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Show The Church Declining. Good Saints in Utah, do you know that your church has reached its zenith and is now falling into a decline? Thirteen years after the church was organized it numbered 143,00Q, communicants. Seo Millennial Star. The latest estimate is 300,000, or, as Brigham Roberts states it, "about 300,000." You are good mathematicians. Now .H give us an answer to this problem: "If the church from nothing gathored to it 143,000 in fH thirteen years, what should it number in sixty years?" It would be about 1,000,000 by natural increase, 9 would it not, or by such an increase as the United States has made during the same time, about 800,000. S Now, there are not 300,000 Saints today. That jH includes all that have been baptized and have not been apostatized or died. You know that in jH every hamlet in Utah are some scores of people whoso parents were Mormons -who no longer at tend church or Sunday school or pay tithing. You H know that tho 5,000 missionaries, scattered all H over the world, do not average two conversions each a year. Do you not see that your church has passed the fj zenith and is on the decline? And can you not Oj seo that if the effort to prostitute the judiciary S of this state falls, your prophet and seer will in 'H the near future be called upon to face a propo- H I--11wHH I sition which will land him In a foreign country or IBH I in the penitentiary? He himself has supplied the llfflHK' 100 you not see tnat tlle only ,afety for yur fSfflmml creed is to come within the laws and become IjHHI Americans? Your chiefs tell you that the Consti- I '$9Hh tution of the United States was inspired. Why ! JIhSII Apostle Smoot has been "set aside" to direct ;;''j9HH you in politics. Why do you not also, set Apostle ''jyflMHi Smoot aside and think for yourselves? ''I18HI It would be better for you and for your church. IIIhH Vote for the American ticket this fall, to show VJiImB your would-be rulers that you are, after all, real tIIHH and true Americans. It would save you a world iJhKK of rouljle' I; would save your people and your . HiSHi church so much, it would take the reproach away HfflH from your system and give it a chance to grow on ISHi ItS merits SuPPS0 you try it. |