in Utah is the office which Brigham Young has
assigned to the theatre. With the foundations
of the temple not yet raised above the ground,
the theatre is in perfect order. As Mr. Dixon
says: " Young feels inclined to go back upon all
first principles, in family life to those of Abraham,
in social life to those of Thespis. Priests
invented both the ancient and the modern
stages, and if people like to be light and merry,
to laugh and glow, why should their teachers
neglect the thousand opportunities offered by
a play, of getting them to laugh in the right
places, to glow at the proper things? Why
should Young not preach moralities from the
stage? Why should he not try to reconcile
religious feeling with pleasure?"

Accordingly, the Mormon theatre is under
the peculiar care of the high priest and his
family, where his daughters act, and where,
seated in a rocking-chair in the centre of the
pit, he is to be seen surrounded by his elders
and bishops, with their wives and children,
laughing and clapping like boys at a pantomime.
When he chooses to occupy his private box,
one of his wives, "perhaps Eliza the Poetess,
Harriet the Pale, or Amelia the Magnificent,
rocks herself in his chair while laughing at the
play." There are two private boxes at the side
of the proscenium; one is reserved for the
Prophet, the other is for the actresses on duty for
the night, but not immediately engaged in the
business on hand. The plays are short, the
curtain rising at eight and coming down at
about half-past ten; and, as the Mormons sup
before going out, they do not allow their amusements
to interfere with the labours of the coming
day. The bell rings for breakfast at six o'clock,
whether it was theatre night last night or no.
As a Mormon never drinks spirits, and rarely
smokes tobacco, the only dissipation of these
hundreds of hearty playgoers is that of sucking
peaches. Neither within the house nor about
the doors is there any riot or confusion.
No pickpockets, no ragged boys and
girls, no drunken and blaspheming men. Hiram
Clawson, the president of the playhouse, has
made it as near like what he conceives a
playhouse should be, as is possible. Behind the
scenes are every comfort and convenience—
light, space, cleanliness, delicacy; the green- room
is a real drawing-room; the scene-painters
have their proper studios; the dressers and
decorators have immense magazines; each lady,
however small her part in the play, has a dressing-room
to herself. Among the actresses are
three of Young's daughters; for " he does not
think it right to ask any poor man's child to do
anything which his own children would object
to do." The first time that Mr. Dixon saw the
Mormon prophet, pope, and king, was at the
theatre, where the piece was Charles the Twelfth,
and highly enjoyed by the audience. "Where
Adam Brock warns his daughter Eudiga against
military sparks, the whole pit of young ladies
crackled off into girlish laughter, the reference
being taken to Camp Douglas and the
United States officers stationed there; many of
whom were in the house and heartily enjoyed
the fun."

The interference of these United States officers
and soldiers is a very sore point with the
saints. " They cause us trouble," said Brigham
Young; " they intrude into our affairs, and even
into our families; we cannot stand such things,
and when they are guilty we make them bite
the dust."

In person Brigham Young is like a middle- class
Englishman from a provincial town; with
a large head, a broad fair face, blue eyes,
light- brown hair, good nose, and merry mouth. He
was plainly dressed in black, when Mr. Dixon
saw him at the theatre; and he sat with his pale
and pensive wife Amelia, who surveyed the
audience through her opera-glass from behind
the curtain of the box. This perfecting of the
theatre before the raising of the temple is a
type of the whole religious and secular life
of the Mormons; and how, having so much
religion in their blood and bones, they can afford
to dispense on occasions with religious forms
while attending to the service of things which
cannot wait, and to the human needs which are
imperative. Brigham Young's first exhortation
to a troop of emigrants bore on these
preferences. He bade them leave all care for their
souls alone, and not to " bother themselves
much " about their religious duties. " Your
first duty," he said, "is to learn how to grow a
cabbage, and, along with this cabbage, an onion,
a tomato, a sweet potato; then how to feed a
pig, to build a house, to plant a garden, to rear
cattle, and to bake bread; in one word, your first
duty is to live. The next duty, for those who,
being Danes, French, and Swiss, cannot speak
it now, is to learn English, the language of
God, the language of the Book of Mormon, the
language of the Latter Day Saints."

The most wonderful thing in this strange
sect is the rapidity with which it has increased.
Thirty-six years ago there were six Mormons
in America, none in England nor the rest of
Europe; to-day there are not less than two
hundred thousand, twenty thousand of whom
are in Salt Lake City, and a hundred and fifty
thousand in the one hundred and six dependent
settlements. In this space of time they
have drilled an army more than twenty thousand
strong, raised a priesthood, established a law,
a theology, and a social science of their own
profoundly hostile to all reigning colleges and
creeds; all this in the face of the bitterest
persecution. The old saying that the blood
of the martyrs is the seed of the church
has been exemplified in this case as in all
others; and persecution, so far from stamping
out Joe Smith and his half-dozen followers, has
strengthened, raised, and consolidated them into
a powerful nation and a formidable sect. It is
a story as old as time.

The secular doctrines of the Mormons are
chiefly: 1. The freedom of the church, which
is open to all men of every clime, colour,
and race, save the negro, as the descendant
of Cain. 2. Toleration of differences in belief