The pioneer West : $b Narratives of the westward march of empire
History
The pioneer West : $b Narratives of the westward march of empire
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.)
is highly probable that, in consequence of the conscientious reserve of
the people upon a subject which it would be indelicate to broach, the
veriest fancies have taken the deepest root.
After dining with the governor, we sat under the stoop enjoying, as we
might in India, the cool of the evening. Several visitors dropped in,
among them Mr. and Mrs. Stenhouse. He--Elder T. B. H. Stenhouse--is a
Scotchman by birth, and has passed through the usual stages of neophyte
(larva), missionary (pupa), and elder or fully-developed Saint (imago).
Madame was from Jersey, spoke excellent French, talked English without
nasalization or cantalenation, and showed a highly cultivated mind. She
had traveled with her husband on a propagandist tour to Switzerland
and Italy, where, as president of the missions for three years, he
was a “diligent and faithful laborer in the great work of the last
dispensation.”
He became a Saint in 1846, at the age of 21; lived the usual life
of poverty and privation, founded the Southampton Conference,
converted a lawyer among other great achievements, and propagated
the Faith successfully in Scotland as in England. The conversation
turned--somehow in Great Salt Lake City it generally does--upon
polygamy, or rather plurality, which here is the polite word, and
for the first time I heard that phase of the family tie sensibly,
nay, learnedly advocated on religious grounds by fair lips. Mr.
Stenhouse kindly offered to accompany me on the morrow, as the first
hand-cart train was expected to enter, and to point out what might be
interesting. I saw Elder and High-Priest Stenhouse almost every day
during my stay at Great Salt Lake City, and found in his society both
pleasure and profit. We of course avoided those mysterious points,
into which, as an outsider, I had no right to enter; the elder was
communicative enough upon all others, and freely gave me leave to use
his information. The reader, however, will kindly bear in mind that,
being a strict Mormon, Mr. Stenhouse could enlighten me only upon one
side of the subject; his statements were therefore carefully referred
to the “other part”; moreover, as he could never see any but the
perfections of his system, the blame of having pointed out what I deem
its imperfections is not to be charged upon him. His power of faith
struck me much. I had once asked him what became of the Mormon Tables
of the Law, the Golden Plates which, according to the Gentiles, were
removed by an angel after they had done their work. He replied that he
knew not; that his belief was independent of all such accidents; that
Mormonism is and must be true to the exclusion of all other systems.
I saw before me an instance how the brain or mind of man can, by mere
force of habit and application, imbue itself with any idea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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