“I look upon Mahomet and Brigham as the very best men that God could send as ministers to those unto whom He sent them,” wrote Elder Frederick Evans, of the “Shaker” village of New Lebanon, in a letter to us, inclosing another by way of introduction to the Mormon president.

Credentials from the Shaker to the Mormon chief—from the great living exponent of the principle of celibacy to the “most married man” in all America—were not to be kept undelivered; so the moment we had taken a bath, we posted off to a merchant to whom we had letters, that we might inquire when his spiritual chief and military ruler would be home again from his “trip north.” The answer was, “To-morrow.”

After watching the last gleams fade from the snowfields upon the Wasatch, we parted for the night, as I had to sleep in a private house, the hotel being filled even to the balcony. As I entered the drawing-room of my entertainer, I heard the voice of a lady reading, and caught enough of what she said to be aware that it was a defence of polygamy. She ceased when she saw the stranger; but I found that it was my host's first wife reading Belinda Pratt's book to her daughters—girls just blooming into womanhood.