BRIGHAM YOUNG
Brigham Young. By M. T. Werner. (Cape. 21s.)
THERE are certain subjects so full of what is known as " readei interest " that it was, once laid down by a certain competent popular journalist that every paper of his must every day contain an article or a paragraph about- ,e_ach- of them:, Surely if we could penetrate the'secrets of the publishing trade we should find that there were certain subjects which had been coded as able to " carry " any reasonable book—so enthral......' ling that no competent volume upon them was ever rejected.
Of these subjects, any biography of Brigham Young surely contains the cream. For to write about Young is to write about, the founder of Mormonism', Joseph Smith, jun., and to write about Joseph Smith is to write about miracles, martyrdoms,' revivalism in its most sensational forms, to write of religious persecutions, of cries in the night, of strange journeys, of the; migrations of a whiile people across- an alinoit unexplored continent, of the founding of a brand-new community, of, Indian wars, of ambition, of temptation, of immeasurable credulity, and last bUt not least, as far as " reader interest " is concemed,-Of polygamy. But in spite of the interest of the latter subject ; to those who like to see the 'Wheels Of the human heart and mind go round, it is the beginning of Mr. Wemer's book that will prove the most interesting.
We -have. been apt perhaps to think of Mormonism as an isolated phenomenon. But Mr. Werner. brings out the fact' that Joseph Smith, jun., was only a prophet among prophets.: He was, according to his present biographer, the descendant: of an English Puritan who emigrated in 1638 and settled in' Massachusetts, and on his mother's side he came from a fermi of Scotch Covenanters. There ran through his whole fermi a ,strain of " enthusiasm," and visions and dreams had bee common for more than a generation. Asahel Smith,
grandfather, had fits and was &died GrOok-ed-Necked Smith and his theology was said to be as much distorted as his neck His other grandfather, a puritan adventurer, saw visions and burning" lights and described them in a prose that had some--; thing of Bunyan's quality it. When Joseph Smith grew to be a young man the fire of revivalism was burning all across: the settled parts of Ainerica. There were Shakers and Jerkers,:- the end of the world was expected. Men, women and children: prophesied and cried out when the people assembled in some clearing in the woods, lit with the light of bonfires, and heard; some preacher roar out the pains of hell: And in Smith's; case, mixed with all this,Was-a Special aptitude for the'divinini4:
rod and for propitiation by means of black rams. The rod was used for silver and gold rather than for water. Joseph was a handsome_ young man,_ _immensely tall_ and full of physical vitality. Theology was the sole intellectual and aesthetic outlet of his community, and he. must play his part here too, and here too he was ambitious to outdo all the rest. But in spite of its charms he never quite forgot' hiS" black magic. He was too respectable to curse, but an admirable toast of his is recorded. The " Mobocrats " were the angry inhabi- tants who feared the growing Mormon sect. " Here's wishing all the Mobocrats were in the middle of the sea in a stone canoe with an iron paddle ; that a shark might swallow the canoe, and the shark be thrust in the nethermost parts of hell, and the door shut and the key lost, and a blind man hunting for There is almost an Abbey theatre ring about that. One of the prophet's early followers signed himself, " Micheal H. Chandler, Traveling with, and proprietor of, Egypteon mum- mies," and there is much more in the same vein, Hieroglyphics and Tammany block votes for Congress and the Book of the Revelation. Mr. Cape has not, in the exterior of Mr. Werner's book, quite come up to his usual standard of book production.
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