physical, of the house of Israel is well nigh over, and that the genial warmth of the sun of Christian civilization will daily melt away from their hearts more of the ice of ages. We trust also, as the day of their freedom dawns still more brightly, and the shadows flee away, to see the children of Israel yet more fully recognised as members of the body of our common society; not interfering with the other members, but enjoying and fulfilling peculiar rights and duties. Then may we rejoice to see the sons and daughters of Judah take down their harps from the willow trees of the strange countries whither God has sent them into captivity, and to hear them in the lays of their own royal poet singing

"Lo the winter is past-and the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth:

The time of the singing of birds is come:

And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."

THE MORMONS: BURTON'S CITY OF THE SAINTS.

The City of the Saints, and Across the Rocky Mountains to California. By Richard F. Burton, Author of " A Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca." Longman and Co. 1861. WE have wanted for some time past to know something more of the great Mormon settlement. We take it for granted that our readers are already acquainted with the early history of this strange delusion; the childish imposture on which it was founded; the ludicrous impotence with which it first struggled into notice; its sudden growth into a monstrous manhood; and its subsequent reverses at Nauvoo, when its prophet was shot in a characteristic American riot, and his followers were compelled to flee for their lives. Brigham Young then assumed the prophetic mantle, and has worn it ever since; and with it the papal tiara, and the Turkish scimitar,— at once the spiritual sovereign and the military chieftain of his tribe. Under his guidance the dispirited Mormons, strong in a desperate fanaticism, migrated in a body to the valley of the Salt Lake, far, as they hoped, from the haunts of men. Here they have established themselves, and taken root; and they now form a community the most extraordinary, in some respects, the world has ever seen. This is the new world to which Mr. Burton conducts us. We should have preferred a guide of a more reverent spirit, but we must take him as he is. He appears to have collected his facts with care; with his opinions we are not concerned. With regard to his religious principles we confess we are utterly at a loss to know

what they are. And we fear that he himself could give us no satisfactory information upon that all-important subject.

However, he seems to have the two requisites we want: he is a shrewd observer, and, no doubt, an accurate reporter of what he saw. We must commit ourselves to his guidance; and, passing over his adventures with the wild, scalping Indian tribes, through whose lands he passed, we stand with him at length entranced at the gorge of the mountain pass where the City of the Saints, and the whole region of the land of Utah, first bursts upon the sight.

"The valley presently lay full before our sight. At this place the pilgrim emigrants, like the Hajis of Mecca and Jerusalem, give vent to the emotions long pent up within their bosoms, by sobs and tears, laughter and congratulations, psalms and hysterics. It is, indeed, no wonder that the children dance, and the strong men cheer and shout, and that nervous women, broken with fatigue and hope deferred, scream and faint; that the ignorant should fondly believe that the 'Spirit of God pervades the very atmosphere,' and that Zion on the tops of the mountains is nearer heaven than other parts of the earth. In good sooth, though uninfluenced by religious fervour-beyond the natural satisfaction of seeing a bran new holy city-even I could not, after nineteen days in a mail-wagon, gaze upon the scene without emotion.

"The hour was about six P.M., the atmosphere was touched with a dreamy haze, as it generally is in the vicinity of the lake-a little bank of rose-coloured clouds, edged with flames of purple and gold, floated in the upper air, whilst the mellow radiance of an American autumn, that bright interlude between the extremes of heat and cold, diffused its mild, soft lustre over the face of earth.

"The sun, whose slanting rays shone full in our eyes, was setting in a flood of heavenly light behind the bold, jagged outline of Antelope Island,' which, though distant twenty miles to the north-west, hardly appeared to be ten. At its feet, and then bounding the far horizon, lay, like a band of burnished silver, the Great Salt Lake, that still, innocent Dead Sea. South-westwards, also, and equally deceptive as regards distance, rose the boundary of the valley plain, the Oquirrh Range, sharply silhouetted by a sweep of sunshine over its summits, against the depths of an evening sky, in that direction so pure, so clear, that vision, one might fancy, could penetrate behind. the curtain into regions beyond the confines of man's ken. In the brilliant-reflected light, which softened off into a glow of delicate pink, we could distinguish the lines of Brigham's, Coon's, and other Kanyons, which water has traced through the wooded flanks of the Oquirrh down to the shadows already purpling the misty benches at their base. Three distinct and several shades-light azure, blue, and brown-blue-graduated the distances, which extended at least thirty

miles.

"This valley—this lovely panorama of green and azure and gold-this land, fresh as it were from the hands of God, is apparently girt on all sides by hills: the highest peaks, raised 7000 to 8000 feet above the plain of their bases, show, by gulches veined with lines of snow, that even in this season winter frowns upon the last smile of summer."

The City of the Saints itself, when entered, has but few attractions, though in some respects it reminded the traveller of modern Athens without the Acropolis. It is somewhat oriental in appearance, built of sun-dried adobe, common to all parts of the eastern world-a sort of brick of a dull leaden blue; and the houses, a single storey in height, are roofed with shingles or boards of nearly the same colour. The streets, as in most American cities, run parallel to each other in tedious straight lines. The effect must be monotonous; and domes and minarets, churches and chapels, throw no relief upon the scene. There is one huge tabernacle concealed, except the roof, as we see in a lithograph print, by a lofty wall, within which the strange, and we must call it blasphemous, worship of the Mormonites is performed. The population of the city is about 9000. Order appears to be very well observed. No wonder this, when, if any man on any account displease governor Brigham Young and his ruling elders, he is quietly "put out of the way. There are no lamps in any but the "main-street;" yet the city is as safe, we are told, as St. James's Square in London. There are twenty-five or thirty policemen, but their duty is purely nominal. But even gold may be bought too dear, and the good order of the City of the Saints, like that of many a continental city, is paid for at rather a high price. There is, in fact, a constant system of the vilest espionage, with many a secret murder lying buried, from all eyes but His who seeth in secret, low down beneath its dark foundations.

"

"Near the angle of Main-street, I was shown the place where, a short time before my arrival, a curious murder was committed. Two men, named Johnston and Brown, mauvais sujets, who had notoriously been guilty of forgery and horse-stealing, were sauntering home one fine evening, when both fell, with a bullet to each accurately placed under the heart arm. The bodies were carried to the court-house, which is here the morgue or dead-house, to be exposed, as is the custom, for a time. The citizens, when asked if they suspected who did the deed, invariably replied, with a philosophical sang froid, that in the first place they didn't know, and, secondly, that they didn't care."

Mr. Burton thinks this a sort of wild unflinching and unerring justice, secret and sudden-" in fact, the rod of iron which protects the good;" and he bids us take notice that arsenic, strychnine, and other dastardly poisons of Europe are apparently unknown all the way from the Mississippi to the Great Salt Lake City. It would seem they are superfluous, when a single shot does the whole business without further delay, and with no fear of consequences. Every man carries a revolver or a bowie knife, or both, and seems to use them with as little hesitation as our rudest lads pick up stones in the street,

and pelt each other for mere amusement or on the slightest provocation.

Brigham Young is at once the life of the Mormon imposture, its civil and religious head, and its prime minister and master of police; its pope, its Napoleon, its Talleyrand, and its Fouchet, all in one. He professes likewise to be a prophet, and is known amongst his followers by the style and title of Seer, Revelator, and Prophet. He is an American, now sixty years old; though in appearance he seems a hearty man of about forty-five. From the account here given of him, his person and carriage are rather prepossessing. His manner is cold, and without dignity either natural or self-imposed; "but he is neither fanatical nor morose; he has the manners of a respectable New England farmer, and has all the natural shrewdness which we have learned to assign to his countrymen in that walk of life." Whether he be the dupe and victim of the wretched imposture which he represents, or merely the heartless knave and sensualist who finds it to his interest to impose on others the lie which he himself discredits, must be left to conjecture. Looking at the total want of moral or historical evidence, either for the book of Mormon, or for any one of all the revelations of which the system boasts, our first impression would be that neither he, nor any of his long-headed coadjutors, can have the slightest respect for the monstrous imposture. But we must remember there comes a time when the liar and his lie are one; married to each other in the bonds of immortal infamy, and bound fast together by the curse of God. A time when the Scripture is fulfilled,-" And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness;" and to this dreadful state who shall dare to say these men may not possibly have attained? Such as he is, however, the power of Brigham Young is absolute. Yet he seems, even in his own city, to live in fear he has guards at his gates, and never appears in public unattended by friends and followers, who are of course armed with their revolvers. This would seem extraordinary if the City of the Salt Lake were really the City of the Saints, or Brigham Young a prophet; yet Mr. Burton informs us that there is an absolute necessity for precaution; since many a ruffian, if he found an opportunity, would, from pure love of notoriety, even without stronger incentive, try his revolver or bowie-knife upon the "Big Mormon." Rome boasts that she is the holy city of Christendom; and the resemblance between the two capitals is striking. Rome has a spiritual sovereign, and he, too, is afraid to walk out without his guards, and, till the French

kindly undertook her police, she was more deeply stained with blood spilt by assassins than any city in Europe, her own Naples alone excepted.

Let us follow the Latter Day Saints to their Bowery, and look in upon the worship in which, whether it be sincere or not, we cannot affect to join. The edifice is about a hundred feet long, and as many broad, with a roofing of boughs and bushes, supported by rough posts; it is open for ventilation on the sides, and contains about three thousand hearers, all seated upon benches. We must go early to secure a seat. At 10A.M. the meeting opens with a spiritual song, conducted by an orchestra -a violin, a bass, two women and four male performers, who sing tolerably well. Several addresses are now delivered, the burden of which seems to be the past and future triumphs of Mormonism. There is a total want of reverence, though something resembling prayer is offered; another hymn is sung, and Brigham Young now appears, "dressed, as usual, in grey, homespun and home-woven, and wearing, like most of the elders, a tall, steeple-crowned straw hat, with a broad black ribbon, and the rare refinement of black kid gloves." He enters the tribune covered, and apparently greeting those near him.—A great silence now prevailed, which told that something was about to happen :

"Mr. Brigham Young removed his hat, advanced to the end of the tribune, expectorated, stooping over the spittoon, which was concealed from sight by the boarding, restored the balance of fluid by a glass of water from a well-filled decanter on the stand, and leaning slightly forwards upon both hands propped on the green baize of the tribune, addressed his followers.

"The discourse began slowly, word crept titubantly after word, and the opening phrases were hardly audible: but as the orator warmed, his voice rose high and sonorous, and a fluency so remarkable succeeded falter and hesitation, that, although the phenomenon is not rare in strong speakers, the latter seemed almost to have been a work of art. The manner was pleasing and animated, and the matter fluent, impromptu, and well turned, spoken rather than preached; if it had a fault, it was rather rambling and unconnected. Of course colloquialisms of all kinds were introduced; such as 'He became for you and I,' and so forth. The gestures were easy and rounded, not without a certain grace, though evidently untaught; one, however, must be excepted, namely, that of raising and shaking the forefinger. This is often done in the Eastern states; but the rest of the world over it is considered threatening and bullying."

The address was long; but we shall not insult our readers with the blasphemous trash that followed, nor with the oration of the second president, Mr. Hebert Kimball. This gentleman prefers, we are told, an everyday manner of speech, which savours of familiarity rather than reverence. Both Brigham Young and he-the one by mimicry, the other