It is a recognized law among the Mormons that no tramp shall pass by one of their settlements hungry; if it is at nightfall, he is to be housed. Towards the Indians their policy is one of enlightened and Christian humanity. For their own people their charity commences from the first. Emigrated to this country by the voluntary donations which maintain the "Perpetual Emigration Fund," each new arrival is met with immediate care, and being passed on to his location, finds (as I have described in another chapter) a system of mutual kindliness prevailing which starts him in life. If sick, he is cared for. If he dies, his family is provided for. All this is fact. I have read it in no books, heard it from no hoodwinking elders. My informants are lads just arrived in Salt Lake City--within an hour or two of their arrival, in fact; young men just settling down in their first log hut in rural settlements: grown men now themselves engaged in the neighbourly duty of assisting new-comers. I have met and talked to those men--Germans, Scandinavians, Britishers--in their own homes here in Utah, and have positively assured myself of the fact I state, that charity, unquestioning, simple-hearted charity, is one of the secrets of the strength of this wonderful fabric of Mormonism. The Mormons are, more nearly than any other community in the world on such a scale, one family. Every man knows all the rest of his neighbours with an intimacy and a neighbourly interest that is the result of reciprocal good services in the past. This is their bond of union. In India there is "the village community" which moves, though in another arc, on the same plane as the Mormon settlement system. There, to touch one man's crop is to inflame the whole clan with the sense of a common injury. Here it is much the same. And as it is between the different individuals in a settlement, so it is between the different settlements in the territory. A brutal act, like that eviction of the Mormon postmaster at Park City the other day, disturbs the whole of Mormonism with apprehensions of impending violence. A libel directed at a man or woman in Salt Lake City makes a hundred thousand personal enemies in Utah. Now, with what petard will you hoist such a rock? Induce these Mormons to hate one another "for all the world like Christians," as George Eliot said, and they can be snapped as easily as the philosopher's faggots when once they were unbundled. But in the meantime abuse of individuals or "persecution" of a class simply cements the whole body together more firmly than ever. Mutual charity is one of the bonds of Mormon union. It is the secret of this "oneness" which makes the Salt Lake Tribune yelp so. CHAPTER XVI. JACOB HAMBLIN. A Mormon missionary among the Indians--The story of Jacob Hamblin's life--His spiritualism, the result of an intense faith--His good work among the Lamanites--His belief in his own miracles.