History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

586
POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.
year the Deseret Theological Institute was organized,
its purpose being to make known the principles of
light and truth which its members claimed to have
received from the priesthood, in the belief that "the
science of theology embraces a knowledge of all intelligence,
whether in heaven or on the earth, moral,
scientific, literary, or religious"!
Prominent among the charitable associations was
the Relief Society, originally organized by Joseph
Smith at Nauvoo in 1842, and discontinued after his
assassination until 1855, when it was reestablished in
Salt Lake City. After that date its operations gradually
extended from ward to ward and from settlement
to settlement, until it became a powerful influence for
good throughout the land. Its main purpose was the
relief of the poor, and by its efforts it prevented the
necessity for poor-houses, which are still unknown
among the latter-day saints, and otherwise it rendered
good service—by educating orphans, by promoting
home industries, and by giving tone and character to
society through its moral and social influence. 38
To the student of humanity there were few richer
fields for study than could be found at this period in
the Mormon capital, where almost every state in the
union and every nation in Europe had its representa-
tives. There were to be seen side by side the tall,
sinewy Norwegian, fresh from his pine forests, the
phlegmatic Dane, the stolid, practical German, the
dapper, quick-minded Frenchman, the clumsy, dogmatic
Englishman, and the shrewd, versatile American.
So little did the emigrants know of the land
in which their lot was cast that some of them, while
crossing the plains, were not aware that they trod on
American soil, and others cast away their blankets
and warm clothing, under the impression that perpetual
summer reigned in Zion. A few years' residence
38 In 1880 this society had nearly 300 branches. Snow's Brief Sketch of Or-
ganizations, MS., 1-2.