The Brigham Young Center

Great Salt Lake City,
November 8th, 1867.

Mr. Calvin H. Read
307 West Lombard St.
Baltimore, Md.

Dear Sir:

Your letter of the 18th September has been received. Accompanying this please find an epitome of our faith, from which you will learn much more respecting our views than you could from the limits of a single letter. Our rules and regulations are those which prevail in well regulated society elsewhere. Our ecclesiastical jurisdiction is confined exclusively to the members of our church and to religious matters. People who are not of our faith are governed by the laws of the Territory, enacted by the Territorial Legislature, as in other Territories.

Good teachers do pretty well here. Our people are now beginning to turn their attention -- more so than they have been able to do for years -- to the education of their children. Their circumstances permit this more than formerly, as, our country being new, children's help has been needed. There is a preference, however, among us in favor of teachers of our own faith, though some teachers who are not of us, fair, unprejudiced men, who abstain from giving the children's minds a religious bias, find employment in their calling.

The most direct route to this country is by the Union Pacific Rail Road to its terminus, and then by coach or wagon to this city; the latter mode is the cheaper but impracticable in the winter time. The stage coach runs through regularly.

We have elders laboring, at the present time, in Virginia. You can place yourself in communication with them by addressing a letter to Henry G. Boyle, Burk's Garden, Tazewell Co. Va. They can satisfy you on many points about which you may wish to inquire.

I remain Respectfully
Brigham Young