Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Passepartout Listens to the Mormon Priest on the Train

During the night of December 5th and 6th the train ran southeast over a region of about fifty miles, then turned northeast again toward the Great Salt Lake. About nine o'clock in the morning Passepartout went up to the bridge for some air.At this time, the weather was cold and gray, but the snow had stopped falling.The outline of the sun appeared particularly large in the clouds and mist, like a huge gold market.While Passepartout was concentrating on calculating how many shillings this gold coin would be equivalent to, a strange-looking person suddenly appeared to distract him from this beneficial mental labor.

This man was hitchhiking to the Elko station, a tall man with a dark brown face, black beard, black socks, black silk hat, black jacket, black trousers, a white tie, and dog-skin gloves. a priest.This person walked from the front to the rear of the car, and pasted a notice written in pen on the door of each car. Passepartout went to have a look, and the notice read: Elder William Hedge, a Mormon missionary, decided to take advantage of his travel on the forty-eighth passenger car to hold a missionary meeting on Mormonism. Gentlemen with a heart come to listen to the lecture on "The Mystery of the Saints of Mormons", time: 11:00 to 12:00, location: Car No. 117.

"No, I'll go," said Passepartout to himself, knowing nothing of Mormonism except the custom of "polygamy" which formed the basis of the sect. News of the preaching of the speech quickly spread among the hundred or so passengers in the car.Among them, there were no more than thirty people who were interested in this sermon, and they were all attracted to the No. 117 car.At eleven o'clock the audience was seated in their chairs, Passepartout in the first row.But neither his master nor Fix thought it necessary to make trouble there. At eleven o'clock, Elder William Hedge stood up and began to speak, speaking in a very excited voice, as if someone had already contradicted him.he cried out:

"I tell you, listen, Joan Smith was a martyr and his brother Hiram was a martyr. The government of the United States of America has persecuted these prophets and saints and they will persecute another martyr Little Briham! Does any of you here dare to object?" No one in the audience was willing to risk a dissenting opinion, and his naturally calm face was in stark contrast to his present fury.Obviously, his anger is also understandable.Because the Mormons were suffering serious devastation at that time.In fact, it took a lot of effort for the US government to subdue these independence-loving Mormons.The government first prosecuted Brigham Jr. for rioting and bigamy. After Brigham Jr. was imprisoned, the government became the master of Utah and put the state under the jurisdiction of the United States.Since then, the disciples of the little Briham prophets have redoubled their efforts to carry out their activities.While waiting for the opportunity to take action, they constantly used speeches, preaching, etc. to oppose the decisions of Congress.

Apparently, Elder William Hedge was actively promoting his religion anytime and anywhere, even on the train. At this time, he began to explain the history of Mormonism from the time of the biblical account. His loud voice and powerful gestures made his narrative more vivid. He described a Mormon who was in the tribe of Joseph in Israel at that time. How did he proclaim the Protestant Annals to the world, and how he bequeathed it to his son Mormon; Egyptian translation.Joseph Smith Jr. was a tax collector in Vermont. It was not until 1825 that people knew that he was a miraculous prophet. Later, how did he meet an angel in a golden forest, and how did the angel tell the history of Allah? To Joseph Smith Jr.

At this time, some people were not very interested in the missionary's recounting of history, so they left the carriage; but William Hedge continued to tell how Smith, his father, two brothers and some of his disciples founded the The Mormon Church, this sect not only has believers in America, but also in England, Scandinavia, and Germany.Many of these devout believers are handicraft workers, and many are freelancers. He also talked about how to establish a base in Ohio; how to build a church with two hundred thousand dollars, how to establish a city in Kirkland, and later And how Smith became a brilliant banker, and how he got a manuscript holy book of Abraham and other famous Egyptian ancestors from the keeper of a mummy gallery.

His story became longer and longer, and fewer and fewer people listened to it. Now there are less than twenty people left. But the elder was not troubled by the lack of audience.He still went on in detail: how Smith went bankrupt in 1837, how the shareholders who were dragged down by him covered him with pitch and forced him to roll on feathers; He made a comeback and became more famous and powerful than before.He formed an independent church in Missouri, and he became the leader of this vigorous group.At that time, his disciples numbered at least three thousand, but those pagans hated him and persecuted him, forcing him to flee to the western part of America.

Now there are only ten listeners left.Passepartout is one of them.This honest young man listened wholeheartedly to the elder's preaching.Listening to it like this, he learned how Smith, after suffering countless persecutions, appeared in Illinois, and how in 1839 he established a new city, Nuwo Rabel, along the Mississippi River.The total number of inhabitants there increased to twenty-five thousand; He was framed in Carthage and put in prison. Finally, a group of masked men came and killed Smith. At this time, Passepartout became the only audience in this carriage.Elder William Hedge stared at him intently, wanting to use words to enlighten him on religion.So he continued to say to him: After Smith was murdered, two years later, his successor, the Prophet Brigham, inspired by Allah, left Nuwo Rabel and settled down on the coast of this salty lake. It is also surrounded by fertile and fertile land, and it is the sunshine highway for many immigrants crossing Utah to California.It was here that the Prophet Brigham Jr. established a new base; and this base was greatly developed under the influence of the Mormon custom of polygamy.

"Well, that's the truth," continued William Hedge, "why Congress hates us and persecutes us, why soldiers of the United States come to ravage our land in Utah, and why our prophet, Little Brigham, is brutalized by them." Imprisoned unreasonably, shall we give in to violence? Never! They kicked us out of Vermont, out of Illinois, out of Ohio, out of Missouri, out of Utah, but we'll still find an unfettered piece of land, and we'll pitch our tents in new places...but what about you, my pious brother," William Hedge fixed his long, stern eyes on Looking at his only audience, he said, "Would you like to pitch your tent under our Mormon flag too?"

"I won't!" replied Passepartout, quite simply, and now he too had slipped out, leaving the enchanted preacher to preach to an empty chair. All the while the crusade was held the train was moving at full speed.It was less than 12:30 noon and had reached the northwest corner of the Great Salt Lake.The surrounding area has a wide view, and tourists can enjoy the whole picture of this inland sea, the Great Salt Lake.The Great Salty Lake is also called the "Dead Sea". It has the same name as the Dead Sea (also known as Asfaltite) that absorbs the Jordan River in southwest Palestine. There is also an American Jordan River that flows into the Great Salty Lake.In this beautiful big lake, there are many strange reefs with wide bases covered with a thick layer of snow-white sea salt.A vast and boundless sea is very calm.In the past, the area of ​​the Great Salt Lake was much larger than it is now. As the years went by, the land along the coast expanded and the lake surface gradually shrunk. However, the bottom of the lake became deeper and deeper.

The area of ​​the Great Salt Lake is more than seventy miles long, thirty-five miles wide, and 3,800 feet above sea level. It is completely different from the Dead Sea, also known as Asvartite.The Dead Sea in western Asia is twelve hundred feet below the surface.The water in the Great Salty Lake contains a lot of salt, and the solid salt accounts for a quarter of the total weight of the lake.The combined weight of water and salt is one thousand one hundred and seventy, of which the weight of water is one thousand.Therefore, fish cannot survive in such lake water.Any fish that enters the Great Salt Lake with the flow of the Jordan, Wilbur, and other rivers dies quickly, but to say the lake is so salty that a man cannot sink it is nonsense . All around the Great Salt Lake are intensively cultivated land.Because the Mormons are experts in agricultural labor.If you come to this place six months later, you will see: many sheds and stables for raising livestock, fields with wheat, corn and sorghum and pastures with lush water grass, and wild rose trees everywhere. Fences and clumps of saponins and euphorbias.But now, there is only a thin layer of white snow covering the whole earth. At two o'clock in the afternoon the passengers got off the train at Ogden.The train did not move on until six o'clock.So Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and their companions had time to walk towards the city by a railway branch that branched off from the station, and see this thoroughly American city.Such a tour only takes two hours.The architectural design of this city is exactly the same as that of other American cities. The whole city is like a big square chessboard. The streets are straight and long. It is a "sorrowful street corner". The city's architects could not get rid of the Anglo-Saxon architectural features - the pursuit of "line symmetry".But the people who live in this strange place have obviously not reached the heights of culture that England has.They made all buildings, regardless of cities, houses and other miscellaneous things, into "squares". At three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Fogg and his party were strolling on the streets of the city.The city is built between the banks of the Jordan River and the Wasatch Mountains, which begin to undulate.There are very few churches here, and the only famous buildings are the Mormon Prophets, courts and arsenals.Then there were the pale blue brick houses with their fronts and verandahs, surrounded by gardens with saponins, palms, and red fruit trees.The city is surrounded by a wall built in 1853 with clay and gravel.The market is on one of the main streets in the city, and there are several hotels with flags on this street.The famous Salt Lake Hotel is one of them. Mr. Fogg and his companions found that the town was not very populated.There are almost no pedestrians on the street.But it was only when they reached the city where the Mormon church was located after passing through many fenced-in urban areas that they found many people, most of them women, which showed the characteristics of polygamy in Mormon family organization.But don't think that every Mormon man has several wives.People are free to decide to marry one or several wives.But it should be explained: female citizens in Utah are particularly willing to get married, because according to local religious rules, the Mormon gods absolutely do not bless single women.It seems that these women's lives are neither comfortable nor happy.Some of them were obviously the women of the wealthiest families, wearing black silk open-fronted short-sleeved jackets, and very simple windbags or turbans, while the others wore only Indian clothes. As a willingly celibate Passepartout, it was a little surprising to see several Mormon women sharing the responsibility for making a man happy.According to his logic, to be such a husband must be miserable.He believes that a man must lead so many wives to live a hard life at the same time, and in the future he will lead these wives to the Mormons' heaven together, and live with them forever after arriving in heaven.In that blissful Paradise, the glorious Prophet Smith will be with them, for Smith is the highest honored figure in that Elysium.These things were simply too dreadful for Passepartout.Obviously, Passepartout had no intention of accepting the call of the Mormon prophet.He felt that the women in Salt Lake City looked at him with a somewhat melancholy look, which may be due to his own misunderstanding. Fortunately, Passepartout did not stay long in the holy city.They were back at the station a little before four, and he stepped into the car and took his old seat. The car horn sounded.But when the wheels of the locomotive began to slide on the rails and were about to go faster, someone shouted: "Stop it! Stop it!" Of course the train that was going could not stop.The yelling man must have been a late Mormon, and he was running out of breath.Fortunately, there were no gates or fences at the station, so he rushed onto the running board of the last car when he got to the track, and then he rolled and fell on a chair in the carriage, panting. Passepartout passed through this episode of the sporting act with the utmost attention.The Utah resident escaped in this way after a fight with his wife just now.Passepartout was greatly interested when he heard of this, and he came to visit the belated traveler. No sooner had the Mormon recovered his breath than Passepartout politely asked him how many wives he had.Judging by his desperate escape just now, Passepartout estimated that he had at least twenty wives. "One, sir!" said the Mormon, holding up both hands. "One is enough!"