I. PERSONAL BONDAGE.--Every Mormon goes through the Endowment House, from which no man emerges with his manhood remaining. He has sunk to be the slave of the priesthood. In that house an awful oath is administered to every one, obligating the individual, under fearful penalty, to uphold the Church at every cost and obey it in all things. That terrible oath unmans the whole Mormon race and brings them into bondage. The Mormon leaders claim to be infallible--men inspired, who catch the very thought of God and pronounce His words. They are the direct vicegerents of the Almighty, and are at all times endowed by means of revelations with the wisdom to guide their people aright in all things, temporal as well as spiritual. This claim is admitted by all their followers. Accordingly, in the most tyrannical way the priesthood dictates about all the affairs of the people, telling them what store they must trade at, what newspaper they must read, what school they must patronize. In fine, Brigham Young claimed that his people could do nothing without his knowledge and approval, "even to the ribbons a woman should wear." The control of the Church over all the temporal affairs of the people is as absolute as their control of purely spiritual matters. One of their prominent speakers said a few years ago: "I cannot separate between temporal and spiritual affairs. The priesthood has as much control over one as the other." Therefore the Mormons are under _personal bondage_. Their persons, their services, their property--all are under the control not of themselves individually, but of their leaders. At each semi-annual conference missionaries are appointed to go to the outside world and proclaim the doctrines of their religion. At the least calculation there are three hundred such missionaries constantly in the field, going up and down in the States of our own land, and also the countries of Europe and the isles of the sea. They must go at their own expense, and are required to stay until recalled by the priesthood. If it is necessary for a missionary to sell his last cow to get the means to pay his expenses, he must do so, even though his family should be left entirely destitute; and he is taught to believe that the greater the sacrifice, the greater the glory in the next world. A Presbyterian minister in the southern part of the Territory got the privilege of boarding in a Mormon family. As soon as the priesthood found it out this family was required to close its doors against the minister, although they were greatly in need of the money which he was ready to pay for his board.