When the historian of religion in the twentieth century is writing about the nineteenth, I foresee he will say something of this kind: 

The most curious and instructive events in the religious history of the preceding century are the rise and progress of two new sects called Mormons and Positivists.  To the student who has carefully considered these remarkable phenomena nothing in the records of religious self-delusion can appear improbable.

The Mormons arose in the midst of the great Republic, which, though comparatively insignificant, at that time, in territory as in the number of its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments of the speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less remarkable for the native intelligence of its population than for the wide extent of their information, owing to the activity of their publishers in diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or steal.  Nor were they less noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints in thought, or speech, or deed; except, to be sure, the beneficent and wise influence of the majority, exerted, in case of need, through an institution known as “tarring and feathering,” the exact nature of which is now disputed.

There is a complete consensus of testimony that the founder of Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was a low-minded, ignorant scamp, and that he stole the “Scriptures” which he propounded; not being clever enough to forge even such contemptible stuff as they contain.  Nevertheless he must have been a man of some force of character, for a considerable number of disciples soon gathered about him.  In spite of repeated outbursts of popular hatred and violence—­during one of which persecutions Smith was brutally murdered—­the Mormon body steadily increased, and became a flourishing community.  But the Mormon practices being objectionable to the majority, they were, more than once, without any pretence of law, but by force of riot, arson, and murder, driven away from the land they had occupied.  Harried by these persecutions, the Mormon body eventually committed itself to the tender mercies of a desert as barren as that of Sinai; and after terrible sufferings and privations, reached the Oasis of Utah.  Here it grew and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and receiving converts from, all parts of Europe, sometimes to the number of 10,000 in a year; until, in 1880, the rich and flourishing community numbered 110,000 souls in Utah alone, while there were probably 30,000 or 40,000 scattered abroad elsewhere.  In the whole history of religions there is no more remarkable example of the power of faith; and, in this case, the founder of that faith was indubitably a most despicable creature.  It is interesting to observe that the course taken by the great Republic and its citizens runs exactly parallel with that taken by the Roman Empire and its citizens towards the early Christians, except that the Romans had a certain legal excuse for their acts of violence, inasmuch as the Christian “sodalitia” were not licensed, and consequently were, ipso facto, illegal assemblages.  Until, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States legislature decreed the illegality of polygamy, the Mormons were wholly within the law.