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The Mormons, by Samuel E. Wishard, D.D.

This 1904 book might be more appropriately titled The Early History of Presbyterian Missions in Utah.

THE MORMONS

BY
SAMUEL E. WISHARD, D.D.
SYNODICAL MISSIONARY FOR UTAH

LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSIONS
156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
1904

THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK

FOREWORD

To know the history of our Church in our land is to be interested in Home Missions.

Our Board of Home Missions and the Woman’s Board of Home Missions are therefore placing before our young people—for general reading or for use in study classes—a series of sketches which trace the planting and progress of gospel truth among our Indians, Mexicans, Mormons, Mountaineers of the South, Alaskans, and the dwellers in Porto Rico and Cuba. A seventh book in this series introduces its readers to seven typical home mission heroes.

This little library of seven volumes, written by those who know the work, is warmly commended for accuracy and attractiveness.

AUTHOR’S PREFATORY NOTE

I have been asked to write a brief history of our home mission work in Utah. It can not be done, however. The shades of light and gloom can not be written. The solicitudes, the prayers and heart throbs that have been wrought into these years of toil by mission teachers and ministers can not be traced. The joy that has come to the laborers as precious souls have been gathered and lives changed is known only to those whose prayers have been answered. The gray dawn of the coming day in Utah brings with it abundant regard for all the days of anxious burden bearing.

The benediction of service is enough. We prayerfully and patiently wait for the full noon.

S. E. Wishard.

I. LOOKING BACK—VIRGIN UTAH—FREMONT AND WHITMAN—A CLOUD IN THE EAST—THE MORMON HEGIRA—ISOLATION—MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE

II. THE FIRST GOSPEL NOTE—PRAYER ON THE MOUNT—A PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BORN IN UTAH—THE IRATE PROPHET—THE WORK GOES ON—WORK AT EVANSTON

III. AN ADVANCE—THE REV. JOSIAH WELCH—CHURCH ORGANIZED—CONFLICT WITH GOVERNMENT—SECOND PASTOR—THIRD PASTOR—SALT LAKE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE—PROF. JOHN M. COYNER—HIS SUCCESSORS—WOMEN OF PENNSYLVANIA

IV. PRESBYTERY ORGANIZED—A SURPRISED PEOPLE—WASATCH ACADEMY—ANOTHER CHURCH—INQUIRERS—PROGRESS—THE STAYING PREACHER—MODEL SCHOOL—AMERICAN FORK—GROWTH—THE ALTERNATIVE

V. ENTERING OGDEN—FORWARD MOVEMENT—SHORT PASTORATES—PREACHING TO A PROCESSION—NEW CHURCH HOME—CITY DELIVERED—PRESENT PASTORATE—ONE-MAN RULE IN BRIGHAM—ORDER OF ENOCH—DETERMINED MISSIONARY—HIS RECEPTION—THE BISHOP FERTILIZING—DR. RANKIN—KINGDOM COMING

VI. SILVER RIMMED VALLEY—DISCOVERING A MAN—THE SEED—A VISIT—POSSESSING THE LAND—HYRUM MISSION—HOME IN A GARRET—RICHMOND—NO RESUMPTION—SCATTERED SHEEP—TEACHER REDUPLICATES HERSELF—MENDON AND WELLSVILLE

VII. ACROSS THE LINE—A LOG CABIN—“MUST OBEY IN ALL THINGS”—MISSIONARY ALLOVER-NESS—PRINTER’S INK—ANOTHER CHURCH—UTILIZING THE KITCHEN—MONTPELIER—THE GERM DEVELOPED—THE REFUGE—UNDER A DIRT ROOF—ROWDYISM—PROGRESS—THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA THROUGH TRIBULATION—COURAGE—SOME DISCOVERIES

VIII. FIRST AWAKENING—A SPEAKING MONUMENT—TIRED OF HUSKS—HOLDING THE FORT—THE MEMORIAL—“ETERNAL VIGILANCE”—A LINE OF LIGHT—THE OLD FLAG—IN THE PULPIT—FIRST SERMON PREACHED—BACK TO THE HUT

IX. NEPHI—FLOWER AND FRUIT—HUNTINGTON CHAPEL—FIRST MINISTER—EARLY TEACHERS—AN ENGLISH LADY—MORMON MISSIONARY METHODS—SHORT PASTORATES—PAYSON—PENNSYLVANIA’S CONTRIBUTIONS—SOLID AND SOLD—AN EXTEMPORIZED CORNER—SEARCH REWARDED—CHURCH ORGANIZED—ABLE TEACHERS—PREJUDICE ALLAYED—SOCIAL LIFE CHANGED

X. A NEW MESSAGE—SMALL AUDIENCE—AN ATTRACTION—SPANISH FORK—THE CARPENTER SHOP—SALOONS CLOSED—MISSION AT KAYSVILLE—DEPLETED TREASURY

XI. A TRAGEDY—BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD—A LIGHT-HOUSE—SEED-SOWING—A SAVED ONE—WORTH OF A SOUL—TOQUERVILLE—CEDAR CITY—PAROWAN—EVANGELISTIC EFFORT—CHANGING—BEGINNING TO THINK—COMING TRIUMPH

XII. A ROD OF IRON—ABUSE OF EARLY MISSIONARIES—INFLUENCE OF OUR SCHOOLS—PROGRESSIVE PUPILS—WESTMINSTER COLLEGE—FROM THE HAY LOFT—MORMON TESTIMONY AT WASHINGTON—DAWNING OF A NEW LIGHT—TIME FOR REINFORCEMENT

CHAPTER I

LOOKING BACK—VIRGIN UTAH—FREMONT AND WHITMAN—A CLOUD IN THE EAST—THE MORMON HEGIRA—ISOLATION—MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE.

One looks back through the years when Utah lay undisturbed by the fretting, pushing life of to-day. Her mountains were sleeping in quiet. Her valleys, decked in their floral robes, were smiling back to the heavens. The wealth of soil and mine were untouched because unknown. The Middle West was then the Far West. Our nation was clinging to the Atlantic coast, and slowly creeping toward the sunset. Steam and electric power were waiting the coming Fulton and Morse.

Utah was here, virgin, untouched. God was piling his treasures of snow on these lofty summits and in the deep canyons. He had cleft these mountains with the living streams of water, that like cords of silver bound their heights to the lakes below. He was tending the flowers of mountain and valley, making life possible for the Red Man and his prey. God was here. These vast solitudes were in his keeping. He knew what was coming, and was “making everything beautiful in its time.” The starlit nights came and went as the years swung by. There were no such stars as those that gleamed in the Utah sky. The altitude and clear atmosphere gave Utah nights a singular glory in those far-away times. Later came the trappers and hunters to disturb the Indian’s quiet possession. They were a sort of go-between-white-men in Indian garb, with Indian life and habit. By their superior cunning they managed to keep the peace, and by their art in traffic enriched themselves. The untutored savages were no match for the shrewd manœuvres of the trading trappers.

In the forties two important events occurred—important for our country and for Utah. The Government employed Captain John Charles Fremont to explore the territory west of the Missouri River to the Pacific. He opened the way into Utah, and spent some time investigating the region of the Great Salt Lake. He passed on thence over the Sierras, reaching the coast near the mouth of the Columbia River. He had pierced the continent, so that light must inevitably break through. The other event was the heroic achievement of Dr. Marcus Whitman, by which his colonization scheme secured to our national domain the northwestern territory of Oregon and Washington.

In the meantime a storm cloud had been gathering in the East. It had quietly moved out from New York State to Kirtland, Ohio. Thence it passed on to Missouri in the form of an organized hierarchy whose head claimed authority over all men and all civil government. The antagonism of this ecclesiastical organization, the Mormon Church, resulted in its departure from the State, and its settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois. Here were repeated again the experiences passed through in Missouri. This led the Mormon people to seek a home beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. In the accomplishment of this feat Brigham Young led a few thousand Mormons into this beautiful region, then in the domain of Mexico, but destined on the close of the Mexican War to be a part of United States territory.

The Mormon Hegira landed that ecclesiastical power in conditions most favorable for the genius of its development. Here was a region easily made fruitful by a people without resources. Here was isolation from the claims of government, and from the demands of better social and religious conditions. The man of iron will, of organizing power, with boundless ambition for himself, fired by a consuming and subtle selfishness, and uncurbed covetousness, found himself in most favorable conditions to achieve all that he could desire. Removed from the interference of the outside world, from every touch of truth and righteousness, Brigham Young had time to lay his plans with none to contradict or criticise. There was ample time to crystallize his system of self-aggrandizement and subjugation of the people. He lost no time in riveting the chains that his predecessor had forged. The superstitious and fanatical people willingly surrendered themselves to his power. They even vied with each other in their effort to make that surrender the most abject possible.

There is not space to trace the servile yielding of the people, through all the downward steps which could make possible the iniquities of that period, culminating finally in the crime of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857. The doctrines of the Mormon Church made possible that atrocious crime, and led up to it. Joseph Smith taught that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.”¹ Brigham Young was even a little more specific, and taught that

“He (Adam) is our father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. . . . When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the father (Adam) had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.”²

Apostle Parley Pratt taught, and it is still published and sent forth to the world, that

“There are several subtle fluids, as animal magnetism, electricity, and the Holy Spirit.”

These blasphemous doctrines concerning God prepared the way for their unscriptural doctrines of salvation by works, baptism for the dead, pre-existence of spirits, the domination of the priesthood over all civil governments, and their control of the people in all things temporal and spiritual; because the priesthood “by possessing part of God’s power, are in reality part of God.”³

The pretended revelations of Joseph Smith sent forth the spawn of heathen polytheism, as taught in his preaching and in the “Millennial Star,”⁴

“That Adam fell, but his fall became a matter of necessity that he might be the father of an innumerable race of beings who would be capable of becoming Gods.”

As the Mormon God, Adam was the first sinner, and a sinner of necessity, personal responsibility was lifted from the human race. There was no place left in Mormon experience for the consciousness of sin. Hence the first ten years of their history in Utah, from 1847 to 1857, developed alarming conditions. In the latter part of that period, in 1856 and 1857, fierce scenes of fanaticism broke out among the people. That was called the time of the “Reformation,” when great multitudes of the people were rebaptized, and some of them asked to be blood-atoned—that is, to have their blood shed as the only means of saving their souls. This doctrine had been preached and practised prior to this time. It was taught that apostasy from the Mormon Church was a sin so heinous that pardon could be obtained only by shedding the blood of the person—that is, taking the life of the sinner.⁵

It was during this period, in September, 1857, that a large emigrating party was passing through Utah to California. Messengers were sent out to the Mormon people prohibiting them from selling provisions to the emigrants. The emigrants moved on toward southern Utah, encamping at what was known as “The Mountain Meadows.” A company of Mormons, led by Bishop John D. Lee, Colonel Dame, and others, attacked and murdered one hundred and twenty men, women, and children, on the fifteenth of September, 1857. Brigham Young was governor at the time. For twenty years the crime went unpunished. The United States Government finally secured the conviction and execution of Bishop Lee in 1877. Before he was executed he made a full confession of his crime, in which he said:

“I know all were acting under orders and by the command of the Church leaders.”⁶

Lee also says he reported the butchery to Governor Brigham Young, as he had been directed. The only punishment he received was the gift of several additional wives, and the position of probate judge. He further stated in his confessions, before his execution:

“I believed then, as I do now, that it was the will of every true Mormon in Utah that the enemies of the Church should be killed as fast as possible, and that . . . the killing them would be keeping our oaths and avenging the blood of the prophets.”⁷

With this brief statement of conditions in Utah at that time, the reader will understand how important it was that the Home Mission Board should send missionaries to the people. A gentleman who has spent his life here, and was finally delivered by the gospel from the thralldom of the Mormon system, has said:

“If the Christian missionaries had not come to us with the Christian school and the Church of Christ, we would have gone into barbarism in the next forty years.”

—

Journal of Discourses, Vol. VI., p. 6.
Journal of Discourses, Vol. I., p. 50.
New Witness for God, p. 187.
Vol. XV., p. 801.
Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV., pp. 53 and 54.
Lee’s Confessions, p. 213.
Lee’s Confessions, p. 221.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST GOSPEL NOTE—PRAYER ON THE MOUNT—A PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BORN IN UTAH—THE IRATE PROPHET—THE WORK GOES ON—WORK AT EVANSTON.

The stirring political events that were occupying the nation from 1856, culminating in 1861 in four years of unparalleled civil war, gave the Mormon hierarchy further opportunity to organize, to get control of the people, and possession of the Territory of Utah.

It should be put on record that the man who laid the deep and broad foundations of Home Missions for our Church was the first Presbyterian¹ minister to raise his voice with the gospel message before a Mormon audience in Utah. While on his way to the coast, in those perilous days in 1864, Dr. Henry Kendall passed through Utah. He spent some days in Salt Lake City investigating with his keen insight the conditions prevalent, holding conferences with some of the United States officials. He was introduced to Brigham Young, who invited him to preach in the Tabernacle.

At this time the Mormon prophets were predicting and praying for the downfall of our Government. Hence Brigham’s invitation to Dr. Kendall had in it the taunt of the old mockers who said to God’s captive people,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

Dr. Kendall’s courage was equal to the occasion. He struck the gospel note that went echoing through these mountains until it was taken up in full chorus by our Board of Home Missions.

It is the popular belief that the politeness of Brigham, in his mild treatment of Dr. Kendall, was somewhat due to certain military aspects up at Fort Douglas. However that may be, Dr. Kendall had made some discoveries, and his gospel message had been heard by the tabernacle congregation. He had taken in the situation, and that was something gained.

On the tenth of May, 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad was completed to Ogden, but no organized Presbyterian work had been accomplished up to this time. The saloon had planted itself and opened its doors. The billiard-hall, the dance-hall, and gambling-houses had located in all the towns in these western territories. It is stated by the clerk of the Presbytery of Colorado that

“In the vast territory of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona there was not a single Presbyterian organization at this time, and in New Mexico but one of our name.”

The same historian informs us that the Presbytery of Missouri River was to meet on the twenty-ninth of April, 1869, at Sioux City, Iowa. On the afternoon of that day Thomas Cleland, Jr., J. C. Elliott, and Sheldon Jackson, of the Presbytery, were prompted to ascend the high bluffs to the north of the city and look abroad over the land. Their hearts were saddened and their spirits were stirred within them by the thought that for two thousand miles onward there was not a single Presbyterian church. Before they left the spot earnest prayer was made for those destitute regions beyond. The result of that little meeting on the Mount of God was that the three Presbyteries of the Synod of Iowa appointed the Rev. Sheldon Jackson Superintendent of Home Missions for Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah.

When the Home Mission Board came to the rescue a year later, Iowa was dropped from the field, and Colorado and New Mexico were added, and later still Arizona was included.

With the completion of the Union Pacific road to Ogden, the intrepid Jackson entered Utah, and Dr. Kendall’s anticipation was to be realized. We find the missionary at Corinne in June, 1869, a month after the first engine came.

Corinne is an American town, twenty-five miles northwest of Ogden, on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is at the head of Great Salt Lake, at the point where the Bear River enters the lake. It had promise of large development, being at the terminus of all the freighting lines into Idaho and Montana. It was especially obnoxious to Brigham Young, because it was built and owned by non-Mormons, and at that time had a large and prosperous business. Dr. Jackson secured the assistance of the Rev. Melancthan Hughes at this point for three months, and began regular services on the thirteenth of June, 1869. Mr. Hughes did not remain through the winter. The infant congregation had neither habitation nor shepherd, until the spring-time brought the Rev. Mr. Bayliss. He came to the work April tenth, 1870, with Superintendent Jackson. The thawing-out process took place, and on the fourteenth of July, 1870, the church was organized, and one elder elected. This was the first Presbyterian Church organized in Utah. The indignation of the Prophet Brigham was aroused against the whole community. The erection of a large church building and the music of a church-bell still further disturbed the Prophet. A gentleman who spent years at Corinne and in that vicinity writes:

“The Gentile town of Corinne was an eyesore to Brigham Young, and he assiduously plotted to destroy it. He had his son John, then president of the Utah Northern Railroad, build the narrow-gauge road from Logan to Franklin, Idaho, in order to intercept the travel northward at that point. He then formally cursed the town, its business and people, from the rear platform of his private car, and had the depot, track, and bridge across the Bear River removed to Franklin, Idaho.

“This not succeeding, the curse not being executed by Providence, he had the Utah Northern sold to the Union Pacific, and the junction of that with the Central Pacific removed to Ogden, and thus Corinne was left a mere way station on the Central Pacific. Still the people clung to their homes, though doing business at Franklin and Ogden. In the fall of 1875 Brigham had the Bannock and Shoshone Indians, to the number of three thousand, come down from Ross Fork Agency, all armed and painted for war. They camped near the town, threatening all the non-Mormon inhabitants of Bear River Valley. General Phil Sheridan was then in command at Cheyenne, and ordered all the troops up from Fort Douglas at Salt Lake, where for three days we had them camped between us and the Indians. Brigham at length came up and made a lengthy talk to the Indians, telling them the Great Spirit had not yet spoken to him, and to return to the agency until he had use for them as ‘The Battle-Axes of the Lord.’”

It is stated that at this time the doctrine of “Blood Atonement,” which has been explained, was openly preached, and cases were constantly reported of the execution of the doctrine upon apostates.

It will be readily understood that these first years of home missions at Corinne, though a non-Mormon town, were full of trial. The work was carried on in the face of serious apprehension and great difficulties.

In May, 1872, the Rev. L. B. Crittenden took the work at this pioneer post for one year; then followed a period of vacancy until August, 1874. At that time the Rev. S. L. Gillespie, a returned missionary from Africa, with his family, entered upon the work in this difficult field. He was a man of great physical and moral courage, having served as lieutenant in Company A, Fifth Ohio Cavalry, during the Civil War, and having acquitted himself honorably in more than fifty skirmishes and battles. After peace had been concluded he took his seminary course, and for a time did missionary work in Africa. He was made of the stuff to take the work at Corinne, never having turned his back upon any foe. For four years he resided on the field, and after his removal to Brigham City, five miles away, he continued to supply at Corinne until October first, 1895, giving a little more than twenty-one years to his work.

The house of worship at Corinne was destroyed a few years ago by a wind storm, and the town itself has suffered a heavy depletion from various causes. Dr. Rankin, however, Mr. Gillespie’s successor, is giving the few remaining members one service a week, while carrying on the work at Brigham City.

In the spring of 1871 Dr. Jackson visited Evanston, Wyoming, and canvassed the town. He held a service in a hall over a saloon. In July he organized a church. A house of worship was erected and dedicated April twenty-eighth, 1872. The Rev. F. L. Arnold supplied the church monthly during 1871, while preaching at Laramie, more than four hundred miles distant. Mr. Arnold settled at Evanston later, and served the church for ten or twelve years, until he came to the Westminster Church in Salt Lake City.

—

1. In January, 1864, Rev. Norman McLeod, a Congregational minister, had commenced religious services in Daft’s Hall, in the city.

CHAPTER III

AN ADVANCE—THE REV. JOSIAH WELCH—CHURCH ORGANIZED—CONFLICT WITH GOVERNMENT—SECOND PASTOR—THIRD PASTOR—SALT LAKE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE—PROF. JOHN M. COYNER—HIS SUCCESSORS—WOMEN OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The Home Mission Board proposed to push on into Salt Lake City. The work at Corinne, among the non-Mormons, was only the beginning. It was to be followed by a direct effort in the headquarters of Mormonism. Since the visit of Dr. Kendall in 1864, the reunion of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church had taken place. Dr. Kendall had been re-enforced in his work by the coming of Dr. Dickson into the secretaryship. The united church was now in a position to take an advance step. Dr. Dickson visited Utah, and most heartily joined Dr. Kendall in the purpose to plant our Church in Salt Lake City.

Sheldon Jackson was instructed to investigate the situation, which he did very soon after the organization of the work at Corinne. He saw that it was of the utmost importance that a minister should enter the city at once, and come prepared to stay.

It is of divine wisdom, that when a work is to be done, God always has a man prepared for it. The clock of time struck the hour, and the Rev. Josiah Welch answered to the call of Providence. He had recently graduated at the Theological Seminary, and had been commissioned by the Board of Home Missions to take work in Montana. But the Synodical Missionary stepped across his path, and confronted him with the claims of the people of Utah, emphasizing his plea with a revelation (non-Mormon) to the young preacher of the deep spiritual darkness that had settled down upon Salt Lake City, like the pall of an unbroken night. It would have been easy, and no doubt agreeable, for Mr. Welch to have pushed on into Montana, and to have taken work among American people and American homes, as many of our young men insist on doing to-day. Fortunately for our Church, and for Utah, he was made of different stuff. He saw the situation, heard the call of God, and like the loyal old prophet of God said:

“Here am I, send me.”

Mr. Welch had the wisdom to see the opportunity, and to interpret it as the voice of God. He obeyed that voice, though it remained for those of us coming after him to realize the heroism of his decision and its value to the cause of Christ.

On the first of October, 1871, Mr. Welch began his work, but not without some embarrassment. Brigham Young had closed against Christian work every hall, every place of public concourse. Mr. Welch finally rented the hay loft of a livery stable at an expense of fifty dollars per month. A church of eleven members was organized (tradition says in the skating rink) on the Sabbath, November twelfth, 1871. This was accomplished by Mr. Welch, Sheldon Jackson, and Dr. George S. Boardman, who was providentially present.

The work was carried on for a time under the embarrassment which the conditions produced. The want of a suitable place of worship was the great hindrance to progress. The few members of the church were not in a financial condition to provide themselves with facilities for a successful prosecution of their work. During the winter the skating rink furnished amusement for the people during the week, and a place of worship for the church on the Sabbath.

“The ox and the ass yoked together” were not adapted to secure the highest achievement. It was therefore resolved by the congregation to abandon the place of amusement, and seek a home adapted to the work they had undertaken. An appeal was made to the women of our Church in the East, asking five thousand women to make a Christmas gift of five dollars each for the purpose of building a house of worship. A lot was secured on the corner of Second East and Second South streets at the cost of eleven thousand dollars. Messrs. J. J. Critchlow, E. H. Parsons, and M. B. Osborne had been chosen as elders, and set apart to their work. With great unanimity and zeal the little company of believers took up the burden laid upon them. Mr. Welch was a leader whom it was easy and safe to follow. He drew the people to himself, stimulated their zeal, encouraged their faith, and exemplified his own faith by his life.

The Sabbath school had been organized a week before the church took form, and now the whole machinery of the church was in play. In due time a house of worship was secured costing $18,500 and an immense outlay of toil and self-sacrifice, all of which was valuable to those taking part in it. In October, 1874, the church building was dedicated. The sermon was preached by Dr. Scott, of San Francisco. Pastor Welch toiled laboriously until his health failed in 1876, when he went East in June. He found no relief, and on the eighteenth of March, 1877, he entered into rest, while at his mother’s home in Ohio. Mrs. Welch had passed to her reward six months before.

The Rev. D. J. McMillan, D.D., supplied the church for a time, until the Rev. R. G. McNiece, D.D., was invited to the field, which he reached June first, 1877. Two months later, August twenty-first, he was installed as pastor of the church. Previous to the coming of the railroad and the non-Mormon people, and up to the coming of the missionaries, there was not a paved street or sidewalk in the city. Salt Lake City was in the rough, materially, educationally, and morally. The first Congregational pastor had found it safe not to return to the city after giving his testimony in Congress as to conditions in Utah. The superintendent of his Sabbath school was assassinated, and the conflict was on between the Mormon hierarchy and the Government of the United States as to which owned this Territory and had the right to control it.

The pastor of our church entered upon his labors during those days of trial and verified Daniel’s prophecy—

“The streets shall be built again and the wall, even in troublous times.”

Times of trial proved to be times of progress. Conflict and discipline wrought together to unify and energize the Christian people. Our Home Mission Board had set its hand to the work and with persistent courage furnished the sinews of war. For ten years of Dr. McNiece’s pastorate the conflict was waged. The Territory was shaken by the attempt of the Mormon priesthood to suppress the small minority of Christians who stood for American homes and institutions. While preaching the gospel with no uncertain sound the pastor’s pen was busy in defending truth and righteousness here, and arousing the Church in the East to the perils confronting the nation.

After almost twenty years of arduous toil, Dr. McNiece was succeeded in the pastorate by Dr. William M. Paden, who came from the Holland Memorial Church, of Philadelphia. The church had become self-supporting several years before the termination of Dr. McNiece’s pastorate.

With a church membership of nearly five hundred, and a Sabbath school of five hundred members, the congregation has entered upon the work of building a new house of worship adequate to the wants of the growing population. Dr. Paden, by his versatile ability and abundant labors, has enlarged the spiritual influence and power of the First Church, and encouraged his co-laborers and made himself felt far beyond the bounds of our own State.

To trace more accurately the influence of the gospel in Salt Lake City, we must go back to the beginning of our Christian educational work, which dates almost from the beginning of the work of our Church. At that time there was no public school system in Utah. The Mormon schools provided only the crudest form of instruction. They were schools for training their children in the Mormon doctrines and practices. Early in the history of Mr. Welch’s work it became apparent that something must be done for the education of the non-Mormon children.

Professor J. M. Coyner’s attention was called to the importance of this work while on his way to take charge of the mission school among the Nez Percés Indians. The proposition to enter Christian educational service in Salt Lake City took such hold upon him that he offered to return to it if the people would undertake it.

The result was that in a short time he came with his wife and daughter, who later became Mrs. Welch, to take up the labor that demanded his best service. Without promise of support from the East he organized a school and began teaching in the basement of the church. This beginning of the noble career of the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute was made on the twelfth of April, 1875. The story of this institution, that enrolled the first year sixty-three pupils, and within the next two years one hundred and sixty-five, would furnish data for a history of its own. Christian education in the Collegiate Institute has advanced step by step from the day of small beginnings until two commodious buildings are demanded, and have been furnished to meet the necessities of the educational wants of the people.

There were two Christian schools here, the Episcopalian and the Methodist, when Professor Coyner entered the field. For two years he assumed the financial responsibility, and “Never asked the church or community for a cent to aid in carrying on the current expenses of the school.” The history of those years was a history of faith and answered prayer. Finally, through an overture to the General Assembly from this Presbytery, the Woman’s Executive Committee was organized and came to the rescue with financial aid. Mrs. Coyner was the first teacher commissioned by the Board. The Board of Home Missions granted commissions to two other teachers, and from that time the Woman’s Executive Committee continued aid to the school.

Having outgrown the basement of the church, Professor Coyner secured another building, and twice added to the capacity of the same. At the close of ten years of service he retired from the school in July, 1885, on account of Mrs. Coyner’s declining health and removed to California. Dr. J. F. Millspaugh succeeded Mr. Coyner and carried on the school successfully with his assistant teachers until 1890, when he was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in the city.

For the Christian schools in Salt Lake City had led to the development of a system of public schools in the State. The present Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State, although a Mormon, recently said that the Christian schools of Utah had paved the way for our public school system and had made it a necessity.

After Dr. Millspaugh’s retirement from the Collegiate Institute, Mr. R. J. Caskey, a graduate of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, who had been connected with the school since 1887, was chosen superintendent in 1891, and continued at the head of the institution until 1904. During his connection with the Institute the women of the Synod of Pennsylvania, aided by Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, Sr., of Chicago, have erected a second building at a cost of $26,000. This building furnishes complete equipment for the Institute—recitation rooms, dormitory for the young ladies, and boarding department. In the thorough academic work of the Institute, fitting pupils for college, it has graduated one hundred and thirty-three. It has sent out eighteen pupils as mission teachers, and forty into public school teaching. It has furnished three college professors, after they had finished college courses elsewhere. Fifty-seven of the graduates have continued their studies beyond the instruction furnished here, and forty-two are at present pursuing higher courses.

The crowning institution of our Presbyterian mission school work in Utah is Westminster College, to which Dr. McNiece has devoted all his energies since leaving the pastorate of the First Church.

The social, educational, moral, and religious influence of these Christian institutions cannot be tabulated. They have entered into the life of the State, and are one of the influences that are slowly but surely transforming public sentiment and the life of the people.

CHAPTER IV

PRESBYTERY ORGANIZED—A SURPRISED PEOPLE—WASATCH ACADEMY—ANOTHER CHURCH—INQUIRERS—PROGRESS—THE STAYING PREACHER—MODEL SCHOOL—AMERICAN FORK—GROWTH—THE ALTERNATIVE.

The Presbytery of Utah was organized December seventh, 1874, early in the history of our work in Utah. The meeting to consummate the organization was held in the study of the Rev. Josiah Welch, in the building known as Roland Hall, in which the Episcopal Church was carrying on its Christian educational work.

The following persons were present, and constituted the organization: the Rev. Josiah Welch, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, of Salt Lake City; and Elders J. J. Critchlow, of the same church; Sheldon Jackson, Synodical Missionary, and the Rev. S. L. Gillespie, of Corinne.

Some time later, the Rev. D. J. McMillan, D.D., came to the Territory in quest of health, reaching Salt Lake City in February, 1875. In conference with the Rev. Josiah Welch, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City, he was advised to visit Mt. Pleasant, in San Pete County, a hundred miles south of the city. This was a town in which the people had erected triumphal floral arches to welcome Brigham, and had hailed him as “King Brigham” on his arrival. These extreme demonstrations of disloyalty to our Government, together with the heavy hand of the priesthood on the people had produced a reaction. A number of Mormons had apostatized, and had banded themselves together to resist the oppression of the priesthood. They had gone into infidelity, which is the usual rebound from Mormonism, and had erected a hall for dancing and social purposes.

Dr. McMillan surprised the inhabitants by his unexpected arrival in town, and took up his abode among the people in rather uncomfortable quarters. The apostates warmed up to him, as he did not wear the Mormon brand. He was, however, invited, even by the bishop, to speak in the Mormon meeting-house. The acceptance of the invitation, and the preaching furnished a large topic for town talk. In the absence of any adequate school facilities it was proposed that Dr. McMillan open a school in “Liberal Hall,” to which he acceded. In the absence of any accommodations in the way of seating his pupils, he followed the example of Professor Coyner at Salt Lake City, and provided seats with his own hands.

In the meantime the Mormon atmosphere was growing murky. Divers public and private demonstrations were made for the purpose of intimidation; but the mission school had opened with no purpose of closing. Dr. McMillan stood his ground firmly. Beginning with a small number of pupils the attendance grew to over a hundred. The house was purchased which furnished an audience room for preaching the gospel. It was easy to purchase the building, but to make the payments was a more difficult proposition. The Presbyterian women of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, though not the same that “labored with Paul in the gospel,” had the same spirit of self-sacrifice and came to the rescue. The building was paid for and the work went on. Mr. H. G. McMillan, brother of the young minister and now an elder in the First Church of Salt Lake City, was enlisted in the work of teaching. The school grew to enormous proportions in view of the limited room for carrying on the work.

Later this mission school took on academic proportions, and is now the Wasatch Academy, housed in a fine three-story building, with ample grounds. A home for pupils and boarding accommodations and house of worship for the church put our educational plant at Mt. Pleasant at the front. Principal George H. Marshall and his six associate teachers are rendering a very valuable service in Christian education for all that region of the State.

The bitter opposition of the priesthood at Mt. Pleasant and the lost faith of the apostates, which had driven them into infidelity, were difficult barriers to break down. But the Hearer of Prayer answered the cry of the missionary, and inquirers sought the way of life and found what they sought. The organization of the church took place on January eleventh, 1880. The church, in connection with the academy, has exerted a strong moulding influence in the town and reached far beyond. Young men and women from distant Mormon communities have been drawn to this centre of educational influence, and have gone out to the work of life with new purposes and hopes. They have gone out to build American homes and to devote themselves loyally to those institutions that make for the life and power of our nation.

Dr. McMillan pushed his way on to Ephraim and Manti, farther south in San Pete County, making and filling appointments as he could get or make opportunities for a hearing. His first visit, and indeed the first visit of any Christian minister to Manti, was in April, 1875.

A Christian layman, however, had been there as early as 1872 or 1873. This was Mr. Bascom, of Rock Island, Illinois, where he was an elder in the church. He was also a colporteur of the American Tract Society. He visited the family of a Mr. Miller, afterward a prominent member and elder in the church at Manti. Mr. Miller says of Mr. Bascom:

“He was a very kind man, a colporteur, but he did not try to sell any books to us. He just talked, asked if we were Mormons. We said:

“‘Well no, not now.’

“He gave us to understand that he was not a Mormon. He was so kind, and said:

“‘You may talk to me; have you thrown away your religion?’

“‘No, we have gone back to our Lutheran Christianity.’

“‘That is good,’ said he. ‘There is not much difference between Lutherans and other Christians.'”

There was much more of that preaching by the wayside that bore fruit, and helped to steady this man and others. It is reported that occasional visits were made to Manti up to 1877; but the first sermon was preached by Dr. McMillan, March fourth, 1878. His brother Joseph, a layman, had held frequent religious services prior to that date. The death of Mrs. Scobe, the wife of an apostate from the Mormon faith, brought Dr. McMillan by invitation to that service. It was held in the Mormon meeting-house. His presence and that sermon cut the hearts of some who made themselves known as inquirers.

The interest increased until Dr. McNiece, with Dr. McMillan, came to Manti on the twenty-ninth of April, 1878. After visiting the people, they found twelve persons who desired to unite in the organization of a Presbyterian church. On the next day, Sabbath, the thirtieth of April, after a sermon in a public hall, the organization was effected. Having received a solemn charge as to the nature of the covenant which they had made with God, several children were consecrated to God in baptism. Three elders were elected. Their ordination was deferred for a time until they could be instructed in reference to the duties of that responsible office. On July twenty-fourth, following, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who is generally somewhere, and particularly where he ought to be, was present, preached the sermon, and assisted in the ordination of the elders.

The Rev. George W. Martin, D.D., came to Manti with his bride in September, 1879. He was a graduate of Ohio University, also of Union Theological Seminary, in the days of Drs. Adams, Shedd, Hitchcock, Henry B. Smith, and Philip Shaff. He came not for a trip, though he got it; nor an experiment, though he got an experience; but to stay. He brought all his staying qualities with him, and has kept them on hand, as the history of the church indicates. On the organization of the church at Ephraim, by himself and Dr. McMillan, February first, 1880, he was put in charge of that work also, and has continued to care for both that church and the church at Manti.

The mission school work at Manti antedates the organization of the church by a year. Andrew Nelson, once a Mormon elder and missionary, then an apostate and infidel, now, by the grace of God, a beloved brother and ruling elder in the church at Manti, gives a bit of history that illumines the origin of the mission school at Manti.

He had heard of Dr. McMillan’s educational work at Mt. Pleasant. Having turned his back on the Adam-God doctrine, and other fancies of Mormonism, he was looking about him for a way to educate his children without exposure to the theological fogs through which he had sailed to spiritual shipwreck. He saw a ray of light flashing from Mt. Pleasant mission school, and tells us what he decided to do about it.

“I and Andrew Jensen hired Swenson with his buggy and little mules, and went to Mt. Pleasant, and saw Rev. D. J. McMillan, soon after he opened his school there. McMillan asked me what chance there would be for a mission school at Manti. I told him I would support it with all I could send. Mr. McMillan spoke of a sister-in-law whom he hoped he could get. He did get her, and she made a great success. Nearly half the town went to the school.”

That teacher was Mrs. Joseph McMillan from Portland, Oregon, who with her husband united by letter at the organization of the church. So it was that “the little mules” dragged the mission school into Manti. Later Miss Fannie Galbraith was commissioned and entered the school as teacher. For eight years she toiled and put the school on a solid basis, and gave it a character for thorough scholarship which it has ever maintained.

The Manti mission school has been a model, one of the best on the missionary field. The building itself invites the best work of pupils and teachers. It is built of oolite from the same quarry that furnished material for the Mormon temple at Manti, and is in Gothic style. It was completed and dedicated free from debt, November thirteenth, 1881. It was the gift of the women of the Presbytery of Buffalo, assisted by the Board of Church Erection.

Some of the pupils have gone into public school work as teachers. One is a county superintendent; another is a city principal of a public school. Others have gone out to make homes after the American pattern and cast the leaven of their school training into the social life of the communities in which they dwell. The older members of the church came out of Mormonism, and are now stanch supporters of our work, living trophies of what the gospel has accomplished.

It would be a pleasure to turn aside from this narrative if there were space and sketch for the reader the remarkable experiences of some of these people who came out of darkness into light. Even Mormons cannot discount the fruits of the gospel as seen in the lives of these converts. A mother who was distressed over the conversion of her son to Christianity, when she saw the change in his life, the new spirit of gentleness, truthfulness, and obedience in the home, ventured to express the wish that her other son might experience the same transformation in his life—a wish that actually was realized in his conversion.

A very interesting conversion should be mentioned. Dr. Martin was engaged in special meetings with his little company of believers. A burden of prayer was upon them, which they were bearing to God. During the meeting, Mr. N., who had been a Mormon, a missionary, then an agnostic, met several Mormon friends for an evening at cards. As the game became exciting, one of the sports indulged in some profanity, which Mr. N. rebuked. The swearing saint was indignant at being impeached, and avowed the superiority of his character. Mr. N. replied, in substance, that there was one righteous man in the town, and that was the Presbyterian missionary. The discussion broke up the game, and the gentlemen retired. As Mr. N. walked home he said to himself—

“I have said it and it is true—and it is true because he is a Christian.”

He reached home not to sleep, but to pray. After a struggle of two or three days, praying, doubting, believing, he at length submitted to Christ, and took his position among the Christians. He is now an elder in the church, and represented our presbytery in the General Assembly at New York in 1902.

Five months previous to the organization of the church at Manti, missionary work was commenced at American Fork. This is a town with twenty-seven hundred inhabitants, situated on a beautiful plateau extending from the northern extremity of Utah Lake on the west to the foot-hills of the Wasatch Mountains on the east. The town is thirty-three miles south of Salt Lake City and one of the attractive towns of Utah. Originally it was densely Mormon, but now accepts the presence of a few non-Mormons. The Rev. George R. Bird, now of Bakersville, California, was the pioneer missionary. Dr. McMillan had occasionally felt the Mormon pulse in American Fork, but the way had not been open to attempt positive and continuous work until the coming of Mr. Bird. He began preaching the gospel September ninth, 1877. He began his work in what was known as “Social Hall,” which was another name for “Dance Hall.” On entering these Mormon towns, our missionaries were permitted to locate themselves, usually, on the outskirts of the village, as at Smithfield; or sometimes the high privilege was granted of getting into the “Amusement Hall.” Thus it befell Mr. Bird at American Fork.

He accepted the situation. The walls of that old building soon echoed to the unfamiliar sounds and sentiments of the gospel of the grace of God. His work began to tell at once, and in a little more than two months a small company of believers (five) were organized into a church. During the following year a lot was secured, with a small building on it. By the aid of the Church Erection Board that shanty, for it was little more, was reconstructed. The improvement was sufficient to be dignified by the name of “Chapel.” The people had put their hands to this improvement in the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars.

A Sabbath school was born two weeks after Mr. Bird began his work, which passed through and survived all the stages of infant ailment and is to-day a living, growing force. The growth of the Sabbath school and congregation demanded another new building within two years, adding to the expense of the work. Success is always expensive for it demands enlargement and better appliances.

The departure of Mr. Bird was immediately made good by the coming of the Rev. Thomas F. Day, D.D., on the twenty-fifth of August, 1880. He was recently from the seminary, a brother of fine spirit and excellent scholarship, and wise in the management of his work. For ten years Dr. Day toiled with us, and might have been with us yet but for the theft committed by the directors of the Theological Seminary of San Francisco when they put him into the Hebrew professorship of the seminary. During his ministry a fine brick house of worship was erected furnishing ample room for the congregation and the mission school with its two teachers. The residence erected by Dr. Day has since been purchased by the Woman’s Board as a home for our teachers. The entire property is valued at $6,000, including the ample grounds connected with the buildings.

A very valuable educational and religious work has been carried on at American Fork. The mission school was inaugurated by Miss Ada Kingsbury, now Mrs. T. F. Day, in September, 1879. It has been wisely and efficiently prosecuted. Two teachers have been employed for a score of years, and the gospel has been faithfully preached from the beginning of the work.

Our embarrassment has been in the difficulty of securing successors to the ministers who have been taken from us. This difficulty was recently illustrated by a young minister in the East. He was burning with home missionary zeal and wrote to find work. He was offered an important field, but it was fifty miles from the railroad and was declined because of the air of lonesomeness. He was then offered the work at American Fork with two railroads, one for himself and one for his wife. His zeal had gone hopelessly down and he declined. He was then offered a field in one of our best towns with two railroads and a first-class Presbyterian Academy attached as a bonus. But he had discovered it was his duty to remain in the East and “make the most of life.”

This church at American Fork and mission school have witnessed precious scenes of revival and ingathering, not large, but exceedingly important. A young man, a polygamous son, at his conversion was offered the alternative of banishment from home or the abandonment of his new-found hope. He chose the former and had to leave the town to secure employment. He is now building an American home with his young Christian wife. We are constantly cheered by such exhibitions of Christian heroism. Though the quantity of results is not startling in our Mormon work, yet the quality is exceedingly precious.

During the year 1885, the Home Mission Board commissioned the Rev. H. A. Newell, to engage in mission work in the western part of Salt Lake City. He entered earnestly upon the service with his devoted wife and in a short time the Westminster Church was organized. A mission school was opened and was supported by Mr. and Mrs. Camp¹ of Bement, Illinois. Mr. Newell labored indefatigably, and secured the building of a house of worship. The congregation had worshipped hitherto in the school room. On account of Mrs. Newell’s health Dr. Newell removed to California.

The Rev. William R. Campbell came from Union Seminary, and with his young wife took up the work for a time but removed to Mendon. The church was scattered and disorganized. In the spring of 1888 the Rev. F. L. Arnold was requested by the Presbytery to take charge of the discouraged mission. He continued his labors successfully for ten or eleven years and with the blessing of God built up a strong church. On his retirement the Rev. George Bailey, D.D., was called to the pastorate and continued the work successfully until he was elected president of Westminster College. He was followed by the Rev. John Richelson, who led the church to self-support.

The Third Presbyterian Church grew out of a mission school organized in a private house and conducted by Dr. E. V. Silver. The school began in Lincoln Park Addition, in the southeastern part of the city. A prayer-meeting was organized at once and the interest developed so rapidly that it became necessary to secure the erection of a house of worship.

The building was soon completed and on the nineteenth of June, 1902, a church was organized and the building dedicated.

The Rev. Josiah McClain took charge of the church as stated supply on the day of its organization, and has steadily prosecuted the work to the present time. Another house of worship is now in process of erection which will furnish ample facilities for giving the gospel to that part of the city.

—

1. This work was undertaken as a memorial of a departed daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Camp are still supporting one of our mission schools.

CHAPTER V

ENTERING OGDEN—FORWARD MOVEMENT—SHORT PASTORATES—PREACHING TO A PROCESSION—NEW CHURCH HOME—CITY DELIVERED—PRESENT PASTORATE—ONE-MAN RULE IN BRIGHAM—ORDER OF ENOCH—DETERMINED MISSIONARY—HIS RECEPTION—THE BISHOP FERTILIZING—DR. RANKIN—KINGDOM COMING.

Home Mission work was inaugurated in Ogden in 1878. Ogden is the second city in Utah in population and importance. It is located at the junction of the Weber and Ogden Rivers. These streams, pouring down from the mountains through the Weber and Ogden Canyons, unite west of the city and pass off into Great Salt Lake, nine miles westward. The city, built first on the valley below, gradually moved up on the bench to the foot of the Wasatch Range of the mountains, giving a fine and extended view off over the valley and the lake. The Mormons early settled here. The city and valley have been the scene of many tragic events.

The completion of the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific and the Denver and Rio Grande railroads, with their termini at Ogden, brought a large influx of non-Mormon people. The city, however, was held under Mormon control for years. The schools were under the same management and furnished little more than instruction in Mormon religion. But the American element was growing in the town and the time had come for the gospel to be preached in Ogden.

The Rev. G. W. Gallagher came from the theological seminary to Ogden in September, and the First Presbyterian Church was organized on Sabbath evening, September twenty-ninth, 1878. The Rev. S. L. Gillespie, our minister at Corinne, had preached occasionally at Ogden and also at Evanston, a hundred miles distant from his home, at a cost of seventeen dollars each trip. But now that a minister had located at Ogden, the work was taken up more vigorously and in a little less than two years a lot and house of worship had been secured. This home of the church was occupied for ten years.

Having completed the house of worship, Mr. Gallagher remained but a short time then removed to Eureka, Nevada.

He was followed by the Rev. J. F. Knowles in 1880, whose work was brief in Ogden.

In the meantime mission school work had been opened. It had become the policy of our Presbytery to secure such mission teachers as we were able to employ. It was found that a mission school teacher could enter one of these towns and inaugurate work where it was difficult to locate a minister.

It was at Ogden, at a regular meeting of the Presbytery, February eighth, 1877, that this small body ventured to boldly overture the General Assembly on the subject of the work of mission teachers as a part of the instrumentality to give the gospel to the people of Utah. Having carried on the work thus far by private solicitation and with the aid of such help as came to them, the Presbytery decided that the time had come for a forward movement and an appeal to our Assembly for organized help. Hence the following overture was prepared and sent to the Assembly by the Presbytery’s commissioner; viz.:

“Whereas, in the growth of mission work among the Mormons, Mexicans, and Indians, we have reached a point where further progress makes it imperative that lady teachers and Bible readers should be secured in the work. And

“Whereas, some of the ladies’ missionary societies which have organized in accordance with the recommendation of the Assembly have sent money to the Board of Home Missions to be expended in employing lady missionaries, and many more are organizing for the same purpose—

“Therefore, the Presbytery of Utah in session at Ogden, February 8th, 1877, would respectfully overture the General Assembly to authorize the Board of Home Missions to commission lady teachers and Bible readers, upon the proper recommendation of the Presbyteries in whose bounds such service is required, when the funds especially designated for such a purpose shall justify it.”

Thus was opened, by this action of the Presbytery at Ogden, the work that has taken on such vast proportions among the exceptional populations in our country, and has enlisted so many noble women to give themselves first, and others to give their means to this blessed toil.

The mission school that had been opened in Ogden early in our occupancy of the city was continued only for three or four years and with moderate success. It never had a suitable home, being carried on in a private dwelling. The Congregationalists had organized the Gordon Academy, which fairly well supplied the wants of the city in the matter of Christian education, and our school work was discontinued.

After the departure of the Rev. Mr. Knowles, our church was vacant for two years and suffered such a depletion as is usual on the frontier under such conditions. At length the Rev. Josiah McClain, of Carson City, Nevada, was induced to take our forlorn hope at Ogden. On the first Sabbath of his entrance upon his charge he was greeted by the presence of ten hearers and a Sunday school of fifteen. His congregation during the coming year was composed almost entirely of railroad employés who were sent hither and thither by the corporation. He had the usual experience of our frontier men, that of preaching to a moving congregation. In a single year, while he received fifteen into membership, he dismissed sixteen. But the presence and constant work of the pastor gradually began to steady his congregation and adjust the membership to the service required of them.

Through the Marquand estate a better location was secured for the growing congregation in the upper and residence part of the city. During the ministry of Mr. McClain a new house of worship was projected. A lecture room was completed and the foundation laid for the main audience room. In the meantime a political storm was brewing in the city. The portion of the population that believed in the Government of the United States had grown rapidly. The domination of the Mormon priesthood in the civil and educational life of the city had become intolerable. Although the non-Mormons were numerically equal to the Mormon population, yet they were refused any share in the administration of the city’s management on school government. This injustice so roused the people that they resolved to throw off the yoke and did it. Ogden was the first city delivered from the tyranny of the hierarchy. The Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational churches, casting in the leaven of the gospel, teaching the people to “Call no man master,” had quietly pushed to this result.

After nearly seven years of labor, Mr. McClain was transferred for a few months to Nephi, then to the Third Church of Salt Lake City. Several short pastorates followed this change, when the Rev. C. F. Richardson gave several years of successful service in the church. The present pastor, Rev. J. E. Carver, carried the church to self-support, and completed the main audience room of the building.

In the southern part of the city in connection with the work of the First Church, Elder May and several other workers opened a mission which has grown into a church now successfully ministered to by the Rev. James Thompson. The small beginnings of early days have resulted in a gratifying justification for the outlay of toil and money. The entire moral atmosphere has been revolutionized. Social, educational, and religious life has been lifted to a higher plane. Even Mormon morals are making some effort to gather themselves up into civilized and presentable attitude.

Brigham is a town twenty miles north of Ogden, lying up close to the Wasatch Mountains. It is located at the mouth of one of those canyons down which pours the beautiful stream of water that gives life to all the plains below. When our missionary work began there it was one of the most intense Mormon towns in the Territory. It was under the control of one man, Apostle Lorenzo Snow,—since, the president of the Church. The loyalty of Apostle Snow and the people to every wish of Brigham Young was such that he gave it his name. It is the county seat of the large county of Box Elder.

When our work began there, “The United Order of Enoch” embraced practically the whole population. This was a religious order in which there was a pretence of a community of goods. Property and wages were put into the hands of the leaders of the Church for their care and investment. And “in the fulness of time,” when a sufficient amount of wealth had been gathered into the hands of the church authorities, Brigham Young, possessing all authority, dissolved the Order without making any financial report. This was the saintly method of getting a corner on the finances of the people.

It was the boast of this people, so loyal to their master, that no non-Mormon family should ever find a home in the town. But there was one man and his family that had not yet been reckoned with.

Our missionary at Corinne, the Rev. S. L. Gillespie, began to feel his way out from his home town into the adjacent villages. He had preached at Ogden, twenty-five miles away; Evanston, seventy-five miles farther cast; and out north at Malad, fifty miles distant. The town of Brigham, only five or six miles away from his home, could scarcely hope to escape the coming of this determined missionary. Indeed it had not escaped. He had managed to make himself heard in the Court House in Brigham, whether the people would consent or not. For some time he sought without avail to get a foothold. But tyranny sometimes overreaches itself. And so here. A certain Mormon brother had borne the yoke until patience and endurance were exhausted. Having learned that Mr. Gillespie wished to get in, and having resolved for himself to get out, the two came together and his property was transferred to the Home Mission Board for a consideration.

Mr. Gillespie writes:

“The deed for our property at Brigham … is dated October second, 1877. Afterward came the canceling of the mortgage which had given me many an anxious thought, until it was finally settled by Dr. Kendall, who sent me his quarter’s salary for that purpose, with strict orders not to make it known.”

He adds,

“The Home and Foreign Missionary Society of Brooklyn afterward returned him the money, and built the new church.”

Mr. Gillespie moved to Brigham June thirteenth, 1878, to take care of the property that was in danger of being destroyed.

The two Mormon teamsters who moved him to his (old) new home in Brigham for the cash were disciplined by the authorities for the crime. The first year especially was a year of great trial. Mrs. Gillespie was ill but was unable to get any assistance in her home. A sympathizing Mormon sister finally called on her in the night and offered to do her washing, if she could get it and return it after dark. This arrangement brought temporary relief.

When the missionary came to preach “he was confronted with three Mormons and Mrs. Gillespie,” who was doubtless in the same mood as was the wife of Whitfield when, in the presence of the mob, she plucked her husband’s coat and said,

“Play the man, George, for your God.”

At any rate that was what our missionary did. When asked by the deputy sheriff by what authority he was there to preach he answered,

“By the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and exercising the rights of an American citizen.”

For a whole year Mr. Gillespie could buy nothing in the town but was compelled to go back to Corinne for every beefsteak and pound of groceries. The bishop proceeded to pronounce a curse upon the house, the well, the garden, and all the premises of the missionary. His curse proved to be a great fertilizer, as the yield of vegetables was unusually large.

Three months after the missionary settled in Brigham he opened a mission school, in September, 1878, and taught the school himself the first year. The next year his sister, Miss E. F. Gillespie, assisted him. From the opening of the school, twenty-five years ago, until the present time there have been eighteen teachers, a noble company whose lives have helped mould the lives of the young people. They deserve a personal record of themselves and their labors, if there were space to give it.

The church was organized by Mr. Gillespie and the writer, October eighteenth, 1890. On the retirement of the missionary, October first, 1895, the church was vacant for two months, after which Dr. Rankin took charge of the work.

CHAPTER VI

SILVER RIMMED VALLEY—DISCOVERING A MAN—THE SEED—A VISIT—POSSESSING THE LAND—HYRUM MISSION—HOME IN A GARRET—RICHMOND—NO RESUMPTION—SCATTERED SHEEP—TEACHER REDUPLICATES HERSELF—MENDON AND WELLSVILLE.

RELIGION is not a contagion. It is a life from above. Once implanted it must bear fruit. “The kingdom of God is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened.” The organization of churches at Corinne, Salt Lake, American Fork, with Sabbath schools and mission schools at Mt. Pleasant, Manti, and other points, was an indication of what could and must be done at other important places.

Ogden had been visited, Brigham had heard the music of the gospel, and Logan lay only forty miles beyond, over the divide, the crown of Cache County and Valley. Whoever opens his eyes on Cache Valley in the early springtime will stop and gaze. We call it, “The Silver Rimmed Valley.” The snow-capped mountains encircle a valley thirty or forty miles long and from ten to twenty miles wide. Through the valley the Logan and the Bear Rivers push off westward, to find the deep gorge in the mountain, through which they pour out into Salt Lake Valley, and are lost in Great Salt Lake. These streams passing through Cache Valley give life and verdure to the broad acres.

The Mormon explorers early discovered this valley, its beauty and promise of fertility, and sent in their settlers. With the base of operations which had been secured at Corinne and Salt Lake Dr. Jackson pushed his investigations on northward beyond Ogden and Brigham into Logan. He had a genius not only for discovering work but workers also. Having found the opportunity at Logan he went in search of a man who had grace and wisdom enough to know an opportunity at sight. He found the man in the Metropolitan Church at Washington City—not in the pulpit but in the pew. After he had made his plea for help before the congregation he went into the Sabbath school, which is always a good place to find the best material for the best service.

He discovered Mr. Calvin M. Parks teaching a large Bible class of young ladies, while his wife and daughter had an infant class of between three and four hundred. At the close of the Sabbath school Mr. Parks was informed by the synodical missionary that he was needed in Utah; and that his work was there, not to teach, but to preach the gospel; and that he should prepare himself for that work. Mr. Parks was obedient to the heavenly calling, was soon licensed to preach the gospel, was dismissed to the Presbytery of Utah, and on the fifth of July, 1878, like Abraham,

“By faith he, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out not knowing whither he went.”

He found the place, however, as every man does who obeys the call of God, and in due time he was located in the beautiful little city of Logan. He secured a “furniture warehouse, and paint shop back of it,” which was soon transformed into a “chapel, school-room, study, bed-chambers, parlor, kitchen, and hall.”

Early in September the little mission school was opened with six pupils. It was a beginning, and as nothing ever proceeds without beginning something had been achieved. For two years the teaching was carried on in this building while the machinery overhead was keeping up a brisk rivalry. The Sabbath preaching and Sabbath school were twins, born on the same day, and grew up together. Mr. Parks was ordained at the first meeting of Presbytery. And a church of eleven members was organized on the tenth of December, 1878.

That small beginning with six pupils was the seed that has grown to be the New Jersey Academy, with its five teachers, matron, boarding department, and more than a hundred pupils. Principal T. N. Smith, for eighteen years a mission teacher, is leading that host. That primitive chapel with its uncouth surroundings has passed away, though the precious memories of what was wrought there can never vanish. In its stead is the church building filled with devout worshippers. A comfortable manse also furnishes a pastor’s home. Starting with the six members, over two hundred souls have registered their vows at God’s altar. “Behold, what God hath wrought!” But how was it done? No one may write the story of toil, prayer, and Christian life wrought into the material and spiritual structure that today bears witness to the faithfulness of God to every word he hath spoken.

The missionary women of the Synod of New Jersey put their hearts and hands to the work. They well remember how they secured the eleven thousand dollars that gave to our consecrated teachers the academy in which their Christian educational work is going forward to-day.

Dr. and Mrs. Kendall visited our mission while it and the missionaries were housed in the old furniture shop. The missionaries welcomed the visitors, hoping that the sight of the illy adapted quarters would move their friends to secure something better. One of the teachers says—

“Our hearts sank within us when Mrs. Kendall, on bidding us good-by, said—‘I am glad you have such a comfortable and sweet little home.’ ”

Dr. Kendall’s visit, however, was not without results; indeed it never was, wherever he went. In due time the money came to build a chapel with permission to save as much as possible to be put into building a parsonage. Mr. Parks knew what that meant and how to achieve the end. From the cullings of the chapel, by the skill of the missionary, the parsonage came forth in condition to receive the missionary and family, until further means could be secured to complete it.

The chapel and the manse came and with them came the increase of pupils and the enlargement of the missionary work in every direction.

The valley lay open and inviting before Mr. Parks. The hungry people, who had been deceived by Mormonism and had found it to be a delusion and a snare, heard of the coming of the missionaries. A Swedish woman living six miles away, in the town of Millville, who could not understand a word of English, came on foot with her two little boys to see a Christian minister and hear the sound of a voice that spoke the truth. This attracted the attention of Mr. Parks to the outlying towns in the valley. He had doubtless felt the inspiration of God’s promise to Joshua,

“Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.”

Acting upon it, he went forth to reconnoitre. The result of his investigation convinced him that the whole valley was his parish. He pushed forward until he had completed the building of seven chapels outside of Logan in the valley. These chapels were located at Millville, Hyrum, Wellsville, Mendon, Smithfield, Franklin, and Richmond.

Mission schools were opened in these towns and the message of divine love went forth in due time.

Mr. Parks, his wife and daughter, now Mrs. Shorten, accomplished a great work, not only laying foundations but building on the same. One of his fellow presbyters, who was intimately associated with these missionaries and their toil, writes of them:

“They were a most interesting and efficient trio of Christian workers. Hardly any one could pass Mr. Parks in the street without turning to take a second look at him, he was such a specimen of a man physically, standing six feet and four inches high, and well proportioned. All three were fine singers, and in addition Mrs. Shorten played well either on the piano or organ, while Mr. Parks was a fine choir and chorus leader; and there was scarcely any kind of Christian work or household or mechanical work that some one of them could not do.”

The foundations were well laid in our Christian educational work in Logan, both in school and church. As a token of God’s favor, we have as pastor of the church at Logan to-day, and for the last nine years, one of our strong preachers, the Rev. N. E. Clemenson, who was brought out of Mormonism in his early manhood. He stands as a tower of strength, witnessing to the value of home mission work in Utah, and contributing all of his powers to advance it.

Miss Carrie Nutting opened the mission school at Hyrum in the autumn of 1881. Mr. Parks secured a home mission appointment for the Rev. Philip T. Bohback a few weeks later. He came to bring the gospel to the Scandinavian people in their own tongue. Mr. Bohback was given the care of the three missions, Hyrum, Wellsville, and Millville, and the preaching was conducted in English, Swedish, and Danish. This involved the preparation for, and attendance on twenty services per month. The church was organized at Hyrum June nineteenth, 1887, with thirteen members, several of them coming in from Millville. Forty-eight members have been received into the church, gathered out of Mormonism. Two of the pupils from the mission school at Hyrum have gone through colleges in the East. Several others have gone through our academies. In the later history of this mission Mr. Bohback’s labors were confined to Hyrum and Millville. With great fidelity, kindness, and persistence, his toil continued for twenty-one years, until the loss of health made it necessary for him to retire.

Each of these seven missions has had a distinctive history. At Smithfield, six miles north of Logan, Mr. Parks was not able to secure property favorably located for the mission. The chapel had to be constructed on the outskirts of the town at an inconvenient distance from the families which it was hoped could be reached. The first teacher that came was unable to find a home among the people that would provide her with any of the comforts of life. She finally rented a low garret of a log cabin, with an outside entrance through a gable window. This was reached by a ladder from the ground, which for the personal safety of the teacher was pulled into the attic after it had been used. During the last year a lot has been purchased in the central part of the town, with the hope that our mission may be provided with a building at an early day, and enter more successfully upon its work. The gospel was preached by the Rev. James Thompson, for eight years, and later by the Rev. Charles May. At present the Rev. Charles E. Hamilton is toiling among the people. Souls have been won to the Master. Many of the young people have been trained under the influence of the Christian teachers that have gone to them, and some of them are now filling important official positions in the church of Christ.

The mission at Richmond has never developed into a church. The mission school was closed for some years. It has always been found easier to close a mission than to open it. It is always dangerous to lose the force of momentum for when lost it must be created again, which is an expensive business. Richmond is a town of over a thousand population, and is six miles north of Smithfield. It has always been connected as a station with Smithfield. It is solidly Mormon, and the young people are carefully guarded, lest they should stray into Christian pastures.

Franklin is our next mission, about eight miles north of Richmond, just over the line in Idaho. At one time a small church was organized and provided with gospel preaching by the Home Mission Board. But financial embarrassment of the Board’s treasury several years ago resulted in leaving the people “as sheep without a shepherd.” “The way to resume is to resume,” but resumption has not been possible at Franklin. This town, being in Idaho, was the Botany Bay for Utah polygamists during the execution of the Edmunds-Tucker law. The plural wives were concealed beyond the State line, until the Government was deluded into granting statehood, when they returned to their old haunts, and kept open house for their persecuted husbands.

The mission school, however, kept the lights burning in Franklin. Conspicuous among the teachers who held the fort, was Miss Anna Noble, who for twenty-six years has given her life to mission work, and who has considered it her privilege to reduplicate her own life by taking into her home some promising child and training her for Christ and his work. Miss Theresa Stalker, one of her earlier pupils, after graduating at Kalamazoo Seminary in Michigan, has devoted her regenerated life to the uplift of her people. It is one of the blessed compensations of this arduous toil of years, that the teacher’s life goes on with accumulated moral values, in the lives of others who have been led into the Kingdom.

Miss Harriett E. Elliott is carrying forward the same work as her predecessors and by gathering the young people and furnishing them with good reading and pure social surroundings is accomplishing a most valuable work.

The other two chapels in the Silver Rimmed Valley are Mendon and Wellsville. Our early occupation at Mendon brought Miss McCracken, the teacher, serious trial. Her room was connected with the chapel. While alone at night several young men demanded admittance but were refused. They broke into the house. The teacher fled from her bed in her night dress to the nearest neighbor. The nervous shock so affected her that she was unable to resume her work. The young men were arrested and fined. Subsequent teachers were not seriously disturbed. The Rev. William R. Campbell and his wife were put in charge of the work in later years. Mr. Campbell was made of Scotch stuff, and that fact together with what came of it soon produced a great calm. Mr. Campbell for ten years or more preached at Mendon and Wellsville, while Mrs. Campbell carried on the school with occasional assistance from her husband. While there was no church organized in either of these missions they bore fruit in the education and conversion of souls. Out of the work at Mendon came three valuable mission teachers, who have been aiding us for several years. An elder in our church at Logan was led into the truth and light by our mission work at Mendon.

In earlier days our mission at Wellsville furnished employment for two teachers; but as our teaching force was cut down the number of pupils diminished, and in recent years other forms of missionary work have been connected with the school.

CHAPTER VII

ACROSS THE LINE—A LOG CABIN—”MUST OBEY IN ALL THINGS”—MISSIONARY ALL-OVER-NESS—PRINTER’S INK—ANOTHER CHURCH—UTILIZING THE KITCHEN—MONTPELIER—THE GERM DEVELOPED—THE REFUGE—UNDER A DIRT ROOF—ROWDYISM—PROGRESS—THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA—THROUGH TRIBULATION—COURAGE—SOME DISCOVERIES.

The story of home mission work in Utah would not be complete without crossing the line into southern Idaho. It has already been stated that during the execution of the Edmunds-Tucker law against the polygamists of Utah many of them removed their wives into southern Idaho, and on occasion fled thither themselves. The southern tier of counties is as solidly Mormon as Utah. In the State of Idaho are more than fifteen thousand Mormons that have to be reckoned with by the political parties. They hold the balance of political power, and use it as opportunity offers.

Hence our Home Mission Board has wisely planted several important stations in that State. The earliest of these was opened at Montpelier, in Bear Lake County, during the year 1884. A building was erected under the supervision of Dr. G. W. Martin (who was superintending the work at that time), both for school purposes and as a house of worship. School was opened in December of that year by Miss Frances E. Baker who was the pioneer missionary in the county.

In the same year Dr. Martin succeeded in purchasing a lot with a small log cabin in Paris, the county seat of Bear Lake County. This purchase was made for the purpose of erecting a house of worship. The people in the county at that time were almost all Mormons, hence the purchase of this lot from an apostate was an achievement of considerable importance to our work, as the Mormon hierarchy was very anxious that their religious, political, and business plans should not be disturbed. They dreaded the type of Christianity that had the reputation of “turning the world upside down.”

Paris was the headquarters of the Bear Lake Stake of the Mormon Church. The president of the stake, a much-married polygamist, and his counsellors reside here. Hence the people are immediately under the eye of those whom they “must obey in both temporal and spiritual matters.”

In March, 1885, the Rev. R. P. Boyd with his wife settled in Paris. He was under appointment of the Board in New York. This position was taken because of the heavy Mormon population in southeastern Idaho. It was accepted as wise to deal with the fountain rather than the stream. The dominance of the Church was less marked at Montpelier than at Paris. Said a Mormon friend to the missionary,

“You people had better remain here at Montpelier, instead of going to Paris, because the people of Paris are obliged to do as they are told while the people of Montpelier do as they please.”

With financial aid from Christian friends in Pennsylvania, Mr. Boyd fitted up the “log cabin” in Paris as a place of worship, and preached there and at Montpelier. He also visited and preached at almost all the towns in the valley. With so large a field to look after, Mr. Boyd early began to use the printed page in evangelistic work. He has continued the use of the press, publishing nine tracts, dealing directly with the Mormon system—such as “Vital Questions,” “Biblical Priesthood,” “Pre-existence of Spirits,” “The Mormon God not the God of the Bible,” and others. Many of these were published at his own expense.

Our chapel was erected in the summer of 1888, and the “log cabin” was transformed into a teacher’s home of primitive style. The Christian people of Cedar Rapids and vicinity came again to the rescue, aided by the Westminster Presbytery of Pennsylvania. A church was organized on the thirteenth of March, 1892, with eight members. The total number received to date is thirty-four.

The mission school work was inaugurated by Mrs. Boyd without compensation from the Board. It was conducted partly in her kitchen and then in the “log cabin.” In the early autumn of 1888 the Board commissioned Miss Mattie White who labored for eleven years and left the impress of her service upon the young people of the community.

Miss Theresa Stalker, one of Miss Noble’s spiritual children, and Miss Linn came later into the work, which is now carried on by Miss Kate Taylor, a recent graduate of Park College. Although a large number of converts has not been enrolled, it is not possible to tabulate or measure the influence of the missionary and his teachers in clearing the moral atmosphere, moulding the sentiment and habits of the people, and making it possible for the young people to move toward a higher ideal of life.

While this transformation was taking place at Paris, the more accessible town of Montpelier was receiving new light. In the change of teachers, it was a fortunate adjustment that brought together there Miss Mary Crowell and Miss Lottie Leonard in our mission school. With a steady enthusiasm and fine tact they took firm hold of the community and built up a large school. A church organization was the outcome, on April twenty-first, 1889. There have been received into the church since that date one hundred and eighty members. The work outgrew the old first chapel, and a substantial stone building was erected and dedicated by the writer December thirty-first, 1893, during the ministry of the Rev. George Lamb. He was succeeded by the Rev. C. O. Mudge who did a very effective work until failing health necessitated his retirement to southern California. The mission school was the germ that developed into the church. The older members of the church have not ceased to regard the Misses Crowell and Leonard as the builders who wrought, without sound of hammer, in the spiritual structure which to-day blesses the town of Montpelier.

In the autumn of 1877, the missionary at Corinne was invited to preach part of the time at Malad City, fifty miles or more north of Corinne. That town is the county seat of Oneida County in southern Idaho. It was the refuge of the men and their families that had fled from the tyranny and danger at Brigham. The ruling power in Brigham, as we have seen, had been in the hands of one man. From that oppression men sought to escape. But Brigham Young sent into Malad his new arrivals from abroad in order to hold ecclesiastical control.

In March, 1878, the Rev. Edward Welch was appointed to the mission at Malad City, which he conducted for two years. His sister began school work. On the failure of his health he returned to Ohio, and died some years later. Our school was conducted in a log house with a dirt roof, a most wretched affair exposing the school to storm and rain. Miss Carrie Farrand was at this time attempting the impossible—that was, to do creditable work in such a habitation. It is needless to sketch the rowdyism of the young men, their drinking, carousing, and threatening behavior toward our teacher and her pupils. Her courage and strength finally failed. The Rev. E. M. Knox and wife succeeded Miss Farrand, and took up the work with earnest enthusiasm. During the four years of his stay he succeeded in erecting on a fine site a commodious brick chapel and manse. The congregation grew rapidly reaching about two hundred. Mr. Knox’s two sisters came into the school work and more than a hundred pupils came under their influence. A church was organized and the gospel has been preached, with only slight intermission, until the present time.

During the progress of the work at Malad City a mission school building was erected at Samaria and a mission school was gathered by Miss Baker, who had opened our work at Montpelier. This school has continued till the present, with several changes of teachers. It is held as a station in connection with Malad City and is supplied by the minister of that place.

The church at Malad City has passed through the usual experience of our Mormon work. Times of refreshing have brought enlargement, followed by the depletion resulting from the financial and social ostracism that the Mormon Church is always able to bring to bear upon those who turn from that system. Christian families often find it necessary to seek new homes beyond the domination of Mormon influence in order to secure a living. Such influences have been pressed upon converts at Malad City. On the other hand we have courageous souls that have stood their ground, and “come up out of great tribulation.”

It was our privilege a few years ago to ordain an elder in the church at Malad, who had the courage to assert himself in the days when life was in peril. He had been a high priest in the Mormon organization, a man of influence. He was a reader, and did what not many Mormons do—he read. He read their own books, and current history and literature. Comparing the Mormon books with the Scriptures he made some important discoveries. Among these was the fact that all of Joseph Smith’s revelations were in favor of his personal and financial interests, for the gratification of his ambition for power, or his lusts. This gentleman said,

“I read myself out of the Mormon Church.”

Having reached his conclusions he called his official brethren together, informed them of his purpose, and resigned his position as high priest. He was urged, coaxed, and threatened. The bishop warned him, intimating that dire consequences might follow. The gentleman replied,

“I live here and shall live here, and will take care of my own life.”

He did what he proposed to do. He became a Christian, and an elder in our church.

Those days of personal danger are passed, but the priesthood finds ways to embarrass and intimidate those of their own people who seek that liberty wherewith God makes us free.

CHAPTER VIII

First Awakening—A Speaking Monument—Tired of Husks—Holding the Fort—The Memorial—“Eternal Vigilance”—A Line of Light—The Old Flag—In the Pulpit—First Sermon Preached—Back to the Hut.

While the Home Mission Board was extending its work into the southern tier of counties of Idaho, the Synodical Missionary, Dr. McMillan, was pushing the work into southern Utah. Churches and mission schools had been organized at Mt. Pleasant, Ephraim, and Manti, and as far back as November, 1877, Dr. McMillan preached at Monroe, in Sevier Valley. He purchased a small frame building, for church and school purposes. Miss Wheeler entered upon her educational duties, opening a mission school. The work has been followed up by able and successful teachers. After some years a fine stone chapel was erected, furnishing two school-rooms that can be thrown together by folding doors. For many years two teachers carried on the mission, exerting a most salutary influence.

Two of the young ladies educated in the school came out of Mormonism, became Christians, entered Park College, and were graduated. They have both served for a time as mission school teachers, and are now making homes that “give hostages to the state.”

One of the judges now on the supreme bench of the State, who is a loyal American, came from a Mormon family. He got his first educational awakening in the mission school at Monroe. As a judge, he has fearlessly executed the law against polygamists and polygamous cohabitation. Under the direction of the present Synodical Missionary, a very convenient home has been erected for the teachers.

The teachers who have toiled at Monroe have borne a noble part in giving the truth to the people. Miss Alice Palmer gave herself devotedly to the families represented in her school, and after years of service was attacked with pneumonia which terminated her life. She asked to be buried among those whom she loved and to whose spiritual welfare she had consecrated her life. And her plain monument is to-day a silent witness to her devotion to her Master and to the people for whom she had toiled. She “being dead yet speaketh.” The influence of her teaching and life can never be lost. The mission is still carried forward.

In September, 1880, a fine location for a mission was secured in the centre of the town of Richfield, the county seat of Sevier County, from a family that had abandoned the Mormon faith. The adobe house on the premises was temporarily used for all the purposes of the mission, for teaching and preaching. Its unfitness, however, for the needs of the mission drove the missionaries to the effort which resulted in a substantial stone building, with capacity for a large school demanding two teachers. As long as we were able to have two teachers the school was full to its utmost capacity, but when the retrenchment came our patrons concluded that we were preparing to close our educational efforts. The usual depletion followed. The one teacher still continues her mission.

There came a time in the history of the mission when it was manifest that a church should be organized. The people desired it. They had tired of the husks on which they had formerly fed, and had learned to relish the manna of the Word. They prepared a petition to Presbytery for an organization, and thirteen signed it. Before the Presbytery held its next regular meeting, our Methodist brethren went into the field, held a meeting, and took the prospective Presbyterians into the Methodist Episcopal Church.

This necessitated a delay. Our services in the pulpit and in the school were continued, and God gave us others, and on November sixth, 1890, a Presbyterian Church was organized. Fifty-seven members have been added to our little flock. Polygamy and polygamous cohabitation have never been entirely eradicated, though several of the criminals have been dealt with according to law. Flagrant cases are known to all the citizens. Our ministers have never lowered the standard of Christian teaching and life. The Rev. J. H. Meteer, who commanded a company of colored troops during the war, has been holding the fort for years.

Salina is eighteen miles north of Richfield, in the same county. It has been regarded as less under the domination of the priesthood than most of the towns. Dr. McMillan enlisted the interest of Mrs. Crosby of New York City. Her only daughter had been called to a higher service in the presence of her Master. Mrs. Crosby conceived the idea of building a memorial for her beloved absent one, and as there was no place where such a memorial would be worth as much to the living as in Utah, she decided to build a chapel at Salina. It would be a fountain of blessing for all time to come. Hence in 1884 this memorial took the form of a durable stone chapel. A young man had opened a school on his own responsibility. When the building was completed a mission school was formally opened. Miss Curry, from Mt. Sterling, Illinois, entered this service and continued it for two years, while nearing the end of her earthly journey; then she returned to her home—and the Home beyond.

The mission school has gone on without a break, with two teachers, for all the years. The memorial tablet in the wall of the chapel is a perpetual reminder to the pupils and the Sabbath audience of that love which gives itself for the salvation of the lost. And still the message goes out from that pulpit—”He came to seek and to save the lost.”

The Rev. P. D. Stoops began preaching the gospel at Salina in 1890, and spent four years in ministering to the people. During those years the writer spent four weeks in daily meetings in the church, assisting the minister. The Rev. N. E. Clemenson succeeded Mr. Stoops in February, 1894, and remained until August. Later he was called to Logan, where he still continues as pastor.

In June, 1894, a church of twelve members was organized. After months without a minister the Rev. E. L. Anderson came to the church and remained three or four years. The Rev. Joseph Taylor Britain came later from Auburn Theological Seminary, giving excellent promise of success, but was obliged to relinquish his work on account of his health after a little more than a year.

The church at Salina has suffered greatly by reason of the brief terms of ministerial service. There is probably no place in our broad land where the little mission churches need such constant shepherding as here in Utah. The unsettled condition of frontier towns, the social and financial pressure of the ruling ecclesiastical powers, the surrounding low standard of morals, combine to demand “Eternal vigilance” on the part of those who watch for souls. The Macedonian cry that is constantly going out from our small and needy mission churches, meets with such infrequent responses that we are unable to prevent the constant depletion of our membership. Yet still we must entreat our younger ministers to come to our help.

Fifteen miles north of Salina is the town of Gunnison, named after Captain Gunnison, who was murdered in Sevier Valley in November, 1853. With a population of a thousand, the town is located at the point where the San Pete and Sevier Valleys join. Richfield, Salina, and Gunnison are all on a branch of the Rio Grande Western Railroad, and are easily accessible from Salt Lake City or any part of the State. This mode of travel was not known to the missionaries of Dr. McMillan’s time, but is a luxury pleasantly thrust on us who have entered into the labor in recent years. The missionary, taking the train at Salt Lake City in the morning, can prepare his Sunday school lesson, and sermon for the next day, if need be, before reaching any of these missions.

Miss Mary Crowell, whose name and toil entered into our success at Mt. Pleasant and Montpelier, opened the mission-school work at Gunnison in May, 1881, in very limited apartments belonging to Mrs. Christenson. Later our Board secured the present lot with a diminutive log hut, in which the school was temporarily housed and tended. That hut has been patched, darned, and mended annually so as to make it possible to imprison a teacher.

During the summer of 1883 the present stone chapel was started on the foundations and was completed in January, 1884. This is the fifth substantial stone building that makes a line of buildings reaching about sixty-five miles, and kindling a line of light that ought never to be put out or grow dim.

In September, 1884, Mrs. M. W. Green and her daughter, Miss Alice, came from the city of New York where Mrs. Green had been engaged in hospital and missionary work. That was a good day for Gunnison people. They reached Gunnison in time to see the last touches given to that fine new chapel and to raise the Stars and Stripes. It was a spectacle when “Old Glory” unrolled her ample folds in the Utah breezes.

The school opened in the new building with its two rooms, taxing the best gifts of mother and daughter. Mrs. Green happened to be in possession of some financial resources in her own right, a somewhat unusual accident to befall a mission teacher. Hence she resolved to abandon that wigwam that had pretended to shelter her predecessors. So she did and in due time found herself living somewhat comfortably, and was therefore in a condition to sympathize with her comfortable friends in the East, who had sent her on a mission.

The Sabbath school was taken vigorously in hand. The Salina minister, when the church was able to indulge in the luxury of having one, came over to preach and render such assistance as possible. Dr. Martin of Manti, fifteen miles to the north, has ever held himself ready to minister to the congregation when other provision could not be made. The Christians of Gunnison have connected themselves with the Manti church.

The people of Gunnison early discovered that Mrs. Green had sufficient knowledge of medicine to be of great value to the community. Hence she had the double task of teaching the children in school and the mothers at home. She added to her other duties the pleasure of giving lectures to the mothers on the subject of caring for their own health and the health of their families. In the absence of a minister Mrs. Green had provided herself with several volumes of sermons, which she was ready to read on the Sabbath. With Miss Alice at the organ and her mother in the pulpit with one of Spurgeon’s sermons, a minister came very near being a superfluity, though he was always welcomed.

The work of these busy teachers did not end with teaching and preaching. They provided a reading room where the young people could spend a social evening away from the fumes of tobacco and liquor, and escape the snare of the Mormon dance.

Naturally enough a belfry went up on that chapel and there came a fine-toned bell, whose music could be heard in every home, shop, and office in Gunnison. Indeed, there was no stopping place in sight for these missionaries, as long as their strength did not fail them.

It is on record that the first sermon preached at Gunnison traveled nearly a hundred miles to get itself preached. It brought with it that noble servant of God, the Rev. George Leonard of Springville, who knew how to give it tongue and fire. And when Mrs. Green was ready to have her chapel dedicated, she sent two hundred miles, to the Rev. S. L. Gillespie of Brigham. This was to make sure to have the right thing said, and in a known tongue. And the thing was done. The whole plant cost $2,050.94, says Dr. Martin. The people of Gunnison gave $137, the missionaries $309, the Board of Church Erection $600, and the Woman’s Executive Committee the balance. Thank you, ladies!

But the best of missionaries wear out, and must betake themselves to a place of rest. And it was that necessity that sent our missionaries to southern California. And now one of our mission teachers, a jewel, whose story must be told before this bit of history is complete, comes as a successor to the absent ones, and must go back to that disreputable hut to live, if life in that shack can be called living.

CHAPTER IX

NEPHI—FLOWER AND FRUIT—HUNTINGTON CHAPEL—FIRST MINISTER—EARLY TEACHERS—AN ENGLISH LADY—MORMON MISSIONARY METHODS—SHORT PASTORATES—PAYSON—PENNSYLVANIA’S CONTRIBUTIONS—SOLID AND SOLD—AN EXTEMPORIZED CORNER—SEARCH REWARDED—CHURCH ORGANIZED—ABLE TEACHERS—PREJUDICE ALLAYED—SOCIAL LIFE CHANGED.

The town of Nephi is named from one of the characters in the Book of Mormon. It has a population of over two thousand. It is eighty-five miles south of Salt Lake City and directly across the divide twenty miles west of Mt. Pleasant. It is at the mouth of a canyon through which Salt Creek has engineered its way and made it possible for the steam engine to climb across the divide. The narrow gauge and its little sputtering engine of eighteen years ago have given place to the broad gauge and a dignified engine of respectable proportions, with all its belongings.

Brigham Young knew how to locate a town. Water is the life of all this arid country and the town or settlement must gather at the stream. Wisely, therefore, was this settlement made. Our mission accepts the situation and has undertaken to bless the people, bring to them the Word of God, and seek for them the Holy Spirit of which water is the symbol. We have learned that when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon our mission work, there is life, there is verdure, flower and fruit—”first the blade, after that the corn, then the full corn in the ear.”

The first missionary work attempted in Nephi was by the Methodist Church. A school was opened for a year and the construction of a chapel was undertaken. Resources, however, failed and as the enterprise was to be given up it was proposed to sell the unfinished building to our Board. Dr. McMillan met a number of friends in Cleveland, Ohio, and laid before them the proposition to purchase the property. Mrs. Huntington interested herself and friends in the purchase and the property was transferred to us at a cost of one thousand dollars. Additional funds were secured to complete the buildings and fit it for occupancy. Until the completion of the chapel, the mission school was taught in a small adobe building in the rear of the main building, which has since been transformed into a home for our teachers.

It was in the fall of 1879 that Mr. H. C. McBurney opened our first mission school with five pupils. He secured a small increase during the year. The Sunday school outgrew the day school. Mr. McBurney began Sunday evening meetings. Though not a minister of the gospel, he was an earnest Christian man and did all his work with the single purpose of leading souls into the light of the gospel.

When the chapel was dedicated in the fall of 1880 it was called the “Huntington Chapel,” in honor of the Christian woman to whose interest and zeal it owed its existence. At the request of Cleveland friends, Mrs. Huntington was present at the dedication and witnessed the consummation of her earnest efforts in behalf of this mission enterprise. Dr. McMillan continued occasional preaching service until the Rev. Charles Fraser took charge of the mission in June, 1880. Mr. Fraser devoted himself earnestly to preaching and visiting and the general oversight of the mission until 1884. He secured the construction of a belfry and, from friends in the East, a bell, ready to be used. “The night after the bell was hung the chapel was fired, and was only saved by hard work.” Mormons did not like the sound of a Presbyterian bell.

The mission school grew in numbers and interest. The Misses Lockwood and McPheeters came in to supply its larger demands. Their work was greatly blessed. On the retirement of Miss McPheeters, Miss Gee, one of Cleveland’s best primary teachers, took the vacancy and continued her labors for six years. In the absence of ministerial help, for several years the teachers conducted regular religious services with acceptance and profit to the people. Four years without a minister put to the test the zeal and capacity of the teachers.

In January, 1888, the Rev. W. N. P. Daley took ministerial oversight of the mission, and remained until 1891. He was succeeded for a few months by the Rev. Josiah McClain, until he was called to the Third Church in Salt Lake City. In March, 1890, during the ministry of Mr. Daley, the Huntington church was organized with twelve members.

An English lady, having passed through all the trials incident to membership in the Mormon Church, had at length been led to place her faith in the only Saviour. This was a return to the Christian faith of her girlhood. In her early life in her English home she had accepted the Saviour. The Mormon missionaries came to her and insisted that her baptism was spurious because she had not been immersed. Her tender conscience was perplexed, troubled, and confused. Not having been instructed in the Scriptures, she was easily bewildered and consented to accept immersion at the hands of the Mormon elder. She was then informed that she was a member of the Mormon Church and that “she must gather with the saints to Zion,” in order to secure all the blessings of the Kingdom. She was helpless in the hands of the artful deceiver, and was led step by step through all the bitterness of death that is realized in a polygamous life. Her faith in Mormonism had at length been destroyed, and when our mission teachers found her she had cast off polygamy as a vile thing—a system of torture. Their coming was at the right time. As messengers from God they pointed her back to the Saviour of her early life. The light came into her heart, and the clouds and horror of the past were swept away. She is to-day one of our devoted members of the church at Nephi.

Her experience is that of thousands of young people in the Christian churches, who have been beguiled by the artful missionaries, who go about to deceive those who have not been grounded in the truth. They generally raise the question of the validity of baptism that has not been administered by immersion at the hands of a Mormon elder. The Mormon elder alone, in his estimation, has the authority to baptize, and his baptism by immersion claims to wash away sin. Hence much of our missionaries’ business is rescue work—to deliver ensnared souls from the thralldom of the Mormon delusion.

Other teachers at Nephi followed up this work so nobly commenced. While engaged in Christian service at Nephi, Miss Gee was educating a young lady who had been brought out of Mormonism and who, after her graduation in the East, rendered noble missionary service while health permitted.

Miss Anna F. Hulburd, now the wife of the Rev. Dr. J. B. McCuish of Leadville, Colorado, came from Park College and joined Miss Gee in mission labor at Nephi until she was called to the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute.

The Rev. O. S. Wilson succeeded Mr. McClain in the Nephi pulpit for three years, and was followed by the Rev. John Wilson, whom the Rev. John D. Stormont has succeeded.

During recent years the church building has been very much improved, and the mission is prosperous. The Brooklyn Church, of Oakland, California, is furnishing a faithful teacher and her support.

We are constantly indebted to Pennsylvania for her benefactions to the home mission cause in Utah. Among her valuable contributions was the gift of the young man, the Rev. J. A. Livingston Smith and his wife. They came to this service in October, 1881, sent by the Home Mission Board. Like all other toilers, they had to take their soundings on arrival, and ascertain where they would be permitted to dwell. Dr. McNiece, of Salt Lake City, passed them on to the Rev. George Leonard, of Springville, for further initiation into missionary service. Mr. Leonard had been exploring farther south in Utah County, and had found a field sufficiently difficult to test the young man. In his investigation at Payson, Mr. Leonard had succeeded in hiring a dance hall from an apostate and infidel. A man with a difficult contract before him is usually glad to welcome a partner. Hence Mr. Smith’s coming brought with it the promise of lifting a heavy burden from the shoulders of our overworked missionary at Springville. The next problem was how to locate a Christian minister in Payson, a town solid and sold to Mormonism. Mr. Leonard had been preaching in that dance hall on alternate Sabbaths for a year, but the town was rid of him the other six days in the week and the hall surroundings furnished small attraction when the missionary did come. But to locate a man seven days in the week could not be considered by the people of Payson.

At that time Payson had a population of nearly three thousand and not a Christian in the town, except the mission teacher, who was struggling with the perplexing business of trying to teach a few pupils in that large, cold hall. So thoroughly determined were the citizens not to permit a Christian minister to locate there that a three-days’ united effort on the part of the two missionaries failed to secure a place of abode. Not even temporary lodging could be had for the missionary and his family in any hotel or boarding house. There were several vacant houses “For rent” but not to a Presbyterian missionary.

Mr. Leonard finally gave up what to him seemed a hopeless effort and advised Mr. Smith to retire and seek labor in some of the other open fields. But the young man had come to stay, and on the fourth day he obtained permission of the infidel owner of the dance hall to partition off a part of the hall and occupy a corner of it. He moved his wife and two small children into this extemporized shelter where he remained for a year, preaching “in his own hired house,” such as it was. Mission school and Sunday school were regularly carried forward in the hall, praying and waiting for the next thing to come. And it came. He kept up the hunt for a site on which to erect a building suitable for the mission. He was refused six different places, one after the other, that were advertised “For Sale,” to any other than a Christian minister and for any other purpose than a mission.

About the first of April, 1882, his long search was rewarded. An apostate Mormon of Rock Springs, Wyoming, who had gotten away from the tyranny of the priesthood, had a block ten rods square very well located, which he could not carry away with him. He learned that Mr. Smith was looking for a location on which to build a chapel and, although “not very religious,” he was ready to accommodate our missionary. The property was secured, and by November he had erected a substantial manse and house of worship at a cost of five thousand dollars. He drew the plans, superintended the construction and wrought daily with his own hands.

By August of the next year, the nucleus of a church had been gathered, and on the nineteenth of the month, 1883, eleven members with one elder were organized by the Presbytery, as the First Presbyterian Church of Payson. Mr. Smith continued his labors at Payson until the spring of 1887 when, for reasons of health, he took the superintendence of building several churches and the Hungerford Academy.

The chapel at Payson was arranged for two teachers and has been constantly used. The mission has been fortunate in securing able teachers and helpers to the minister. Miss Wheeler came in the dark days, the first teacher. Miss Woodruff had to corral her little company in the old dance hall. The chapel then opened its doors and welcomed the mission school. The Misses McCullough and McNair, Mrs. Sullivan and daughter, and Miss Sammons and their assistants have wrought faithfully and effectually.

The Rev. W. A. Hough succeeded Mr. Smith; then came the Rev. A. C. Todd, a noble servant of God. He was followed by the Rev. W. S. Smith, and the Rev. Messrs. Howard and John Wilson. The Rev. S. I. Ward is the present minister. Twenty members were given letters to organize a church at Benjamin, three miles away. This church is cared for by the Payson pastor and is making itself felt in the community.

CHAPTER X

A NEW MESSAGE—SMALL AUDIENCE—AN ATTRACTION—SPANISH FORK—THE CARPENTER SHOP—SALOONS CLOSED—MISSION AT KAYSVILLE—DEPLETED TREASURY.

SPRINGVILLE is one of our most interesting fields for Christian effort. It is fifty miles south of Salt Lake City, located on a broad plateau, rising gradually toward the mountains on the east. There is a population of more than three thousand.

The town was early settled and had its share of horrors in the days when human life was worth nothing, when questions of religion were before the ruling authorities of Utah. It is a joy to turn from the fearful history of those days to the introduction of the gospel and the progress that has marked the efforts of the minister and mission school teacher.

It was in June, 1877, that the Rev. George W. Leonard visited Springville and adjacent towns and began preaching the gospel. It was a new and startling message that he brought to the people—that no man, priest or prelate, could come between the soul and God. He was met by the usual difficulty of finding a place that he could call home and church. The long and lurid representations concerning Christian ministers had filled the minds of the people with serious apprehensions over the coming of our missionary. A diligent and protracted search, however, finally secured for him “a small one-story adobe building with two rooms, eleven by twelve feet each,” as a house of worship. Though inadequate in size and adaptation, he could control it and give his message. One could scarcely conceive of a more discouraging beginning but it was according to God’s method—”The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.”

Mr. Leonard was himself somewhat in keeping with these modest beginnings—quiet, undemonstrative, humble, patient, persistent. He came with no flourish of trumpets but he came to toil. Like the still small voice, his quiet life spoke to the deepest thought of those to whom he gave his message.

His audience at the beginning of his ministry was little larger than the Master’s at the well of Samaria, but those present went out to speak to the people of a man that told them some things, if not all the things that they did. Two months later the missionary began preaching at Payson. He must needs go through Spanish Fork, and that resulted in occasional services at this latter place. For Mr. Leonard to see an opening was to insure his entrance.

A Sabbath school was organized at Springville in the beginning of his ministry, small at first, but rapidly enlarged. The children discovered the interest of our missionaries in their pupils. The fresh instruction, the attractive hymns, and the entire service took hold of them and drew them to the missionaries, crowding the services.

In the autumn of the same year Miss Anna Noble, from Cedar Rapids, opened a day school with thirty-eight pupils in the same little building. This was the beginning of her missionary labors in Utah. Her school grew rapidly but the school room did not. After a time the leaking roof made the room so uncomfortable that the teacher had to retire temporarily, but again took up her work and was assisted by Miss Mattie Voris. Changes brought Miss Eugenia Munger, Miss T. A. Wray, now Mrs. Theodore Lee, and others. For Mr. Leonard had secured means from the East and completed a larger building, furnishing room for the constantly growing school. The chapel was dedicated on Christmas, 1879.

The services in the new chapel were making an impression on the community, and on the fifteenth of March a church of eleven members was organized by the Presbytery of Utah. The educational department of the mission developed rapidly in the new chapel until a third teacher was demanded to care for one hundred pupils. An enlargement of the chapel became necessary and, with the kindergarten department, fifty more pupils were added.

Mr. Leonard had in the mean time secured the location of the Rev. J. A. Livingston Smith at Payson as already noticed, and had opened a mission school at Spanish Fork under the care of Miss Lucy Perley of Washington City. Mr. Leonard preached in Spanish Fork every Sabbath afternoon. His service was preceded by a Bible class taught by Miss Perley. This labor was added to his earnest pastoral work at Springville. In the mean time Mrs. M. P. Hungerford, of Westfield, N. Y., had been interested in Christian education in Utah. The rapid progress of the pupils at Springville and their advancement in the higher studies made necessary some arrangements for academic work. Mrs. Hungerford had sufficient faith in the efforts of the Home Mission Board and the Woman’s Board, to investigate conditions and necessities, and to generously donate five thousand dollars for the erection of the academy.

Mr. Leonard had carried the responsibility and labor of this wide field; had secured the arrangements for the erection of the academy; had done his work well and nobly, often using his own meagre salary to meet financial exigencies in the school. He was suddenly laid aside, and called on Thanksgiving Day, 1885, to the rest beyond. His work had been a preparation for larger and better things. He laid the foundations well. His wife remained some years to care for the children God had given them and to start them in their life work, and then followed on “to be forever with the Lord.” These workers ceased, but the work has gone on, growing in power, gathering pupils to this educational centre from the adjacent towns.

The Rev. Theodore Lee came to Springville in 1887, and remained in charge of the church till transferred to Spanish Fork in 1891. In the mean time the Rev. J. A. Livingston Smith had been put in charge of the erection of the academy, had completed the building, and had been employed as principal, holding that position for a number of years.

The Rev. C. M. Shepherd succeeded Mr. Lee and during his ministry secured the erection of the present beautiful house of worship. The Rev. A. C. Todd followed Mr. Shepherd, and laid down his life among the people. The Rev. R. Cooper Bailey, Ph.D., spent several years as pastor of the church, and is now followed by the Rev. T. C. Smith, D.D. A long roll of teachers has toiled, whose record is on high. Principal Charles F. Romig, with his six able assistant teachers, is now contributing to the educational and moral up-lift of the one hundred and thirty-eight pupils and the people of Springville.

As already stated, Mr. Leonard had inaugurated the work at Spanish Fork by securing Miss Lucy Perley as mission teacher and by preaching regularly on the afternoon of each Sabbath. In March, 1891, the Rev. Theodore Lee was transferred from Springville, to give all his time to Spanish Fork and Salem. Miss Perley had opened her school in an old carpenter shop which had been leased for two years for school purposes. She taught for six weeks with one pupil. She gave much of her time to visiting among the people, making their acquaintance, gaining their confidence, and ministering comfort as far as possible. Her service took strong hold of the people, but the lack of facilities crippled her best efforts. She closed her first term in the mission school with eight pupils. The old carpenter shop, unplastered, with wide open cracks, made the shell of a building almost uninhabitable.

Finally a lot was purchased with a small dwelling-house. The lower part was converted into a church and school room, and the upper part became the home for teachers. Abundant relief came when the Presbytery of Washington contributed the means to build a substantial brick chapel large enough for a school of fifty or sixty pupils in the two rooms that can be thrown together for preaching purposes.

Though the school was closed several years ago, Mr. Lee has gone forward with his work, with a Sabbath school of ninety pupils.

Mr. and Mrs. Lee have exerted a large and salutary influence upon the young people. The reading room, the mothers’ meetings and temperance meetings have touched almost all sides of the social and religious life of the people. At one time they succeeded in closing the saloon traffic, but the cupidity of the corporation at length opened the saloons for a price. The Hungerford Academy at Springville, six miles distant, gathers some of its pupils from Spanish Fork.

Kaysville is the half-way station between Salt Lake City and Ogden. No permanent educational work was undertaken at this place until January, 1882. Miss Ella McDonald came in September but was unable to find a location to begin work until January. An acre and a half of ground was then secured with a small adobe cottage. The teacher fitted up one room for herself and the other for a school room. On the sixteenth of January the mission school was fairly opened, and for five years this faithful teacher toiled and wrought her life into the life of her pupils. The Sabbath school was opened with the day school. On the retirement of the first teacher, others followed.

For a time the minister at Ogden supplied the preaching service. In 1887 the Rev. E. M. Knox, who had done an important work at Malad City, was transferred to Kaysville. He at once put his hand to the work of securing a chapel and within a year had succeeded in erecting a building well adapted to our use. On the twentieth of October, 1892, a church of eleven members was organized. The mission school entered the new building and at once two teachers were demanded for the growing school. Prosperity attended the mission until the depletion of the mission treasury could supply only one teacher. The number of pupils was reduced one half. The mission, however, has been continued and, when Mr. Knox’s health made it necessary to retire, a successor was secured. The Rev. H. H. Davis is carrying forward the mission.

CHAPTER XI

A TRAGEDY—BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD—A LIGHT-HOUSE—SEED-SOWING—A SAVED ONE—WORTH OF A SOUL—TOQUERVILLE—CEDAR CITY—PAROWAN—EVANGELISTIC EFFORT—CHANGING—BEGINNING TO THINK—COMING TRIUMPH.

A brief story must yet be told of our home mission work in southern Utah. On reaching that part of the State, one finds conditions very different from those in northern Utah. The old superstitions of forty years ago still hang like a heavy fog in the atmosphere. Southern Utah has been the scene of the darkest tragedy of this continent, which has been already referred to. While the forces that wrought the crime of the Mountain Meadows Massacre originated in the incarnate tyranny that resided in Salt Lake City, the enactment of the horrible scene was pushed off to southern Utah, to be kept as far out of sight as possible.

Our most southern mission, at St. George, is a day’s travel beyond the Mountain Meadows. It is in a wide and fertile valley watered by the Virgin River, into which the Santa Clara empties. St. George, seven miles north of the Arizona line, is in a basin near the immense rocky reefs on the north. The mid-day, from June to October, is excessively hot, reaching to 115° above zero, but the evenings are cool and pleasant. Tropical fruits grow abundantly. St. George is a fine winter resort, and would be thronged with seekers for health, if it were accessible. Brigham Young had a winter home in the town, where he found respite from the rigors of the winters in northern Utah. The first of the four temples of Utah was built here. Here all the signers of the Declaration of Independence appeared to President Woodruff for two nights in succession, as he reported, and begged him to do vicarious work for them while they were in the intermediate state. The benevolent old gentleman said he yielded to their urgent entreaties and was baptized for them and rescued them from their lost state. He affirmed that they were now Mormon elders (Dr. Witherspoon included), preaching to the other lost spirits.

The reader will conclude that there was need of Christian missions in the midst of such heathenism. Acting under the pressure of such necessity our first mission school was opened at St. George on October eleventh, 1880, with a Miss Stevenson as teacher. The Rev. A. B. Cort had come to Utah to engage in home mission work. He asked the Presbytery for the most difficult field and was unanimously voted a position at St. George. The school had been located in the first ward, which was a moral refrigerator. Pupils could not go to school in open daylight without being seen. Hence they did not venture to go. Understanding the situation, Mr. Cort purchased a building in the third ward of the town, quite removed from the close inspection of the priesthood. Within a month fourteen pupils were enrolled. Mr. Cort was a vigorous worker as his choice of fields would indicate. He pushed out into the town of Washington, five or six miles away, and north to Toquerville, twenty-five miles distant, and opened work at both places. In Washington he purchased the house in which had resided Bishop John D. Lee, the man who led the murderous crew at Mountain Meadows, and who had been executed for his crime. Little was accomplished at Washington but our mission at St. George has stood as a light-house on a dangerous coast. Mrs. Blackburn and her daughter gave seven years of noble Christian living and teaching in this intensely Mormon town. Miss Catharine R. Watt, who had been a missionary in Africa for years and who was an accomplished teacher, followed. She was succeeded by the Rev. Galan Hardy and his wife who entered the work in October, 1893, and continued until the death of Mr. Hardy in 1898.

In May, 1899, the Rev. George W. Martin, D.D., the Rev. E. L. Anderson, and the writer pitched their gospel tent in St. George, and for three weeks conducted daily meetings, answering questions before the audience, and visiting the families during the day. It was a seed-sowing time. Many of the people, who had kept themselves aloof from our mission, heard the truth. In 1901, May twelfth, it was our privilege to dedicate our first house of worship there. Our former religious services had been conducted in the half-story attic of the mission house. A few souls had been led to the Master and had learned to know Him. They are as brands plucked out of the burning. We are not measuring the success of our labors in Utah by the number of converts, but by the steady attrition of the gospel on the Mormon system, and by the priceless value of the precious ones here and there that God is calling out of darkness.

Just here it is worth while to hear one speak who has been thus redeemed, and is to-day doing the work of one of our mission stations. She says:¹

“I have heard this question discussed, ‘Should not the Presbyterian missionaries withdraw from the work among the Mormons, since the conversions are so few?’

“I often wonder what would have become of me if the missionaries had never come to Utah. I am a child of the third wife, for my father was a polygamist. Do I not know something about Mormonism? My heart goes out in gratitude to God and His colaborers, when I think from what I have been saved, and not only myself, but some of my loved ones.

“I well remember when I first heard that there was a Presbyterian school in St. George. I was about eight years old, and great was my surprise to know that there were people who were not Mormons. My father, who desired his children to have the advantage of the best schools, took us from the Mormon school and placed us in the Presbyterian school. As I was daily carefully taught by the missionary teachers in the Bible and saw their Christ-like lives, I began to think that they had something better than the Mormons.

“Until I was sixteen years old I thought I was a strong believer in the Mormon religion. I was a member of that Church and attended all their meetings and took part in them. Through the kind aid of Mrs. B., I attended Hungerford Academy. Here God’s Spirit finished its work of convincing me that Mormonism is not true, and I united with the Presbyterian Church some twelve years ago.

“My parents were not pleased with this last step, as they feared ill treatment, and asked me to keep it a secret. I did so, as I went East that summer to spend four years at school. When I returned home, at the request of the minister I conducted the Sabbath school, and it was then known where I stood.

“If there was any one thing which convinced me more than another that Mormonism is not true, it was in comparing the lives of the mission teachers with the lives of the Mormons. I hear much about the work in Utah being discouraging.

“There may be cause for being discouraged yet I doubt whether there is a mission field in Utah where there have not been some conversions. Am I selfish? I may be, yet I cannot help feeling that the salvation of my soul was worth all the money spent at St. George, and the sacrifice of the missionaries, when I consider from what I have been saved—Mormonism with all its satanic teachings and practices.”

These appealing words from a redeemed one, now toiling to bring to others the truth that saved her, ought to go to the hearts of those who are complaining of the small results of missions in Utah.

The Toquerville mission, twenty-five miles north of St. George, has been a most difficult field. Miss Fannie R. Burke entered the mission school in this town in 1881 and continued for ten years. She is making her home among the people to-day, though the school has been closed for several years. The bishop has ruled the town with a rod of iron. At one time George Q. Cannon required all the children to leave the school. Miss Burke continued at her post and rang the bell regularly for three months without a pupil. Finally they returned one by one and her work went on. But she suffered many indignities and such bitter opposition that the mission school was closed. Miss Burke has, however, remained and conducted a Sabbath school, having a few pupils. An effort was recently made to reopen the school but without success.

Cedar City and Parowan, yet farther north, have been united as one field, though nineteen miles apart. Cedar City is the most important town in southern Utah, with its sixteen hundred inhabitants and its branch of the State Normal School. There are between two and three hundred young people in this institution and the building has recently been enlarged. It will now be able to accommodate two hundred more. Our Board owns a valuable lot well located near the centre of the town. Miss Hartford opened school here in 1882, but on account of the financial embarrassment of the Board in 1885 the school was closed. It has never been reopened. The Rev. T. L. Leverett spent three years, commencing in 1894, preaching here and at Parowan; but, having no house of worship at Cedar City, nothing beyond a Sabbath school was brought into organized form. Two years ago we pitched our gospel tent in the town and for three weeks scattered the word of life—preaching and visiting the families.

Mission work was commenced at Parowan in 1880. The Rev. W. C. Cort began religious services in the spring of that year, having purchased property, and continued until 1884. The Rev. P. D. Stoops took the service in 1885 and continued until 1890. He was followed later by Mr. Leverett but for several years there has been no regular preaching. For three summers we have held meetings with our gospel tent. Out of these meetings has been organized a small church, but it has had only such ministrations as the Synodical Missionary could give.

The mission work has been carried on by the faithful teachers, of whom we have had the goodly number of fourteen. They have conducted the Sabbath school, prayer meetings, and Bible meetings. One young man who came through the mission school is now in McCormick Seminary preparing for the ministry. Both Parowan and Cedar City have been lifted immensely above the plane which they occupied in 1857, when their church officials organized the company that committed the crime of the Mountain Meadows. Christian missionaries are now permitted to do their work in safety, and their presence is a constant check to the immorality of Mormon communities.

It was in the winter of 1886 and 1887 that the Home Mission Board sent the present Synodical Missionary from his work in Kentucky to assist our Utah missionaries in evangelistic effort. He reached Salt Lake City the latter part of November, and for three weeks held two meetings each day in the First Church. Between twenty-five and thirty members were received into the church. Special meetings with two services generally each day were held in the Westminster Church, in Ogden, Brigham, Payson, Mt. Pleasant, and Logan. Those were days of excessive labor, in which a hundred and forty sermons and Bible readings were given. Very precious results followed this work. In 1888, by invitation of the Presbytery a visit was made to the meeting of that body then in session at Payson. A series of nine lectures was given on “Bottom Facts” (or Evidences of Christianity). In the spring of 1890, March fifteenth, by request of Presbytery and agreement of the Board, permanent service was entered upon as missionary in this Synod.

For fourteen years this work has been prosecuted. There is no room in this booklet to present the dealings of God with us during those years. They have been years of blessed toil, high privilege, and constant occupation of voice and pen—to be recounted, perhaps, at some future day.

The changes that have come to Utah since the coming of the missionaries may be imagined by our eastern friends, but cannot be realized. While Mormon doctrine has not been revised and cannot be without breaking down the fabric, yet Mormon practice has so far changed that the leaders of the organization are making strenuous effort to cover up and deny many of the things that were openly taught and practiced when the missionaries first came here.

The younger people are beginning to assert their right to think and speak their thoughts. A prominent gentleman said to us lately,

“I don’t know whether I am a very good Mormon. I am reading some things.”

That is a state of mind that means much, and is becoming somewhat prevalent. Hence, while Utah is not being swept by general revivals of religion, neither are large accessions being made to our churches, yet converts are slowly coming, one or two from a family. The truth of the gospel is making its way down through the fissures of this slowly opening system. In God’s good time it will reach the lowest strata of this obdurate organization, and we or our successors will see such a turning to God as will reward his Church for all her toil and sacrifice.

For more than twenty years the ministers and teachers have spent a week in Bible study and prayer in connection with the semi-annual meeting of Presbytery. The result is a valuable training of our missionaries in that Word which shall not return unto Him void. This Sword of the Spirit, girded on with the harness of “all prayer” is yet to triumph—”I the Lord will hasten it in His time.”

—

1. From the Home Mission Monthly, July, 1903.

CHAPTER XII

A ROD OF IRON—ABUSE OF EARLY MISSIONARIES—INFLUENCE OF OUR SCHOOLS—PROGRESSIVE PUPILS—WESTMINSTER COLLEGE—FROM THE HAYLOFT—MORMON TESTIMONY AT WASHINGTON—DAWNING OF A NEW LIGHT—TIME FOR REINFORCEMENT.

In the very briefest possible way within the limits allowed we have traced the history of home mission work in Utah. As noted, our missionary labor began in perilous times. Brigham Young was ruling the people with a rod of iron. His unrestrained will was law. He was flaunting his insults in the face of the United States Government and denouncing her authorized officials. Bishop John D. Lee was walking at liberty in southern Utah, with the blood of the murdered emigrants of the Mountain Meadows on his hands, giving account of none of his matters. Non-Mormon citizens were walking in the middle of the streets in Salt Lake City after nightfall to avoid assassination.

When our mission teachers came Apostle Taylor denounced them in the tabernacle, and the people were warned against any association with them. Two young ladies were sent to open work at Filmore. Soon after reaching the place they went to the Mormon meeting on a Sabbath. After the bishop had finished his discourse he said,

“I will not close this meeting till I have dressed down the Presbyterian missionaries.”

He then informed the congregation that the missionaries were vile characters sent out to corrupt and destroy the young men.

It was under such conditions as these, and with such receptions of our missionaries as were seldom met even on the foreign field, that our first toilers began their labor.

That day has passed. The consecration of our missionaries, men and women, their courage and fidelity, with God’s blessing, have transformed all our environments. Not that we have already attained, nor that we have reached conditions such as we desire and expect, but in important respects we have a new Utah to-day.

As already noted, our mission schools became the germ of the public school system which is now stimulating the young people of Utah. Our own mission movements grew from the beginning. Station after station was opened, church after church was organized. We have had over twenty-three hundred pupils in our mission schools at one time. They have done their work with the Bible in their hands. They have been led out of darkness into light. Travelling with a young man some years ago, he said,

“My wife was educated at Mt. Pleasant, and I am greatly indebted to your missionaries. I would give anything if I could have had such privileges.”

Holding a meeting in a neglected mining town in Wyoming, and visiting from house to house, a young wife greeted me cordially, telling me what the mission school in Utah had done for her. All over Utah and adjoining States we are finding homes that carry the light which was kindled in our mission schools. From one of our schools that has been closed for many years, comes the statement that there were twenty pupils who, having aspired to a higher and better knowledge of life, have had varying degrees of success. Seven of these became church members. Six entered eastern colleges. Three have been appointed to Utah mission fields.

Our thirty-three mission schools which have been opened at one time and another since the work began, with our four academies, now doing full and effective work, have exerted an influence for the betterment of social and spiritual life in Utah that cannot be measured. They have furnished us some of our best mission teachers, and sent others into the public schools, and are giving us ministers of the gospel. They have created a demand for, and at length have secured, the Westminster College, founded by Dr. Sheldon Jackson, which is to be the crown of our noble Christian educational work in Utah.

From the little company of believers in that hay loft, in those trying times thirty-three years ago, God has given us three Presbyterian churches in this city, and twenty-two beyond. From Logan in northern Utah, these churches extend in one line of light, almost to the southern border of the State. God has been answering prayer all these years, giving us souls, and bringing to naught the counsel of the wicked. Some of the events that have threatened our work have turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. Not the least of these was the thrusting of the Mormon apostle into the Senate of the United States. This was to our shame and dismay, but has proved to our nation an education for which we had long toiled but failed to secure.

On the testimony of the President of the Mormon Church, and one of his apostles, the nation learns that these men have disobeyed God and the laws of their own State, and publicly declare that they purpose to continue this flagrant rebellion against God and man. Senator Hoar, in questioning Apostle Lyman, said,

“You confess that you are now living, and expect to live in disobedience to the law of the country, the law of your church, and the law of God?”

To this question the apostle replied, “Yes.”

He testified as to when a revelation is to be obeyed—only when it is the wish of the people. It is never a revelation till the people consent that it shall be.

It was as important that these facts should be known by the people of the Mormon Church as by the Government. The facts have produced a sensation in Utah. Many of the people had honestly believed that these revelations came straight from heaven, and that neither the authorities of the Church, nor the people dared modify or disobey them. A new light has dawned upon the plain, honest Mormon people. If they are able to receive the logic of the position taken by President Smith and Apostle Lyman, it must shatter the false teaching of the doctrine of continuous revelation. When that is broken down, and these witnesses have logically accomplished that much, the system will have nothing left. We may yet expect the people to be liberated from the bondage of seventy years of superstition.

Hence now is the “set time” to re-enforce our home mission work with men and their support. It is time for our whole Church to appreciate the long, arduous, and blessed toil of her missionaries, and to understand that the Mormon hierarchy has been blindly led to make such a breach in their supposed impregnable walls as can never be repaired.

“A better day is coming,
    A morning promised long,
When girded Right, with holy Might
    Shall overthrow the Wrong;
When God the Lord will listen
    To every plaintive sigh,
And stretch His hand o’er every land
    With justice by and by.

“Oh! for that holy dawning
    We watch, and wait, and pray,
Till o’er the height the morning light
    Shall drive the gloom away;
And when the heavenly glory
    Shall flood the earth and sky,
We’ll bless the Lord for all His word
    And praise Him by and by.”

Minor adjustments were made to formatting and placement of pictures.

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The Mormons, by Samuel E. Wishard, D.D.

THE MORMONS

FOREWORD

AUTHOR’S PREFATORY NOTE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

See also

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