Defense of the Faith and the Saints. B. H. Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

       Table of Contents

       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 СКАЧАТЬ