It is time now to shift the scene, and to present Mormonism in its relations to the present, as well as in its resemblance to the past. All those enterprises which combine numbers in their execution may be taken as exponents of the age in which they occur. However they may be, in their origin, the mintage of a single brain, yet the elective affinity, by which they attract adherents on every side, must express some trait of the time.
1. Mormonism, for example, has borrowed from Christianity its aggressive feature, and sends its missionaries likewise to gather prosclytes from all parts of the earth. Christianity is the first system of religion that sought to propagate itself by the labors of evangelists travelling or residing in foreign countries. Judaism was a stationary system. Planted in the centre of the old world, its light gleamed far and wide into the surrounding darkness. Through its transparent symbols it held up the truth to the gaze of the nations; but it went forth upon no mission of propagation, and was anchored by its ordinances and ritual to the land of Palestine. In like manner, the various systems of Polytheism were local, and animated with no spirit of propagandism. Each country had its own divinities; and as a miserable substitute for one, supreme omnipresent being, the number of local deities was so, multiplied that Polytheism was likely to break down of its weight. So far from excluding the Gods of a conquered territory, conquest only served to enlarge the boundaries of idolatry; until, as in the Pantheon at Rome, thousands of divinities were assembled in friendly embrace, representatives of the diversified worship of mankind. But Christianity came forth, with her commission written on her brow by her Divine founder: “Go into all the world, and disciple all nations.” This makes her essentially an aggressive body—carrying her faith by peaceful and persuasive means to every quarter of the globe. Her history is, to a large extent, the record of her missionary labors; and those who breathe most largely her spirit, are most earnest in seeking the fulfilment of this her great commission.
This feature, hitherto characteristic only of the Christian religion, has been engrafted upon the Mormon superstition; and no fitter illustration can be afforded of the despotic power of their rulers than is afforded by the man-
