--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1840 to 1841. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 2 number: 24 published: 1841-10-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“The Mormons,” *Times and Seasons* 2, no. 24 (October 15, 1841): 580–581." printed_title: The Mormons. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-10-15_2_24 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v2n24.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-10-15_2_24 start_page: 580 end_page: 581 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1841 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1841-10-15_2_24 publication_year: 1841 --- # The Mormons An intelligent friend, who called upon us this morning, had just returned from a visit to Nauvoo and the Mormons. He has a whole skin-showing not a single lesion of the cuticle-neither scratch nor bite, nor any other mark of tooth or nail. He believes the mormons are not anthropophad [anthropoid ?], whose heads grow beneath their shoulders but men like other men-with the exception that the folly incident to human nature, runs in one vein through them, instead of in several, as through the most of us. He believes-just as we do-that they have been grossly misunderstood and shamefully libeled, of late perhaps as much by a correspondent of the Journal of Commerce (whom the respectable editors of that paper ought to look after) as from any other source. The present population between eight and nine thusand [thousand], and of course the largest town in Illinois. The people are very enterprizing [enterprising], industrious and thrifty. They are at least quite as honest as the rest of us in this part of the world and probably in any other. Some peculiarities they have no doubt. Their religion is a peculiar one; that is neither Bhoodism [Buddhism] nor Mahometanism nor Judaism, nor Christiany [Christianity]-but it is a faith which they say encourages no vice, nor immorality, nor departure from established laws and usages; neither polygamy, nor promiscuous intercourse, nor community of property. One peculiarity of life is observable among them, and whether traceable to their religion or to some other cause, will not, we suppose, be quarreled with very generally. Ardent spirits as a drink are not in use among them; and the sale of spirits except as a medicine is forbidden by law. Any member of the church who presumes in any place to vend spirituous liquor is first admonished: and upon persistency in his offence [offense] expelled from the church. Tobacco also, is a weed which they seem almost universally to despise. We don't know but that the Mormons ought to be extirpated for refusing to drink whisky and chew tobacco;. but we hope the question will not be decided against them hastily; nor until their judges have slept off the fumes of their own liquor and cigars. Among the public buildings, projected and in a state of forwardness at Nauvoo, is an immense temple to be constructed of hewn stone and to have an elevation of seventy feet. Its other dimensions may be inferred from its height. A splendid hotel, one hundred feet long, built also of stone is going up,-Scores of mechanics and laborers are busy as bees about them; and as they are all influenced by a public spirit unknown to the most of our communities, they do more work and bring more to pass than people do elsewhere. How long the mormons will hold together and exhibit their present aspect, it is not for us to say. At this moment, they present the appearance of an enterprising, industrious, sober and thrifty population-such a population indeed as, in the respects just mentioned, have no rivals east, and, we rather guess not even west of the Mississippi. We copy the following from the Edinburgh Observer of July 16th. In a letter from Navalcarnero, in Spain, we find the following account of a singular phenomenon, which had occurred there:-"About three o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday last, the heat began to be insupportable, and continues increasing until past four, when a horrible tempest arose, accompanied by a shower of stones, which fell with great violence. The country is now reduced to one scene of desolation; nothing is to be heard but sighs and lamentations.- This shower lasted for two hours, at the expiration of which time the country around was thickly covered, and had the appearance of being buried in snow. All the vineyards and the corn crops are destroyed, and the roofs of the houses beaten in. The misery of the inhabitants is beyond description, and the prospect before them for the ensuing winter most disheartening." The following is from the Manchester Guardian, of July 14th. Fall Of Manna.-By a despatch from Vau, in Turkish Armenia, an authenticated statement has been received at Constantinople of a copious fall of manna from the skies. Enough was vouchsafed to cover the earth two inches deep, and to afford food for many days to the people. Specimens were forwarded with the despatch, which the porte intends to have chemically analysed [analyzed].-The following passage, translated from the Arabic in the Malta Times, seems to be connected with this subject:-"Aleppo, 3rd May.-A great famine has happened in Aleppo Malitia, and Karbat, insomuch that the people died with hunger, and sold their sons and daughters to get bread to eat. But the Almighty God rained upon them seed, and fed them withal." "Of the veracity of these words," adds the Malta Times, "extracted from an Arabic letter, we are perfectly satisfied. The seed alluded to is known in Malta, being nearly like hab or aazz, and which being kept a little while, becomes white, like semola (very fine wheaten flour).