of by immersion, only to children at eight years age, and also to adults who had not been previously baptized. They also baptize for the dead, asserting that at the resurrection all the persons for whom a man has been baptized will be added to his family; 4. Imposition of hands to confer the gift of the Holy Spirit; 5. The Lord's Supper, administered to the recipients kneeling; they use water instead of wine, being averse to the use of the latter, and receive the sacrament every week. The fifth article declares that men must be called to the work of God by inspiration. The sixth that the same organization must now exist that existed in the primitive church. The seventh, that miraculous gifts-discerning of spirits, prophecy, revelations, visions, healing, speaking with tongues, &c., have not ceased. Among Smith's and Brigham Young's speculations in the way of discerning of spirits, one was that the soul of man was not created but had existed from all eternity, equal in duration to God. Another of these revelations was that of the transmigration of souls, that rebellious spirits (of men) would descend into brute tabernacles, till they yielded to the law of the everlasting gospel. The eighth article affirms that the Word of God is recorded not only in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, but in all other good books. The contradictions which exist in the Bible and other books can be very easily removed by revelations to any of the Mormon leaders or any other inspired prophets. Joseph Smith, it is said, left an "inspired translation" of the whole Bible in manuscript, but none of the leaders since have thought it worth their while to publish it. The ninth article expresses a belief in all that God has revealed, is revealing, or will yet reveal. The tenth affirms the literal gathering of Israel, the restoration of the Ten Tribes (whom they believe to be the American Indians), the establishment, of the New Zion on the Western Continent (they generally insist that this will be in Jackson county, Missouri), the millenial reign of Christ on earth, with all his holy prophets and demigods (of whom Joseph Smith will be most conspicuous), and the transformation of earth into a paradise. The eleventh article maintains "the literal resurrection of the body,-to flesh and bone, but not bloodblood being the principle of mortality." The twelfth article asserts the absolute liberty of private judgment in matters of religion. The | thirteenth declares it to be the duty of the saints and all others to be subject to the powers that be, whether monarchical or republican; and the fourteenth and last is as follows: "We believe in being honest, true, chaste, temperate, benevolent, virtuous, and upright; and in doing good to all men; also that an idle or lazy person cannot be a Christian, neither have salvation." The leaders, however, by virtue of the revelations they receive, can, at will, exempt themselves from the obligation of any of these rules or obligations, and most of them are notoriously profane, unchaste, and accessories to the grossest frauds and murders, if they do not commit them in person. Their most remarkable social peculiarity is the practice of polygamy. Among the early revelations published by Smith, one was the strict enforcement of both monogamy and chastity; but about 1838 he became notoriously licentious and as after a time his wife began to complain of his amours, he had in 1843 a special revelation directing the practice of polygamy not only in his own case, but in that of the other saints. This was denied by the leaders for some years, but in 1852 they openly avowed polygamy as one of their doctrines and referred to this revelation as their authority. It is now very generally practised in Utah; Young himself having, it is said, sixty or more wives. For many years the Mormon leaders have defied the United States government and have ruled the territory of Utah according to their own views, driving out and often murdering United States officers and citizens who attempted to enforce national laws; but the opening of the territory by the passage of the Union Pacific and other railways through it, and the development of the large mining interests there, have brought in so large a population, who are not Mormons, that there is a prospect that the laws may be enforced there without serious difficulty. By the laws of the United States, as well as by common law, polygamy is a crime, and actions have recently been commenced against Brigham Young, Daniel C. Wells, and other of the Mormon leaders for adultery, and for being accessories to the murder of some men whom they had caused to be put out of the way. Young has left Salt Lake City, and it is generally believed, has fled from the territory, and some of the others have given bail, while one or two have been convicted of the minor offense. The Mormons have habitually greatly overrated their numbers. They claimed early in 1870 a Mormon population in Utah of 150,000, while the United States census of 1870 gave the entire population of the territory as only 86,786, of whom not less than 17,000 are known not to be Mormons, aside from a considerable number of seced ers from the authority of Young. Elsewhere in the United States there may be (including the seceding Mormons) seven or eight thousand; and in foreign countries perhaps 50,000 to 60,000. They claim 100,000 on the eastern continent; but they have no such following. Their hierarchy is of two kinds, the Melchizedec and the Aaronic priesthood. To the former belong the First Presidency of three, of which Young is the chief; the twelve apostles, the seventies, the patriarchs, the high priests and the elders. To the Aaronic priesthood belong the bishops, of whom in all there are 240, the priests, teachers, and deacons. Tithes are rigilly exacted from the Mormon believers to be applied to the support of worship, &c., but no inconsiderable portion finds its way into the capacious purse of Brigham Young, who by adroit management has become very wealthy, his property amounting to many millions, and being largely invested abroad. There have been for the past twenty-five years a body of Mormons who did not go with the others to Utah, who did not recognize Brigham Young as their chief, nor practice polygamy. They have had a colony and settlement for some years in northwestern Iowa, on the borders of Dakota, and have had as their spiritual chiefs, Emma Smith, the widow of Joseph Smith, and of late years Joseph Smith, Jr. They have about 5,000 adherents, and the Mormons of Utah are very hostile to them. Of late Joseph Smith, Jr. has visited Utah, and a considerable number of Mormons who were disaffected toward Young, have recognized him as their leader. Others of the disaffected, who repudiate Young's authority and teachings though not yet willing to abandon polygamy, have followed a man named Godbe, and are known as Godbeites. Both these seceding organizations are bitterly denounced by Young and the Mormon hierarchy. XIII. ISRAELITES OR JEWS. I. THE ORTHODOX ISRAELITES, or JEWS. This is no place for a history of the ancient people of God in all their dispersions, wanderings, and persecutions; we can only give very briefly, their history as a religious denomination in the United States. The first Jews who emigrated to North America, it is believed, came to the then Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, in 1660. Although, from the first, they have always enjoyed complete religious liberty here, and have often been called to positions of high honor in society and under our government, yet the number of Jewish emigrants to the United States was, for a hundred and fifty years from their rst coming, very small, and in 1820 they certainly did not exceed 15,000 in our entire territory. Since that time they have come in somewhat larger numbers, attracted by the opportunities offered them for succesful trade and financial operations. After the revolutions of 1848, on the continent of Europe, many of those, who had participated in those uprisings, came here and have since been some of our most valued citizens. It is difficult to ascertain definitely how many are now residents in the United States; the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, in 1868 reported 200 congregations in the country. If these averaged 100 male members (a large estimate), the adherent population could not much have exceeded 40,000; but, there are besides these, the Reformed Jews, a considerable number who have embraced Christianity, and many who in this country do not connect themselves with any religious organization. We are inclined to believe that 75,000 is a large estimate of the actual Jewish population of the United States, though it has been reckoned as high as 200,000. They have worship in their synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), with reading and expounding of the law, chanting of psalms, etc. The reading is usually in Hebrew or Aramaic, although many Jews do not understand the Hebrew well, but the explanations and discourses are in English, or in the vernacular of the country from which they have come. Many of their rabbis are men of extensive learning, and specially versed in Oriental and linguistic science. It is, of course, understood that the Jew does not recognize Christ in any religious sense, and is a Deist, rather than a Socinian or Unitarian. The following abstract of their doctrinal creed, compiled from the Thirteen Articles of Maimonides exhibits, briefly, their views on religious subjects: "1. They believe that God is the and has synagogues in the principal cities, while not disposed to relinquish their Jewish birthright and privileges, yet deem some changes necessitated, by the progress of the world, in their ancient faith. They do not look for the coming of a temporal Messiah, or a return to Palestine; they believe in having their exercises in the synagogues in the vernacular. They hold to the immortality of the soul, but not to the resurrection of the body; to God's grace and justice to pardon and bless the being created in his image, and not to expiatory rites and sacrifices. We have no means of estimating their numbers. Creator and Governor of all creatures, and | ISRAELITES. This organization, which has a that he alone has made, does make, and will Rabbinical Conference, which meets annually, make all things. 2. They believe that He is only one, in unity to which there is no resemblance, and that he alone has been, is, and will be their God. 3. They believe that the Creator is not corporeal, not to be comprehended by an understanding capable of comprehending only what is corporeal; and that there is nothing like him in the universe 4. They believe that He is the First and the Last. 5. They believe that He is the only object of adoration, and that no other being whatever, ought to be worshiped. 6. They believe that all the words of the prophets are true. 7. They believe that all the prophecies of Moses, their master, are true, and that he was the father of all the wise men, as well of those who went before him, as of those who succeeded him. 8. They believe that the whole law which they have in their hand at this day, was delivered by Moses. 9. They believe that this law will never be changed, and that no other law will ever be given by the Creator. 10. They believe that God knows all the actions of men, and all their thoughts; as it is said: "He fashioneth all the hearts of men, and understandeth all their works.' 11. They believe that God rewards those who observe his commands, and punishes those who transgress them. 12. They believe that the Messiah will come, and, though he delays, they will always expect him till He comes. 13. They believe that the dead will be restored to life when it shall be ordained by the decree of the Crea tor. The Jews have not been very active in educational matters, but have several free schools of high grade, and, at Philadelphia, Maimonides College, founded in 1867, which though having a full course, and able instructors, is not well endowed. In matters of public charity, the founding of hospitals, asylums for orphans, the aged, and the widow, and the establishment of public libraries, and museums of art, they deserve very high praise. These institutions, and their gifts to them have not, in any case, been confined to their own people, but have been opened freely to all, and some of their liberal givers have won for themselves undying fame by their large handed charity. It is worthy of note that they provide always for their own poor. They have three or four well conducted periodicals. II. THE REFORMED OR PROGRESSIVE Efforts have been made, and with considerable success, by several of the Protestant denominations for the conversion of the Jews to Christianity. There are several congregations of these converted Israelites, and a still larger number who have connected themselves, as individuals, with other Christian churches. A considerable number of Jews said to be mainly from Germany, Poland, and Portugal, have, on coming to the United States, abandoned all religious worship and faith, and given themselves up wholly to the worship of mammon. XIV. SPIRITUALISTS. We can hardly call the Spiritualists a religious denomination, since its professed adherents belong to almost all denominations, and many of them to none, and their single bond of union is in their belief that somehow, and in some way, they hold intercourse with the spirits of the departed. That this belief is a delusion seems to be demonstrated by the most incontestable evidence; yet very many cling to it with the utmost tenacity. The Spiritualists, and especially the so-called "spiritual mediums," may be divided into several classes. Among these are: 1. Charlatans and impostors, who deliberately profess to hold communication with the spirit world, knowing that they are guilty of a gross and fraudulent deception, but doing so for the sake of gain. This class is numerous; to it belong most of the fortunetellers and necromancers, the greater part (perhaps we should say all) of the healing mediums, clairvoyant doctors, and the like, the exhibiting mediums, rappers, table-tippers, &c., &c. 2. The self-deluded, who, and though it would be difficult to say how many Spiritualists believed them either wholly or in part, yet they have unquestionably exerted considerable influence in forming the Spiritualist theology. Many Spirit, ualists repudiate them, wholly; others go far beyond them, to a gross and blasphemous infi possessing a certain amount of magnetic, descriptions of the climate, scenery and peoodyllic or reflex-nervous power, really sup- ple of the various planetary bod es of the pose themselves to be in communication with solar system, and eventually a eological the spirits, when they are only reproducing system, with its pantheon of heroes and demitheir own thoughts and conjectures or those gods which he professed to have received of persons about them and with whom they from the highest spiritual intelligences. That are en rapport. 3. Genuine clairvoyants, some portions of this system were rather the very few in number, but really endowed results of earthly study, than of heavenly inwith a greater or less degree of the clairvoy-spiration, was evident to those who knew ant or seer faculty, but mistaken in imputing Mr. Davis's habits of study and preparation their visions to a different source from that for his books. These numerous volumes from which they really come. The supposed have, however, had a very considerable sale, conversations held by these persons with angelic intelligence, or the spirits of the departed who were eminent for intellectual or moral power in this life, all give evidence, which whoso runs may read, that they are "of the earth, earthy." Not one of these messages professedly from the spiritworld, however exalted in intellect in this life were the per-delity. While Mr. Davis was beginning to sons from whom they purport to have come, has ever risen above the dead level of bald common place, and could the persons to whom they were attributed have come back to earth and read them, they would have repudiated them most indignantly. Much the same may be said of the professed revelations of the spiritual world by these professed seers. We have read many of them and have found them invariably sensuous in their descriptions, and giving ample evidence of having been borrowed without being improved from the Koran, the oriental fables, or the word painting of Moore, Byron, Southey, Beckford, or Johnson, and sometimes, perhaps, from the hallucinations of Emanuel Swedenborg. Too much of the flesh clings to the seer to make these visions in any respect representative of that glorious spiritual state which the natural eye hath not seen, nor can see; of those experiences, which are only discerned by the spiritual man when unrobed from the garments of flesh, and made pure even as God is pure. Still this great delusion has its thousands of votaries. Beginning in this country about 1843 with some manifestations of power as a healing medium on the part of a lad of seventeen, named Andrew Jackson Davis, at Poughkeepsie; they were gradually developed into a high degree of clairvoyance on his part, which resulted in his dictating from 1846 to the present time numerous books professing to give revelations of the condition of the various spheres which he alleged envelope our earth, and communications with the spirits which inhabited them; dictate his revelations, another development of vinced of the delusion still entertain doubts, and will eventually shake it off; while of those who hold firmly to it still, some have becɔme insane, some profess to derive comfort from their communication in hours of sorrow with the dear departed, and others have plunged into the abyss of infidelity or are on the high road thither. forms and commingled with so many other doctrines and notions; yet it is true that they include many thousands mostly from three classes: 1. Speculative philosophers, whose learning is rather superficial than profound, and who from the desire to throw off control, which is natural to the depraved heart, seek to find arguments against the The Spirit alists in 1858 and 1859 made authenticity and inspiration of the scriptures, the most extravagant statements in regard against a ruling and controlling Providence, to their numbers; statements which must at and against any plan of salvation which that time have been conspicuously inexact, admits the depravity of human nature. They and are now too absurd for any one to be- draw their arguments from any and every lieve. In the "Spiritual Register" for 1859 source which they deem available; at one it is stated that the number of actual Spirit- time they deride miracles as inconsistent ualists in America is 1,500,000; of those with reason; at another they parade geolowho have more or less faith in the doctrine, gical discoveries as proving the falsity of the but do not openly espouse it, 4,000,000; pub Sacred Record; then they are very sure lic advocates, 1,900; mediums, public and that they have discovered that man has lived private, 40,000; places for public meetings, upon the earth 800,000 or a million of yea 8, 1,000; books and pamphlets, 500; periodi- and that he was developed from a monad or cals, 30. If most of these figures had been a monkey; if driven from these positions, divided by ten the quotients would have been they find fault with the numbers of the Bible, nearer the truth at that time. At present, its genealogical records, its narratives of the number of periodicals (of which only events; the slightest apparent discrepancy two or three have a large circulation) is ten, is magnified, and they either conclude the the number of public advocates of Spiritual- sacred book a tissue of fables, a book of ridism not over 50), and the meetings mentioned dles, metaphors, and conundrums, or a series about the same or possibly 75. The number of myths. Rout them from one class of arof mediums of all sorts, we could not under-guments, and they fly to another, often in take to estimate; there must be several exact contradiction of what they had previthousands; though some have unfortunately been sent to State Prison recently, and some others, who have been using their art, to aid them in their nefarious business as procuresse, ought to be. It would be difficult to find 150,000 persons who would avow themselves, to-day, Spiritualists; and equally difficult to find 200,000 more who would acknowledge any leanings in that direction. The number of books and pamphlets published pro and con may reach 500, indeed, considering the great number issued by Mr. A. J. Davis and Mr. S. B. Brittan, we think they probably will; but the sale of Mr. Davis's books, the most popular of all this class of literature, has not averaged over 20,000 copies of each. XV. FREE THINKERS, OR ATHEISTS, DEISTS, RATIONALISTS, &c. THE various forms of unbelief cannot fairly be called religious since they are rather the negative of all religion; nor can they be classified or numbered, since they are found under so many different names and ously maintained; and in default of any ground of argument they will fall to abusing and cursing the life, ministry, and work of the Divine Redeemer, using the coarsest ribaldry,though previously given to only dainty phrases; thus demonstrating that it is the enmity of the heart against God which is at the bottom of all their unbelief. 2. A larger class than the preceding is composed of working men, mechanics, who in a crude and rough way do a good deal of thinking, but being soured by the neglect of their intellectual tastes and abilities, which they believe the educated class manifest, and having the idea that they are displaying a great deal of intellectual independence by avowing themselves free thinkers, plunge boldly into the discussion of questions which they are disqualified, for the want of both early training and positive knowledge, from handling. Without being conscious of it they are merely the echoes and mouth pieces of abler but worse men, uttering the falsehood, which their leaders know to be such, but which these poor men believe merely on their assertion. With them, too, the desire that |