accepted and for the moment dismissed it; and he proceeded to a larger
consideration of the situation, in words which I cannot pretend to
recall, but to an effect which I wish to outline--because it not only
accounts for the preservation of the Mormon people from all their
dangers, but contains a reason why the world might have wished to see
them preserved.

The Mormons at this time had never written a line on social reform--
except as the so-called "revelations" established a new social order--
but they had practiced whole volumes. Their community was founded on the
three principles of co-operation, contribution, and arbitration. By
co-operation of effort they had realized that dream of the Socialists,
"equality of opportunity"--not equality of individual capacity, which
the accidents of nature prevent, but an equal opportunity for each
individual to develop himself to the last reach of his power. By
contribution by requiring each man to give one-tenth of his income to a
common fund--they had attained the desired end of modern civilization,
the abolition of poverty, and had adjusted the straps of the community
burden to the strength of the individual to bear it. By arbitration,
they had effected the settlement of every dispute of every kind without
litigation; for their High Councils decided all sorts of personal or
neighborhood disputes without expense of money to the disputants. The
"storehouse of the Lord" had been kept open to fill every need of the
poor among "God's people," and opportunities for self help had been
created out of the common fund, so that neither unwilling idleness nor
privation might mar the growth of the community or the progress of the
individual.

But Joseph Smith had gone further. Daring to believe himself the earthly
representative of Omnipotence, whose duty it was to see that all had the