Greg Kofford Books, as part of its The Mormon Image in Literature series, is re-publishing “The Mormoness: or, the Trials of Mary Maverick, a Narrative of Real Events." That’s quite a mouthful for an 1853 novella of about 25,000 words.
Written by a minister/educator/journalist of some note named Professor John Russell, it’s 1853 publication, in serial form, is significant because it’s virtually the only work of Mormon fiction derived from non-church sources that is sympathetic to Mormonism. But sympathetic is not intended to mean that Russell had any warm feelings toward the doctrines of the Latter-day Saints, and its founder. Indeed, Russell was contemptious of its doctrines, its leaders, its scriptures and lamented individuals who were ”ensnared“ by it.
But Russell was unique in that he vociferously condemned persecution of the young faith, primarily for two reasons. The first was that it violated the constitutional rights of Mormons. The second reason, more personal, was Russell’s fear — probably accurate — that outrage over Mormons being persecuted incited public sympathy for their plight, and improved the faith’s missionary efforts. In ”The Mormoness“ he writes: ”Employ Force and violence to put down the wildest delusion that fanaticism ever invented, and you inevitably insure its success. ... It is strikingly verified in the case of the Mormons. Hundreds who ridiculed the absurdities of that creed when its followers were unmolested, fell directly into the snare of Mormonism when their sympathies were awakened by seeing them calmly enduring persecution and death for their cause.“
In fact, Michael Austin and Ardis E. Parshall, who edit and annotate this volume, include a letter Russell wrote in 1841 to Thomas Gregg, the editor of the extremely anti-Mormon Warsaw Signal, chiding his friends for the newspaper’s tone. Russell was prescient when he wrote, ”I have not a doubt but that the Signal will destroy the settlement and town of the Mormons. I am fearful that on opening the next number I shall see the event announced in starring capitals.“ But he added, “the excitement will soon fade away and the deepest feelings of sympathy be awakened for that people. Their errors will all be forgotten in their suffering.”
Gregg was not as murderous a foe of Mormons as another Signal editor, Thomas Sharp, and the editors note that under Gregg’s guidence, the paper took a less harsh tone with Mormons and Nauvoo.
As for “The Mormoness,” Russell based the main characters, very loosely, on a father and son who were killed at The Hauns Mill Massacre in Missouri, leaving a widow. The Maverick family, James, Mary, and son Eddy, live in Sixteen Mile Prairie, a small settlement. They are happy, pious and very content, Mary such a wonderful housekeeper and mother that she inspires envious gossip from peers. James, once a vociferous opponent of Mormonism, is converted. Forced through pressure to give it up, he fears for his soul and nearly dies. To bring him back to health, Mary decides to convert to the faith. The family falls from esteem and eventually moves.
In Russell’s tale, the family grows in the faith, all are converted. On the night of the Hauns Mill-type massacre, both James and Eddy are killed. Deeply depressed, Mary, the heroine, gathers her faith and courage and dedicates her life to Christ-like behavior. Russell shares passages in which Mary, a veritable saint, teaches children, is proposed to, unsuccessfully, by a rich man, goes among native Americans, nursing them through cholera, and gains the respect of everyone she meets, despite suffering discrimination due to her religion. The theme is clear — anything evil or bad that is thrown at Mary Maverick is returned with an excess of love, thereby increasing her esteem, and by extension Mormonism.
The climax of the novella involves Mary’s crisis when she discovers she is nursing back to health the man who killed her husband and son. A conflict arises when the man, enamored of her, insists they be married.
As literature, this melodramatic tale will cause no sleepless nights to defenders of Charles Dickens. But it is readable, and I found myself eager to finish it in a sitting. Russell is progressive enough, for a faithful mainstream Christian of that time, to describe Mary Maverick as an example of a Christian, despite her religion. With his text, he shows how great suffering and humility moves the protagonist deeper into her faith, and a Christlike existence.
He writes, “These unmerited and cruel wrongs, inflicted upon that sect, and especially upon her own husband, made a deep impression upon the feelings of Mary, They enlisted her sympathies in the cause of the injured, and had a thousand fold greater effect than all the arguments of the prophet himself could have had, to change her opinions. Insensibly to herself, the daily abuse unjustly heaped upon her husband wrought an entire change in her views of Mormonism, and she now joined heart and hand with that sect, and willingly united her destiny with theirs. Such is ever the effect of persecution, even of those most deeply in error.”
Other portions of the book include a biographical sketch of Russell, the aforementioned letter to the Signal’s editor, and a chapter from another book Russell penned, an attack on Universalism.
-- Doug Gibson
-- Previously published at StandardNET
No comments:
Post a Comment