The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-07-03

Elder Pratt.
On Monday, the 25th of April last, we pub
lished special report of an admirable sermon
from the Rev. Dr. Newman, against polygamy
as violation of the divine law, the sermon
delivered on Sunday, the Gath, in the Metho-
dist Episcopal Metropolitan church, at Wash
ington (the church of President Grant and his
family and on the 3Oth Of May we published
a sharp and ingenious reply from the distin-
guished Mormon Elder Pratt, communicated to
US from Great Salt Lake City, in defence Of
polygamy as divinely recognized institution.
| This morning we submit to our readers a
| rejoinder from DR.. Newman, which, we think,
| will be read with convincing satisfaction by
men and women of all creeds and sects
excepting the irreclaimable devotees of poly
gamy, free love and their kindred abomina-
tons.
visit California in August, stopping en- route
at Salt Lake City, and while there either to
preach series of sermons on the question,
Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy ? or debate
the same with Brigham Young. But, inasmuch
as Mr.. Pratt seems eager for the fray,
accept the earlier opportunity of discussing
the same question through the columns of the
HERALD, which will have the advantage of
greater accuracy of statement and wider
range of influence" Still we trust that the
learned Doctor will not abandon his design of
meeting the Mormon lion in his den, because
there tho nrOnOsad aarm onu or discuoaion IF
polygamy will doubtless be accepted by the
Mormons in the light of warning by an
authorized ambassador from the President of
the United States that this scandal of poly
gamy cannot be indefinitely continued in Utah.
But to this trenchant rejoinder to Elder
Pratt. DR.. Newman insists that there is no
law in the Bible authorizing polygamy-that all
that can be claimed for it is that Moses enacted
laws for the regulation of this practice. But
what if he did? In Paris the ''social eviP' is
regulated by law, and in this country there
are ''excise laws" designed to regulate intern
perance; but these laws do not involve an
approval of either the ''social evil" or intern
perance. With this point established, Dr. New
man starts again from the divine law of mar
riage-one man and one woman established in
the creation-and proceeds to show that
throughout the Bible this original ordinance
defending polygamy, why, inquiries Dr.
Newman, ''why should Mr.. Pratt deplore
incest9" Why, he asks, when sit is practised
by the Mormons Of Utah ?"'-when cit is
VIGOROUSLY true that some Mormons have
married mother and her daughters by
previous husbahd;" when Gin one household
may be seen the spectacle of three women
daughter, mother and grandmother-wives of
the same man )" and when, from the authority
of Hepworth Dixon, in his remarkable book,
called 'sNew America" Brigham Young could
see no objection to the marriage of brother
and sister?
This is bringing the peculiarly repulsive
features of Mormon poygamy to judgment; for,
in the simple statement of these startling facts
under the dlvinely proclaimed and maintained
law of the Bible, Brigham Young and his fol-
lowers are outlaws. The intermarriage of the
sons and daughters of Adam and Eve
was in accordance with the intention of the
Creator, and there was no law against incest
until the PRONUNCIATION by Moses, twenty-five
hundred years after the creation, of the law of
consanguinity. The marriage law of one
woman and one man, however, was estab-
lshed in Adam and Eve.
The crimes of adultery and polygamy, of
which those famous kings of Israel, David and
Solomon, were Guilty, those crimes which in
these two faithless men are held up by Elder
Pratt as the highest justification of polygamy,
are clearly shown by DR.. Newman as bringing
upon those guilty parties and their house the
severest COMBINATIONS and punishments. We
have next a learned exposition of the law and
renee to bastardy, from which we see that the
misfortune of an irregular birth did not cut off
the man from the highest distinctions. In the
case of Jephtbah the misfortune was the cause
of his expulsion from the great family to which
he belonged but when, in their extremities,
they needed his services they recalled him.
and, by compact, put him at the head of
the State. This argument is followed up to
show that for the polygamous sins of David
and Solomon their children were not held
responsible, and that these individual trans
gressions, while severely condemned and
punished, did not disturb the line of the sue
cession to the Messiah.
Coming down to the Christian dispense
ton, DR.. Newman, from the writings of st.
Paul, makes decisive work Of the feeble
sophistres of Elder Pratt in defence of poly
gamy and of his attempt to ridicule the in
structions and authority of the great Apostle.
Equally conclusive is the exposition of the
mistakes of Elder Pratt in attempting to show
from the figures ofthe United States census that