AN epic of woman ! Not in all the ages has there been one like unto it.
Fuller of romance than works of fiction are the lives of the Mormon women. So strange and thrilling is their story,—so rare in its elements of experience,—that neither history nor fable affords a perfect example ; yet is it a reality of our own times.
Women with new types of character, antique rather than modern ; themes ancient, but transposed to our latter-day experience. Women with their eyes open, and the prophecy of their work and mission in their own utterances, who have dared to enter upon the path of religious empire-founding with as much divine enthusiasm as had the apostles who founded Christendom. Such are the Mormon women,—religious empire-founders, in faith and fact. Never till now did woman essay such an extraordinary character ; never before did woman rise to the conception of so supreme a mission in her own person and life.
We can only understand the Mormon sisterhood by introducing them in this cast at the very outset; only comprehend the wonderful story of their lives
by viewing them as apostles, who have heard the voices of the invisibles commanding them to build the temples of a new faith.
Let us forget, then, thus early in their story, all reference to polygamy or monogamy. Rather let us think of them as apostolic mediums of a new revelation, who at first saw only a dispensation of divine innovations and manifestations for the age. Let us view them purely as prophetic women, who undertook to found their half of a new Christian empire, and we have exactly the conception with which to start the epic story of the Women of Mor-mondom.
They had been educated by the Hebrew Bible, and their minds cast by its influence, long before they saw the book of Mormon or heard the Mormon prophet. The examples of the ancient apostles were familiar to them, and they had yearned for the pentecosts of the early days. But most had they been enchanted by the themes of the old Jewish prophets, whose writings had inspired them with faith in the literal renewal of the covenant with Israel, and the "restitution of all things" of Abra-hamic promise. This was the case with nearly all of the early disciples of Mormonism,—men and women. They were not as sinners converted to Christianity, but as disciples who had been waiting for the " fullness of the everlasting gospel." Thus had they been prepared for the new revelation,—an Israel born unto the promises,—an Israel afterwards claiming that in a pre-existent state they were the elect of God. They had also inherited their earnest religious characters from their fathers and mothers.
