by the urgency of the hour, were building roads and bridges, laying out villages, and planting cornfields, for the stranger who might come after them, their kinsman only by a common humanity, and peradventure a common suffering,—­of men, who have renewed their prosperity in the homes they have founded in the desert,—­and who, in their new built city, walled round by mountains like a fortress, are extending pious hospitalities to the destitute emigrants from our frontier lines,—­of men who, far removed from the restraints of law, obeyed it from choice, or found in the recesses of their religion, something not inconsistent with human laws, but far more controlling; and who are now soliciting from the government of the United States, not indemnity,—­for the appeal would be hopeless, and they know it—­not protection, for they now have no need of it,—­but that identity of political institutions and that community of laws with the rest of us, which was confessedly their birthright when they were driven beyond our borders.

“I said I would give you the opinion I formed of the Mormons:  you may deduce it for yourselves from these facts.  But I will add that I have not yet heard the single charge against them as a community, against their habitual purity of life, their integrity of dealing, their toleration of religious differences in opinion, their regard for the laws, or their devotion to the constitutional government under which we live, that I do not from my own observation, or the testimony of others, know to be unfounded.”

* * * * *

Original poetry.

* * * * *

The bride’s reverie.

By Mrs. M.E.  Hewitt.

  Lonely to-night, oh, loved one! is our dwelling,
    And lone and wearily hath gone the day;
  For thou, whose presence like a flood is swelling
    With joy my life-tide—­thou art far away.

  And wearily for me will go the morrow,
    While for thy voice, thy smile, I vainly yearn;
  Oh, from fond thought some comfort I will borrow,
    To wile away the hours till thou return!

  I will remember that first, sweet revealing
    Wherewith thy love o’er my tranced being stole;
  I, like the Pythoness enraptured, feeling
    The god divine pervading all my soul.

  I will remember each fond aspiration
    In secret milled with thy cherished name,
  Till from thy lips, in wildering modulation,
    Those words of ecstasy “I love thee!” came.

  And I will think of all our blest communing,
    And all thy low-breathed words of tenderness;
  Thy voice to me its melody attuning
    Till every tone seemed fraught with a caress.

  And feel thee near me, while in thought repeating
    The treasured memories thou alone dost share
  Hark! with hushed breath and pulses wildly beating
    I hear thy footstep bounding o’er the stair!