Mormonism: its leaders and designs./ By John Hyde.

MORMON MYSTERIES.
key word, and grip is communicated, and the first degree of
the Melchisedec priesthood is conferred.
Stupefied and weary; bowing under a sense of fearful and
unnatural responsibility; excited by a species of apprehension as to what would come next, we were ushered into another room. An altar was in the center; on it the Bible, Book
of Mormon and Book of Smith's Revelations. Man and
woman, we were ranged around the place; Kimball in the
same, and Brigham in the next room looking on; Parley
Pratt officiating, and the fourth oath was administered. The
allegory presumed that man, now in a fair and certain way to
salvation, had a great temporal duty to perform, not an abstract theory of obedience, nor obedience in abstract things,
but a great positive, present, immediate duty. WTe were,
therefore, sworn to cherish constant enmity toward the United
States government for not avenging the death of Smith, or
righting the persecutions of the Saints; to do all that we
could toward destroying, tearing down, or overturning that
government; to endeavor to baffle its designs and frustrate its
intentions; to renounce all allegiance and refuse all submission. If unable to do any thing ourselves toward the accomplishment of these objects, to teach it to our children from
the nursery; impress it upon them from the death-bed; entail
it upon them as a legacy. To make it the one leading idea
and sacred duty of their lives; so that "the kingdom of God
and his Christ" (the Mormon Church and its priesthood)
"might subdue all other kingdoms and fill the whole earth."
Curses the most frightful, penalties the most barbarous, were
threatened and combined in the obligation either on failing to
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