"I have seen and spoken to and lived with Mormon men and women of every class, and never in my life, in any Christian country, {180} have I come in contact with more consistent piety, sobriety and neighborly charity. I say this deliberately, without a particle of odious sanctimony, these folks are in their words and actions as Christian as ever I thought to see men and women . . . The Mormons are a peasant people, with many of the faults if peasant life, but with many of the best human virtues as well....The demeanor of the women in Utah, as compared with Brightan or Washington, is modesty itself; and the children are just such healthy, vigorous, pretty children as one sees in the country or by the sea-side in England...... Utah-born girls, the offspring of plural wives, have figures that would make Paris envious; and they carry themselves with almost oriental dignity. There is nothing, so far as I have seen, in the manners of Salt Lake City to make me suspect the existence of that licentiousness of which so much has been written, but a great deal on the contrary to convince me of a perfectly exceptional reserve and self-respect. It is only a blockhead that could mistake the natural gayety of the country for any other than it is. I know, too, from medical assurance, that Utah has the practical argument of healthy nurseries to oppose to the theories of those who attack its domestic relations on physiological grounds. . .. A healthier and more stalwart community I have never seen; while among the women I saw many refined faces, and remarked that robust health seemed the rule.... "Mutual charity is one of the bonds of Mormon union. It is published officially that the bishops of every ward are to see there are no persons going hungry.' What a contrast to turn from this text of universal charity to the infinite meanness of those who can write of the whole community of Mormons as 'the villainous spawn of polygamy!' . . . Instead of the Mormons being as a class profane, they are as a class singularly sober in their language, and indeed in this respect resemble the Quakers. "The payment of the tithings is as nearly voluntary as the collection of a revenue necessary for carrying on a government can possibly be allowed to be... It is not true that the Church interferes with the domestic relations of the people. When I remember what classes of people their men and women are chiefly drawn from, and the utter poverty in which most of them arrive, I cannot in sincerity do otherwise than admire and respect the system which has fused such unpromising material of so many nationalities into one homogeneous whole."--Sinners and Saints."