It has been charged that "Mormonism" is opposed to education. The history of the Church and the precepts of its leaders are a sufficient answer to that accusation. Joseph Smith, the first President of the Church, founded schools, and attended them as a student, as did many of his followers under his advice and influence. Brigham Young, who succeeded Joseph Smith, emulated him as a founder and patron of schools; and every subsequent President of the Church, his associates, and the people generally, have been equally zealous in that cause. In the course of their exodus from Illinois, our people built log school houses while halting on the Missouri river, then the frontier of the nation; and after they had traversed a thousand miles of wilderness, and planted their infant colony in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, school houses were among the first buildings they erected. Such has been the course pursued in every "Mormon" colony. The State of Utah, now dotted with free schools, academies, colleges, and universities, institutions which have given her marked educational prominence, furnishes indisputable evidence that her people--mostly "Mormons"--are friends and promoters of education. To the Latter-day Saints, salvation itself, under the atonement of Christ, is a process of education. That knowledge is a means of eternal progress, was taught by Joseph Smith--It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.--A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge.--The Glory of God is intelligence.--Whatever principles of intelligence we attain to in this life, will rise with us in the resurrection.--He who gains in this life more knowledge than another, will have so much the advantage in the world to come. These were aphorisms with the Prophet Joseph Smith. Neither is it true, as alleged, that "Mormonism" is destructive of the sanctity of the marriage relation; on the contrary it regards the lawful union of man and woman as the means through which they may realize their highest and holiest aspirations. To the Latter-day Saints, marriage is not designed by our Heavenly Father to be merely an earthly union, but one that shall survive the vicissitudes of time, and endure for eternity, bestowing honor and joy in this world, glory and eternal lives in the worlds to come.