| Show from the tho st daul pioneer press march loth 1884 1881 WHAT TO DO WITH tiled THE MORMONS REV 11 M sa s1 imons 1 MoNs SAYS TIIE tile BES dest IS TO LEAVE TIMM THEM ALONE alme THE REASONS for FOK THE falth FAITH THAT IS ix IN liim rev 11 M simmons of the lan ian society followed the discourse delivered by fied rev kev J L scudder of the first congregational society given last sunday on the mormon problem problem glem giem with a sermon on the same su subject gro eject de delivered iver lver to an audience that filled the hebrew temple yesterday yester dad morning mr simmons summed up the points of merit worthy of recognition in the mormons cormons in the following statistics and followed with consideration of the question af of polygamy as herewith given aside from their thor polygamy the mor mons are admitted to be a pre emi nent bently y moral people hepworth epworth Il dix ulson dison on sa s1 says 1 tys peace reigns in their cities harlots and drunkards are unknown to them the author of sinners and saints only two years ago found the same condition see sec his picture ol of the town of lo 10 login aai xii wit with h mormons cormons Mor mons yet without a crime without drunkenness without a single singie license tor for liquor selling 11 its only police force two men partly engaged in fanning farming and with no poll poli police ide ice tit fat all on sundays and on oin meeting evenings this same authority after a long stay among them with exceptionally good advantages for learning their private life says he can positively assert that the standard of public public morality among the mormons cormons 0 oi utah is such as the gentiles among them are either unable or unwilling to live up to nor is this the mere assertion of a traveler but borne out by statistics we are told further that in utah the mormons Mor Mon mons though constituting 83 per cent of t the he pop population matlon Mation f furnished arni siTed only 2 2 per cent of the litigation and of the gambling and that all the bagnios baguios and other disreputable concerns in the territory are run and sustained by non nou mor mons 11 such statistics make us doubt rev howard Cros bys policy of sending an army to crush out the mormons cormons Mor mons better not kill them off until we have jearner to make christians at least one coruth as orderly as they are for simple arithmetic shows that by getting rid of this mormon element we wc should multiply the percentage of crime in the territory mor ethan fourfold four fold POLYGAMY but bat the polygamy toly polygamy gamy you say that is indeed the lot blot on their system home Is the holiest hollest on the and the he love of husband and wife is one otic of the he highest forces in history and the man who feels true love for a woman knows that it is too sacred a thing to be divided po polygamy gamy takes half the heart out of the home and takes out of if e its highest value but not even he evil of polygamy should mabeus make us forget the merits of the mormons cormons which we have noticed still less should it make us willing to wron wrong them the fact that thit tl they ey degrade their homes is no reason that we we should do worse and destroy their homes the fact that they practice polygamy in utah gives gives us no right atto to drive them out of that lat Territory which they have won from the wilderness and virtually given us by all the rules of right the land is theirs rather than ours and if we after mobbing them from missouri and illinois into a desert which we did not own after their suffering march to that desert and their long toll toil in redeeming it to use and beauty if we now do anything to drive them out of ity iti it IV we e sin far more against the laws of justice than they with all their wives nor is it just to punish their offe offenses offen asas sas against our marriage system with any harsher methods theia than we use for similar offenses cs elsewhere nay the fact that they oppose our marriage system openly and sincerely should make us show to them more charity than to others they are just as sincere in their devotion to polygamy as we in ours to monogamy thein their heir sincerity and courage in asserting unpopular beliefs entitles them to something more than charity and in any other cause would win them respect nor are their conclusions exactly what an orthodox minister should condemn they have the bible on their side and when the famous dr newman argued against them on biblical grounds they published the debate as a campaign document to support their doctrine when a christian minister preaches tiie the divine wisdom of solomon with his seven hundred wives and the dreadful wickedness of some cormon mormon for ken keeping g only seven when he urges ila its to fo follow low the example of abraham and jacob and david and to slay the mormons cormons because they do follow these examples his logic gets in a tangle if the jewish notion including prophets and apostles and jesus himself were god gods chosen people eople and yet all descended from por pop polygamists I 1 ts a as the bible asserts if this bitae bible bibie aw which h to h praises polygamists and is partly written by them is still the infallible and only word of god then the mormons cormons deserve our respect not only for being sincere but bat for beins being in the right but allow allowing fg as I 1 prefer to that the bible is not infallible on the marriage question and that the mormons cormons are rather in the wrong there still remains the fact that the wrong has been by no means so extensive as as the popular rumor makes it polygamy makes a schism and a large part of the mor mons have ever since even among those piko efko who favored it comparatively few have ever preached it taking into account this fact and the further fact that their lives are so free from that marital infidelity and prostitution which disgrace gentile society it may well be doubted whether the percentage of of fences against the marriage system and social purity is so very much higher in utah than elsewhere nay more bad as there system is its results among them seem practically not so bad as popular rumor makes them it is degrading ding and destructive tive of the higher type of home but the women ot of utah seem not so very dissatisfied with it and the fact crops out here and there through the very books that denounce it WOMANS RESOURCES women have rights in utah which they do not in minnesota and can vote freely at the polls they have a right of remedy in easy divorce and yet a writer tells us they do not seek divorce one tenth as much as in massachusetts they have a aper paper the domans exponent in which v h N ch t they h ey can proclaim their wrongs yet strange to say this paper advocates polygamy and and the writer quotes a letter from it which urges the women of utah to pray for the benighted senator edmunds i nd all who think like him I 1 do da not L ring ring up these statements to palliate polygamy 1 but to show that we need no not get set up a war to free these women of utah until they want to be freed polygamy is an evil degrading to both sexed sexes and demoralizing to society a relic reile of barbarism 77 but lut that isano reason why vily we should fight it in barbarous ways nor shall we the evil by legislation laws again against it have hitherto been ineffective and will be until there is a public sentiment in utah that supports them that sentiment must come conle through h the slow growth of civilization a among mo anz the mormons Mor mons railroads travel and trade are slowly killing polygamy it ha has han been suggested trat that a millinery shoy shori does more than all the minis ministers ers erg to destroy it for when the women be bein begin in to adopt the the parisian fashions the ec economical 0 mormon will be satisfied with one wife but spiritual progress knowledge thought thong lit sentiment love are far more fatai fatal to polygamy the love of man and woman winch ever reaches higher and becomes truer as we advance sd vance leaves this system behind as a coarse and brutal custom polygamy ga n is doomed to fall but it will not fail fall fali by soldiers or the sheriff but by the sil spiritual ritual sentiments that are stron stronger stroner er than either elther it will not fall by cannon nor by congress nor by human laws of any kind but by the divine law of love |
