OCR Text |
Show DOWIE AND BRIGHAM YOUNG. The late Sir. Dowie must have had many characteristics char-acteristics in common with those possessed by Brig-ham Brig-ham Young. He had no blood-atoners under his direction1 that we know of, but he was "a boss from away back. He seems to have had the same magnetic mag-netic control over men, the same sensuous magnetism over women, and from first to last he looked out for Dowie. He was just as absolute in his bossism as was Brigham when in a close place he declared that "Thus saith the Lord," which was in effect moving the previous question, which shuts off debate. The original Joseph Smith was of a generous disposition, dis-position, and he was not an absolute despot. For instance, in-stance, he tried to stop the destruction of the newspaper news-paper in Nauvoo, and when he besought the men intent on this biisiness to think what the effect would be, they answered him back that they did not care what the effect would be. When Brigham Young took charge there was none of that work. He did not discuss matters with his inferiors; he merely said, "Let this be done," or, "Let that be done," and it was done. He assumed to be a seer and reve-lator; reve-lator; that is, an absolute king, and kings do not account to themselves for whafr they do. That Dowie succeeded faster than did Brigham was because he was in a country where there were more people and more money, and he drew lots of the money into his coffers. When he got into Chicago, Chi-cago, he evidently took up the idea that Hubert Howe Bancroft took up while here, when he said that if he was younger he would start a religion, as he knew of nothing that was so rare of a money-making money-making resnlt as to start a religion. We presume these experiments have been tried from time to time ever since the priests in the old world assumed a superior wisdom and, by the flight of the birds or the coming of an eclipse, or either of a dozen things, they saw a way to impose updn the superstitious fears of the people. And we presume it will go on the same way until man is finally emancipated and learns to appreciate the words of the Master when he said that undefiled religion was to love the Lord and one's fellow men. |