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Show , EXCOMMUNICATED. The excommunication of Frank J. Cannon from the Mormon church was one of the sensational events of the week. The prominent position held by his father, George Q. Cannon, as first counsellor to Presidents Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow adds importance to the case. The son, like the father, is an able writer, clear and forcible, and a man of wide and varied experience. Smarting under the penalties of the sentence imposed upon him, and still retaining hallowed memories of his, honored father, who stood the second officer in the church for more than a quarter of a century, with one foot, as it were, in the first, Frank J. Cannon will strike back with all the severity he can command. Excommunication is a scvero chastisement, but it is a penalty to which all churches and social organizations have recourse when members fail to comply with the rules, regulations, regu-lations, and discipline of the church or society to which they lay claim. It simply means a sepcra-tion sepcra-tion from external communion with the church. It does not mean that the excommunicated is accursed, but simply the withdrawal of fellowship. Apart from the interested party, it will be made the occasion occa-sion of religious bickerings and hatred from which rarely any good results. To take advantage of actions ac-tions to arouse religious animosities is not the spirit of Christ who proclaimed universal peace and love, and nothing but one's own! deji berate act can ever sepcralc him from the love of God. |