And when, with a new body of Federal representatives, there soon came a military force under General Sidney Johnston sufficient to compel respect and obedience, Brigham Young cursed the Government, the troops, and the Gentiles, and in his usual coarse and emphatic style declared that he would "send them all to hell on wooden legs," and that they had better supply themselves then, when lumber was cheap. I mention these facts simply to show that the main object of the Mormon leaders from the very first was to establish a separate and independent government of their own, whose authority should be considered by the Mormon people superior to the authority of the Federal Government. And this accounts for the conflict which has existed between the Mormon authorities and the United States Government for the past thirty-five years, and which is still going on. But not only does this hostility to our Government arise out of the fundamental idea of their religion as a THEOCRACY and hence opposed to _democracy_; but also, and in great part, _because of their early persecutions in the States of Missouri and Illinois, and the unavenged murder of their chief, Joseph Smith, whom they regarded as God's greatest prophet_. The inhumanity, barbarity, and injustice that was meted out to them in their early history I have already mentioned; and in considering this perplexing puzzle, we must recollect that the Mormons have some cause for their enmity to our Government. _On account of wrongs done them, they are the sworn enemies of the Government and people of our land._ They practise certain secret and mysterious ordinances known as "ENDOWMENTS." To the faithful Mormon these are made to seem precious initiatory rites whereby he is advanced in his knowledge of the true faith and exalted by the possession of new privileges. In reality they are a sort of crudely-acted religious drama, not unlike the miracle plays of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. God and Satan, Adam and Eve, and others are persons in the drama. In its course there is a jumble of washings and anointings, of grips, and key-words and new names, and the investiture of each of the initiated in an Endowment robe. This sacred undergarment is always thereafter to be worn next to the person, carefully shrouding it at the last for its burial. There are also prayers and solemn promises and awful oaths, with penalties more awful, appended. It has been charged against these rites that they are scenes of indecency and licentiousness; but probably the charge is false. Absurd, irreverent, and even blasphemous they doubtless are, but it is to be believed not indecent.