Thousands of people have seen this great monument which has been built by this peculiar people to their more peculiar religion, and have described the impressions it made on them. Some, in a too-pronounced enthusiasm, have declared it to be a wonder in architecture--a triumph in its way--as something grand, almost marvelous in its conception. It is not. There is little that is exceptionally remarkable about it. True, there is much to impress one, but it is rather its bigness and general appearance of solemnity than anything else. Then there is something in its historical associations, the great difficulties overcome, and the great zeal displayed in its construction that inspires admiration. Rudyard Kipling, who once saw it, in a vein of his keenest satire characterized it as "architecturally atrocious, ugly, villainously discordant, contemptuously correct, altogether inartistic and unpoetical," and other adjectives equally as forcible and uncomplimentary. But he was probably more severe than just in his criticism. There is nothing about it to shock the artistic eye, and there are a few things to please. A word about the statue that is perched on the topmost pinnacle. Certainly that is pleasing to the artistic soul. It is the work of a finished sculptor, who is even now not wholly unknown to fame. He is C. E. Dallin, and was born in Salt Lake City not much over thirty years ago. But the statue: It is not of marble, but of hammered copper, covered with gold. To the eye it looks as if it were made entirely of that metal. It is a very fascinating piece of work, and on its high pedestal it glistens in the sunlight as if made of fire. One prominent Mormon has said the statue is not intended to represent Gabriel, but the angel Moroni proclaiming the gospel to all the world. It was the angel Moroni, it will be remembered, who showed the golden plates to Joseph Smith from which the Book of Mormon was written. From Dallin's boyhood he began to display the artistic bent and temperament of his nature. Before he ever had any instruction, he modeled in clay with such success as to attract attention to his work. Then he went abroad to study, and at the Paris Salon of 1888 he received the medal of "Honorable Merit" for his "Peace Signal," that being a full-sized figure of an Indian brave on horseback holding his lance in such a manner as to be a signal to his fellow warriors at a distance that all was well. He has also done other meritorious work, and is at present engaged on a statue to be built on one of the corners of the Temple Square in honor of Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers. There have been many extravagant statements made concerning the cost of this temple. Figures have been placed as high as $6,000,000, which is nearly double its actual cost. As it stands to-day, $3,000,000 have probably been expended, and not more than half a million will be required to complete it.