Item Detail
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18081
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3
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0
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English
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Thomas Carlyle's Draft Essay on the Mormons
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Literature and Belief
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2006
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25
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no.1-2
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261-288
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Thomas Carlyle, "one of Victorian Britain's most well-known historians and social observers" wrote an essay on Mormons sometime in the early 1850s which Kerry titles "Draft Essay on the Mormons." In order to place this essay in context, Kerry gives a brief history of the Church in Great Britain and records some comments that other authors were making about the Mormons. He then studies Carlyle's draft essay along the lines of Church government, Church leaders, and colonialism, comparing ideas in this essay to those found in other Carlyle writings. Kerry determines that Carlyle was favorably impressed with the Church and its members, not due to any of their theological beliefs but due to the "practical results of the religion." He "express[ed] approbation for the Church's leadership and the kind of action-oriented belief and obedience it inspires in its members."