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Observer, Sept. 1, '71.

in suffering this "lying spirit" to prevail with them, until they are really almost persuaded that it is a light thing in a man to be a fornicator, and unclean, while for a woman to fall from virtue is to be treated as an unpardonable offence. If I search the scriptures from beginning to end I find no such distinction there.

A gentleman once said to me, expressing the generally accepted opinion, "I own that a profligate man is a disagreeable thing, but it is obvious to all that a vicious woman is an infinitely more degrading and disgusting being." I replied to him, "I beg your pardon, Sir. Perhaps you see it so from your point of view, but I am a woman; and I must say that altho' a vicious woman is a dreadful thing, to my mind a profligate man is an infinitely more degrading and disgusting creature." He was quite astonished at my expression of what I truly felt and feel. Probably the revulsion is greater in most minds against sinners of the opposite sex, and women are therefore the more deeply guilty ever to have allowed men to cherish the theory that they (women) do not look with displeasure on vice in men. It will be our duty henceforward, fellow-women, to require, sternly, to require of men that they be pure, to demand it of them as they have hitherto demanded it of us. The history of human life is encouraging inasmuch as it shows that men are not generally slow to come up to the mark of what the women around them require, whether it be in folly or in goodness. See then what a responsibility rests on us.

It is a solemn thing to meet face to face with a multitude of people whom one may never see again, and to confer with them upon such momentous subjects as these. Richard Baxter once said of himself after addressing an audience, "I spoke as a dying man to dying men." It is with something of that feeling that I have spoken to you this evening. I am, as many of my fellow workers are also, a good deal tired and worn out with the labours of the last two years. I do not covet a continuance of work of a public nature, and it may be, as this is the first, so it will be the last time I shall address you. The occasion is therefore to me the more solemn. Knowing that I should meet you here, I have borne you on my heart, in prayer, for many days past, desiring that the Holy Spirit might descend on us here, and that from this hour many may be filled with an undying impulse to obey some higher call of God which may be awaiting us, and to labour each after his power to change the tangled wilderness around us into the garden of the Lord. May we have the happiness of bearing testimony to each other of the reality of this higher call when through God's goodness we meet again, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.'

THE GOOD TEMPLARS.

MANY readears of the E. O. have no doubt heard recently of the Independent Order of Good Templars. We are just now asked to approve an application for the use of a church schoolroom for the purposes of a Good Templar Lodge, and our kind correspondent hopes, ere long, that we shall come into the Order, and thus enable him to " welcome us as a brother." Now and then, too, we are asked as to the desirability of Christians joining this Society. As Good Templarism has only recently been introduced into this country, we shall serve some of our readers by saying exactly what it is. This shall be done by reproducing the words of one who, by Good Templars, is described as "Brother A. H. McMurtry, M.D., Belfast,"

Observer, Sept. 1, '71.

who says "The Independent Order of Good Templars was instituted in New York, in the year 1851. Since that time it has spread over the greater part of the North American Continent, where it has a membership of over half a million, and exercises a corresponding influence for good on the customs and politics of the country. On the 8th of September, 1868, the Order was introduced into England, and has made very gratifying progress there, having now a Grand Lodge and about seventy-five subor dinate Lodges in full operation. On the 13th of August, 1869, it was introduced into Scotland, and its success in that country has been unprecedented in the annals of the Temperance Reformation. During the past sixteen months it has drawn around its standard nearly 30,000 members, about 500 being now admitted weekly, and applications for an extension of its blessings being almost daily sent in to the proper authority from every part of Scotland, On the 20th of October, 1870, the Order was established in Belfast, and a record of the very encouraging progress it has since made in drink-cursed Ireland you will find in the present and two preceding numbers of this Journal. The Order consists of (1) the Right Worthy Grand Lodge of North America, which has supreme control over the entire Order; (2) about forty Grand Lodges, which exercise jurisdiction over and are composed of Representatives from (3) the Subor dinate Lodges, of which there is an unlimited and ever-increasing number. Each Lodge is under the direction of its respective Officers, and is open to persons of either sex, from twelve years old and upwards, on payment of an initiation fee of one shilling and sixpence and an additional subscription of one penny per week. The Order does not adopt the beneficiary system, thus placing no sordid motives before selfish persons to join it. The Good Templars are simply a Temperance Society, carefully and com pletely organized. The Order is not intended to rival nor supplant any existing temperance organization, but is the willing helper of them all. It is not an upstart, but the legitimate result of the growth and develop ment of the Temperance Reform. It is a brotherhood, resting on the basis of Faith in God, Hope in the triumph of God's cause, and Charity towards all mankind, and is banded together for the accomplishment of a great and sacred work. It is this, and nothing more. Abstinence from intoxicating drink is not a mere matter of expediency, but a duty a principle-whose foundation is laid deep down in Science, History and Revelation. The use of alcohol as a beverage in health is a violation of the laws of life, which are the laws of God. It is physically wrong to indulge in alcoholic beverages; and what is physically wrong is morally wrong; and what is morally wrong can never be politically right. And because it is physically and morally wrong to use alcoholic beverages, we believe total abstinence for life our personal duty; and because it is politically wrong to license the manufacture and sale of these drinks, we believe total prohibition our social duty. We grasp the moral aspect of the question with the one hand, and the political aspect with the other, and we go to St. Stephen's and say, 'It is wrong to license an immorality; it is righteousness alone which exalteth a nation, and we therefore demand the power to banish the unrighteous and immoral traffic from the land.' Teetotalism for the individual and prohibition for the State are, therefore, the principles of the Good Templars. Its Policy. -(1) No license in any form, nor under any circumstances, for the sale of intoxicating liquor to be used as a beverage. (2) The absolute prohibition of the manufacture, importation and sale of such a liquor to be used as a beverage prohibition by the will of the people, expressed in due form of

Observer, Sept. 1, '71.

law, with the penalties deserved for a crime of such enormity. (3) The creation of a healthy public opinion on the subject, by the active dissemination of temperance truth in all the modes known to an enlightened philanthropy. (4) The clection of good honest men to administer the law. (5) Persistence in efforts to save individuals and communities from so direful a scourge, against all forms of opposition and difficulty, until our success is complete and universal. This is Good Templar policy. The object of Good Templarism is to reclaim those that have fallen, and to save the young and the sober from falling into the snares of the tempter (or tempters, rather), by a strict and life-long abstinence from all intoxicating drinks as beverages, and the judicious use of all means calculated to strengthen the virtue, promote the happiness, increase the usefulness, and improve the habits and tastes, morally and socially, of the members; to aid all measures calculated to lessen the evils of intemperance; but chiefly to suppress, by legislative enactment, the entire liquor traffic, as the fons et origo of nearly all the crime, disease, pauperism, and other evils. which afflict society."

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Such, then, are the plans and objects of the Good Templars. What do we think of them? That they propose to reduce, obstruct, and, if possible entirely remove one of the baser curses, if not the most desolating curse, which afflict humanity, and we wish them success in their enterprise. Still we have no intention of becoming a brother" in any Order or Association under heaven. Having entered into one brotherhood, that of the Church of Christ, we are content as to brotherhood. There are many Societies whose objects we approve and whose work we would encourage and help forward, but with which we could not unite, as we should then be responsible for their modes of action and, in the estimation of the world, have much placed to our account which could not be made to square. with Christian simplicity, sobriety, and unworldliness. We do not say that the Gospel will destroy every evil. It is quite certain that if Christians keep public-house company we may expect to find them in the gutter, or in still worse places. Let the cause of entire abstinence go on, let the world form its societies for temperance work and recreation. Let every Christian abstain from the drink, and promote the suppression of its traffic; but let the world manage its own societies, while the Church devotes its time to the higher work which the Church only can perform, and for the performance of which it has not half the required strength. It is a good thing that men unite, the world over, to stay the ravages of drink, and we like this Good Templarism, as a worldly institution. But these "Independent Orders" need to popularize themselves by coming down to a vast amount of littleness, perhaps wisely. They form a secret society," have pass-words, signs, grips, knocks, tawdry regalias, and the like, most of which is far beneath the man who knows what the true Church of Christ is, who has a place therein, who has a conception of its work and of the immense need for every member to devote every possible hour and energy thereto, which, as before said, only its members can take part in.

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We, then, are for the existence of Temperance Societies, including all legal movements for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and desire their large success. We urge that the Church be ever careful not to obstruct such work, and that its own influence shall be in the right direction, both should work to the common end the one as a divine the other as human institutions. Let the world govern its own societies and the Church be content with its God-given brotherhood:

Observer, Sept. 1, 1.

SALT LAKE CITY.

"BE sure and spend a Sabbath at Salt Lake City," said a friend whe had just come overland from Boston. Accordingly we commenced our journey homeward on a Thursday morning, and in forty-six hours we found ourselves at Ogden, the terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad. The two hours' rest for breakfast and change of position was very refreshing; then the cars of the Utah Central were ready for the passengers who were to visit the Mormon City. The distance is thirty-six miles, and the time about two hours. The most popular hotel is the Townsend House, and here, although it was already full, we were nicely accommodated. While waiting quietly in the parlour for the dinner hour, before commencing our investigations, a party of young people came in from a reception at President Young's. We were annoyed to find that we were for once just too late; but of course he would be at church the next day, and we should see him there.

After dinner we made our way to the curious, egg shaped Tabernacle, one hundred and fifty by two hundred and fifty feet on the ground, and sixty-five feet from floor to ceiling. Forty-six columns of sandstone support the graceful arched roof, doors and windows filling the spaces be tween the columns. In one end of the building is the organ, higher than the great organ in Boston, but not so wide, built by a Mormon in the city. In front of the organ are rows of seats for the singers, and three speaker's desks. On three sides of the house are galleries, with six stair-cases, entirely separate from the body of the building. In all, there are twentysix doors of egress, and "on one occasion, the house was cleared of fourteen thousand people in six seconds less than three minutes!"

In the lot adjoining the Tabernacle the foundations of the Temple are laid. This is for the use of the Saints exclusively, as I understand it. No Gentile foot is ever to pollute it. The granite of which it is to be built is hauled twelve miles from the mountains, and every block is shaped and numbered at the quarry. The dimensions are about a hundred by a hundred and ninety feet, the main building to be one hundred feet high, surmounted by six towers, the centre ones two hundred and forty feet high, and each tower to be surrounded by twelve spires, emblematic of the twelve apostles. One million of dollars has already been expended, and it will cost several millions more before it is completed, away down in the dim ages yet to come.

From the Temple a short walk brought us to the Museum, where we found beautiful specimens of precious stones, and the rich ores and minerals which abound in the Territory, gold and silver, jasper, onyx and chalcedony, crystals, moss agates, petrifactions and fossils, broken geodes, and one unbroken-why could not that be broken just then and there? It must be opened some day, and it would be so nice to see what is inside!

The city lieth four-square, at the foot of the Wahsatch Mountains, one of whose peaks is seven thousand feet high. The streets are wide and well shaded, and along each side of every street runs a clear stream of water from the mountains. It is laid out in ten-acre lots, divided into four parts, giving to each landholder a corner lot of two and a half acres. The houses are built of stone and adobe, neat and pretty, and not crowded to gether. The old adage is "No house is large enough to shelter two families;" but when two, or three, or four families are compelled to live

Observer, Sept. 1, 71.

under one roof with the paterfamilias, who spends a week with each in turn, how is that for-comfort?

The city is divided into twenty-one wards, each ward containing nine blocks. In some wards there is no school. One thousand children are in schools, several thousand are out. Three teachers visit every family every two weeks, and are quick to discover any uneasiness or dissatisfaction with the system. Every impediment is thrown in the way of those who apostatize. If they wish to leave the city they must sell at a great sacrifice, and if they remain the Saints will have nothing to do with them.

Over their places of business the Mormons have a uniform sign, "Holiness to the Lord," in a semicircle; under this is a huge eye, which the Gentiles call "The Bull's Eye;" then " Zion's Co-operative Mercantile (Banking, or whatever it may be) Institution." One tenth of their profits by merchandise or by farming is to be paid to President Young. The Valley is five hundred miles long, and full of Mormon settlements. "The President has families all over the country, so that wherever he goes he may always be said to be at home."

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After supper the question went around, Are you going to the Theatre to-night?" We are not theatre-going people at any time, and of all times Saturday night! But we found afterward that we had made a mistake. The Ravels were just finishing a three weeks' engagement, and took the same car Eastward with us on Monday. They told us that President Young reserved seats for one hundred of his family. We went to the city to see Mormonism, and there we could have seen it in all its beauty and perfection. We did not care for the Ravels, but we ought to have seen the Madams, and the Masters, and the Misses Young, or a part of them at least, say seventy-five or eighty, and possibly a hundred.

On Sabbath morning there was quite a deputation from the Townsend House. Strangers entered a side-door and were seated in the centre of the body of the church, dividing the Mormon women who occupy that part of the building. The men take the side-seats and galleries. We watched the doors, wondering how many wives the president would escort to church, or whether he would come alone; but I am sorry to say he did not appear at all. A nephew of Joseph Smith occupied the desk. He made a prayer, and the choir sang a hymn; then he began, without any text, invoking the aid of the Holy Spirit, and. drawing what inspiration he might from the faces before him, he rambled on for an hour and a half without imparting much light or comfort. President Young, he said, was good, honest, and kind, a father to his people (which no one doubts), aiming to bring all the poor and unfortunate from Ireland and Germany and Scandinavia out of the thralldom of the old world. Then, taking a leap backward he descanted on Joseph Smith, and his revelation from heaven. "I believe it; I know it to be true. I am commissioned to present it to you, and if you do not receive it you will be damned." Next came the benediction, excluding the Gentiles probably, for how could he bless those whom he had just cursed? And the services were over.

In the afternoon there was a great crowd, women and children greatly predominating. The communion table was spread, and on it were two immense platters of bread and eight large pitchers of water, from which the eight elders filled cake baskets and silver mugs and distributed to the multitude, men, women, and children partaking. Elder Piatt was preaching while the elements were passing, and continued for a long time after. The preachers seem to have the gift of continuance. His subject was,

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