And its absurdity would
have seemed complete, if he had fancied the high road of this travel
as leading through a community essentially Oriental in its social and
political life, which was nevertheless ripening into a State of the
American Union. Yet if General Knox could be roused from his grave at
Thomaston, he would see the dream realized. On the Pacific lies El
Dorado; among the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains there is a community
which blends the voluptuousness of Bagdad with the economy of Cape Cod;
and within two years a regiment of camel-riders will be scouring the
Great American Plains after Cheyennes, Navajoes, and Camanches.
The propagation of the religion of which Joseph Smith was the prophet
has just begun to attract the notice its extraordinary success
deserves. So long as the head of the Mormon Church was considered a kind
of Mahometan Sam Slick, and his associates a crazy rabble, it was vain
to expect that the whole sect could be treated with more attention than
any of the curiosities in a popular museum. But a juster appreciation of
the constitution of the Mormon community begins to prevail, and with it
comes a conviction that questions are involved in its relations to the
parent government which are not exceeded in importance by any that have
ever been agitated at Washington.
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