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Show I A, REACTIONARY CONFERENCE. The Mormon conference, which closed in this city on Sunday, was decidedly de-cidedly of a reactionary character. Et appears that the church leaders ure not yet ready to give up their control jn temporal affairs; and the last day of flic conference was given up altogether alto-gether to the enforcement of (he doctrine doc-trine that tho members liiust. obey tho counsel of tho priesthood in temporal as well as spiritual things. Tho occasion for this ebullition of reactionary re-actionary assertions of a control which xs really imratnialWc,' .and "which is also offensive and dangerous when applied ap-plied in a republic, appears to have been the remarks of Elder Brigham IT. Roberts on Saturday, which President Presi-dent Smith took occasion to supplement and controvert immcdiatcPy upon their utterance, and from thenceforward the tone of tho conference was rcactionar', and ovcry speaker was required to give in his adhorenco to tho vicious doctrine that the priesthood has the right of direction di-rection in all things, and that it is dangerous for an individual to act upon his -own .iudgmcut in any matter of consequence, temporal or spiritual. When any question of that kind arises, it i his duty, it appears, to apply himself him-self to prayer and to ask counsel of his superiors in the church, and having naked this counsel, he is in danger of being rclogatcd to utter darkness, as one speaker expressed it, or as being "lifted up in pri'dc," as Apostle Joseph Smith .1r., expressed it, a condition which 'is, of course, utterly reprehensible reprehen-sible aud much to be censured by those who wish to reserve to themselves the right of counsel and direction to all of their followers in every coucorn of life, if he disregards that counsel. It is interesting to note that at the very time that this injunction of surrendering sur-rendering personal opinion and liberty of judgment and action to tho guidance of the priesthood is inculcated as tho chief duty of the Saints, there is running- right along with it an apparent admission that every individual in the church is absolutely frco to take his own coursu according to his own judgment. judg-ment. Tho impossibility of doing both of these things appears to be lost sight of in the turmoil of tho contention. But upon cooling off and looking the matter squarely iii the face, tho impossibility im-possibility of reconciling this complete freedom of personal judgment and of action in the individual, with the claim that every individual must stibmit to the guidance of his superior in temporal tem-poral as well as civil affairs, must bo plainly evident to every one. Qr;-is it meant that in the language of the older time, "everyone can go to hell if he wants to,"' ami will surely go to hell if he sets tip his independent judgment judg-ment against the eounael of the priesthood priest-hood I The claim of the president of the ; ckurch that his counsel is God's conn-sol conn-sol is not sufficient to reconcile the contrariety of terms involved in the I two propositions that an individual is , abt-olutoly free to take his own conrse j jand also that every individual in the1 elmreh must snbmit to the counsel ami 'guidance of his ecclesiastical superiors. it u a matter of curious intercut to i sec that the modt rndical claims of the j past with regard to tho power of tho priesthood over the individual- members of! the church is reasserted in quite the ojd form and with quite tho old posi-tivcnnss posi-tivcnnss and insistence. We mnv be allowed to hope, however, that this is ! the expiring gnsp 0f the truculent autocracy au-tocracy of the priesthood, for it is a position iuioib' to be maintained Ja'ong with the position whith the Mormons Mor-mons .ronstantlv ashert of their invi-J invi-J Mdtnl freedom; ami it is also impos sible of practical application iu n modern mod-ern enlightened republic liko ours. Wo confess to a good denl of surprise sur-prise at tho arrogant roiteratiou of this old-time priestly authority over tho members in the way of guiding them in all their affairs of lifo; for there has been so much of the other side presented recently in the writings and public utterances of those claiming claim-ing to speak for tho church, that it had boon taken for granted that the old-time old-time nutocrncv would never more be openly asserted in behalf of tho authority of the "prophets, seers and revelators" over their followers. But it appears that the hope iudulgod in that the old idea of autocratic direction direc-tion of all things had beuu abandoned was too optimistic. That it must be abandoned is a matter of course, and that the old and contrary view upholding uphold-ing the theocracy should be asserted vehemently, positively and by a large number of the loading authorities of ! the church, one after tho other, and all to the .same purport, on the last d:iy of the semi-annua general confer-once confer-once of the church in the year 1012, is an nnachronism hard to explain. .1 list as we were getting along so comfortably, comfort-ably, in jiarmonv and good will, and with the idea that tho old abuse had passed away, we have them flung in our faces again iis something not only important but obligatory; aid the same old threats made that those who disobey dis-obey arc to be" put under tho ban as of old. Progress does not seem to mean anything under these conditions, and advancement is arrested at the very point wheu it seemed to be getting a good fitar |