{"collection":"mor","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/mor/tfd/chap20.htm","path":"mor/tfd/chap20.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/mor/tfd/chap20.htm","text":"\"Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events, and in to-day already, walks tomorrow.\"\nColeridge\nI REMEMBER that it was the great fear of the Gentile and liberal element in the \nTerritory, that if the United States Congress gave statehood to the people, a return \nto the old order of religious and political tyranny would begin. That in due time \nthe newer element would be driven out by the usual political methods, or a terrorism \nreign, like that in the Southern States over the colored voter.\nStatehood came in due course, but none of the fears of the Liberals were realized. \nThe people seemed to have caught the free spirit of a free country and realized \nthat they were a part of a great and growing republic. They immediately divided \non all political questions into the two great party organizations, the Republican \nand the Democratic. Their religious affiliations did not override their party affiliations, \nas a general rule, and the great bugaboo of the alarmists was gone like a nightmare \ndream. Utah had come to its own consciousness of popular life, and had decided that \neverything should go along on normal and popular lines. The worth of commercial \nand religious interests should be decided, solely, by the merits of the interests \ninvolved, and the preferences of a free people.\nThus many found their fears to be no more real than worries. The reformers found \nreform was still alive, and vital enough to make for better things. The reactionaries \nfound past bitternesses were hardly at home in the bosoms of a newer generation.\nSome abnormal conditions, like polygamy, died slowly, since the welfare and rights \nof wives and children could not be ruthlessly disregarded. Time is always softer \nhearted, in human history, than the extremist and reformer. So we note how time \nallowed a revelation to come, through the proper way, and it was announced that \nit was no longer an \"order of Heaven\" to live one's religion in the bonds of polygamous \nmarriage. It gradually declined, but of course, being a social condition, its actual \ncessation took some time. It is about dead, at this writing, save in a few isolated \ncases, contra leges, and this is found in every well conducted country. There \nare always law breakers of some sort, but the law always prevails until war or revolution \nbreaks the peace.\nNo such effort was made to fight for polygamy as was made for slavery for the simple \nreason that no money value was at stake in the former \"twin relic of barbarism,\" \nwhile it was very prominent in the latter. A man's \"niggers\" brought him in money \nwhile a man's wives cost him a great deal of money. So the Mohammedan tinge to the \nTerritory died out when statehood was fully established. Those who had invested \nin polygamy and were deeply involved as to character and social standing through \nits practice, fought even to the floor of the United States Senate for its existence \nand \"their right.\" Nothing harsh was done to the offenders for the reason that this \ncondition was due to previous religious convictions and teaching; but it was very \nsoon evident that Utah, like other states, must be monogamous in its domestic life \nin harmony with the custom of the country.\nSome foolish people who persisted, as they will in anything religious that conflicts \nwith the State, in the practice of polygamy, found themselves under arrest and in \nprison where they posed as martyrs of religious persecution. Some people pitied \nthem, but the majority laughed at them since this was at the close of the Nineteenth \nCentury, and was not in the Middle Ages.\nThus the years, and the \"Age-Patience,\" which with the \"Time-Spirit\" does wonderful \nthings for us, shelved this heated question, and it faded away like the light of \na day that is dead. The mixed multitude was the agent of the change. The fanatical \ncannot last long where isolation ends, and contact with the world begins. Here is \nthe reason for the call of the zealot, \"Come out of her, my people!\" whether that \ncall be voiced by a Hebrew of the Hebrews, like Isaiah, or a Christian like Athanasius, \nwho gloried in standing \"contra mun-dum,\" or an ecclesiast like Torquemada, \nopponent of all heretics, or a Brigham Young against a modern world. Religion, if \nit is to live, must live right up against the world in which it lives, and mellow \nit with good living. It will surely die if it hides itself in monastic cloisters, \nbeneath a nun's garments, or rejects the law of the monogamous life, the while men \nand women are being born in just equal numbers all over the habitable world.\nNow view this state as a place to live in. It is a goodly land since its soil is \nof the richest. I used fairly to ache, when my horse's feet turned up the finest \ngarden ground, growing only sage brush, on the mesa or bench-land about the base \nof the mountain ranges. I am an agriculturist in my tastes, and it seemed such a \nwaste for all this soil to produce no more than coarse brush Of course, the rainfall \nwas too meagre for \"dry-farming, as they then thought. It can be done, and is being \ndone, in these days of the more scientific culture of the soil. The snow-water of \nthe great ranges is ample for the cultivation of every foot of good ground, if conserved \nin reservoirs, until the heated season calls for its use. Here is where capital \nand science can double Utah's acreage.\nThen think of the climate of this land. There is just enough winter to put \"glame \ninto the atmosphere. Bright days and a generous sunlight paint everything richly \nvivid. The oxygen of the hills makes the eyes sparkle, the blood to flush the cheeks \nredly, and gives the hands the grip which full labor requires. The very gram grown \nfeels this climatic impulse, and the flour of Utah wheat has a golden tint, shown \nin the bread-loaf, and tasted in its good flavor. The fruits too notably the peaches \nand apples, have a taste out-rivaling such products in California. More than soil \nand climate and the fruits of their union are visible in Utah's future. Uncle Sam \nhas a pocket-book in its mountain ranges. A clasp holds the contents very tightly: \ngravity has its strong hand on these treasures. Still Industry, Understanding, Patience, \nSkill, and Capital, are the five fingers of another hand which can unclasp this \nhold of gravity on these hills, and allow the wealth to pour out, in such rich recoveries \nof ore as have made Bingham and Big Cottonwood Canyons famous. There is enough in \nUtah to keep generations busy with the soil and water and with the pocketed ores \nof the hills. Such industry will make comfortable, and therefore happy, myriads \nof homes to be established in this state.\nSo wide a physical outlook should have a counterpart in a metaphysical one. The \nmind of the people, in this age of free mentality, should also expand to consider \nand solve great questions of intellectual, philosophical, social and religious importance. \nAll these realms of mind are necessary to make a population worthy of the land which \nthey inhabit, and out of whose generous bosom they draw their physical life.\nYet what is physical life worth, if it does not give the opportunity to climb higher \nto those metaphysical realities which lie back of, and are the cause of, these physical \nappearances. We say that we see, we touch, we taste, and so these things, sensible \nto us, are real. But we know that these things change and decay. All this phenomenal \nexistence, with its display of beauty, power and production, is for the use of the \nminds which are superior to these phases of matter.\nUtah, rich in material wealth to come should also produce a richer metaphysical \nwealth m the mental and moral intelligence of the people and that acquisition will \nentitle them to be called, of a truth, the Saints of the Latter Days.","title":"Chapter XX: A Latter Day View of a Latter Day State","type":"page"}