ner in which the missionaries are sent forth. Upon three days’ notice, often, they are called by the will of their superiors to leave their business and their families, and to go forth without purse or scrip, ignorant even of the languages which they are to use, trusting to Providence for their support. With a craftiness, as well as with a despotism, worthy of Ignatins Loyola, the most ambitious and inquisitive of the sect are chosen for this work; who are not only flattered into superior devotion by this signal mark of confidence, but are confirmed the more in the Mormon faith as they are compelled to defend it, and find abundant labors in which to expend the superfluous energy which it might not be so easy to check at home. It is already the boast of Mormonism, that brief and troubled as its history has been, there are few prominent countries in which its.Gospel has not been proclaimed. In Germany, Italy, France, Norway, Russia, and the Pacific Isles; in England, Scotland, Wales, and throughout the entire length of this great confederacy; it professes already to number its proselytés by thousands, through the labors of their evangelists, who are continually swelling the ranks, and augmenting the resources of the great Zion in the West.
It was not long since suggested to me by an intelligent gentleman, that the rise of such an imposture as Mormonism, characterized by such an active propagandism, was proof of the weakness of the religious sentiment on the part of our people. Precisely the reverse of this appears the conclusion which should be reached. It is because the religious convictions of our people are so earnest, and the Christianity of our day is so aggressive, that it is burlesqued by such a religious fraud. A living writer in our own State, whose name is the synonyme of historic lore, has said: “There is no great working idea in history—no impulse which passes on through whole masses, like a heaving wave over the sea, that has not its own caricature and distorted reflection along with it.” [1] No religious movement, for example, was ever more earnest than the Reformation in the sixteenth century, and no movement
- ↑ Dr. F. Lieber’s address to the Graduating Class of the S. C. College of 1851.
