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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ