History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

QUALITY OF MATERIAL. 37
part a wilderness, and Missouri was the United States
limit, the lands beyond being held by the aborigines.
There were some settlements between Lake Erie and
the Mississippi River, but they were recent and rude,
and the region was less civilized than savage. The
people, though practically shrewd and of bright intellect,
were ignorant; though having within them the
elements of wealth, they were poor. There was among
them much true religion, whatever that may be, yet
they were all superstitious—baptists, methodists, and
presbyterians; there was little to choose between
them. Each sect was an abomination to the others
the others were of the devil, doomed to eternal torments,
and deservedly so. The bible was accepted
literally by all, every word of it, prophecies, miracles,
and revelations; the same God and the same Christ
satisfied all; an infidel was a thing woful and unclean.
All the people reasoned. How they racked their
brains in secret, and poured forth loud logic in public,
not over problems involving intellectual liberty, human
rights and reason, and other like insignificant matters
appertaining to this world, but concerning the world
to come, and more particularly such momentous ques-
tions as election, justification, baptism, and infant
damnation. Then of signs and seasons, God's ways
and Satan's ways; likewise concerning promises and
prayer, and all the rest, there was a credulity most refreshing.
In the old time there were prophets and
apostles, there were visions and miracles; why should
it not be so during these latter days? It was time
for Christ to come again, time for the millennial
season, and should the power of the almighty be
limited'? There was the arch-fanatic Miller, and his
followers, predicting the end and planning accordingly.
"The idea that revelation from God was unattainable
in this age, or that the ancient gifts of the gospel had
ceased forever, never entered my head," writes a young
quaker; and a methodist of that epoch says: "We be-
lieved in the gathering of Israel, and in the restoration
;