RFB - First Week at Great Salt Lake City

PRELIMINARIES Before ENTERING upon the subject of the Mormons I would fain offer to the reader a few words of warning. During my twenty-four days at headquarters, ample opportunities of surface observation were afforded me. I saw, as will presently appear, specimens of every class, from the Head of Church down to the field hand, and being a stranger in the land could ask questions and receive replies upon subjects which would have been forbidden to an American of the States, more especially to an official. But there is in Mormondom, as in all other exclusive faiths, whether Jewish, Hindu or other, an inner life into which I cannot flatter myself or deceive the reader with the idea of my having penetrated. At the same time it is only fair to state that no Gentile, even the unprejudiced, who are raræ aves, however long he may live or intimately he may be connected with Mormons, can expect to see anything but the superficies. The writings of the Faithful are necessarily wholly presumed. And finally the accounts of life in the City of the Saints published by anti-Mormons and apostates are venomous, and, as their serious discrepancies prove, thoroughly untrustworthy. I may therefore still hope, by recounting honestly and truthfully as lies in my power what I heard, and felt, and saw, and by allowing readers to draw their own conclusions, to take new ground,