The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
The history of the Mormons has ever since been an unbroken record
of prosperity. It has looked as though the elements of fortune,
obedient to a law of natural re-action, were struggling to compensate
their undue share of suffering. They may be pardoned for deeming it
miraculous. But, in truth, the economist accounts for it all, who
explains to us the speedy recuperation of cities, laid in ruin by
flood, fire, and earthquake. During its years of trial, Mormon labor
had subsisted on insufficient capital, and under many difficulties,
but it _has_ subsisted, and survives them now, as intelligent and
powerful as ever it was at Nauvoo; with this difference, that it has
in the mean time been educated to habits of unmatched thrift, energy,
and endurance, and has been transplanted to a situation where it is
in every respect more productive. Moreover, during all the period of
their journey, while some have gained by practice in handicraft, and
the experience of repeated essays at their various halting-places,
the minds of all have been busy framing designs and planning the
improvements they have since found opportunity to execute. Their
territory is unequalled as a stock-raising country; the finest pastures
of Lombardy are not more estimable than those on the east side of the
Utah Lake and its tributary rivers, and it is scarcely less rich in
timber and minerals than the most fortunate portions of the continent.
From the first the Mormons have had little to do in Deseret, but attend
to mechanical and strictly agricultural pursuits. They have made
several successful settlements; the farthest north is distant more than
forty miles, and the farthest south, in a valley called the Sanpeech,
two hundred, from that first formed. A duplicate of the Lake Tiberias
empties its waters into the innocent Dead Sea of Deseret, by a fine
river, which they have named the Western Jordan. It was on the right
bank of this stream, on a rich table land, traversed by exhaustless
waters falling from the highlands, that the pioneers, coming out of the
mountains in the night of the 24th of July, 1847, pitched their first
camp in the Valley, and consecrated the ground. This spot proved the
most favorable site for their chief settlement, and after exploring
the whole country, they founded on it their city of the New Jerusalem.
Its houses are diffused, to command as much as possible the farms,
which are laid out in wards or cantons, with a common fence to each.
The farms in wheat already cover a space nearly as large as Rhode
Island. The houses of New Jerusalem, or Great Salt Lake City, as it is
commonly called, are distributed over an area nearly as great as that
of New York. The foundations have been laid for a temple more vast
and magnificent than that which was erected at Nauvoo. The Deseret
News, a paper established under the direction of the ecclesiastical
authority came to us lately with several columns descriptive of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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