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Show ROBERTS'S MESS It seems to make ery little difference to the Mormon people what ridicule Is manifested of their religion by their own leaders. In one breath ii may be called sacred and In another demonstrated demon-strated to be a cheap Joke, and so long as the satire at the expense of the religion reli-gion comes from the leaders Of the Church all Is well In Zion. The very keynote of the Mormon faith, the sum and substance of the 1 e-llglon, e-llglon, as taught from Brlgham Young down, has been "obey your leaders," hee,i every word i haf proceedeth out of the mouths of these prophets." Couuntless quotations could be made and w e have one of two available from Brlgham H Roberts himself show ing that the essem e of the gospel is In obeying without a question, But B. H. Roberts now says thai "we do not believe everything" that Is told In the pulpit For saving Just such things several men have been recently cut off from the church but no one needs to complain of that, because probably the separation was a mutual gain Bui will Mr, Roberts permit us to poini out the awful predicament Into which he plunges the whole faith. The rock of the Mormon people is claih revelation': the chief authority of the Mormon church the original president delivered the k'-ys of prophecy to the quorum of the twelve The entire conference, con-ference, indorsing the will of cod, elects and sustains, as prophets seers, and revelalors the fifteen men who Constitute Consti-tute the first presidency and the cpuo-rum cpuo-rum of the twelve. If one of them make a prophecy or a Statt men! md de-claie de-claie it ;o be true what possible other teat can Mr. Roberts or any one else apply to It" If he say It is not true or if he say even that It Is open to question ques-tion he Is apostate In his teeth, he i an be disciplined; and he can COtm .ioun to his marrow bones of contrition and kiss the hem of the frayed trouoc ings of the Insulted prophet And that Is all that he can do The proof tha; all this is so is found In this fact thai 1.;.-Iiatn 1.;.-Iiatn H. Roberts cannot spec Iflcally point out any statement alleged to be made by any one of the prophets, seers and revelators and disclaim it as a word of God and get the Indorsement of his dlsclalinet from the present chief prophet because right in opposition to any su h statement there can be produced pro-duced an indorsement of the -came utterance ut-terance as the word of God. The Tribune Is glad to compliment the Mormon people and the Gentile people peo-ple of Utah on the progress which la being visibly made, 'fhe Mormons have discoveied that their idols are mere adobe day. The mass tan repudiate their claSI They are beginning to do so. Brlgham li. Roberts has been selected se-lected for the task be ause having been disciplined one. if he go, s too i ii- th-; can discipline him again without damaging dam-aging a new prophet. But so far as ho lias gone, they all mean business. They want the NUtlon to understand thai they are nol prophets all the time; that the y are only prophets when upon calm reflection they conclude 11 safe for them to be prophets that Is to say. they arc not prophets so far as ihe Committee OllPriVileges and Elections is concerned. I but they are always prophets so far as Charles ,. Smurthwalte and John H. Scott are concerned. Hoes all this seem messy and absurd it is tio The Mormon church has begun by mixing things up In such a way tha! not even Roberts can make hts road through the labyrinth of utterances which will have been mad and called authoritative. To show the average reader how silly ll all Is, let us recount: Certain alleged prophets have said certain things whli h would hurt the church If they were esteemed es-teemed official. So Roberts repudiates the idea that a prophet always speaks prophecy. This sounds good outside. But right on the Inside another prophet Immediately repudiates Roberts. And Roberts has set ihe example and cannot dispute this se.ond repudiation. And there you are. The authorities repudiate repudi-ate what they please and accept what tho please, always remembering that everything good. bad. or Indifferent Is binding on the mass, and nothing good, bad or Indifferent is binding on the class. To call It lellgion Is to be Impious; to speak of It as common su.se Is to be ridiculous, |