# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1855 08 14_S206
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

206

they are released from the purgatory, resembling the Catholic, in which they have come to repentance and to a longing for the blessings of baptism. Their Lord’s Supper is like that of the Reformed, save that they use water instead of wine, since a revelation forbids them the use of wine, which comes from the “heathen,” and they themselves have as yet been unable to plant any vines. It is distributed to all every Sunday by the bishops.

The priestly government falls into two classes: the Aaronic order and the higher order of Melchisedek. The former class should properly consist of actual descendants of Levi; since, however, the Jews have not yet been converted, the functions of this order are meanwhile performed by members of the higher grade. The priestly government receives the tenth part of all property which one entering the “church” possesses, and of all the income of the church members, who moreover must devote every tenth day of their time to the building of the temple and other public works. To the “Seer” Brigham Young two other presidents, “of equal power, but not of equal gift of revelation,” are set at his side for the government of the “church.” After them the college of apostles, which has the oversight and extension of the outlying congregations, has the most standing. Then come High Priests, Priests, Elders, Bishops, Teachers, Deacons, and the missionaries of the three “Colleges of Seventies.” Each of these grades forms a court of justice for its district, from which in difficult cases appeal may be made to a higher one. The supreme decision is to lie in the hand of the whole church, which in fact, however, is ruled only by the Seer, who also uses the priests subject to him quite diligently as spies, to bring him word of every innovation, every doubt, censure, or plan against his will, so that he may at once take his measures against it.

That the Mormons, like so many other would-be orthodox, are Chiliasts, we have already heard. Indeed, the final purpose of all their institutions and demands is the preparation for a thousand years’ kingdom of Christ on earth. The first and holiest duty of all “Saints of the Latter Days” in this respect is the emigration to Utah. When this is completed, and the Mormon Gospel has been preached to all nations and tongues, a season of great wonders begins. The lost ten tribes of Israel, who now dwell on a still undiscovered island, or, as others will have it, in a mysterious land beyond the polar circle, will, like the dispersed of Judah, return to Jerusalem, and there rebuild the temple. Then the whole world, so far as it does not belong to the “Believers,” will rise against them, and besiege the holy city with a great army. But the Spirit of grace and of prayer will be poured out upon its inhabitants, and Christ, whom they formerly crucified, will place himself at their head. Led by him, they will lay low all the “heathen” in a mighty battle. This triumph of the Jews is followed by a general overthrow of things in Europe as well as in Asia. Christ becomes King of the children of Israel, Jerusalem his capital, the centre of the old world. The courts of Paris, London, Petersburg, Rome and Vienna must submit to the Messiah as their liege lord, or their thrones will be overturned, their realms destroyed. — While the thousand years’ kingdom is thus set up in the East, the Western land is witness of no less revolutions and new formations. Here Jehovah, after the previous destruction of the “unbelievers,” will gather the Lamanites, the aboriginal inhabitants of America, “this remnant of the seed of Joseph,” about the city of Zion or New Jerusalem built by the “Saints of the Latter Days” in Missouri, and convert them in one day. In this capital city will be his second great sanctuary, and in it the throne from which he governs the western half of the earth. There the Messiah will gladden them from time to time with personal visits, and with him will come all the raised-up saints of antiquity. The city of Zion with its temple and its priesthood will be like a standard, the setting up of which will put an end to all divisions and sects of a religious and political kind, and will transform all republics, kingdoms, provinces, peoples, tribes and tongues of North and South America into one great confederacy. A union also of the hitherto separated continents will then take place. The sea will disappear, and all islands and mainlands will be “married together,” so that from the eastern to the western Jerusalem the great highway can be built, which “the lion has not trodden, nor the eagle’s eye seen.” — At the end of the thousand years’ kingdom the evil spirits will be permitted for a short time to show their rebellious spirit under the leadership of Satan, but at last they will be defeated in a great battle, and cast out of the realm of the “righteous.”

With such abomination in the whole doctrine of Mormonism, it can naturally not fail that in the life of its adherents also the most hideous fruits are found. To these belongs above all the polygamy introduced among them, which has long been laid to their charge, and to which they have now for fully two years openly confessed, nay, in newspapers and other printed writings preach it as the fulfilment of a divine commandment, being even so impudent as to assert that Christ also was married, and indeed to three wives. They teach that marriage was instituted to create an especially holy people, and to fill the earth with spiritual creatures. The more a man contributes to the filling of the world with spiritual beings, the greater will his reward, his blessedness and glory be hereafter. To facilitate this, they say, polygamy is permitted. Once, every Mormon is to marry. The woman cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven without a husband who introduces her as belonging to himself. Every marriage must be performed by a priest. He who takes a second or third wife besides the first is “sealed” with her. Such a sealing, which can be performed only by the “Seer,” who also has the power to divorce, gives equal rights and duties as marriage. Every unmarried woman has the right to ask a husband for herself of the presidency, and he may not be refused her, since indeed her future blessedness depends upon it. The president has the authority to give command to the first comer who seems to him suitable to take the lonely one, or he may also “seal” her to himself. If in the former case the person concerned has no inclination to consent, he must give an acceptable reason, or run the risk of being punished for insubordination. Sometimes it also happens that the “Seer” objects to sealings which are to be undertaken from “unworthy motives.” In some cases several wives occupy the same house, nay, the same room. More commonly, however, the sealed are lodged outside the house, where they often support themselves by women’s work. — When the “battles of the Lord” begin, the wives of the “heathen,” as far purer beings, will be spared in great number for the “Saints,” while the men are swept away by pestilence and sword. Many will then see themselves compelled to choose the same man, in order to secure here a domestic hearth and deliverance from destruction, and hereafter blessedness and kingly honor. The departed “Saints,” namely, become divine kings, their wives queens; but which of the many is the first? is still undecided, as also from what man the widow of several Mormons will be introduced into heaven. That the women, who so often must share their rights with dozens of sealed ones, do not feel altogether too well in it goes without saying. Even the wife of the “Prophet” Joseph set herself against this innovation, but the answer given her was, “that a prophet must obey the Lord.” In general the Mormons know how to adorn this their system of whoredom by the most shameful misuse of many Bible passages, and by the pretense that only by this arrangement can the corruption of morals prevailing in the world be checked!

The reports of all travelers complain further of the frequent swearing and cursing of the Mormons, of which even the governor, president, seer and revelator Brigham Young is not ashamed in the pulpit. They excuse themselves with this, that in doing so they never use the name of God, which is strictly forbidden, except in the exercise of the ban, which among others has also been exercised upon the former head Sidney Rigdon, and otherwise on particularly solemn occasions. At social gatherings and evening entertainments, to implore the blessing of the Almighty upon the wildest waltzes, galopades, etc., in which even the highest dignitaries take the most active part, is