his cigar. The hunter knew that all wild beasts
dread fire; he therefore kindled a wax-light and
placed it on one of the stakes in front of him.
The bear rose on its hind-legs, its breast gored
by the spike on which it had fallen. The hunter
seized his carbine, and, as the bear advanced its
head, discharged his piece full in the monster's
eye, and struck him dead; then he dragged his
body into a corner, and, leaning against it for
warmth, slept until daybreak, when he was
rescued and carried home, wrapped in furs, on a
sledge.

BROTHER BERTRAND, MORMON
MISSIONARY.

WE have had accounts of the Mormons by
apostates from their ranks, as John Hyde; by
avowed enemies, as M. Agènor de Gasparin;
and by travellers trying hard to be impartial, as
Messieurs Remy (a Frenchman) and Brenchley
(an Englishman) in their joint Journey to
Great Salt Lake City. We may now peruse
the pleadings of a convert and missionary,
BROTHER L. A. BERTRAND, who, in his
Memoires d'un Mormon, boldly states his affiliation
to the Latter-Day Saints, and the reasons which
led to his conversion.

Mormonism is so called, because it professes
to be based on a new revelation, the Book of
Mormon, written by the hand of Mormon, in
Egyptian characters, on golden plates, and copied
and translated by Joseph Smith, by the help of
the Urim-Thummim found with the plates.
"The Urim-Thummim," said Joseph's mother,
who saw it, "consisted of two triangular
diamonds enclosed in glass and set in silver, so as
to resemble a pair of ancient spectacles."

And who was Mormon? Well; Brother
Bertrand knows all about Mormon. The Book
of Mormon, he urges, fills up an immense
gap in human knowledge. It reveals to us
the ancient history of America, from the first
colony which reached it from the Tower of
Babel to the beginning of the fifth century
of the Christian era. After the confusion of
tongues, when the human race was dispersed
over the earth, the Israelites, a just people,
having found favour in the eyes of the Eternal,
miraculously crossed the ocean in eight vessels
and landed in North America, where they built
great cities, and formed a highly civilised nation,
with flourishing commerce and manufactures.
But their descendants became corrupt, and were
stricken with terrible judgments. Prophets
arose amongst them from generation to generation,
to reproach them with their perversity,
and announce the final chastisement which
awaited them. Finally, after lasting for fifteen
hundred years, they were annihilated for their
wickedness about six hundred years B.C.

Those first inhabitants of America were
replaced by an emigration of Israelites,
miraculously led from Jerusalem, in the first year of
Zedekiah, King of Judah. They then divided
themselves into two nations, the Nephites and
the Lamanites. Sundry celestial and terrestrial
phenomena had informed them of the death of
the Saviour. They were universally converted
to Christianity, and for three hundred years led
the life of the just. But towards the end of the
fourth century of our era, they were guilty of
backsliding, and chastised accordingly. A terrible
war broke out between the two nations, which
ended with the destruction of the Nephites. Their
last battle was fought around the hill of Cumorrah
(in the State of New York), where the golden
plates were afterwards found, about two hundred
miles west of the city of Albany. Hundreds of
thousands of warriors on both sides were left
dead on the field. All that survived of the
nation of the Nephites were a few individuals
who went over to the enemy, escaped by
flight, or were left for dead. Amongst the latter,
were Mormon and his son Moroni, both just
men.

Mormonism is entirely the growth of the
current century. Its present head, Brigham
Young, was born in 1801. Its founder, Joseph
Smith, born in 1805, seems to have regarded
religion as many engineers have treated
machinery: not finding a religion to his mind,
amidst the numerous sects then struggling for
pre-eminence in America, he set to work somewhat
precociously, to make a new one that
should answer his requirements. At the age of
fifteen, he saw his first vision. At eighteen, misled
by his passions, he committed "many faults,"
and in a fit of repentance saw the heavenly
messenger, who informed him of the existence and
whereabout of the book written on plates of
gold. At twenty-two, he married Emma Hale
—much against the will of her parents, for which
we highly respect her parents. In the autumn
of the same year, the angel allowed him to have
possession of the plates, which were taken back
from him in the May following, after they
had served to accomplish the designs of Heaven.
O Joseph that was an artful "move" of the
plates upward again!

Brother Bertrand fully believes in Joseph
Smith. Mormonism, he repeatedly observes,
is nothing else than the completion of
Christianity by a supplemental revelation. Born
only yesterday, the Latter-Day Saints form the
strongest and most compact religious, political,
and social unity which has ever worked upon the
globe. Borrowed from every nationality, the
Mormons are the body of most faithful believers
at present existing in the world. By their faith,
the colonists of the Great Basin are strong
enough to lift the Rocky Mountains and cast
them into the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Brother
Bertrand, and on the whole we should like to
see them do it.

Brother Bertrand, who was the translator of
the Book of Mormon into French, had led a
tolerably agitated and romantic life. He was born
at Marseilles. His father intended him for the
Catholic priesthood, but the love of travel
thwarted the design. The Mediterranean, the
Antilles, the Cape of Good Hope, North and
South America, were visited before he could