at the last election all the Mormon candidates were carried at the head of the poll by the vote of the one-wived saints.

It is to a continuation of this condition of affairs that President Taylor looks to enable him to baffle the efforts of the United States Legislature.

"If the worst comes to the worst," he said, "we shall be able to carry on. Our population is yearly increasing, and we can always keep a sufficient number qualified by the United States law-should it be established as law-to carry everything. But we don't mean to let matters slide as far as that without a good fight."

At the present time there are several cases pending in the Courts by which it has been determined to test the legality of the action of the United States.

"Their Edmonds Act," the President said, "is ex post facto, and I do not know any civilized country where laws are deliberately so made. The United States say that every one who has entered into marital relations with more than one person shall be disfranchised. Very well; that is a good or a bad law, but in any case it can touch only cases which arise after it has become law. Here there are tens tens of thousands of men who

VOL. I.

8

entered into the state of celestial marriage years before this Act was passed. You can't go back on them and find them guilty of doing what was not declared illegal at the time of the Act. The Commissioners have gone even further. They have imposed an oath as a preliminary to a man or woman voting. But it is against the Constitution of the United States to impose a test oath in respect of the exercise of the franchise. Thus you have the Commissioners performing an illegal act under an unconstitutional law. That's a double plea we shall submit, if necessary, to the Supreme Court of the United States."

The President spoke with great bitterness of the allegation that the people of the United States were chiefly influenced in this crusade by love of morality. Morality, he urged at some length, was best conserved by the peculiar institution of Mormonism.

"But look how this test oath works in the cause of morality," he said. "There is in this city a gentleman of prominent position and blameless life who at one time, though now a widower, lived in a state of celestial marriage. His son was appointed registrar of the district, and when this Act was passed he informed his father that he could not conscientiously enter his name on the register.

The very same day a married man living in open adultery applied for registration, and no objection was taken. He, you see, was not living in marital relation' with more than one woman. The United States, whilst striking at our marriages, carefully leave scatheless the man who keeps a mistress. About the same time a notorious woman at the head of her bagnio applied to be registered, and, this moral law placing no bar in the way, it was done. So much for the morality side of the question."

The President talks with quiet assurance of the future of Mormonism. The Church is increasing in numbers and the State in wealth. There is this cloud which rises over the United States and is even now bigger than a man's hand.

"But," the President says, "we have always had trouble with the world, and things are not nearly so bad now as they were when the blood of Joseph Smith cried freshly from the ground, and we, driven out by Christians, went forth beyond the bounds of civilization. to found a home and a nation. When I used to go out as a missionary and, tramping through some remote, unfriendly country, did not know where I should get a crust of bread for my supper or a covered corner in

which to lay my head, I used to pray to God, and I always had enough to eat. That is what we do now in this time of trial. The world is against us, but we trust in God."

"And keep our powder dry," I said, thinking of the skill with which the weak points in the armour of the United States Legislature had been picked out for attack.

"Yes; that is God's will," the President answered, in the grave, quiet tones he had spoken throughout. "We shall do our best, and never give up the fight as long as a man remains among us. But it will all be His direction, and with the consciousness that we are pleasing Him."

I have throughout given the President's views in his own words; but no description could convey a just idea of the quiet assurance and tone of simple confidence with which they were spoken. This Westmoreland yeoman evidently has faith of a kind that removes mountains; and as it is in measure shared by all his people, the final struggle with Mormonism, upon which the United States are bent, is likely to prove a tough one.

CHAPTER IX.

BY THE GOLDEN GATE.

GRAPES at fivepence a pound are an early and satisfactory indication that we have left the bare brown Sierras behind us, and have reached a valley land flowing with milk and honey. Honey is mentioned here only because it belongs to the quotation. I suppose it is made somewhere in the States, but I have not met with it on any table, nor anywhere seen a beehive. But milk is abundant, and of a quality unknown in London. At the roadside station where grapes at fivepence a pound were dispensed by a benevolent negro wearing a snowy-white apron, milk stood in jugs on a table in company with most excellent custard and apple-tarts, large, flat, and round. The milk having been standing half an hour there was an inch of thick cream at the top, and what followed did not seem to have suffered from this concentration. Five