Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the MormonsRobinson, Phil
General
Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons
Robinson, Phil
Latter Day Saint churches; Utah -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
stock, horses and cows. This is no fancy picture, but one from life,
and typical of 20,000 others. Each homestead in turn has the same
experience, and it is no wonder, therefore, when the settlement,
properly laid out and organized, grows into municipal existence, that
every one speaks kindly of, and acts kindly towards, his neighbour. A
visitor, till he understands the reason, is surprised at the intimacy
of households. But when he does understand it, ought not his surprise
to give place to admiration?
Not less conspicuous is the uniform sincerity in religion. A school
and meeting-house is to be found in every settlement, even though
there may be only half-a-dozen families, and besides the regular
attendance of the people at weekly services, the private prayers of
each household are as punctual as their meals. In these prayers, after
the ordinary generalities, the head of the house usually prays for
all the authorities of the Church, from the President downwards, for
the local authorities, for the Church as a body, and the missionaries
abroad, for his household and its guest, for the United States, and for
Congress, and for all the world that feels kindly towards Mormonism.
But quite apart from the matter of their prayers, their manner is very
striking, and the scene in a humble house, when a large family meets
for prayer--and half the members, finding no article of furniture
unoccupied for the orthodox position of devotion, drop into attitudes
of natural reverence, kneeling in the middle of the floor--appeals very
strongly to the eye of those accustomed to the stereotyped piety of a
more advanced civilization.
One more conspicuous feature of Mormon life is sobriety. I have been
the guest of some fifty different households, and only once I was
offered even beer. That exception was in a Danish household, where
the wife brewed her own "ol"--an opaque beverage of home-fermented
wheat and home-grown hops--as a curiosity curious, as an "indulgence"
doubtful, as a regular drink impossible. On no other occasion was
anything but tea, coffee, milk, or water offered. And even tea and
coffee, being discouraged by the Church, are but seldom drunk. As a
heathen outsider I deplored my beer, and was grateful for coffee; but
the rest of the household, in almost every instance, drank water.
Tobacco is virtually unused. It is used, but so seldom that it does not
affect my statement. The spittoon, therefore, though in every room, is
behind the door, or in a corner under a piece of furniture. In case
it should be needed, it is there--like the shot-gun upstairs--but its
being called into requisition would be a family event.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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