sary. It is without a rival, and enjoys to a large extent the confidence of the people, as well it may, for, by its liberal administration, it has already conferred lasting benefits upon them. It has the ground, and, if its friends are true to their trusts, will never be interfered with by any other religious body seeking to plant an institution of its own.

But it needs funds. It must have a new building, and better appliances, and more teachers. With its large number of pupils-sometimes reaching an annual enrollment of 300-, with its prestige as the first Protestant school in the valley of the Rio Grande, and with its prospect of wide future usefulness, it deserves to be put at once upon a broader and more permanent foundation. The Commission does but perform a service for some liberal friend of Christian education who may be casting about for a promising institution on the frontier where he may deposit money for the good of future generations, when it presents and commends, in terms of most emphatic endorsement, Albuquerque Academy.

TILLOTSON ACADEMY, TRINIDAD, COLORADO.

This school has made decided progress during the year. The number of pupils is larger than ever before, making the employment of another assistant indispensable. It is the leading Protestant school in Southern Colorado, and fills a place of great importance. Its anniversary exercises are of a high character; its discipline is admirable, and its work in all its departments is thorough. It has won for itself credit in the immediate locality where it is established, and a reputation in the towns around which attracts pupils. The Catholic influence is very strong in Trinidad, and the public schools do not meet the wants of the Protestant people. The building erected under the direction of the local board of trustees is admirably suited to its purpose. It occupies a commanding site, which affords room for expansion when that shall be necessary. The property is, however, encumbered with a debt which the local board are as yet unable to manage. The Commission is not responsible for the debt, but circumstances may arise in which it will be wise to make itself thus responsible. The work is altogether too important, and the property is too valuable, to justify the Commission in consenting to any sacrifice of either.

UTAH.

WILL THE EDMUNDS LAW DESTROY POLYGAMY?

This is a question asked with not a little eagerness all over the land. It is too early to answer it. The facts bearing upon it conflict.

FACTS OF A NEGATIVE BEARING.

(1). The execution of the law has not deranged in the least the working of the Mormon system. A few leaders have disappeared, but the system confronts you in every village, apparently as undisturbed and regular in its steady and firm movement as ever. Its wires are all up. Its secret understandings are all maintained. Its services are all performed. Its tithes are all collected. Not a rivulet of supply has

been cut off. Not a doctrine has been changed. Not a pretension has been modified. The work upon its temples has not been suspended. The pressure of its discipline has not been relaxed. The apparent hopefulness of the people has not been diminished.

(2.) The execution of the law has not stopped polygamous marriages. Men whose correspondence touches every part of the Territory say that probably more parties have entered polygamy since the prosecutions commenced, than have been prosecuted for that crime. Others, who have been visitors at the town of Logan, where there is a temple, to which numbers of Mormons gather for baptism and for their endowments, report it as their opinion that not a few resort to that temple for the purpose of being joined in polygamous marriage. (3.) The execution of the law has shown that there are polygamists who will go to prison rather than reject polygamy.

More than a dozen of men have had the alternative offered to them, "Will you obey the law, and avoid the disgrace of the prison, or refuse to obey, and suffer that disgrace ?" and have replied, "We will go to prison;" and there they are to-day. Such a temper is not hopeful. Perhaps, however, a stronger law would modify it.

(4.) The execution of the law has established the fact that all who make concessions to the law lose caste with the church. Bishop Sharp, a man of standing and general probity of character, being brought to the bar of the court, declared that he would obey the law; whereupon the church ostracised him, and recent reports in Salt Lake described him as a deserted, humbled and almost broken-hearted man.

He is said to have asked to be permitted to define his position at the Conference at Logan, but was refused such permission. While the united voice of the Mormon church declares that obedience to the law is recreancy to her, the law will fight against great odds.

(5.) The execution of the law has heated the temper, and increased the zeal, of rigid Mormons. Their conversation is more bitter. They are more strenuous in opposition to Gentile schools. The New West schools lost scores, perhaps hundreds, last year from that cause. In certain towns, opposition during the current autumn has derived from the same source a greatly increased intensity of hatred.

Their missionary fervor has increased. There are grounds for saying that fugitive elders, driven from Utah by fear of arrest, are meeting with decided success in winning converts, so that this year will perhaps be their most prosperous one within an entire decade.

FACTS OF THE OPPOSITE TENDENCY.

(1) A goodly number of the violators of the law are now behind prison bars. The law has had enough vitality to follow, arrest, condemn them. What it has done with them it can do with others. Taylor, Cannon and Penrose are not safer than were Nicholson, Clawson and Peterson. The only thing required, touching the law, is vigor of administration; and that the authorities propose to exercise. Apparently the way is clear, and the battle is already won.

(2). A certain number of former offenders have come to their senses, and said, "We will obey the law." The number is not as yet large, but it embraces some men of prominence. The law has proved that it has a moral as well as penal power. It has secured obedience from some upon whom it has not turned its bolts. Possibly there are thousands who will yet voluntarily bow to it.

(3). The execution of the law has given a wholesome proof of the power of the government, and checked the spirit of bravado. Mormonism has thriven by incessant boasting. Recruits from abroad have been made to believe that the church has for years been able to cope with the national government, and that it was only by the saintly forbearance of apostles and bishops that the national flag has been allowed to float, or the national officers to fulfil their duties, in the Territory of Utah. The Edmunds law has effectually dispelled this notion. The significant and prolonged absence of Taylor and Cannon from their accustomed haunts has been a silent but complete refutation of it. A still more decided exhibition of its power on the part of

government would no doubt be wholesome, and this will be likely to be made, if the opposition of polygamists shall manifest itself in violence.

(4). The execution of the law has developed a class who are quite ready to have their leaders brought to a rigid test. They are true Mormons, possessed of all the zeal and fervor and determination of the straitest of the sect; but they want a new testimony. They are well represented by a respectable, aged Mormon woman, who expressed herself in the hearing of one of our teachers about as follows: "I am a Latter Day Saint. I have lived in that faith, and I hope to die. in it. But I have had a hard life. No one can tell how hard. I walked from the Missouri river to Utah in constant suffering, and it has been hard work and suffering ever since. Nothing could have sustained me but the hope that God would help us. We were taught this. Our leaders insisted that plural marriage was from God, and that he would cut down those who should oppose it. The trial has come. The bishops are in danger; now let us see what God will do. If they have told the truth about him he will stand by them." Undoubtedly there are numbers among the faithful who harbor thoughts like these, and, when they see that God does not regard the cry of their leaders, but allows them to go to punishment, will pass over into doubt, and at length apostacy.

(5). The execution of the law has directly stimulated the doubts of many of the younger Mormons. Born in Utah, and knowing nothing of any religion save that of their own church, they suddenly learn that men whom they have reverenced are thrown into prison as felons. They read the reports of their trials, and are astonished at their cowardice, their perjuries and their unmanly stratagems, and their reverence changes into contempt. Said a young man in sarcastic tones to his devoted Mormon mother, "God does not seem to be very careful about his saints lately." With a stamp of her foot she replied, "Never let me hear you speak in that way again." But it is fair to anticipate that young Utah will speak, and that the sarcasm which it now utters with bated breath will, if the law be triumphant, become outspoken.

Quite enough success has attended the enforcement of the law to challenge the admiration and gratitude of the whole country for the faithful services of the men charged with its execution, and also to encourage and strengthen the government in its policy to test to the fullest extent the efficacy of legal measures to stamp out the crime. It it undeniable, however, that the non-Mormon population, almost unanimously, demand a much stronger law.