Nevertheless, it may well be considered whether the movement toward Utah appeared any less Quixotic in 1846 than does the idea of an emigration to Papua now.  On that island the Mormons would encounter no such obstacles to material prosperity as their indomitable industry has already conquered in Utah.  They would find a fertile soil, a propitious climate, and a native population which could be trained to docility.  Transplanted thither, they would cease to be a nuisance to America, and would become benefactors to the world by opening to commerce a region now valueless to Christendom, but of as great natural capacities as any portion of the globe.  The expense of their migration need not exceed the amount already expended upon the Army of Utah, together with that necessary to maintain it in its present position for the next five years.  Into the seats which they would relinquish on the border of the Salt Lake a sturdy population would pour from the Valley of the Mississippi, and develop an intelligent, Christian, and Republican State.  That portion of the Mormons which would not follow the fortunes of the Church beyond the seas would soon become submerged, and the last vestige of its religion and peculiar domestic life would disappear speedily and forever from the continent.

For that consummation, every genuine Christian must fervently pray.  If the Message in the Book of Mormon be, as one of its own Apostles has asserted, indeed “such, that, if false, none who persist in believing it can be saved,” the sooner this nation washes its hands of responsibility for its toleration, the better for its credit in history.  The Constitution, to be sure, denies to Congress the power to pass laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion; but it is the most monstrous nonsense to argue that the Federal Government is bound thereby to connive at polygamy, perjury, incest, and murder.  There are principles of social order which constitute the political basis of every state in Christendom, that are violated by the practices of the Mormon Church, and which this Republic is bound to maintain without regard to any pretence that their transgressors act in pursuance of religious belief.  Thirty years ago, no other doctrine would have occurred to the mind of an American statesman.  It is only the special-pleadings and constitutional hair-splittings by which Slavery has been forced under national protection, that now impede Congressional intervention in the affairs of Utah.  The Christian Church of the United States, also, has a duty to perform toward the Mormons, which has long been neglected.  While its missionaries have been shipped by the score to India and China, it has been blind to the growth, upon the threshold of its own temple, of a pagan religion more corrupt than that of the Brahmin.  Never once has a Christian preacher opened his lips in the valleys of Utah; and yet the surplice of a Christian priest would be a sight more portentous to the Mormon, on his own soil, than the bayonet of the Federal soldier.