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Show A DESPISED BIGAMIST. Unless bigamists and polygnmists are prepared to come into the Mormon fold and confess and plead tho divinity of their crime and get the strong protection protec-tion of the priesthood, Utah is a poor place for them to come to. Thoro is a poor devil up in tho penitentiary now who neglected this precaution while committing his bigamous crime, while large numbers of other bigamists and polygamists are walking the streets every day posing as leading citizens and examples of purity and holiness. There is not a particlo of difference in the law or in fact, between tho offonccs committed in the two cases, the radical radi-cal difference being in tho ruso of the pol'gamists claiming divine authority for their lechery, being in a compact organization and able to defeat at the polls any judge or court official, district attorney or any other, who will make it his business to prosecuto them. One Othello M. Evans is the latest example of tho mistaken idea that a "bigamist is safe in Utah without coming com-ing under the priesthood wings. If he and his plural had frankly joined the Mormon church, put themselves under protection of one of tho elders of that church and stated that they desired to bo on the retired list for a while, the matter could undoubtedly have been arranged effectually, and the culprits hidden away so that they would never be found by the officers of the law. But the idea of a man having the impudence to come hero with a bigamous biga-mous or polygamous wife without taking tak-ing the priesthood into his confidence and coming under their yoke, is something some-thing too outrageous to be thought of for a moment. A man who will let his lecherous passions run away with him without pleading tho divinity of tho act is a chump if be comes to Utah; because that sort, of thiug is strictly frowned upon hero by those who do exactly the same thing under the pre-tenco pre-tenco .of holiness and divine command, com-mand, and who have charge of the Stato government and who torrorizo tho courts into doing or not doing ex-actly ex-actly what thoy wish. Mr. Evans's case is a sad ono. Ho is a victim of misplaced confidence. It is all right enough for fellows of that kind to stand together, but in Utah there is but one way in which to got into the noble company of lecherous immuues, and that is through the straight and narrow gate of Mormon revelation. In taking that course, all is protection and safety; outside of it, the crowd who would protect him. if he came into the priestly fold, aro his most fierce and unrelenting foes. |