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Show AN IMPORTANT QUESTION. Tim New York Iktald of the tlt uttor.sa more important trulit than it; i.s aware of, in the JWIIowiiik sentence: ' The cliiuf.iu.-tiw! of Utah lins raised, ; knowingly or not, an important iU.t-tion iU.t-tion alH;:liiiK the whole people ol llie United Slate and the Irame-work ol society. Tin iue.iti(jn referred to h the J social relation involved in the princi ple of plural marriage and its results, which the H'-eaUl has heen laboriously labor-iously writing about fr the past i twenty years, though it now Kiaeioiuly f ignore its own labors and credits judc i Melvean with having rai-ed tho iiics- l ion. With its usual assumption ol' ' knowing everything and a little more, it all'nets to traee the ureal, sucial change in the country, including the tfruwiii di.in''arit of the marriage relation re-lation and its concomitant evils, in directly to the polygamy of Utah. That i.s: I 'tali's much marrying has ; made the people of the United States i have lc.-s regard for marrying at ; all; and because men and women in this Territory believe in a plurality of wives, men and women in other parts of the country are becoming be-coming reckless on the point of marriage mar-riage and openly teaeh a disregard uf , that sacred relation. H'his puts the j Irrahl's position in brief words, and i is a kind of loic which our New York 1 namesake may take all tho credit of; j while it accords to Utah much greater influence than anybody has hitherto claimed, lint tho accredited influenco is nearly as fur from the fact as the los'ic is had; and we may let both paw together. The lirst and moat important ques tion to the United States is not whether a man shall livo with two or more women recognizing them as his wives, or follow tho fashion prevailing elsewhere, breeding dens of infamy; i but whether tho foundation of repub licanism itself shall bo Huecessi'ully attacked. The principles of religious liberty, social freedom and political equality arc assailed; and if the attack is successful in Utah, so sure as any one religious party in the United Slates reaches a position where it can dominate over the rest, so sure will tho attacks be renewed, again and again, until tho entire country learn 1 to mourn tho first onslaught on free dom of conscience. That is the important qucstiou raised, and it is one that should be considered with a seriousness proportionate propor-tionate to its gravity. Mormonism may bo deemed absurd; what of that? It 1 is tho belief uf a people, honestly held, and on which they base their hopes of a hereafter. What religion is there that docs not contain points which the f" believers in other faiths consider ab- surd V Protestants hold tho invocation of saints and angels by tho Iloman Catholics an obsurdity. liouian Catho lics consider tho want of lised principles prin-ciples manifested by conflicting Protestant Protes-tant sects equally absurd. Calvinists believe tho Armenian doelrino of faith and works worse than an absurdity; and Armenian Protestants look upon the doctrine of election as equally dangerous. dan-gerous. So it goes; but who to-day, professing any regard for roligious liberty, would propose a crusade against believers in any of these faiths because of the so-called absurdity of some doctrines ombodied in them? And it should always bo remembered that what is absurd in the estimation of one man, is sacred in that of another. an-other. "i!ut polygamy is worse than absurd; it is wicked and immoral!" How? Does it breed disease? sap vitality? destroy de-stroy life? interlcrc with the rights of! any person? break any higher law? Poople are so apt to use terms reck-1 tessly, that they seldom stop to consider consi-der their meaning. If wicked, it is in opposition to the moral law. Which section of that law is broken by it? The c'ghth commandment? That is . where the discussion begins, those who defend polygamy adducing proof to show that plural marriago was sanctioned sanc-tioned and commanded by him through whom the moral law was given to the world. "But it is a crime!" To discuss dis-cuss that would take us back to lirst principles again; for while a crime is an act committed in opposition to law, we wou!d have to liud how far any legislature leg-islature could go in the proper exercise of its powers, not only in this country uudcr the federal constitution, but in all the countries in Christendom under that still diviner constitution which is the foundation of all civilized jurispiu-dence. jurispiu-dence. These are points which admit of argument and the calling forth of weighty reasons. Dr. Newman undertook under-took to show from the Bible that polygamy was not sanctioned by the .scriptures, but Dr. Newman made a huge failure of his attempt. So that however congress, or the country, or any portion of it, may decide with regard to this question of marriage, ii is sustained to the satisfaction of those who believe in it by strong scriptural grounds; and is an integral portion of tfuir rth';ion. That is the point; and iu attacking that by any other weapons than those of reason and argument, the eoustituiion of the United Slates is attacked and the principle oJ religious liberty put iu peril. This is what alteets the entire country more, much more, than a few hundred or thousand r.ieu and women iu Utah living in a condition uf plural marriage, iu which nobody is directly interested but themselves-. And when other weapons than tho.-e ut reason and argument are employed, the party using them tacitly confess to all the world that they have met argument and reason toj strong for the only weapons to which an enlightened enlight-ened people should ever re.-ort in combatting com-batting what they deem error. |