Among the victims to priestly hatred and jealousy was a young man about twenty years of age, in San Pete County, named Thomas Lewis, a very quiet, inoffensive fellow, much liked by all who knew him, very retiring in his manners, and not particularly fond of gay society. He lived with his widowed mother, and the very sweetest, tenderest relations that can exist between a mother and child existed between them.

Contrary to his usual habit, he attended a dancing-party one evening at the urgent and repeated entreaties of his friends, and during the evening he was quite attentive to a young lady-friend of his who was present, and with whom he was on terms of greater intimacy than with any other in the company. She knew his shy, retiring disposition, and seemed to take pleasure in assisting him to make the evening a pleasant one; just as any good-natured, kindly girl will do for a young fellow whom she likes, and who she knows is ill at ease and uncomfortable.

It happened that Snow, the Bishop of the ward in which the Lewis family lived, had cast his patriarchal eye on this young girl, and designed her for himself; and he did not relish the idea of seeing another person pay any attention to his future wife. He had a large family already, but he wished to add to it, and he did not choose to be interfered with.

Lewis's doom was sealed at once ; the bewitched Bishop was mad with jealous rage, and he had only to give a hint of his feelings to some of his chosen followers, who were always about, and the sequel was sure. He denounced Lewis in the most emphatic manner, and really succeeded in arousing quite a strong feeling of indignation against him for his presumption in daring to pay even the slightest attention to a lady who was destined to grace a Bishop's harem.

The closest espionage was kept upon him by the Bishop's band of ruffians, and one evening a favorable opportunity presented itself; he was waylaid, and the Bishop's sentence carried out, which was to inflict on the boy an injury so brutal and barbarous that no woman's pen may write the words that describe it.

He lay in a concealed spot for twenty-four hours, weak and ill, and unable to move. Here his brother found him in an apparently dying state, and took him home to his poor, distracted mother, who nursed him with a breaking heart, until after a long time, when he partially recovered.

He then withdrew himself from all his former friends, and even refused to resume his place at the table with the family. He became a victim of melancholia, and would take no notice of what was occurring around him. He staid with his mother for several years, when he suddenly disappeared, and has never been heard of since ; his mother and brother made every effort to find him, but they could not obtain the slightest clew to his whereabouts.

Whether this victim of priestly rule is dead or living must for ever remain a mystery. It is probable that the emissaries of Bishop Snow have put an end to his existence. Yet during the whole of this affair the bishop was sustained by Brigham Young, who knew all about it. He has held his sacred office as securely as though the stain of human blood was not on his conscience ; he has been sent on a mission to preach "the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ to the poor benighted nations of Christendom," and he has also taken more wives, which were sealed to him by Brigham Young in the Endowment House.