The city sprang into existence as if by magic. Brigham Young was all-powerful, bearing a more undisputed mastery than king or tsar or kaiser. He was a law unto himself, and had his _Vehmgericht_, or rather was also a secret court unto himself. True, there was no _Folterkammer_, no _eiserne Jungfrau_, but those old methods were out of date; the revolver and the bowie-knife were swifter and as sure; Jordan was the oubliette. There has been some attempt to deny the existence of the Danites or Destroying Angels who were Brigham Young’s executioners. That is futile, for the men, as I can testify, were as well known in Salt Lake City as the Prophet, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself was not more faithfully or more bloodily served by his _hashishin_ than was the Lion of the Lord by his band of bravos. There were wholesale murders like the Mountain Meadow Massacre, but there were also other crimes, secret murders actuated by private spite, jealousy or lust, the stories of which are well known to those behind the scenes in Zion. It was not healthy for a man to incur the wrath of the Prophet or of the leading Saints. It was not conducive to long life to love a maid or wed a wife upon whom the eyes of one of the holy ones might have fallen. Brigham Young was a very different man from his predecessor, Joe Smith. Both men were needed for the building up of this strange people. Joe Smith, as some pretend an epileptic, but in any case a fanatic, probably in the first instance believed in the dreams that he dreamed and the visions that he saw. To convince others a man must first convince himself. A Mohammed has faith in himself and founds a religion professed by countless millions. A Grand Cophta Cagliostro believes in nothing—least of all in himself—and dies miserably in the Castle of San Leone. Joe Smith could never have obtained the steadfast adherence of the men who rallied round him, especially of so strong a man as Brigham Young, four years older than himself, had he not possessed something of the faith which moves mountains. Moreover, his disciples were ready to die, and did die, for their religion’s sake. The man who lays down his life for his friends cannot be altogether damned as a wilful impostor.