Joel Rae, "bred in the word and the truth" of Mormonism, if not born

in it, returns to Nauvoo from a mission just upon the time that the

last remnant of the Saints have departed from that ill-fated city. He

finds that the home of his parents in the outskirts of Nauvoo has been

destroyed by mobs; and that his aged father and mother were driven into

Nauvoo, where they are for the time under the protection of an apostate

family; that his fiancee, with her family, has turned from the faith,

and she is only awaiting his arrival to ascertain if he will join her

in her apostasy. This he refuses to do, and with his parents prepares

to follow his expatriated people in their great westward movement.

While being ferried over the Mississippi, the aged father of young

Rae--the son not being present--is pitched into the river by ruffian

hands and is drowned; his aged mother dies from the shock of the

horrible murder; and young Rae, made desperate by those events, becomes

a "Son of Dan," a supposed secret society of the blood and thunder

order, oath-bound to "support the First Presidency of the Church of,

Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in all things, right or wrong!"

He forms one of the band of pioneers which Brigham Young led to the

Salt Lake valley in 1847, and gives numerous evidences of increasing

fanaticism, much to the delight of the Mormon leaders, which delight

is here and there expressed in silly, blasphemous sentences of which

the following is a fair sample: "When that young man [Rae] gets all het

up with the Holy Ghost, the Angel of the Lord just has to give down!"

In the new home of the Saints young Rae does his full share of both

manual and spiritual labor. In the latter he succeeded too well since

he preached better, worked more seeming miracles, and prophesied more

than the other "Lions of the Lord." Brigham declares him "soul proud,"

and sends him to the Missouri river in 1857 to bring in the handcart

companies, in which expedition he witnesses enough distress and misery

to humble the most "soul proud" man alive, since the sufferings of

the handcart companies from cold, famine and over toil is the result

of his own bad judgement in starting late in the season. Arriving in

Salt Lake, however, his fanatical preaching starts a "reformation,"

i. e., an outburst of wild fanaticism attended upon by murders, and

voluntary submissions to secret executions, to atone for the commission

of the more heinous sins. Rae's fanaticism makes him a participant in

the Mountain Meadows massacre in which it falls to his lot to kill the

young militia captain--Grimway--who had assisted Rae to leave Nauvoo,

and who subsequently married the woman to whom Rae was betrothed.

She, too, was with the emigrants attacked at Mountain Meadows, and

Rae, after killing her husband, saw her murdered and scalped by an

Indian. From the number of emigrants doomed to death Rae rescued a

white-haired boy and the little daughter of his one-time betrothed

wife, Prudence Corson. The boy he leaves at Hamblin's ranch, whence he

escapes, swearing vengeance against Rae, whom he saw kill the father

of the little girl--Prudence Grimway. The girl Prudence--named after

her mother--Rae leaves at a neighboring ranch, claiming her as his own

child, for whom he will later return. Haunted by the memories of the

awful slaughter of the gentile emigrants at Mountain Meadows, he goes

north, actively participates in the resistance to the United States'

army under Albert Sidney Johnston, then entering Utah, but is disgusted

with the final submission of Brigham Young to United States authority,

and takes up his abode in a new settlement far to the south of Salt

Lake City, and not far from the Mountain Meadows. Here his life of

penance begins. In a spirit of self-sacrifice he marries a woman with

but one hand, and a disfigured face. The hand she lost by having it

frozen while pushing a hand cart in the belated company Rae had led to

Utah years before. He also married another woman--a poor half-starved,

cast off wife of a prominent Mormon Bishop; and later still, another

wife, a shallow-witted, talkative creature who is a cross indeed to

the "man of many sorrows." He takes under his protection also a poor

imbecile man, the victim of a horrible, and unnameable mutilation;

and a woman who had gone insane because her husband married another

wife. The wives, to his honor be it said, were such in name only. This

collection of the woebegone, with the child Prudence added, make up the

Rae household. The girl Prudence becomes beautiful, of course, and is

much sought by men of middle life already possessed of many wives, no

less a personage than Brigham Young being among the number; and it is

represented that the latter "suitor" had but to send word in advance

to the foster father of his intention to marry the girl on his next

journey south, in order to close the matrimonial incident, except the

formal word-ceremony, and taking away the bride! But Miss Prudence had

visited Salt Lake, and while there witnessed the performance at the

theater of "Romeo and Juliet," which is sufficient to give her ideas of

love and matrimony all her own. The balcony scene much impressed her;

and ever afterwards became her ideal of expressed love. A few years of

dreaming on the part of the maiden, and a few years of silent suffering

on the part of Joel Rae, now the "little man of sorrows," then the

lad of the Meadows, Ruel Follett, who escaped from Hamblin's ranch

swearing vengeance on Rae and two other participants in the massacre,

returns, seeking his revenge. He is now a young man, handsome, brave,

strong, aggressive. But he is baffled in his mission of retribution.

Two of the murderers he seeks are already dead some time since, and

Rae is so pitifully weak and distraught by the haunting memories of

that awful butchery that young Follett cannot find the heart to kill

him; besides there is Prudence, who loves the "little man of sorrows"

with true filial affection. The upshot of it all is that young Follett

leaves to time the duty of taking off Rae--an event that cannot be long

deferred, since the little man is fast hastening to the end of his

earthly career; and meantime Follett insidiously woos Prudence, and

wins her love; while she makes an unsuccessful effort to convert him to

Mormonism. In all their readings, and conversations upon the Book of

Mormon and other subjects connected with the Mormon religion, Follett

is given an easy victory over the poor girl by the employment of covert

sneers, slightly concealed sarcasms and tender ridicule. Meantime

Joel Rae has lost his faith in Mormonism; he discovers that polygamy

is wrong; the Saints abandoned of God; and on the occasion of Brigham

Young paying his annual visit to the settlement where Rae lives, he

tells the prophet and the people his discoveries. Anticipating the

vengeance of the "Sons of Dan," Rae flies to the cross and cairn of

stones erected on the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre, that he

may die--according to orthodox dramatic canons--at the place where

his awful crime was committed. He is followed by Prudence and young

Follett, who come up to him at the cross erected by Gentile hands on

the site of the massacre, where, in company with two Indians, they

watched him peacefully pass away in a rather protracted death scene,

to the accompaniment of an Indian tom-tom drum, and notwithstanding

one of the redmen waves before his eyes the yellow scalp-lock which

years before he had seen reeking with blood snatched from the head

of the woman he loved. Young Follett and Prudence, as soon as the

"little man of sorrows" is buried, leave for the east with a passing

wagon train, and having been married by Rae a few minutes before his

death, the reader is left to infer that they "lived happily ever

after," in some eastern city, far, far away from fanatical Mormons,

and their wickedness, where only monogamous marriages obtain, and

conjugal happiness is never disturbed by the haunting fears of marital

infidelities, or polygamy, simultaneous or consecutive.

I have been at the pains to give this rather full synopsis of the

story, that my readers may be witnesses of the fact that Mr. Wilson has

certainly massed enough of gruesome materials to furnish to repletion

several chambers of horrors. Far be it from me to suggest that so

prominent an author has stooped to the methods of yellow-backed,

ten-cent novelists of a quarter of a century ago, in the matter at

least of the quality and mass of incidents to be woven into story.

This glance at the incidents of the story also reveals the opportunity

they will afford the author for gathering into one view the bigotry,

ignorance, weakness, fanaticism, and wickedness of individual Mormons,

all to be interwoven with the mockery, sarcasm, ridicule, ribaldry,

innuendo and insults of their enemies.

And now, as to the treatment of the theme. The author of the "Lions of

the Lord" in his opening chapter--the prettiest piece of descriptive

writing in the book--has drawn heavily upon, if he has not actually

plagiarized from, the lecture of the late General Thomas L. Kane, of

Philadelphia, delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,

on March 26, 1850. Mr. Wilson heads his first chapter "The Dead City,"

meaning Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr.

Kane opens his Lecture under the caption "The Deserted City," meaning

Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr. Wilson makes

his hero, Joel Rae, enter the "dead city" in "September." Mr. Kane

enters "the deserted city" late in the "autumn." Mr. Wilson's hero

"from a skiff in mid-river" views the temple on the hill top; presently

"landing at the wharf, he was stunned by the hush of the streets." Mr.

Kane "procured a skiff," and rowing across the river, "landed at the

chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked and saw no one.

I could hear no one move, though the quiet everywhere was such that I

could hear the flies buzz."

The closeness with which Mr. Wilson follows Mr. Kane's beautifully

descriptive passages, however, will best be seen and appreciated when

placed in parallel paragraphs, as follows:

[Left column:] Mr. Wilson. "The Dead City."

[Right column:] Mr. Kane. "The Deserted City."

[Wilson] "The city without life lay handsomely along a river in the

early sunlight of a September morning.....From the half-circle around

which the broad river bent its moody current, the neat houses, set in

cool green gardens, were terraced up the high hill, and from the summit

of this a stately marble temple, glittering of newness, towered far

above them in placid benediction."

[Kane] "Half encircled by the bend of the river, a beautiful city lay

glittering in the fresh [autumn] morning sun; its bright new dwellings,

set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately dome shaped hill

which was crowned by a noble marble edifice, whose high tapering spire

was radiant with white and gold."

[Wilson] "Mile after mile the streets lay silent, along the river

front, up to the hilltop, and beyond into the level....And when they

had run their length, and the outlying fields were reached, there, too,

the same brooding spell-and the land stretched away in the hush and

haze."

[Kane] "The city appeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the

background, there rolled off a fair country, checquered by the careful

lines of fruitful husbandry."

[Wilson] "The yellow grain, heavy-headed with richness, lay beaten down

and rotting, for there were no reapers. The city, it seemed, had died

calmly, painlessly, drowsily, as if overcome by sleep."

[Kane] "Fields upon fields of heavy headed yellow grain lay rotting

ungathered upon the ground. No one was at hand to take in their rich

harvest. As far as the eye could reach, they stretched away, they

sleeping, too, in the hazy air of autumn."

[Wilson]: "He started wonderingly up a street that led from the i

waterside. . . . He was now passing empty workshops, hesitating door

after door with ever mounting alarm. . . . . Growing bolder, he tried

some of the doors and found them to yield. . . . . He passed an

empty rode walk, the hemp strewn about, as if the workers had left

hurriedly. He peered curiously at idle looms and deserted spinning

wheels--deserted apparently but the instant before he came. . . He

entered a carpenter's shop. On the bench was an unfinished door, a

plane where it had been shoved half the length of its edge, the fresh

pine shaving still curling over the side. . . . . He turned into a

baker's shop and saw freshly chopped kindling piled against the oven,

and dough actually on the kneading tray. In a tanner's vat he found

fresh bark. In a blacksmith's shod he entered next the fire was out,

but there was coal headed beside the forge, with the ladling pool and

the crooked water horn, and on the anvil was a horseshoe that had

cooled before it was finished."

[Kane] "I walked through the solitary streets. . . . I went about

unchecked. I went into empty workshops, ropewalks and smithies.

[Kane] The spinner's wheel was idle; the carpenter had gone from his

work bench and shavings, his unfinished sash and casing.

[Kane] Fresh bark was in the tanner's vat, and the fresh chopped

lightwood stood piled against the baker's oven.

[Kane] The blacksmith shop was cold, but his coal heap, and lading

pool, and crooked water horn were all there as if he had just gone off

for a holiday."

[Wilson] "He entered one of the gardens, clinking the gate-latch loudly

after him, but no one challenged. He drew a drink from the Well with

its loud rattling chain and clumsy water-bucket, but no one called.

At the door of the house he pounded, and at last flung it open with

all the noise he could make. Still his hungry ears fed on nothing but

sinister echoes, and barren husks of his clamour. There was no curt

voice of a man, no quick questioning tread of a woman. There were dead

white ashes on the hearth, and the silence was grimly kept by the dumb

household gods."

[Kane] "If I went into the gardens, linking the wicket latch after me,

to pull the marigolds, heart's ease and lady slippers and draw a drink

with the water-sodden bucket and its noisy chain, or knocked off with

my stick the tall headed dahlias and sunflowers, hunting over the beds

for cucumbers and love-apples; no one called out to me from any open

window, or dog sprang forward to bark alarm. I could have supposed

the people hidden in their houses, but the doors were unfastened; and

when at last I timidly entered them, I found dead ashes white upon the

hearth, and had to tread a-tip-toe as if walking down the aisles of a

country church."

Mr. Wilson certainly has a remarkably similar taste to that of

Colonel Kane for flowers and gardens. Young Rae meets Prudence in the

gardens--now observe:

[Left column:] Mr. Wilson.

[Right column:] Mr. Kane.

[Wilson] "He ran to her--over beds of marigolds, heart's ease and lady

slippers, through a row of drowsy looking heavy headed dahlias, and

passed other withering flowers, all but choked out by the rank garden

growths of late summer."

[Kane] "If I went into the gardens. . . to pull the marigolds, heart's

ease and lady slippers, . . . or knock off the tall, heavy headed

dahlias and the sunflowers, hunting over the beds for cucumbers and

love-apples--no one called out to me."

After Mr. Wilson had followed General Kane in the matter of flowers

so closely, one marvels that he did not go with him as far as the

"sunflowers and love-apples;" but General Kane was hunting "over beds

of cucumbers," and perhaps the author of the "Lions of the Lord" found

that his taste for vegetables did not run so closely with the General's

in the vegetable line as in the matter of flowers. But seriously, does

not the code of ethics in literature require that our rising young

author should either have the grace to put these descriptive passages

in quotation marks, or else frankly give the source whence he draws

the prettiest bits of description in his much-vaunted book? In the

event of the work reaching a second edition, I suggest that he adopt

the whole of General Kane's description of "The Deserted City," for

his opening chapter; for beautiful as his own is, it but shines with

a borrowed light, and when compared with the General's it appears to

great disadvantage.

A word as to the purpose of the "Lions of the Lord;" for Mr. Wilson's

performance must be classified with the "purpose novel." Undoubtedly

there is such a thing as instructive fiction, and the "purpose

novel" has its place as one of the agencies which contribute to the

enlightenment of humanity. But if it takes hold of our respect it must

be, in harmony with the truth--though fiction, it must speak truly; and

keep within the probabilities of the subject in hand. Or, to slightly

paraphrase an utterance in Mr. Wilson's preface, if the writer now

and again has to divine certain things that do not show--yet must

be--surely this must not be less than truth. For a writer of "purpose

fiction" to do other than this is to make himself as much liable to

censure as the historian who would pervert the truth which he is in

honor bound to state whether it fits in with his personal theories or

not. In his preface, Mr. Wilson informs us that he designed to make

a tale from his observations of western life in Salt Lake and Utah;

but in his search for things on which to found his fiction he was so

dismayed by facts so much more thrilling than any fiction he might have

imagined, that he turned from his first purpose in order "to try to

tell what had really been." "In this story then," says he, "the things

that are strangest have most truth. The make-believe is hardly more

than a cement to join the queerly wrought stones of fact that were

found ready." Hence we are to be turned from considering his work as

fiction in order to regard it as truth.

It is exactly at this point that I arraign Mr. Wilson before the bar of

public opinion, and tell him that what he represents as true I denounce

as false; and this quite apart from any books from which he has

paraphrased much of the matter he weaves into his story. The trouble

is that the sources whence he makes his deductions are as untrue in

their statements as his paraphrases of them are. Mr. Wilson is as one

who walks through some splendid orchard and gathers here and there

the worm-eaten, frost-bitten, wind-blasted, growth-stunted and rotten

fruit, which in spite of the best of care is to be found in every

orchard; bringing this to us he says: "This is the fruit of yonder

orchard; you see how worthless it is; an orchard growing such fruit is

ready for the burning." Whereas, the fact may be that there are tons

and tons of beautiful, luscious fruit, as pleasing to the eye as it

would be agreeable to the palate, remaining in the orchard to which he

does not call our attention at all. Would not such a representation of

the orchard be an untruth, notwithstanding his blighted specimens were

gathered from its trees? If he presents to us the blighted specimens

of fruit from the orchard, is he not in truth and in honor bound also

to call our attention to the rich harvest of splendid fruit that

still remains ungathered before he asks us to pass judgement on the

orchard? I am not so blind in my admiration of the Mormon people, or

so bigoted in my devotion to the Mormon faith as to think that there

are no individuals in that Church chargeable with fanaticism, folly,

intemperate speech and wickedness; nor am I blind to the fact that

some in their over-zeal have lacked judgement; and that in times of

excitement, under stress of special provocation, even Mormon leaders

have given utterance to ideas that are indefensible. But I have yet to

learn that it is just in a writer of history or of "purpose fiction,"

that "must speak truly," to make a collection of these things and

represent them as of the essence of that faith against which said

writer draws an indictment.

"No one would measure the belief of Christians," says a truly great

writer, "by certain statements in the Fathers, nor judge the moral

principles of Roman Catholics by prurient quotations from the casuists;

nor yet estimate Lutherans by the utterances and deeds of the early

successors of Luther, nor Calvanists by the burning of Servitus. In

such cases the general standpoint of the times has to taken into

account." (Edeshiem's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, preface,

page 8.)

A long time ago the great Edmund Burke, in his defense of the rashness

expressed in both speech and action some of our patriots of the

American Revolution period, said: "It is not fair to judge of the

temper or the disposition of any man or set of men when they are

composed and at rest from their conduct or their expressions in a

state of disturbance and irritation." The justice of Burke's assertion

has never been questioned, and without any wresting whatsoever it may

be applied to Mormon leaders who sometimes spoke and acted under the

recollection of rank injustice perpetrated against themselves and their

people; or rebuke rising evils against which their souls revolted.

Mr. Wilson's book is a false indictment against Mormonism, and

against the leading characters of the Mormon Church. The speeches he

represents as falling from their lips, could never be recognized in

the utterances of Mormons, either among the leaders, or the rank and

file. The blasphemous phraseology was never heard in Mormon camps or

pulpits. Such expressions as "When that young man gets all het up with

the Holy Ghost, the angel of the Lord just has to give down;" or "Lord,

what won't Brother Brigham do when the Holy Ghost gets a strangle-holt

on him?" are blasphemies utterly impossible to the Mormon mind. Such

expressions as the following, represented as coming from Brigham Young:

"The Lute of the Holy Ghost will now say a word of farewell from our

pioneers to those who must stay behind," is equally impossible; and

so are many other speeches which he puts into the mouths of leading

characters of the Mormon Church. Even this blasphemous phrase-name

given to Joel Rae--"Lute of the Holy Ghost"--is not original with Mr.

Wilson. It was a cognomen given to Ephraem Syrus, "the greatest man,"

says Andrew D. White, author of "A History of the Warfare of Science

with Theology in Christendom,"--"the greatest man of the old Syrian

Church, widely known as the 'Lute of the Holy Ghost.'" [A]

[Footnote A: Vol. I, p. 92 of work named in text.]

The most serious injustice Mr. Wilson does the Mormon people, however,

the thing in which he most departs from the facts established, not

only by history but by the decisions of the United States courts in

Utah, is in that he makes the awful crime of the massacre of emigrants

at Mountain Meadows, in 1857, the crime of the Mormon Church. Over

and over again in fact he makes that charge, and represents his chief

character, "Joel Rae," as seeking to take upon himself the sins of the

"Church" for committing that crime; and in one place represents him as

saying: "For fifteen years I have lain in hell for the work this Church

did at Mountain Meadows." To bear false witness against one's neighbor

even in matters that may be trivial, is a contemptible crime; but

when in bearing false witness the charge is that of murder, wholesale

murder, and that under circumstances the most revolting and horrible,

the crime then of bearing false witness rises above the merely

contemptible, and to be seen in its true enormity, must be regarded as

bearing a due proportion to the crime charged. That is, next to being

guilty of the crime itself must be the crime of falsely charging it

to the innocent. I care nothing for the fact that the predecessors of

Mr. Wilson, in works of fiction on the West have made similar charges.

He will not be justified in following their evil example. A man of

his standing in the world of letters, starting out to "try to tell

what had really been," to write fiction that must speak "no less than

truth"--he was under obligations both to himself and the people to whom

his message should go, to investigate all the facts, and speak truly in

harmony with them in every case.

It is not necessary here to enter into any argument or even produce

the evidence that the Mormon Church was in no wise responsible, in

no wise connected with the awful butchery at Mountain Meadows. The

evidence of these things appear upon the very surface of our history

in Utah, and also in decisions of United States judges who would only

have been too happy to have implicated the Mormon Church officials

in that awful crime if it had been possible. In fact they tried to

so fix the responsibility, and failed. But it is enough here to tell

Mr. Wilson, that he has Committed an act of injustice for which I

would not like to stand responsible at the judgement bar of God; I am

confident that he will be driven to the necessity of choosing between

these alternatives: either that he has consciously spoken contrary to

truth in the matter; or else he has given merely surface consideration

to one side of the subject only which he represents himself as having

considered profoundly; in either event Mr. Wilson has assumed a most

serious responsibility.

IV.

A BRIEF DEFENSE OF THE MORMON PEOPLE.

FOREWORD.

In the year 1903, Mr. L. C. Bateman, one of the editors of the

"Lewiston (Maine) Journal" visited Salt Lake City and other parts

of Utah. He formed a favorable impression of the Mormon people, and

their progress in all that makes for civilization. The result of his

observations while in Utah Mr. Bateman published in his paper, the

"Lewiston (Maine) Journal." This article attracted the attention of

the _Deseret News_, which made some favorable comment upon its general

fairness. Observing this, a non-Mormon resident of Salt Lake City wrote

the "Journal," protesting against the letter published by its editorial

staff correspondent, saying that such treatment of the "Mormon

question" was harmful in that it gave encouragement to Mormonism. The

communication of "M" was sent to this writer--who met Mr. Bateman,

during his visit to Utah--with the request that he make answer to it,

which he did under the title "A Brief Defense of the Mormon People,"

which was published in the "Journal." Of the success of this answer Mr.

Bateman, the editor of the "Journal," wrote as follows:

LEWISTON, MAINE, Oct. 4, 1903.

_My Dear Mr. Roberts:_

Permit me to congratulate you on the magnificent and overwhelming reply

that you made to my critic "M." from Salt Lake. It is one of the finest

and most crushing things that we have printed for years. I could easily

have replied to "M" myself, and made him an object of ridicule, but I

thought it would be better to have the reply come from a Mormon. My

original article neither endorsed nor condemned. I merely told facts

and the truth as I saw them. And I personally am an agnostic. It is

only from that class that you can get justice.

This article of yours will create a profound impression all over New

England. It is so complete and conclusive that I anticipate nothing

more from the "jaundiced" "M." I send you copy of Journal.

Yours cordially,

L. C. BATEMAN.

I.

Eastern Eulogy of Mormons' System.

_To Editors of the Lewiston Journal:_

The _Deseret News_ of Salt Lake City, which is the official organ of

the Mormon priesthood, in its issue of Aug. 6th, contains an editorial

expressing its great satisfaction over the recent eulogistic article in

the _Journal,_ on the merits of the Mormons and their peculiar system,

by the Journal's representative, Mr. L. C. Bateman.

Having lived in Utah for over twenty-five years, striving with other

law-abiding citizens to establish here the same American ideas which

are accepted as fundamental in the other states of the Union, I have

had ample opportunity to study the Mormon system and its fruits. And I

am prepared to say that, while I have never had anything but the utmost

good will for the masses of the Mormon people, I am forced to join with

other careful students in declaring that from a social, civil, and

moral standpoint, no language is strong enough to set forth the evil

fruits of the Mormon system.

Based on polygamy, how could the system be otherwise than rotten? Its

central idea of government being that of priesthood rule, how could

it be otherwise than anti-American? Having been founded and organized

by a man as corrupt and immoral as the multiplied testimony of Joseph

Smith's acquaintances and neighbors proves that he was, how could it be

otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results?

On the part of loyal Americans who have studied the Mormon system here

on the ground for years, there is no difference of opinion about the

inherent badness of the system and of its fruits, although many, unduly

influenced by what they consider business policy, are reluctant to say

much about it.

Some fifteen years ago, Mr. James Barclay, a member of the English

Parliament, spent three days in Salt Lake City studying Mormonism.

He surrendered himself to the control of the Mormon leaders. He was

dined at the Amelia Palace, at that time the residence of the Mormon

president, and attended other receptions in his honor at prominent

Mormon residences. He saw everything through Mormon spectacles.

When he went back to London, he published in the popular Nineteenth

Century Magazine, a most glowing eulogy of the Mormon system. The

Mormon leaders had been so successful with their hospitality scheme,

that the Hon. Mr. Barclay had nothing but praise for those who were

pushing forward their law-defying system of polygamy and nothing but

condemnation for those who were trying to enforce the righteous laws of

the land against it.

The Journal's representative seems to have seen things much as the Hon.

Mr. Barclay. However, that may be, the Mormons have palmed off upon

him, as they did on Mr. Barclay, those old yarns about their changing

the barren desert of this valley into a blooming garden, and about

"the persecutions" from which they have suffered in Utah. The first of

these old chestnuts was laid on the shelf years ago here in the west,

because there is no truth in it. There never was any barren desert

in this valley, for it has always been one of the best-watered, most

easily cultivated and productive valleys west of the Mississippi. The

Mormons raised bountiful crops of grain the very first year of their

arrival. The difficulty of securing a crop here in this fertile valley

with its mild and equable climate, was very small in comparison with

the difficulties encountered by the first settlers of New England along

the bleak Atlantic shore. Furthermore, what a mercy it would have

been to our whole country if Utah had remained unsettled for another

twenty-five years, if then it could have been occupied by law-abiding

Americans in sympathy with American civilization, such men as have

built up the noble states of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.

The Journal's representative says: "But even here they were not safe

from the persecutions of their enemies." That fictitious yarn has been

worked off on many a foreigner. But we did not suppose it possible

to catch an American newspaperman with such a bare hook as that. The

Mormons had this territory almost exclusively to themselves for about

twenty-five years, and did practically as they pleased from 1847 until

1882, when the first Edmunds Law called them to a halt. The terrible

"persecutions" complained of consist simply in this and nothing more,

namely, that the Mormons were asked, and after some thirty-five years

were required, to obey just the same laws which all other people and

other religious bodies have always obeyed in this country. But the

Mormon leaders have left nothing undone to make the people under

them believe, and all outsiders whom they could influence, that the

enforcement of these righteous laws which are obeyed by the American

people generally, was "persecution."

But here is another paragraph from the article under discussion, which

shows that the Journal's correspondent was as completely imposed upon

as was the Hon. Mr. Barclay. He says, as quoted by the _Deseret News:_

"The only charge that can be laid at their doors today is that they

refuse to desert their wives that they married in good faith (!)

And they are right. To turn these women out of doors to subsist at

the hands of charity would be a vastly worse crime in the eyes of

God and decent-minded men than to make the provision for them that

they are now doing."

The law-breaking polygamists could not have stated their case more

satisfactorily to themselves. But what is the matter with the Journal's

representative? Of course, he knows that polygamy is an atrocious crime

in this country, and has been so considered since our government was

founded. Why, then, does he talk about committing the crime of polygamy

"in good faith?" As well talk about committing the crime of bank

robbing "in good faith." Indeed, it would not be difficult to show that

bank-robbery, bad as it is, does less harm to society than polygamy.

Furthermore none of the opponents of polygamy have ever asked that

plural wives should be "turned out of doors." Nobody has objected

to having plural wives and their children kindly provided for

by the men who placed them in their unlawful position. But the

law-abiding citizens of Utah and the Federal Government also make

a wide distinction between providing for these plural wives and

their children, and providing these same plural wives with children.

The whole difficulty grows out of the fact that the men who were

living with plural wives before Utah became a State still persist in

maintaining the old polygamous relations with these women, and that,

too, in the face of the solemn pledges to the United States government

that if granted amnesty and statehood they would forthwith abandon

all polygamous relations of every kind. Over ten years have passed

since amnesty was granted by the government on the above condition,

and yet all over the State men are living in polygamy the same as

before statehood. The president of the Mormon Church, with his five

wives, encourages these law-breakers by his example, and then tries

to belittle the offense by claiming that the number of men living in

polygamy is quite small, not over 756. The _Deseret News_ at first

denied that there are any such cases, but was forced to admit that

it was mistaken. It then tried to belittle the matter by claiming

that there were only 1,543 such cases! Suppose someone should argue

that Maine is a good moral State because it contains only 1,543 bank

robbers! Of course the _News_ naturally underestimates the number.

In the closing paragraph of the article in the Journal occurs the

following statement: "Common justice and common honesty, however,

require him (the writer) to say that aside from the one peculiar

feature of polygamy, he fails to see wherein the Mormon religion, is

not just as pure as the different forms to which we are accustomed in

the East."

No one who is acquainted with the fundamental doctrines of Mormonism

and with the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion would make

any such sweeping and misleading statement as that.

Mormonism holds and teaches the heathen doctrine of polytheism, the

doctrine of many gods. (Pratt's Key to Theology, Chap. vi.) It teaches

that Adam is God "and the only God with whom we have to do." (Brigham

Young in Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, page 50.) It makes belief in

the alleged divine mission and authority of that most immoral and

wicked man, Joseph Smith, a fundamental doctrine of its religious

system. (Brigham Young in Millennial Star Vol. v, page 118.)

It teaches that the coarse and vulgar men who make up the Mormon

priesthood must be obeyed by the people because they possess divine

authority, and that those who reject the commands of this bogus

priesthood reject God. (Elder Roberts' New Witness for God, page 187.)

It teaches that Jesus Christ, the Divine Savior of the world, was

a polygamist, and many other horrible doctrines which are utterly

repugnant to the pure and lofty morality of the Christian religion.

The Mormons have lived in five different states, namely, Ohio,

Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Utah. If their system is as pure morally

and as patriotic as it is claimed to be, how does it happen that

their sojourn in each of those states was characterized by continued

and increasing conflict with the established government and laws of

those states and of the United States, while the great Christian

denominations lived in peace and harmony under those same laws? The

Mormon Church will enjoy similar peace and harmony whenever its

priesthood ceases to interfere with civil affairs, and sets the example

of obeying the laws of the land as loyally as they have always been

obeyed by the great Christian denominations generally.

M.

Salt Lake City, Aug. 19, 1903.

II.

A Brief Defense of the Mormon People.

_To Editors of Lewiston, Maine, Journal:--_

An old Spanish proverb has it that "A lie will travel a league, while

Truth is getting on his boots." Truth, however, has this advantage over

his nimble-footed opponent, viz., his boots once on he runs and is not

weary, he walks and faints not; and at the last he wins. The progress

of Truth, in other words, is irresistible and overwhelming, and his

triumph over falsehood is as inevitable as the decrees of fate.

In no instance in human experience are the above truths more clearly

demonstrated than in the history of Mormonism. From the beginning of

its existence falsehood in the form of misrepresentation and malicious

slander has been in the field against it. Early and late and viciously

the liars of this world have sought to overwhelm it as with a flood.

Meantime, however, Truth has not been idle. Steadily and gloriously

Mormonism and the people who have accepted it have lived down the

misrepresentations of their traducers, and today stand proudly erect,

unmoved by the efforts which falsehood has made to destroy them. This

failure of falsehood to destroy the object at which it has levelled its

heaviest ordnance is naturally aggravating to those who have employed

it; and very naturally they show that annoyance. As an instance of this

fact I refer to your Salt Lake correspondent "M," whose communication

under the title "Eastern Eulogy of Mormons' System," appeared in your

issue of September 6th. "M" is somewhat grieved, not to say indignant,

that the _Journal's_ representative, Mr. L. C. Bateman, should have

spoken a word of praise for the Mormons and for what they have achieved

by their faith, industry and frugality, and informs the _Journal_

that what he calls Mr. Bateman's eulogistic article called forth

an editorial in the Deseret News, the official organ of the Mormon

priesthood, expressing great satisfaction on the appearance of the

aforesaid article. But what's to be done? Men of intelligence come to

Utah; they are cosmopolitan, they understand human affairs and human

nature; and many of them--among them evidently your representative,

whose article is the cause of "M's" displeasure--are men accustomed

to collecting evidence, sifting it on the spot, and forming their own

conclusions. They find that the facts they see and investigate do not

warrant the misrepresentations they have heard concerning Mormonism and

the Mormons. They say that in their communications to the press, in

magazine articles, and sometimes in books. They are honest enough to

tell the truth as they find it; and refuse to look at facts--the things

which are--through the jaundiced eyes of a bigoted sectarian priest, or

through the eyes of a disappointed, and very likely disgruntled, scurvy

politician. Then they are abused by those to whose interests it is to

keep up a false impression concerning Mormonism and the Mormons, or

whose malice is gratified by misrepresenting them. Then it is charged

that they have been imposed upon by representations of "the wily Mormon

leaders;" or they have been "wined and dined," and hoodwinked; or else

they have sold their talents to the Mormon "priesthood for money."

Only let a man, whatever his intelligence or character, or national

standing, from President Eliot of Harvard to your representative--only

let him pursue his investigations of Mormonism and Mormons beyond

the lurid tales of hack drivers, bent on gratifying the morbid love

in human nature for the unusual and the horrible; or let him push

his inquiry beyond sectarian interpretation of the Mormon faith, and

sectarian misrepresentation of the Mormon people, and he is doomed to

be catalogued as a weak dupe, or a paid agent of the Mormon Church.

But however annoying it may be to Mormon traducers, the day is gone

by when their fulminations can be accepted as sober truth. Mormonism

is no longer isolated from the world. It is in daily contact with the

great stream of travel which crosses the continent, in which stream

is to be found some of the first and greatest characters of our own

country and of the world; not merely the seekers of pleasure, or the

restless curious; but educators, literati, public lecturers, editors,

scientists, and statesmen. Attracted by the wonderful things they have

heard of Utah and the Mormons, they stop to inquire, they meet with

unexpected conditions, with facts undreamed of, they investigate, are

convinced that the world has been misled in the impressions it has

formed concerning the Mormon faith and the Mormon people; and thus they

become witnesses against the traducers of that maligned people. Our

traducers may not like this, but it is true. They have made lies their

refuge, and under falsehood have they hid themselves; but their bed is

shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering

narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. This much in general. Now

to be more specific; and especially to cover in the evidence I quote

the silly attempt of your Salt Lake correspondent "M" to deny credit

to the Mormons for having redeemed a desert and given a wilderness to

civilization.

Your correspondent refers to the credit accorded the Mormons for this

as "an old chestnut" which has been laid on the shelf years ago here in

the West, because there is no truth in it! "There never was any barren

desert," he says, "in this valley, for it has always been one of the

best watered, most easily cultivated and productive valleys west of the

Mississippi!" It is rather an unfortunate circumstance that a man who

claims to have been a careful student of Mormonism and who has lived

for over twenty-five years in Utah, should include in his criticism

of the Journal's representative's article an untruth so palpable, a

falsehood so easy of refutation, a statement which so bluntly comes

in contact with the common knowledge of all the people of the United

States. How the Salt Lake Valley was regarded by the pioneers who came

into it in 1847 may be learned from the following quotation from their

utterances:

"My mother was heart-broken because there were no trees to be seen.

I do not remember a tree that could be called a tree." Statement of

Clara Decker Young, one of the women of the first pioneer company.

(Bancroft's History of Utah, page 261.)

"The ground was so dry that they found it necessary to irrigate it

before plowing, some plows having been broken." (_Ibid._)

Their first impressions of the valley, Lorenzo Young says, were most

disheartening. But for the two or three cottonwood trees, not a green

thing was in sight. And Brigham speaks almost pathetically of the

destruction of the willows and wild roses growing on the banks of City

Creek, destroyed because the channels must be changed, and leaving

nothing to vary the scenery but rugged mountains, the sage brush and

the sunflower. The ground was covered with millions of black crickets

which the Indians were harvesting for their winter food. (_Ibid, page

262._)

"When we arrived in this valley we found it a barren desert, and

a barren desert it was. We saw no mark of the white man. We found

a few naked Indians who would eat a pint of roasted crickets for

their dinner." (Statement of Wilford Woodruff, "Utah Pioneers,"

page 24.)

The late Apostle Erastus Snow, who, with Orson Pratt, was the first

man of the pioneers to enter the valley, in a discourse during the

celebration of the thirty-third anniversary of the entrance of the

pioneers into the Salt Lake valley, says:

"And when the Pioneers found it [this valley], it was well nigh

purified by the lapse of time and the desolation of ages, and the

wickedness of its ancient inhabitants was well nigh obliterated,

though the curse of barrenness and desolation still existed. I

remarked yesterday, on looking at the decorations of this building,

that to make the work complete that part which so truthfully

represents this desert land in 1847, the sagebrush and the other

growth of the desert should be sprinkled with black crickets,

and, perched in some prominent position, some gulls looking down

eagerly upon them; which would remind us of those early days when

the Pioneers and early settlers grappled with the difficulties of

the desert land; when the untamed savage was scarcely an enemy or

a hindrance in our pathway compared with the destructive winged

insects, the crickets and grasshoppers which would come in myriads

to devour the tender crops. For the first two seasons it seemed

as though the crickets and grasshoppers would consume every green

thing, and after they had commenced their depredations to such

an extent that to all human appearance the last vestige of the

products of the field and garden would be eaten up, large flocks

of gulls came to the relief of the farmer, lighting down upon the

fields and covering them as with a white sheet, and they fell

to devouring the insects. When they had filled and gorged their

stomachs, they would vomit them up and then fill themselves again,

and again vomit, and thus they ate and devoured until the fields

were cleared of those destructive insects, and the crops saved. *

* * * Many doubted, as to whether we could subsist our colonies in

this country at all, and whether grain would mature. James Bridger,

the well-known mountaineer, who had inter-married with the Snakes

[Indians], and had a trading post which still bears his name,

Fort Bridger, when he met President Brigham Young at the Pioneer

camp on the Big Sandy, about the last of June, and learned our

destination to be the valley of the Great Salt Lake, he gave us a

general outline and description of this country over which he had

roamed with the Indians in his hunting and trapping excursions,

and expressed grave doubts whether corn could be produced at all

in these mountains, he having made experiments in many places with

a few seeds, which had failed to mature. So sanguine was he that

it could not be done that he proffered to give a thousand dollars

for the first ear of corn raised in the valley of the Great Salt

Lake, or the valley of the Utah outlet, as he termed it, meaning

the valley between Utah lake and Salt Lake. President Young replied

to him, 'Wait a little and we will show you.'" (The Utah Pioneers,

pages 41-43.)

Nor is the fact of Salt Lake valley's desolation witnessed by the

testimony of Mormons alone. Howard Stansbury, Captain of the Corps of

Topographical Engineers, U.S. Army, in 1852, says:

"One of the most unpleasant characteristics of the whole country,

is the entire absence of trees from the landscape. The weary

traveller plods along, exposed to the full blaze of one eternal

sunshine, day after day, and week after week, his eye resting upon

naught but interminable plains, bold and naked hills, or bold and

rugged mountains; the shady grove, the babbling brook, the dense

and solemn forest are things unknown here; and should he by chance

light upon some solitary cotton-wood, or pitch his tent amid some

stunted willows, the opportunity is hailed with joy, as one of

unusual good fortune. The studding, therefore, of this beautiful

city [referring to Salt Lake City] with noble trees, will render

it, by contrast with the surrounding regions, a second 'Diamond of

the Desert.'" (Stansbury's Report, page 129.)

Again, Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison of the Topographical Engineers,

writing in 1853, said:

"It [the Salt Lake Valley] is isolated from habitable grounds;

having inhospitable tracts to the North and South, and the

untimbered slope of the Rocky Mountains, nearly a thousand miles

wide, on the east, and nearly a thousand miles of arid salt deserts

on the west, broken up by frequent ridges of sterile mountains.

The Great Basin is * * * over four thousand feet above the ocean.

* * * It is a desert in character. * * * In the interior, fresh

water becomes scarce, for these hills do not collect sufficient

snow in winter * * * * to water the plains; and the consequence

follows that these tracts are parched and arid, and frequently so

impregnated with alkali as to make them unfit for vegetable life.

* * * The land around Salt Lake is flat, and rises imperceptibly

on the south and west, * * * and is a soft and sandy barren,

irreclaimable for agricultural purposes. On the north the tract

is narrow, and the springs bursting out near the surface of the

water, the grounds cannot be irrigated." ("The Mormons," by J. W.

Gunnison, pages 14, 15, 16.)

These descriptions of Utah. Valley warrant Utah's Historian, Bishop

Orson F. Whitney, in giving the splendid pen picture he writes of the

valley on the arrival of the Pioneers, in saying:

"It was no Garden of Hesperides upon which the Pioneers gazed

that memorable morning of July 24, 1847. Aside from its scenic

splendor, which was indeed glorious, magnificent, there was little

to invite and much to repel in the prospect presented to their

view. A broad and barren plain, hemmed in by mountains, blistering

in the rays of the midsummer sun. No waving fields, no swaying

forests, no verdant meadows to rest and refresh the weary eye,

but on all sides a seemingly interminable waste of sagebrush,

bespangled with sunflowers--the paradise of the lizard, the

cricket and the rattle snake. Less than half way across the baked

and burning valley, dividing it in twain--as if the vast bowl,

in the intense heat of the Master Potter's fires, in process of

formation had cracked asunder--a narrow river, turbid and shallow,

from south to north in many a serpentine curve, sweeps on its

sinuous way. Beyond, a broad lake, the river's goal, dotted with

mountain islands; its briny waters shimmering in the sunlight

like a silver shield. From the mountains, snow-capped, seamy and

craggy, lifting their kingly heads to be crowned by the golden sun,

flow limpid, laughing streams, cold and crystal clear, leaping,

dashing, foaming, flashing, from rock to glen, from peak to plain.

But the fresh canyon streams are far and few, and the arid waste

they water, glistening with beds of salt and soda pools of deadly

alkali, scarcely allowing them to reach the river, but midway well

nigh swallows and absorbs them in the thirsty sands. These, the

oak-brush, the squaw-berry, and other scant growths, with here

and there a tree casting its lone shadow on hill or in valley; a

wire-grass swamp, a few acres of withered bunch-grass, and the

lazily waving willows and wild-rose bushes, fringing the distant

streams, the only green thing visible. Silence and desolation

reign. A silence unbroken, save by the cricket's ceaseless chirp,

the roar of the mountain torrent or the whir and twitter of

the passing bird. A desolation of centuries, where earth seems

heaven-forsaken, where Hermit Nature, watching, waiting, weeps and

worships God amid eternal solitudes." (History of Utah, Vol. I.,

pages 325-6.)

The Mormons whom your Salt Lake Correspondent admits had the territory

of Utah almost exclusively to themselves for about twenty-five years,

converted the desert wilderness described in the foregoing quotations

into a fruitful land, and redeemed it from savagery to civilization. By

the creation of an irrigation system they demonstrated that the desert

lands of the intermountain region could be converted into fruitful

fields, and thus became Pioneers, not alone of Utah, but of the entire

intermountain region, and became founders of modern irrigation farming,

which now is developing into a great national movement, that looks to

the reclamation of an extent of country beside which the extent of

ancient empires becomes insignificant; and happy millions will yet

partake of the blessings first disclosed as possible by the example

in irrigation set by the Mormon people. And all such silly falsehoods

and misrepresentations as those uttered by your jaundice-minded

correspondent, can never rob them of the high honor accorded them by

the nation for the part they have performed in so great and notable and

far reaching enterprises.

Your correspondent represents himself as having lived in Utah for over

twenty-five years; and also as having had ample opportunity to study

the "Mormon system" and its fruits, and then says:

"I am forced to join with other careful students in declaring that

from a social, civil and moral standpoint, no language is strong

enough to set forth the evil fruits of the "Mormon system." Based

on polygamy, how could the system be otherwise than rotten? Its

central idea of government being that of priesthood rule, how

could it be otherwise than anti-American? Having been founded

and organized by a man as corrupt and immoral as the multiplied

statements of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors prove that

he was, how could it be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in

its tendencies and results?"

Really, after thinking of a man living in Utah for twenty-five years

with exceptional opportunities to study the "Mormon system," one

becomes quite disheartened when he witnesses such an exhibition of

stupidity in apprehending, or a willingness to misrepresent as is

exhibited in the foregoing quotation. First, if your correspondent had

intelligence to understand the most simple proposition, he never would

have made the statement that Mormonism is based on polygamy. Mormonism

existed ten years and had spread through nearly all the states of the

American Union, into Canada and Great Britain, before plural marriage

was ever introduced into the Church. And notwithstanding that under

the requirements of the laws of the land, the Church has discontinued

the authorization of plural marriages, Mormonism still survives--much

to the chagrin of such characters as your correspondent, and the

Mormon Church was never more alive or prosperous than it is today.

The doctrine of the rightfulness of plural marriage is in every sense

but an incident in the "Mormon system" rather than a basic principle.

Salvation in the Mormon religion is not made to depend upon a plurality

of wives. On the contrary it teaches that either man or woman can

be saved without marriage at all. That those in monogamous marriage

relations may be saved, but it also is a fact that it has taught that

men with a plurality of wives, if they have taken them under the

sanction of God's law--a law which existed in the days of the Bible

patriarchs as well as in these last days by special dispensation

through Joseph Smith--may also be saved. Mormonism does teach, however,

that marriage is essential to man's exaltation and progress in his

saved condition, and that special blessings doubtless attended those

who entered into plural marriage relations within the conditions and

limitations referred to a moment since, but to regard plural marriages

as the basis of Mormonism is not only ridiculous but an absolute

misrepresentation of our faith.

Equally absurd and untrue is your correspondent's second implied

charge, viz., that the central idea of Mormon government is priesthood

rule, therefore "how could it be otherwise than anti-American?"

The gentleman leaves us in the mists here. What does he mean? Is

it anti-American to have priesthood rule in an ecclesiastical

institution--in a Church? What kind of rule would he have but that of a

priesthood rule in such organizations? If it is anti-American to have

priesthood rule in a church organization, then every church in the land

is anti-American. But if the gentleman protests that this is not what

he meant, but that he meant priesthood rule in civil government, then

I must say to him that there is no ecclesiastical institution in all

our land that in its doctrines more clearly recognizes the separation

of the Church from the State than does the Mormon Church. In proof of

which I quote on that head the following from an authoritative work on

the doctrine of the Mormon Church:

"We believe that religion is instituted of God, and that men are

amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless

their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights

and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law

has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind

the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private

devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but

never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress

the freedom of the soul. * * * * We do not believe it just to

mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one

religious society is fostered, and another proscribed in its

spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members as

citizens, denied." (Doctrine and Covenants, Section 134.)

Again, in a revelation given as early as 1831, the Lord said to the

Church:

"Behold, the laws which ye have received from my hand are the laws

of the Church, and in this light ye shall hold them forth."

That is, the revelations received were given for the government of

the Church, not for the laws of the state; to instruct the saints in

their religious duties and privileges, not to interfere with them in

the exercise of their civil rights, nor to dictate to them in their

political actions. This doctrine has been affirmed over and over again

by the present officials of the Mormon Church. And as for the exercise

of "priesthood rule" in practice in political affairs, in all good

conscience and form both observation and experience: I can say that

there is less of it chargeable to the Mormon Church officials than to

ministers of any other denominations whatsoever in our land. And no

other people of our land have suffered so much from mingling religious

influence in political affairs, as have the Mormon people. Nearly

every Legislative enactment, either state or national, has been the

direct result of the exercise of sectarian ministerial influence upon

legislators, state and national, as also have been nearly all the acts

of mob violence perpetrated against the same people which resulted in

their expulsion from Missouri and Illinois.

Your correspondent says that the multiplied statements of Joseph

Smith's acquaintances and neighbors prove that he was was immoral

and corrupt, and that since Mormonism has such an origin he wants

to know "how it could be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in

its tendencies and results." Your correspondent here assumes that

Joseph Smith was immoral and corrupt, and hence his system can be

none other than mischievous and evil in its tendencies. "But," it

will be said, "his premise rests upon the alleged testimony of

Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors." What acquaintances and

neighbors? Of course if you eliminate from this list all those who

knew Joseph Smith best, his friends and followers, who so far believed

in him and his honor and integrity as a man and prophet of God that

they sacrificed their own good name, together with property and all

earthly prospects in accepting the doctrine he taught, and then rely

alone for a description of his character upon the testimony of his

persecutors and revilers led on by bigoted priests who hounded him

through fourteen years of his troubled life, until they succeeded in

bringing about his murder in cold blood at Carthage, Illinois, why,

of course; I suppose that such testimony could be said to prove that

he was immoral and corrupt. But under such methods of proving things

how would the immaculate life and character of the Son of God himself

stand before the world? Jesus would be proved to be a wine-bibber, an

associate of sinners and publicans, one who went about the country in

the companionship of women of questionable character, an imposter who

was so in league with Satan that he cast out devils by the power of

Beelzebub, an agitator disturbing the peace, a leader of seditions,

a perverter of laws and customs, and who at the last was fittingly

crucified between two thieves after being condemned under due forms

of law, and who attracted to him a following that could be regarded

as the off-scourings of despised Galilee, and who were so vile as to

steal his dead body from the tomb by night, and then put in circulation

the story that he had risen bodily from the dead! From such a basis as

this, all of which can be established "by the multiplied testimony"

of the Savior's "acquaintances and neighbors," we could, with your

correspondent exclaim, "how could the system" emanating from such a

founder "be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies

and results?"

It would be easy to prove that from the beginning of Mormonism until

now there are many men of wide reputation, men of national repute

and high character, who have testified of the purity of life and

honorable conduct of Joseph Smith and the general honesty and high

moral character of his following. But it is impossible to quote such

testimony because of the necessary limits of this communication, and

it is not necessary because the premise from which your correspondent

starts is utterly untenable and foolish.

Your correspondent scoffs at the idea that Mormons married their

plural wives in good faith, and that it would now be a crime to

abandon them, and declares that your representative could as well have

talked about "committing the crime of bank robbing in good faith." The

gentleman rushes a little too quickly to his conclusion. Things he

puts in comparison are altogether unlike. It is a truth to begin with

that the Mormon people accepted the doctrine of plural marriage as a

revelation and commandment from God; and they did marry their wives

under what they considered divine sanction, in good faith, believing

that they were protected in the practice of a religious principle

by the constitution of their country, which specifically prohibited

the passage of laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or

prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Furthermore, this doctrine was

sanctioned by the practice of the Bible patriarchs, whom the Son of

God himself upheld in his teaching as the very favorites of heaven,

whom God had made his own especial witnesses of the truths he would

teach mankind. It was well on to half a century before the Supreme

Court of the United States had finally decided at all points the

constitutionality of the several acts of Congress against the exercise

of this religious doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, during which

time a whole generation had lived in the practice of it, believing

absolutely in its righteousness, in its divinity in fact, and it is not

difficult to understand how men under such circumstances married their

wives in good faith.

Moreover, when this matter was finally settled by the adoption of our

State Constitution, the enabling act passed by Congress only demanded

on this subject of polygamy that the constitutional convention should

provide by ordinance "irrevocably without the consent of the United

States and the people of said state, * * * * that no inhabitant of

said state should be molested in person or property on account of his

or her mode of religious worship: _provided that polygamous or plural

marriages are forever prohibited."_ It will be observed that there is

no demand made in this for the abandonment of plural marriage relations

already established under the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage.

Nothing is required on that head, but that for the future there

shall be a prohibition of "polygamous marriages." The action of the

constitutional convention was in harmony with this demand of the people

of the United States, and the ordinance in our state constitution

was adopted in such form and spirit that while future polygamous or

plural marriages, were forever prohibited, it contemplated leaving

undisturbed the already existing plural marriage relations. Under

these circumstances I do not hesitate to say that for Mormon men to

abandon the wives they had taken in good faith, who had been induced

to accept that relationship under religious persuasion and conviction,

would be both cowardly and criminal in the eyes of God and all good and

respectable men.

Your correspondent undertakes to make much of the fact that

"The Mormons have lived in five different states. * * * * If their

system is as pure morally and as patriotic as it is claimed to

be, how does it happen that their sojourn in each of these states

was characterized by continued and increased conflict with the

established government and laws of these states and of the United

States while the great Christian denominations live in peace and

harmony under those same laws?"

The gentleman would have shown better judgement than to have propounded

such a question as that. The Latter-day Saints suffered persecution

in both New York and Ohio, they were driven several times from their

homes in Missouri, and finally driven in a body--some twelve thousand

in number--from that state into Illinois, and later between twenty and

thirty thousand of them were driven from the state of Illinois. The

gentleman should remember that this all happened before plural marriage

was practiced in the Church [except in Nauvoo, where, in the last

years of his life, it was introduced by the prophet, but it was known

but by a few, and was neither the cause of his martyrdom nor of the

subsequent expulsion of his people]; and Mormons may defy not only your

correspondent but the whole world to instance any case where they were

persecuted or driven from their homes or murdered (as scores of them

were) for violation of the laws of the land in those states. And there

is yet to arise within these states or in the United States, however

much he may despise the Mormons and their faith, an apologist who is

bold enough to undertake the justification of those states in their

treatment of the Mormons, save only, perhaps, your correspondent, and

he only by cowardly imputation and innuendo.

_Salt Lake City, Utah, Sept. 26, 1903._

V.

WHICH OF THE SECTS HAS OPPOSED MORMONISM MOST?

FOREWORD.

This is a question frequently asked, but I do not remember that an

answer has been ever before put in print. It would be easy to record

the names of the ministers and the Christian sects to which they

belonged who began the agitation in Missouri which resulted in such

disgraceful scenes of mob-violence, robbery and murder, and the final

expulsion of from twelve to fifteen thousand people from their homes

and the state. It would only be a matter of time and space to set

down the names of the ministers and the sects they represented, who

began and continued that abominable campaign of slander and falsehood

which terminated in the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and the

expulsion of more than twenty thousand Latter-day Saints from the

confines of the United States. But is it worth while? Is it not enough

to say that so-called ministers of the gospel quite generally took the

leading part in this opposition. They headed bands of men who burned

the homes of our people; they sat on drumhead militia court-martials

to try Joseph Smith, and condemned him to be shot in the public square

at Far West; it was a sectarian minister who led the mob that murdered

Joseph and Hyrum Smith at Carthage prison; it was a somewhat noted

preacher who led the mob forces against Nauvoo and expelled the aged,

the weak and helpless from that city after the great bulk of the

Mormon people had departed into the western wilderness in search of

new homes. So we might continue all down the line of our experience.

The mobbings in the southern states have quite generally been led by

so-called ministers of the gospel; as also all the unfriendly agitation

in Utah and elsewhere. But it isn't worth while to dwell too long in

our thought on these matters, or to take them too seriously. God has a

reward that will be ample for all those who have suffered martyrdom in

his cause, and those who have assailed it he doubtless will remember

in his own time and way, and we need not wish them any harm, and we

do not. If we could affect them in any way it would be to mitigate

their difficulties. For a man to carry with him through eternity the

recollection of an injustice he has inflicted upon the innocent; to

be compelled always to remember a murder committed, must of itself be

a terrible punishment. So I say if we could affect the persecutors of

the Saints in any way it would be to mitigate their sufferings, not

to increase them. We will try not to remember the wrongs of Missouri;

and will try to forget the fate of Nauvoo. We will remember only that

in those troublous days there were noble men, and women too, who

befriended our people and who did what they could to make light their

burdens and ease their sorrows--God bless them!

Which of the Sects Have Opposed Mormonism Most.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, Aug. 8, 1903.

_D. A. Holcomb, Esq., Dunlap, Iowa._

DEAR SIR:--Your letter of the 21st ult., addressed to President Joseph

F. Smith and Counselors, asking "which one of the religious societies

has opposed the faith and doctrine of the Church the most," etc., has

been handed to me by President Smith, with a request that I answer your

questions.

In the first place I call your attention to the fact that it is not

a matter of astonishment or of any great amount of anxiety to us

that the churches of this world oppose the Church of Christ. It has

become a matter of course from our point of view, and really under the

circumstances we do not see how it could be otherwise, for the first

word of the Lord to Joseph Smith was to the effect that the churches of

the world were all wrong, that is, in error; that their professors of

religion drew near to the Lord with their lips while their hearts were

far from him; that they taught for doctrine the commandments of men,

and Joseph Smith was commanded to join none of them, for God did not

acknowledge them as his Church or kingdom. After such a declaration the

good will of sectarian Christendom was naturally out of the question,

yet, of course, the truth had to be told. The theological rubbish that

had accumulated for ages had to be swept away that the rocks of truth

might be made bare for the erection of that structure, the Temple of

God--the Church of Christ.

As to which of the several churches has been most opposed to the faith

and doctrines of the Church it would be difficult to say definitely,

except to say that up to the present time the Catholic Church has

not manifested any hostility' in any way as an organization. A few

individual Catholic prelates have had their fling at us, but I think

they have not passed resolutions against our organization, chiefly

for the reason, as I think, that we have done but little work as yet

in Catholic countries; and then, too, it is quite possible that the

Catholic clergy count us as one among the many protestant sects, and

think us no worse than the rest of what they consider the "separated

brethren." As for the Protestant brood, you may take the Methodists,

Presbyterians, Baptists, Campbellites, and Josephites as the most

active of our opponents, judging from the fulminations they reel off

against us in the form of resolutions and petitions to Congress asking

that we be "suppressed" or "crushed." It would be difficult to say

which of these is the most opposed. I think I am safe in saying they

are all about equally bitter, but thank the Lord there is no proportion

between their bitterness and their power to do us injury. The rest of

the Protestant sects give us but little trouble, at least in any formal

way, and the opposition expressed in frantic resolutions by those I

have named merely serve to make matters interesting and keep Mormonism

well to the fore in public attention; and as for "annoyance"--well,

it is hardly worth while being annoyed. Have you not read the golden

words, "We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth?" and

that other saying, equally comforting to those who are called upon

to face the wrath of men for the kingdom of heaven's sake, "Surely

the wrath of men shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou

restrain?" So we are very comfortable, thank you, and not worried and

not "annoyed" and not hurt by the opposition of men. We have the truth

and rejoice in it, and intend to make it known just as far as it is

possible for us to proclaim it. In our view those who oppose it, pass

resolutions against our faith and ourselves, are but God's advertising

agents, to present to the attention of the world the thing which he has

planted in the earth; and we amuse ourselves sometimes by thinking what

a surprised lot of fellows those sanctimonious divines who "resolute"

against us with such vigor will be when they wake up and discover that

they have helped instead of hindered God's work; but as for being

"annoyed"--pshaw!

Very truly yours.

B. H. ROBERTS.

* * * * * * * * * *

Looking through an old scrap book the other day, I found in it a

clipping from the "Newark (New Jersey) News," containing a letter

from Salt Lake City, by J. Martin Miller, which describes in a very

admirable way the attitude of a Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic Bishop

toward the Mormon people, and as their attitude is one of fairness I

take pleasure in recording the evidence of it here. Mr. Miller's letter

to the "Newark News" was written about two months before my letter to

Mr. Holcomb--in June, 1903:

VIEWS OF RABBI REYNOLDS.

"I found a very prominent former Newarker, in the person of Rabbi

Louis G. Reynolds, of the Synagogue B'nai Israel here [in Salt Lake

City]. He was rabbi of the Oheb Shalom Synagogue, Newark, from 1892

to 1896."

"There is a Jewish population of about 500 in Salt Lake City," said

Rabbi Reynolds? "Aside from that particular feature of their creed,

polygamy, I think the Mormons are a very good people. Everything

indicates that polygamy is dying out and that the Church means to

obey the law. Aside from polygamy, I am of the opinion that in

morals the Mormons will average higher than the Gentiles who live

here. The records show that the Mormons furnish a very small quota

of the vice of the city. As a rule, they are a temperate people.

'If Senator Smoot is unseated, would the influence of the Mormons

in the state and the nation be diminished?' I inquired. 'Not in the

least; it would make them feel their persecution more than now and

cause them to have less faith in the fairness of the government.

They know the government cannot be fooled to any great extent and

that polygamy must go. Now that the tendency on the part of the

Mormons is to abandon polygamy, the purposes of the government in

making better Americans of the Mormon people than they are now

will be better subserved by allowing the influential men among

the Mormons to help the government bring about the desired end. I

say this with Senator Smoot in mind, and in view of the believed

fact among every class in Utah that he is not a polygamist. He

is one of the most level-headed business men in Utah, and is

exceedingly popular with all classes. Polygamy was deeply rooted.

The people for the most part were born in it. Why humiliate these

innocent victims by persecuting them unnecessarily when they show

an inclination to rid themselves and the county of the blot? The

United States is a conciliatory and humane government. I was born

in Russia and can appreciate this government. It is the kind of a

government that begets loyalty in its subjects. Will these erring

Children of Utah, who in all probability are not now contracting

any new polygamous marriages, be better citizens if they are

hounded and misrepresented by agitators, or if they are fairly

but firmly dealt with by the government and given a reasonable

chance to prove their good intentions and their good citizenship?

There is a very strong element throughout the county that takes

absolutely no stock in this ecclesiastical warfare that is being

made from Salt Lake City against the Mormons. It has been plainly

demonstrated very recently in the case of one minister here who

carried on a bitter crusade, that was worse than a waste of energy,

that such methods are re-active in the extreme."

BISHOP SCANLAN'S ATTITUDE.

"That veteran old priest, Bishop Scanlan, who has charge of all of

Utah and the eastern half of Nevada for the Catholic church, has

visited every remote corner of Utah during the 30 years he has been

here. 'I have found the Mormon people a gentle and kindly disposed

people. I have never been insulted once. I have been obliged to

visit places where there are no hotels and wherever I have stopped

at private houses the people have always felt offended if I offered

to pay them for the keep of myself and my horse.' 'Have you ever

felt the need of a revolver?' I asked. 'I never owned one in my

life.' Pointing up to the crucifix, the bishop said: 'That is the

only weapon I have ever carried. The Catholic church has 10,000

communicants in Utah at the present time.' I do not see your name,

bishop, on protests and other papers that some of the ministers

here are active in circulating. 'No, I never join in anything of

that kind. My mission here is not to make war among the Mormon

people, or any other people, but rather to be the bearer of the

message of peace and good will toward all men. If there is any law

to be enforced, I leave that for my government to do."

VI.

"HOW."

FOREWORD.

The subject treated under this title, "How," is an address delivered

in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle on Sunday, May 31, 1903, in

one of the sessions of the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual

Improvement Associations Annual Conferences. The associations are

auxiliary organizations in the Church of the Latter-day Saints for

the improvement of the youth. In May of the above year, the General

Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was appointed to convene in Los

Angeles. A large number of ministers of this persuasion from eastern

states made it a point to pass through Salt Lake City _en route_ for

Los Angeles, and the Ministerial Association of Utah, an organization

comprised of Protestant ministers of all the Evangelical Churches

in the State, made it their business to call the attention of such

visiting ministers to the "Mormon Question," and invited their

co-operation against the Mormon Church. As preliminary to this action

on their part they published two pamphlets, one under the title,

"Claims of Mormons to be Considered Seriously." This pamphlet pretended

to give a brief history of the origin of the Mormon Church, and

declared that the Prophet Joseph Smith was considered by his neighbors

to be a character who was "low, unworthy, of bad repute in general, and

that he was especially unworthy of confidence." It was a re-hash of the

silly stories that sprang up in western New York and that are utterly

unreliable, and which, while the Prophet lived in New York, could never

be established against him, though every possible effort to do so was

made.

The second pamphlet was entitled "Temple Mormonism." The chief

purpose of this pamphlet was evidently to prove that Mormonism was an

oath-bound secret organization, "for the encouragement and protection

of polygamous living." These pamphlets were distributed to the one

thousand Presbyterian ministers who are said to have passed through

Salt Lake at that time. It was the intention also to have them

presented to the Presbyterian Assembly in Los Angeles, and I believe

they were so presented. Later they were to be presented to the Baptist

Convention to be held that year in Buffalo, New York; also to the

Congregational Conference at Portland, Oregon, and then to the W. C.

T. U., to the Y. M. C. A. and W. C. A. conventions of that year; and

finally to the Inter-Denominational Association of Women. Whatever

became of the presentation of these pamphlets to the respective

organizations other than the Presbyterian Assembly, I do not know;

but their presentation to the gathered Presbyterian ministers at Los

Angels doubtless had the desired effect, for it resulted in some very

heated speeches upon the subject of Mormonism, more especially in one

delivered by Dr. Charles L. Thompson of New York, secretary of the

Assembly, who, in the course of a speech widely heralded through the

secular press of the country, said--and this was the report of the

speech according to the dispatches--of Mormonism:

"It is not to be educated, not to be civilized, not to be

reformed--it must be crushed. No other organization is so perfect

as the Mormon Church except the German Army. This describes

Mormonism. Its empty promises deceive. Relentlessly it fastens its

victims in its loathsome glue. It has one vulnerable point. It is

not to be reformed. It is to be crushed. Dr. Richard L. Ely has

declared that there is nothing comparable to its system except the

German Army. * * * * Beware the Octopus. There is one moment in

which to seize it, says Victor Hugo. It is when it thrusts forth

its head. It has done it. Its high priest claims a senator's chair

in Washington. Now is the time to strike. Perhaps to miss it now is

to be lost."

Commenting on this speech, the dispatches said:

"No speaker who has thus far appeared before the Presbyterian

General Assembly has aroused so much enthusiasm as Dr. Chas. L.

Thompson. His references to Mormonism were especially bitter, and

brought out great applause from his audience."

It is this speech that is commented upon in the remarks which follow.

HOW.

My Brethren and Sisters--I arise this afternoon to announce a great

disappointment. By reference to your printed programs you will see that

President Joseph F. Smith was chosen to make an address this afternoon,

but he insists upon my taking his place. I tried to dissuade him from

making the change, but he insisted upon it, and as he has the final

word in such matters, I respond cheerfully to his request, and ask you,

as soon as possible, to banish the remembrance of your disappointment

and assist me by your faith and prayers, that what I may say may be

fitting to this occasion, and prompted by the Spirit of the Lord.

I think I shall venture to take a text, but not from the Bible. My text

will be one that I have made "out of my own head." Perhaps that will

account for its being so brief. It consists of one word only, and that

one word is, "How?"

Away back in 1832, on the occasion of a number of elders being

assembled in Kirtland, desiring to know the will of the Lord concerning

themselves, and in what manner they should spend their time pending

the commencement of a conference which had been called, the Lord said

through his Prophet:

"I give unto you a commandment, that you shall teach one another

the doctrine of the kingdom; teach ye diligently, and my grace

shall attend you, that ye may be instructed more perfectly in

theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all

things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for

you to understand; of things both in heaven and in the earth, and

under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things

which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things

which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations,

and the judgments which are on the land, and a knowledge also of

countries and kingdoms, that ye may be prepared in all things when

I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have

called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you."[A]

[Footnote A: Doctrine and Covenants, sec. 88: 77-81.]

From this you will observe that the elders of the Church were commanded

to enter a very extensive field in search of knowledge. Indeed, I

cannot think of anything pertaining to things that lie within the

scope or power of man's investigation that is not included within this

commandment to search for knowledge. Among other things, you will

observe that the elders are to make themselves acquainted with "things

which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to

pass; with things which are at home, and things which are abroad." I

see in that a commandment to keep informed as to current events; and,

in my opinion, this commandment can be made to apply not only to the

elders in Ohio, to whom it was directly given, but to all those who may

be called upon to perform a similar labor, that of representing the

work of God to the inhabitants of the earth. That responsibility rests

upon the young men who hold the priesthood in the Church today, and

hence, this commandment applies to them. It applies to the members of

the Mutual Improvement Associations; for one of the chief objects in

view, when the organization of Improvement Associations was effected,

was the preparation of our young men to become exponents of the gospel

of Jesus Christ, especially as revealed in the dispensation of that

gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. No knowledge can be of more

importance to the young man who expects to engage in this work than

the knowledge of current events, and prevailing ideas in the world on

religion; especially those current events which have a more or less

direct relation to the great work of the last days--to Mormonism, in

other words.

Of late, there have been a number of important things taking place that

have a direct relation to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints, among which is the passing of resolutions antagonistic to

Mormonism, by the Presbyterian General Assembly, convened during the

past week in Los Angeles, California. The ministers of the Presbyterian

Church met in solemn conclave to consider the interests of their

own church, and, incidentally, I suppose, to look a little after

the welfare of ours. One proposition before those assembled divines

was very extraordinary. So extraordinary, in fact, that it may be

considered astonishing. It was nothing more nor less than a plan to

"crush Mormonism." I think we are interested in a proposition of that

kind. Intensely interested; and hence my text of one word, "How?" That

is, how is the "Crushing of Mormonism" to be effected? What means are

to be invoked? What process followed? Fortunately for us, who naturally

have so much anxiety respecting the matter, one of the speakers before

the Presbyterian assembly brought forward a plan through which the

"crushing" is to be accomplished. This was Doctor-that is, Doctor

of Divinity, you will understand--Charles L. Thompson, of New York.

We are informed by the dispatches which reported in part "his great

discourse," that he was the speaker who aroused the most enthusiasm in

the assembly, and that his references to Mormonism were "especially

bitter," and brought out great applause from his audience. He is

reported to have said that "Mormonism is not to be educated, not to be

civilized, not to be reformed. It must be crushed." This the climax of

what is called his "great discourse;" surely it must have been a great

discourse to have such a climax as that, and to receive such applause

from such a body of divines!

But how do you suppose the crushing is to be accomplished? Now listen!

The Revelation Mr. Thompson compares the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints to a great octopus. The octopus, as you know, is an

animal very difficult to kill; but the gentleman remembered that Victor

Hugo, in his "Toilers of the Sea," had said that even the octopus had

a vulnerable point. "There is one moment in which to seize it--it

is when it thrusts forth its head. Then is the time to strike." The

reverend gentleman then concludes that the Mormon octopus has thrust

forth its head. "Its high priest," said he, "claims a senator's chair

in Washington. Now is the time to strike. Perhaps to miss it now, is to

be lost."

Wonderful wisdom! worthy of a great divine! a mighty climax to a great

sermon! Seriously, however, a most perfect example of an anti-climax;

"a most lame and impotent conclusion," more ridiculous than the

fable of the mountain laboring, to bring forth a mouse! If my voice

could reach the reverend gentleman, I would inform him that there

is not even the charm of novelty in what he recommended. We have

heard something like this before. Why, within my own recollection,

I can remember something like that having been proposed as a means

of crushing Mormonism. Way down deep in the innermost recesses of my

sub-consciousness, I have a recollection of suggestions made in like

spirit, about the year 1898. This Doctor of Divinity's thundering

fulmination against Mormonism, when I hear him pronounce it, has

something familiar about it. In fact it has all the monotony of the

refrain of some old familiar song. Much was said about an octopus,

too, and about it thrusting forth its head, at the time to which I

refer, 1898. Then its "High Priest," it was said, claimed a seat in

the lower house of Congress, when a certain gentleman by the name of

Roberts was elected to Congress from the State of Utah. They said,

then, that the octopus was putting forth its head; then was the time

to strike; to fail then would be to be lost; so they induced the House

of Representatives to strike, by excluding the gentleman from the seat

to which he had been legally elected, and for which he possessed, as

was admitted, every constitutional qualification. But I have never

heard that the achievement, which was accomplished at the cost of an

outrageous violation of the constitution of our country, affected the

Mormon Church. What effect did that illegal act of Congress have on

Mormonism? About as much effect as a mosquito alighting on the moon

would have on that sphere. The "Mormon" octopus survived that awful

blow! And even the gentleman who was denied his seat, I am informed,

survived also; and I have not heard that his shadow has grown less

because of that experience. And should the agitation against Senator

Reed Smoot result in his expulsion from the Senate of the United

States--a thing which is as unlikely as it is unjust--I verily believe

that Mormonism would survive even that blow. The trouble with our

reverend friends is, that they persist in mistaking always the head of

the octopus, and hence never strike it.

It is not my purpose to discuss the issues raised between the Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this Los Angeles Presbyterian

Assembly, in a spirit of retaliation. I do not intend to answer railing

with railing, nor do I wish to revile those by whom we are reviled. I

understand the law of the gospel of Christ to be that we should not

be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Besides, patience

is one of Mormonism's chief virtues. But all this does not mean that

we shall not have an appreciation of our own rights and liberties

under the constitution and institutions of our country; nor does it

prevent us from pointing out the unjust conduct of our assailants; nor

debar us from making protest, in proper spirit, against their proposed

invasions of our rights; nor blind us to the absurdity of their plans

for our destruction. But we will not abuse our traducers, nor revile

them because they revile us. Thank God, the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints occupies a position so exalted that it may smile at

the efforts of men who propose to "crush" it. Especially by such means

as those proposed by the Reverend Doctor Thompson. The resolutions of

the Presbyterian Assembly, at Los Angeles, its fulminations against

the Church of Christ, are all shafts that fall broken and harmless at

the feet of the people of God. There is one passage of Byron's "Childe

Harold" with which I have always been deeply impressed, as setting

forth the dignity and exaltation of God in his relation to those who

doubt the reality of his revelations, seek to prove them myths, and

blaspheme his name. It is where the poet refers to the character and

works of Voltaire and Gibbon. Concluding his reflections upon these two

really great men, he says:

They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim

Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile

Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame

Of heaven, again assailed, if heaven the while

On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

In like exalted station stands the Church of Christ today. The Bride,

the Lamb's Wife, has no fear of her enemies. She stands too near the

Bridegroom, too near his glorious coming, too near the holy, visible

union with him, which is to be eternal, to fear the vain ravings of

modern priests of Baal.

Let us examine more thoroughly, however, the proposition of this

Reverend Doctor Thompson, and find out, if we can, how the Christian

gentleman really proposes to proceed with his crushing process. Be

it remembered he lays down the doctrine that "Mormonism is not to be

educated, not to be civilized, not to be reformed!" Then how will

he proceed? He decides to eliminate educational methods, civilizing

methods, and reform methods. After eliminating these, what method has

he left for crushing Mormonism? None but force--brute force; and force

in the last analysis means either mobs or armies. Can it be that a body

of "divines," "ministers of Jesus Christ," living in the twentieth

century of the Christian era, are ready to recommend the throwing aside

of all legitimate methods of dealing with a body of people supposed to

be in error on matters of religion, and leave it to be justly inferred

that they favor the employment of force to accomplish that which only

love and goodwill toward men should undertake? Have we been correctly

informed by the dispatches which say that the man who recommended such

procedure is the one who was most applauded by the assembled ministers

of Jesus Christ? Can it be that we are living in an age that boasts of

its Christian civilization? Or, "by some devilish cantrip slight," have

we been carried back to the dark ages, when the rack, and thumbscrews,

and gibbets, were the agencies through which men's theological opinions

and religious principles were corrected? The ages when reluctant

victims were dragged to the foot of the altar, and made to burn incense

at orthodox shrines, though the heart abhorred and disclaimed the

sacrilegious act of the hand?

For the instruction of those who would favor the abandonment of what

are recognized as Christian and civilized methods of dealing with

those supposed to entertain erroneous religious principles, let us see

what effect physical force and persecution has had upon Mormonism in

the past. From the commencement, those who have been engaged in God's

work in these last days have suffered violence, and it will be well to

ascertain the results of these methods. From the first announcement

Joseph Smith made of a revelation from God, until now, there has not

been lacking those who have favored the crushing of Mormonism. They

attempted to beat down the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith by

force of ridicule, at first, and slander and misrepresentation. When

the Nephite record, the Book of Mormon, was placed in his hands for

translation, mobs frequently attempted to wrest that sacred record

from his custody. Failing in that, they tried to prevent it from being

printed, and even so far succeeded in frightening Mr. Grandin, of

Palmyra, who had engaged to publish it, that he at one time suspended

work upon it. When that difficulty was overcome, and the book was

finally printed, then mass meetings were held and resolutions passed in

the vicinity, urging the people not to purchase the Book of Mormon or

to read it; but, in spite of these efforts, the first edition of the

Book of Mormon was disposed of and read by the people. When the Church

was organized, the rage of its opponents increased, and persecution

after persecution followed each other in rapid succession in New York,

Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and hundreds perished in the unholy

warfare waged against the Church of Christ. Finally, the opposition

concentrated its hatred upon the earthly head of the Church--the

Prophet Joseph Smith. Time and time again was he hailed before judges,

and, singularly enough, was always acquitted; up to the day of his

death at the hands of a mob, he was never condemned by the courts of

his country. His enemies were forced to the conclusion, and they said

it, and they acted it: "The law cannot reach this man; powder and ball

must."

Actuated by the same spirit of hatred that was rampant in this very

Presbyterian Assembly at Los Angeles, mob forces of western Illinois

came to the conclusion that Mormonism was not to be educated, not to be

civilized, not to be reformed, "it must be crushed;" and they flattered

themselves that, if this master spirit of Mormonism, Joseph Smith

could only be crushed, then there would be an end to Mormonism; for

it was supposed that this man was then the head of the "octopus"--its

vulnerable point. This must be struck, to miss it would be to lose! So

they struck; cruelly, murderously struck. But what of the effect on

Mormonism? Did the "octopus" die? No. There was momentary confusion, it

is true; and profound sorrow. It could not be otherwise. But Mormonism

did not die. It survived that truly awful shock. The fact is that the

work which the Prophet Joseph Smith did, under divine guidance, was

greater than the man; good, great, and necessary as he was to that

which, under God, he wrought, yet, as the heavens stand above and are

higher than the earth, so the work of God which Joseph Smith brought

forth, stands above and is higher, and greater, and more enduring

than he. Hence, it did not fail when he fell a martyr by the old

well-curb at Carthage jail. It not only survived, but gained somewhat

of strength from the blood of its chief martyr. It was some time a

Christian aphorism, that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the

church. It proved to be so in this case; and after the first moment

of confusion was passed, those in whose hearts the spirit of hatred

had been fostered, discovered that they had, as some of them said,

"scorched, not killed," the "octopus." Presently, they saw arising

from the body what they took to be another head, Brigham Young. He

dealt with the problems that arose before his people in a spirit most

masterful, and with ability most astonishing. He conducted an exodus

the most wonderful of modern times, and safely planted his people a

thousand miles beyond the frontiers of the United States, where he laid

the foundation of our present commonwealth of Utah, and incidentally

made possible the settlement of the whole intermountain region of the

United States. The desire to strike this head, in many quarters, was

quite as ardent as it had been to strike Joseph Smith; but, happily,

he was beyond reach. From a distance, however, the sectarian harpies,

who were the predecessors of the Presbyterian divines assembled at

Los Angeles, croaked in chorus, "only wait till the head of this

'octopus,' Brigham Young, dies, and then Mormonism will succumb by

reason of disintegrating forces, for it cannot be that the system will

produce another genius such as this wonderful man." In the course of

time, the wing of the angel of Death struck this most shining mark,

Brigham Young; but Mormonism lived on. Not only lived, but extended its

borders, deepened its foundations, and, year by year, has grown more

terrible to the distorted vision of sectarian priests, alike jealous of

its success and fearful of its influence upon their crumbling creeds.

Since the death of Brigham Young, I do not remember that anyone has

accredited the ruling force in Mormonism to any individual leader. Of

late, its enemies have been speaking of the genius and power of the

Mormon Church organization. Mr. Thompson himself quotes Dr. Richard

T. Ely as declaring "there is nothing comparable to the organization

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, except the German

army." A declaration of that sort is encouraging. It indicates growth.

It is no longer some individual leader that is the secret of Mormon

success. It is the institution itself. That is what we have been

telling our opponents right along, and it is gratifying to observe that

they are beginning to understand that it is an institution, and not an

individual, with which they have to deal; an organization, not a man.

I am not quite satisfied, however with the comparison that is made of

it to the German army. I think the German army is not comparable at all

with the perfection in strength, and in all that makes for excellence,

in the Church of Christ, as a means to an end, but I have not time to

discuss that here.

I see by the headlines of the daily press of our city that a

"Declaration of War" is made between the Presbyterians and the Mormons.

I wonder sometimes what kind of a Rip Van Winkle sleep the writers of

dispatch headlines, and Presbyterians as well, have been indulging in

all these years, when they say that a declaration of war has just been

made. That declaration was made over eighty years ago, when the Lord

Almighty revealed himself in person to Joseph Smith, and in answer to

his inquiry, "Which of all these contending sects are right, and which

shall I join," he was told that God acknowledged none of them as his

church or kingdom; That they drew near to God with their lips, while

their hearts were far removed from him; that they taught for doctrine

the commandments of men; that they had the form of godliness, but

denied the power thereof; that their creeds were an abomination in his

sight.

Such, in substance, was God's first message to the world through his

great modern prophet. It is in the nature of a declaration of war, not

upon the Presbyterians, however; nor upon Methodists; nor Catholics;

nor upon men at all; but upon error; upon false creeds; upon false

religions; upon hypocrisies clothed in religious garb,--a declaration

of war upon all untruth, and it is useless to hope for peace with the

sectarian Christian sects, when Mormonism bears in its hands such a

message as this. It is a harsh message, but a true one; we are not

responsible for it. We do not pretend to have sat in judgment upon the

creeds of men. No man has the right to sit in judgment upon the creed

of another. Joseph Smith did not sit in judgment upon the creeds of

Christendom. On the contrary, he confessed his inability to do so.

His youth, his inexperience, his lack of judgment, all proclaim him

unfitted for such an office. The fact that he inquired of God for

wisdom to know which of the sects he should regard as the very Church

of Christ was self-confessed inability to judge in the matter. Hence,

Joseph Smith did not pass judgment upon the sects of Christendom; but

God did. He was competent to judge. He formulated the decision which

it became Joseph Smith's duty to announce, and which it is now the

Church's duty to continue proclaiming. The message, I repeat, is a bold

one; but in the very boldness and greatness of such a declaration,

we may see something of the Divine Majesty. It became necessary to

sweep aside the rubbish of theological dogma, and doctrines which

had accumulated through the ages, and make bare the rocks of truth,

on which to lay anew the foundations of the work of God. Singularly

enough, our Presbyterian friends, especially, seem to be rendering

us valuable assistance in the work of confirming as true the message

of God to the world, whereof we, with them, are made witnesses. We

willing witnesses, they reluctant ones; we conscious witnesses, they

unconscious ones; we witnesses of good will, they of strife. What

I mean is this: the Lord declared that sectarian creeds were an

abomination unto him; and of all abominable creeds, I know of none

quite so abominable as this same Presbyterian creed. So abominable is

it--so against all sense of even human conception of justice and mercy,

that the Presbyterian Assembly at Los Angeles was found devoting its

best efforts to reform it. But that very effort to reform it proclaims

its errancy, and, I take the liberty of adding, its abomination also.

While we cannot enter into anything like a detailed examination of

that creed, allow me to call your attention to one or two points in it

which clearly brings it within the descriptive term used by the Lord

in the revelation to Joseph Smith. That is, sectarian creeds are an

abomination in his sight. Take the following sections from chapter III

of their creed on "God's Eternal Decrees:"