We have been several days in Salt Lake City, with both eyes and ears eagerly open. The air is full of reports and discussions. The whole community feels and acknowledges that a crisis has come in the history of Mormonism. And when a potential idea like this gets a deep lodgment in the public consciousness, it is likely to effectuate itself, whatever may be its origin. But in this case, it is no vague apprehension; it is a definite deduction from definite facts. We have conversed incessantly, along the streets, in the hotels, in the Tabernacle, in the homes of Gentiles and Mormons, and the theme everywhere is the revolution that is sweeping over the Territory, and the virtual downfall of the “Saints.” Not long since, visitors held their breath on these streets while conversing about Mormonism and Brigham Young; now free speech is rampant, and the hosts of miners pouring into the region add an abundance of free swearing against the system. It is our opinion that before long you may hear of some pitched demonstration between the Mormons and the miners. The latter, stalwart and fearless mountaineers, tread these streets with firm feet, as on the soil of “Uncle Sam,” not of Brigham Young; and the latter and all his followers evidently shrink from any untoward provocation. They not only compromise, but cower. A somewhat rapid series of events has produced this change. First, the great transcontinental railroad has broken up the insulation of the Salt Lake Valley. Its community has been thus brought into better relations with the rest of the nation. The people were before helplessly subject to the dictation of Young and his officers. Their suffering women were especially helpless. Now they have the protection of daily widening Gentile sympathy, and a powerful, independent public opinion, and the very foundations of the social system of Mormonism begin to loosen and move. Secondly, the “Godbeite” schism has shocked the system quite generally. Our party heard Godbe and his coadjutors in public, and conversed much with them in private, and their movement has certainly a pervading power not only at Salt Lake, but throughout the Territory. It is not evangelical; it is not reconstructive; it is simply a disintegrating process, but it is indisputably effective in the latter respect. It is quite mixed up with “Spiritualism” and “Rationalism,” but by this very fact it meets, for the moment, the condition of this low, fanatical people (chiefly gathered from the lowest population of Wales, England, and Scandinavia), and, by wrenching them away from Mormonism, may render them accessible to the better religious influences now fast increasing in the Territory. Thirdly, the most specific, most direct agency against the organized abominations of the Territory has been that of the United States Government officials. We all know what deplorable failures and compromises have heretofore taken place in this respect, and what arrogance they inspired in the dominant men here. This policy is now done with. The Government officers attempt no persecution; they say, officially, nothing against the religious opinions of the “Saints,” but they say in the precisest words that the laws of the United States must and shall be executed—that no tampering with them under any pretense, political, religious, social, or any other, shall be tolerated. The Territorial Legislature, being made up of Mormons, has heretofore made Mormon laws, and put the country under Mormon officers; wherever these interfere with the superior laws and functionaries of the United States, the latter are now made to suppress them promptly. The Territorial military force (the famous Mormon Legion) was officered by Mormons; the late Governor Shafer appointed Gentile citizens in command. The present Supreme Judge (Justice McKean) is laying the axe of the law to the roots of things. He is a “just judge,” a conscientious, fearless, dispassionate Christian man, revered for his high personal character and official ability. Some most important and decisive renderings of his court have about settled the fate of Mormonism. Notwithstanding the United States have had a marshal here, Young and his Mormon Legislature have had their own Mormon Marshal, and he has packed the juries with Mormons, so that no justice could be had by Gentiles against Mormons, for perjury has been one of the religious vices of his people. Judge McKean’s first act in his court was to decide that the United States Marshal, not the Mormon one, must provide the juries, and now Gentiles and Jews, as well as Mormons, sit in the jury-box and the law has fair play. The Territory had its Mormon “Attorney-General,” though the United States had appointed, as customary, its Territorial Attorney-General; the two came into official collision before Judge McKean; he decided, of course, that the officer of the United States Government is the only proper Attorney-General, and the Mormon had to retire. He has thus given legal emancipation to the people. Foreign Mormon converts have applied to the court for naturalization. He has read to them the oath requiring them to “satisfy the court” that they will obey the laws of the United States, and then read to them the law against polygamy. As they refuse to acknowledge this law, he promptly refuses to “naturalize” them. Here ends, then, the increase of polygamist voters in the Territory. The Mormon Legislature made, years ago, a law against adultery, in view of the Gentiles. It is terribly severe, imposing a heavy fine and twenty years’ imprisonment. As they made no law against bigamy, the suffering first wife of one of the high ecclesiastic (who has several families) has prosecuted him for adultery. The Judge is about to try the case under their own law and there can be no doubt of the result. We are informed that since this case began, scores of other wronged women have handed in their names to the prosecuting lawyer for similar redress. Thus a direct attack is about to be made on the chief corner-stone of this organized libertinism. Other agencies now growingly powerful here against Mormonism—especially the more evangelical ones—we shall refer to hereafter. The subject has never had more interest for the American public than it just now has, for, as we have said, the “crisis” in its history has come, and the solution of its “problem” is at hand. —The Methodist.