MORMON MUMMERIES | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 24, 1880

MORMON MUMMERIES.

THE so-called exposure of the secrets of the Mormon Endowment House by the Salt Lake Tribune has caused considerable comment. It is, perhaps the most disgusting picture of polygamy yet presented. The ceremonies consist of the most senseless and indecent mummeries that can be conceived. God and his angels are personated in the performance, as well as the devil and his imps. The room is painted to represent Heaven, and those about to be initiated must enter it in stocking feet, and with bowed heads and abject demeanor. The Apostles, of course, need not be so particular. They can enter without ceremony. Grips, signs and passwords are given, some of them most nonsensical, and all of them indecent. The woman's dress, if dress it can be called that covers nothing, is something similar in shape to the bed-gowns worn by our grandmothers, except that it is without any fastenings, and the man's dress is

about equally absurd and indecent. The man is told that he must enter Heaven through his own good deeds and the faithful performance of his duties to the Church, and that the more wives he has the more fit for celestial blessings he will become. The woman is informed that her husband is her God, and that it is to him alone that she must look for admission into the Heavenly regions. Pity it is that people can be persuaded to call such stuff religion, and imagine that by such vulgar and senseless ceremonies they are prepared for the life everlasting. Yet so it is. Every month thousands of new recruits arrive at Salt Lake, some of them, especially the women, apparently educated, intelligent and refined. There is but one remedy. Polygamy and all of its abominations are strictly prohibited by the laws of the United States. Let those laws be promptly and rigorously executed. —San Jose Mercury.