After being dissolved by the decree of the 10th of October, 1888, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints seemed to be lost, without hope of revival. The State of Utah, where Brigham Young had established it in 1848, was invaded by ever-growing numbers of "Gentiles," who were hostile to the Mormons, but these latter, far from allowing the debris of their faith to bestrew the shores of the Great Salt Lake, succeeded, on the contrary, in strengthening the foundations of the edifice that they had raised. The number of its adherents increased, and the colony became more flourishing than ever. If, at one time, it was possible to speak of its dying agonies, those who visit it to-day cannot deny the fact of its triumphant resurrection. Two principal causes have been its safeguard: the firm and practical working-out of the economic and philanthropic principles upon which its organisation has always rested, and the resolute devotion and capability of those who direct it as the heads of one great family. Every member is concerned to maintain the regular and effective functioning of its mechanism, and all work for the same ends in a spirit of religious co-operation. We must not lose sight of the fact that in addition to the elements they borrowed from Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam, the Mormons introduced into their new Gospel a social ideal inspired by the Communistic experiments of the first half of the nineteenth century. The founders of Mormonism--Joseph Smith, Heber Kimball, George Smith, the brothers Pratt, Reuben Hedlock, Willard Richards, and Brigham Young--were not visionaries, but men risen from the people who desired to acquire wealth while at the same time bringing wealth to those who took part in their schemes. We find in their doctrine, and in their legal and religious codes, not only the idea of multiple union claimed by Enfantin and his forty disciples of Menilmontant, but also the theories of Buchez, who desired to free labour from the servitude of wages, to bring about solidarity of production, and to communalise capital, after first setting aside an inalienable reserve. They followed the example of Cabet in making fraternity, which should guarantee division of goods, the corner-stone of their social structure, and, avoiding the delusions of Considerant and other Communists, they brought about, stage by stage, the rapid and lasting development which has characterised their successive establishments in Missouri, Illinois, and on the borders of California. II