MORMONISM IN SOUTHAMPTON.—The Mormons have a number of disciples in Southampton. Their place of meeting is at the bottom of the High street. The preaching, for intellectual incapacity and religious extravagance, is on a level with that of the ranters. The Southampton Mormons have a sort of religious dance, during which the lights are extinguished and strangers are excluded. The dance sounds outside like the tramp of soldiers. It appears that this sect believe in the anabaptist doctrine of the necessity of baptising adult converts by immersion. The place where they (the neophytes) are baptized are the pri-vate baths at West Quay, where, at this time of the year at least, the members of the Great Salt Lake fraternity are secure from impertinent curiosity and molestation. On Sunday night last the Mormon elder or priest baptized five poor women. The ther-mometer during the ceremony was nearly down to the freezing point. There is a belief amongst them that no bodily ill can result from the ceremony of baptism, no matter what the state of the convert's health or the temperature of the weather when the ceremony is performed.
