and esteem it their duty to present the gospel to murderers and prison inmates, to cannibal and heathen; but when their attention is directed towards the setting sun, and their eyes are met by the view of a people, whose only crimes are their unity, prosperity and possession of divine truth, these ministers become as wild as ravening wolves, as voracious as Dr. Oates, and profoundly forgetful of conversion by force of superior principles and morality. A contemplation of this subject seems to turn the narrow "Gentile" mind from its normal condition of equilibrium as a magnet deflects the compass needle. Judges forget that every cause has two sides, and cease to base their judgments and decisions upon testimony; jumping to conclusions upon the hearsay of bitter partizans. Logicians become illogical; moralists sacrifice the fundamental propositions of their codes; old ladies go out in damp weather to attend anti-"Mor DANIEL." mon" societies, and statesmen become demagogues; the murderer reviles us and the prostitute scoffs; the man who maintains his mistress receives contamination from our touch, and the pitiable being at whose vitals gnaw most nauseous and loathsome diseases joins in the popular clamor. "How long, O Lord, how long!" And Judge Goodwin, lacking that breadth and candor of intellect, the possession of which has caused such men as Generals Sherman and Garfield, Hugh McCulloch, Dr. Miller, John Codman and others ad libitum to recognize our moral worth, comes out with a marvelous woof of erroneous statement, and develops a degree of intolerance which smacks of the Roman inquisition. The judge forsakes the traditional calmness of the Judicial mind, casts away the balance of justice, and takes up the cestus of the ancient prize fighter. The "Mormons" do not, as he says they do,hold the balance of power in Idaho, having but three members of its Legislature; nor are they rapidly acquiring it in Colorado and Arizona; that is, only so far as circumstances may make it possible for a small proportion of the voting population to turn the scale. He declares it a national disgrace that President Young should have been permitted to die peacefuly in his bed. I invoke the shades of those non-conformists who perished under the terrible reign of the inquisition, and ask if these are not the hissing fangs of that same monster, to whose poisoned touch you ascribe your deaths of fiendish torture. And this in the broad glare of the boasted tolerance of the republic and the century, and in the face of the fact, too, that hostile judges, packed juries, perjured | weight of that heel of iron with which witnesses and energetic district attorneys who seemed infused, as never before, with the spirit of their calling, did all in their power to drag the great pioneer into their meshes! There are three statements in the article to which I wish particularly to refer: they are those on which the author stigmatizes our Church as being built upon foundations of animalism, ignorance and disloyalty. To the charge of disloyalty, let me reply by pointing to that magnificent example of patriotism in which a driven people, dependent upon their working men, performed that which our enemies at Washington had exacted because they thought it beyond human nature for any people so situated to perform. Five hundred men, the flower of the community, left for the seat of war. Personally, and I, think I express the sentiments of our youth in this direction, I pronounce myself ready to fight my country's battles as long as her cause is just, and, if need be, to meet a soldier's fate in the preservation of its integrity; but when the country's wrath is turned against a religion which by education, instruction and reason I believe to be divine, I ask any candid man where does my allegiance lie? A person's conscience and religious convictions are his supremest master, and should justly be so. The antagonism which unfortunately exists between the government and our principles arises in this manner : The Constitution permits a free exercise of religion; a church is established; Congress forbids the practice of one of its principles and the Supreme Court declares the law good. The government has placed us where we are, and where, in justice to our loyalty, we would we were not. Ah! but they say, you violate moral statutes and render your selves liable to criminal prosecution. I have yet to learn wherein our system of marriage violates any moral law. It may be answered "one man for one woman;" this idea is but the child of tradition and a tenet of a minority of earth's inhabitants. We feel but little the ponderous the past grinds down the neck of the present. And so objections thought to be founded on moral laws, have no firmer basis than the glamour of age and the folly of precedent. Well, they say, unhappiness results and God would not ask His children to do ought to mar their joy. The first proposition may be disputed, and the fallacy of the second is evident; for do not we of Christian persuasion find ourselves "off limits" in all directions, and so hampered by the guide posts of religion that if salvation be our aim, we must not depart from the straight path of small latitude. And what else can they say about it? I do not know unless they tell us that those of old who communed with God were commanded to practice it, and that our Lord and Savior, who took occasion to correct and add to so many of the teachings of Moses, had naught to find fault with this. I appeal to any man not a communicant of our church to search his mind and heart for objections to our marriage customs, and would ask him if he does not find them due to the edict of H. R H. Tradition, and its enforcement by his blind henchman-Popular Opinion. I proclaim our fealty to the great flag, and sadly deprecate the false position in which the government has placed us. This "Second Daniel" even finds our unity and the strength of our organization a cause for abuse. With regard to the education of our people, I can say, that it is incontrovertible that many of the States are far ahead of us in this direction; but it is equally true that our education is of a higher grade than in any of the territories that have had the same frontier difficulties to combat, and also in advance of that in some of the States. The policy of our church is education, as abundantly evinced by its efforts to establish and render useful, schools, improvement associations, primaries, libraries and colleges. We are blamed for objecting to the introduction of antagonistic books and periodicals in our midst. In short, we are censured for not adopt to be called either to perform a mission abroad, or with his entire family to move into some new country. Would it be either economy or reason for the sensual man to thus subject himself to the expense of supporting a large family, to submit to the exaction of tithes and donations, and to hold himself ready at any time to sacrifice position and prospects, friends and homes, to throw himself with a numerous family into the wilderness. ing a policy of disintegration, for not | quired. A person is liable, at any time, undermining our own foundation; and this from a judge, presumably a student of logic. Contact is education; a fixed population is by necessity one of narrower views; he who knows various peoples and is acquainted with their customs, may choose from various methods of doing a thing, upon various ways of regarding a fact; but he who lives on his great grandfather's farm, having for neighbors the greatgrandchildren of his ancestor's neighbors, will generally know how to go about a thing in but one way, and that, perhaps, clumsily; his mind, likewise, works in a groove. In this most vital principle of practicality, our people stand preeminent, both because we came originally and are constantly recruited from the four qnarters of the globe, and from the fact that our missionaries are ever coming and going, learning and bringing back their experiences abroad to spread among the people. It has long been a pet hobby of those who fight our faith that it is built upon rocks of sensuality and animalism; that the majority of our converts are men who seek the pales of the church in order to give unbridled freedom to their sensual inclinations (we are not told why women become converts). Let us examine the reasonableness of this charge. Adultery in our code, is second only to murder. A man's duties to each of his wives are equally great, in the way of providing homes and comforts. The payment of tithing and donations is re We may expect to see this when the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is shown to be shorter than either of the sides, when the people of Newcastle begin to import coal, or when the great majority of earth's inhabitants, exercising their own volition, cease to revile and persecute the truth. Shylock, in the famous trial, was at first profuse in his exclamations, that a second Daniel had come to judgment; subsequent developments changed his mind. I fancy that what I have said of this modern judge may lead to the conclusion that I should not, perhaps, have been so hasty in introducing him "a second Daniel." R. W. Young. The origin of electing by ballot may be traced to the ancient Greeks. When a member was to be elected, every voter threw a little pellet of bran or crumb of bread into a basket, carried by a servant round the table, and whoever dissented flattened their pellets on one side. THE OLD GARRET. IN the old fashioned garret! Methinks, | And I find myself among the "old lum I hear some one say, rubbish! that's all there is in the garret. Not so fast, gentle reader; allow me to tell you in the garret there is inspiration for the muse, and for me there is romance in the old New England garrets, which haunts me still, and "Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, ber" in the selfsame garret where I played so much when a child and I wrote my first, poor verses, at eight years old, and where I was continually making new discoveries of old lace and ribbons for my dolls. There is as much poetry in it as there is in the parlor, and more. Parlors are very prosy, prim affairs, and one is always afraid of doing the wrong thing in one of those old-fashioned ones, that are never opened except on grand occasions; and never, one might almost say, for children. I remember parlor chairs with their straight, upright backs, and funny, tall legs, used to seem to stare at me, when a little girl I crept in softly to take a jump around; and I said then, and I maintain it still, that I would never shut up the best room in the whole house and make it gloomy and dark, to be used only for company. But if there is anything more inspiring than a musty old garret, it is spring time, groves, meadows, brooks, waterfalls, woods, orchards and the like, nature's haunts; these are all suggestive and poetical, and especially when the birds are singing their sweetest notes in the tree tops, and the boughs nodding and swaying, keeping a sort of irregular time to the unwritten music of the songsters. Ah, yes, apple-blossoms, they come with the early spring, and if I am going to talk of garrets, and old books, and antiquities generally, and grandmothers, and old maids, and love letters, I must shut out the scent of lilacs, the violets and the pink and white apple-blossoms, with their dainty, subtle perfume, or I shall wander off into dreamland. I must confess that garrets are not so exquisite or charming as these, but they have a history, some of them at least. I do not know if there are any such old houses standing now, as there were in the country towns in Massachusetts, thirty-five years ago, but the pictures of them, outside and in, are fresh in my mind to-day. I am very much afraid most of them are remodeled, for this is a stylish age we are living in; but when I was a little girl there were many such romantic places, and each one of them had a garret. In one of these, "long, long ago," a little girl was playing; her dolls were finely arranged in dainty bits of beautiful things, and she herself in such a funny gown, (not dresses then, but gowns), she had found in an old, old dresser. It was gored in long, narrow strips, and withal would scarcely fit even her little figure, but it was red and blue changeable silk, bright and gay, heavy enough to stand alone, and the short waist and shorter sleeves were trimmed with very yellow lace, just ready to drop in pieces with age. The child was a quaint one, and the dress was queerer still-but a spell seemed upon her, she was always thoughtful, and at this particular time she was very pensive. I don't mind telling you a few of her thoughts. She might almost be called visionary, for she seemed to see the future all in a panorama, spread out before her, very much as we who have lived long, look back over the days that are past. She had been rummaging more than usual, and trying to rake up something fresh; and she had succeeded, for away in the furthermost corner of the garret, from under the very eaves of the house, she dragged out a budget of old papers, tied in bundles. So sitting upon a broken stool, in her silk and lace, she began to investigate these old papers. First of all, she soliliquized, I like old things that are pretty and have a history, like old pictures and silks and laces, and beads, and jewelry, that I hear the big girls talk so much about, and I dearly love to play here in the garret, and make believe I am a woman and all that, but old papers like these are useless. I can't see what people save them for, unless they are deeds, or records, or valuables of that description, and those are always locked up in desks, and some man carries the key. Yes, some man, I wonder why women dont? They have the keys of the parlor and cellar and pantry, and the big chest of drawers, where valuable linen is kept, but then I suppose women have nothing to do with papers, and documents, and MISTAKEN. to tell you how many, but I think I wont, or you might guess how old that little girl is now, and that would be too bad, you know, for women, I've heard, seldom like to have their correct age known. By and by her sister came to look for her, and made her take off all her finery and scolded her too for getting herself so dusty and musty with the old papers, and told her they were only rubbish that ought to be burnt, but-(well we'll call her Rosabel) didn't think so, and she went back day after day, until it was a hymnal in the old home, that-Rosabel lived in the garret. She didn't go there without purpose, though she left off playing with dolls all of a sudden, and forgot to dress herself up any more, but she remembered to leave the window open to let in the sunshine and the sweet scent of the lilacs and apple-blossoms, and hour after ⚫ hour she would sit so quietly, that the stillness was almost painful, and yet no one must disturb her. A light had dawned upon her in that out of the way place, she had found out that women sometimes put their thoughts upon paper, and she conceived the idea of making rhymes, or jingle; that was why she wanted to be so much alone, and needed the fresh perfume from outside; it rested her, and helped clothe her thoughts. A little at a time the secret leaked out that Rosabel actually thought she could write a book. Was this very absurd? Folks seemed to think so, and her mother, who was very practical,tried to convince her that little girls didn't write books all at once, and there was much good hard work and study to be done first by way of preparation. That even her grandmother had studied hard, and had a good education before she attempted to write those old love letters, which had so enchanted poor Rosabel. "You are getting strange notions into your head," she said to the child, "you must go away to school and write compositions, and they must be corrected, and after a long time it may be that you can write something readable." Poor Rosabel! how crest fallen, all her glorious visions of fame were about to be dispelled, for I will tell you another 215 secret now, her mother was strongminded, and wanted her daughter to be a woman, and not a sentimental wishywashy novel writer. I can't tell you all Rosabel's life history now, but some day I am almost certain some little girl or woman, poking about in a musty old garret will find it in manuscript. Amethyst. MISTAKEN. ONE of the most eloquent members of the United States Senate, in the day when Clay and Webster were its leaders, was William C. Preston, of South Carolina, (a distant relative of President William B. Preston of Cache Valley). He was so little given to dandyism that even his warmest admirers occasionally wished that he would follow the spirit af Polonius' advice, and let his "apparel proclaim the man." An amusing adventure happened to him once, in consequence of his unsenatorial appearance. He was mistaken for a gambler. He was on board a Mississippi steamer, which then permitted gambling in its cabin, as freely as it did whisky drinking. This freedom induced many gamblers to travel up and down the river. Not unfrequently a steamer's cabin was turned into a gambling "hell," and scores of greenhorns were fleeced. The gamblers generally played the game of Faro, the implements of which they carried in a small mahogany box. As they bet against all who played, they were called "bankers," and their money the "bank." Senator Preston was standing on the steamer's deck and holding a small mahogany box. Suddenly a man, ornately dressed, approached him, and whispered, "I say, old feller, when are you going to begin?" "Begin what, sir?" asked the astonished senator. "Pshaw! none of that gammon with me! a few of us boys are on board, and we want a little fun. We won't pile it on too strong, so come along and open at once." "Really, sir, I don't understand you. Open what?" |