Paradise Reclaimed by Halldor Laxness

The federal government had for a long time shown a disposition to incorporate into its jurisdiction the Territory, as the Utah settlement was called by its inhabitants when they were not speaking Golden Book language. The Latter-Day Saints were not very enthusiastic about any such association. The Government found itself time and time again being forced to send police troops, which were called Feds, to intervene when conflict arose between divine revelation and the U. S. President's views. The biggest stumbling-block of all for outsiders was the doctrine that a woman should be esteemed in heaven and on earth according to who her husband was, and that therefore it was the duty of honest and upright men to give as many women as possible a share in their reputation and thereby to enhance their status. It is always a heavy step for a church to renounce a doctrine which has been confided to it by the Godhead; and this holds good not least for moral tenets which are founded upon self-denial by the individual and social enthusiasm by the congregation, such as had been the case with holy polygamy among the Mormons.

At about this time the main road to Utah had been improved and immigrants began to pour in from the eastern States. This wave of emigration was justified by the phrase "Good Times" which was then coming into existence in America and had never been heard in the world before; such "times" were said to be had in Utah. The majority of these incomers, however, were certainly no Latter-Day Saints, but Gentiles, as the Mormons, copying the Jews, called people who do not recognize the true God. They say that such people belong to the Great Heresy, otherwise known as the Great Apostasy, in which Christians had been ensnared from the third century until the Prophet found The Book on Hill Cumorah. The Gentiles had no sooner installed themselves than they rose up against the Prophet's pioneers, called his revelation balderdash and preached holy monogamy against holy polygamy.