CHAPTER X MORMONISM: ITS ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, AND DOCTRINES BY REV. R. G. MCNIECE, D. D., FOR TWENTY YEARS PRIOR TO 1897, PASTOR OF FIRST PRESBY TERIAN CHURCH, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH The writer has lived in Salt Lake City, the official head quarters of Mormonism, for over thirty years, and he has im proved the opportunity to secure a complete understanding of the system. In the great Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, during a whole generation, he has heard Mormonism expounded and defended, again and again, by its chief officials—by President Brigham Young, and President John Taylor, and their successors, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith. In various Mormon meeting-houses, also, from Idaho to Arizona, he has heard the system set forth by many of its chief apostles, bishops, and elders. Furthermore, the writer has diligently studied the chief official books of Mormonism, especially the “Book of Mor mon”, the “Doctrine and Covenants”, the “Pearl of Great Price”, and, supplementing these, the Mormon Catechism, Elder Robert’s “New Witness for God”, Professor Talmage’s “Lectures on the Articles of Faith”, the works of Apostle Orson Pratt, Lucy Smith’s “History of the Prophet Joseph”, and the Autobiography of Joseph Smith. And besides he has read a great mass of pamphlets and articles by Mormon officials. The standpoint of the writer is that of friendly sympathy and good-will toward the men and women among the common people in the Mormon ranks, whose sincerity he has no desire to call in question. But since Mormonism keeps from 1,500 to 2,000 missionaries scattered up and down the country, propagating this most erroneous and harmful sys- 131
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