| Show AN outrageous production several times within the last few months the attention of the news has been called to a pamphlet which is IB being widely circulated particularly among prominent men in the church it bears the title the gospel concerning church and state and the non de plume juab a high private in israel and is it must be admitted a remarkable production the chief feature which entitles it to distinction is the studied and oh shocking ock blasphemy of many of its paragraphs As a vehicle for satire and alid irony at the expense af the mormon church and its leaders and doctrines the writer has assumed the character of a member mem berof of that church but he enacts the role with disgusting awkwardness ward ness and coarseness in a purely literary sense and omitting all reference to its ethical features the pamphlet is an abominable piece ot of botch work totally destitute of a scintilla of taste art or excellence it quotes copiously from church publications and with an effrontery and audacity that are amazing seeks to so ao pervert their spirit and meaning that they teach and justify things that are utterly abhorrent to the faith and sentiments of the mormon people without apparent plan purpose or object other than what a kicking mule incle or a snarling dog might display it mingles in a confused mass theological and political ideas which are attributed to speakers and writers belonging to the church but are ara purposely given in a form so incomplete and distorted as to grossly misrepresent the meaning intended to be conveyed by the authors quoted scriptural quotations are used in the same way prominent upon almost every page stands out a spirit of deliberate sacrilege an itching desire to profane and degrade to an extent as great as the limited ability of the writer will allow that which all religionists of christendom hold sacred and all people not u utterly ery brutal rua a at heart ear regard with respect if not reverence the pamphlet indicates that its author believes neither in a god a hereafter the immortality of the soul nor a future accounting for even the greatest crimes and that he delights in profanity and blasphemy of the most outrageous description As is the rule with such characters their shafts intended to wound decent people are fired from ambush they lack the courage of their convictions and are too cowardly to meet responses to their attacks though the authorship of the production here noticed is a presumed secret suspicion as to the writer rests upon a half baked lawyer of this city who has long been engaged in making a collection of mor mon literature and who takes delight in shocking his friends by his profane and blasphemous expressions what object he could have had in spending time in compiling such an execrable mass of viciousness and money in printing it is a secret much more difficult to reach than his identity |
