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and mercy denied us here, we view with dread and abhorrence the slayer of his fellow-man.

Miss Field claims private avowal followed by secret assassination. This I deny. What proof is there, which any reasonable man would accept, of any murder executed by a Mormon under authority of the Church as a blood-atonement? Absolutely none. Monstrous stories there are in abundance; but not one which its utterers dare to sift. A fierce and gory tale is told, with horrifying details; its sole evidence is the word of some sensation-monger. We dispute it, and challenge proof. The illcgical reply-assumed to be unanswerable, and accepted by press, pulpit, and public-is another unsupported tale, utterly foreign to the first, and still more impossible and sanguinary. Miss Field relates the alleged experience of a Mrs. Mansfield. Since last I heard that story, previous to this time, it has been dignified and embellished for the REVIEW. Then the tale was crude; it lacked the pathetic personage of "Daisy"; and nothing was said of the victim's satin raiment in England. But the betrayal of endowment-house secrets, the worse than cannibalistic murder of the woman, the slaughter of the two young boys,--all were there. The woman's name then was Maxwell; now it is the more euphonious and aristocratic title of Mansfield. By the way, since first I heard the story the victim's name has run the alphabetical gamut. But seriously, Miss Field cannot substantiate, by one tittle of credible evidence, the tale she has related. I am aware that the lady could probably find a score of infamous publications retailing such sanguinary falsehoods; but a charge of murder-especially against an unpopular people, about which the world is anxious to hear and ready to believe any accusation, however monstrous-should be based upon truth absolutely irrefragable. Instead of quoting approvingly from the dime novels on Mormonism, a conscientious investigator ought rather to join in the sentiment of the old worthy Walter Curle Winton, who said in a court sermon, more than two hundred and fifty years ago:

"And it were heartily to be wished that of all such scandalous books and pamphlets that are daily vended amongst us, such as are fraught full of nothing but pestilent and bitter malice, and the most shameless, desperate untruths that the devil, the father of lies, can help to invent, there were a fire made of them, the flames whereof perhaps might expiate some part of the authors' offenses, which otherwise would one day help to increase their torment in hell-fire."

Tales of "blood-atoning" are not seriously related by old, reputable, and honest residents here, of any sect or party; nor are these stories told to such persons. The falsehoods are entered as second-class matter, "exclusively for transmission abroad." In Utah, no denial is needed of these bitter and infamous falsehoods. Every year since the pioneers entered the waste valley of the Great Salt Lake, there have been occasional apostasies from the Church; men have been led away in search of wealth, in fear of persecution, in dread of popular opinion, and some in a conscientious disbelief. Among these apostates are men who once ranked as most faithful members of the Church. Some of them are men of high personal character. They include lawyers, doctors, merchants. All the doings of the Church must have been known to them. There have also been respectable Gentiles engaged in business here since early days. All these men have been at liberty to speak at any hour, under full protection of the judicial and military powers. If, as Miss Field says, "human blood was shed on the slightest provocation," why have not these men, well-informed residents here, spoken to the world? No sympathy for the Church restrains them; for many of them are religiously, politically, socially, and financially opposed to its adherents.

Why are these accusations always made anonymously, or by some uninformed stranger, or by some person excommunicated from the Church for his own impurities, or by some vindictive and dishonest creature who has a personal hatred or a desire for notoriety to gratify? Why?-because no man of standing and integrity, neither Gentile nor apostate Mormon, will lend his name to a charge which cannot be sustained.

If responsible anti-Mormons know anything of any murders committed in the name of blood-atonement, or in any other way, by authority of this Church, let them speak and prove. But as to the belief of the Mormon, let him be his own spokesman. Haeckel is a better exponent of his peculiar principles than is a sciencedisdaining fanatic. The "rules of the society of people called Methodists" are studied by a sincere investigator from the words of Wesley and his successors; not from the jealous and vindictive tirades of their haters. Eugene Sue's novel may be entrancingly terrifying in its description of the power exercised by the Jesuit Rodin and his coadjutors; but honesty does not accept "The Wandering Jew" as an official statement of Catholic creed and practice. And even Ignatius Loyola is allowed to speak for himself when one candidly weighs the precepts of the Society of Jesus.

Heretofore, adverse writers and speakers have appeared to deem it an act of the highest virtue to garble Mormon creed and Mormon utterance. Even a lady, holding the high position of Miss Field, has not hesitated to distort words which she heard from Mormon lips, evidently deeming that she commits no wrong thereby. It is usually the case that the publisher who cheerfully gives space to a wholesale and unauthenticated charge against us, has no room for an explicit denial. I hope to see the day when the same care will be used in reporting and construing the utterances of Mormons that is required for Methodists or Catholics.

II.

THE LAST CONFEDERATE KILLED.

JOSEPH A. WEST.

IN conversing with General Sherman about the article entitled "A Slave Trader's Letter Book," in the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW for November, General Sherman said that he believed the writer of the letters, C. A. L. Lamar, was the last Confederate killed in the late war. He said that the fact could be ascertained by asking General Wilson, now of Wilmington, Del. A note to General Wilson brought the following reply:

DEAR SIR: In reply to your letter of November 11th, I have to say that "Charley Lamar," the owner of the yacht" Wanderer," at one time said to have been used as a slaver, was killed by a stray shot in the streets of Columbus, Georgia, on the night it was taken by my command. He was the last conspicuous man, of whom I have any knowledge, killed during the rebellion. Columbus was taken on the night of April 16th, 1865.

* * * * JAMES H. WILSON.

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