when one Constantine became king, and do not recommence now when they are most wanted. The Mormons are not forced to think that God is virtually dead in the world; the eminently practical tendencies of the New-World race cause them to develop into practice their contradiction of an inference from which human nature revolts. They claim to be the true Protestants, i.e., those who protest against the doctrines of a ceased fellowship between the Creator and the creature made in his image; they gratify their self-esteem by sneering at those who confine themselves to the old and obsolete revelation, and by pitying the blindness and ignorance that can not or will not open its eyes to the new light. Hence it follows that few Catholics become Mormons, and that those few become bad Mormons. Man's powers of faith grow, like his physical force, with exercise. He considers over-belief a venial error compared with under-belief, and he progresses more easily in belief than he can retrograde into disbelief. Thus Catholicism has spread more widely over the world than the less credulous Protestantism, and the more thaumaturgic Mormonism is better adapted to some minds—the Hindoo's, for instance—than Catholicism.
In Mormonism, or, rather, in Mormon sacred literature, there are three epochs which bring us down to the present day. The first is the monogamic age, that of the books of Mormon, and of Doctrines and Covenants—1830–1843. The second is the polygamic, from the first revelation of "celestial marriage" to Mr. Joseph Smith in 1843, and by him communicated to three followers only, until its final establishment by Mr. Brigham Young in 1852, when secrecy was no longer deemed necessary. The third is the materialistic period; the doctrine, "not founded on modern supernatural revelation, but on reason and common sense," was the work of 1848–1849.
The first epoch laid the foundations of the Faith. It produced the Book of Mormon, "an abridgment written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel, and also to Jew and Gentile: written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed: to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof: sealed by the hand of Mormon, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God!"
"An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get (!) to heaven; which is to show unto the
