Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1877-09-14

Wills AcIElJOTy
b. Y.-There are.
II. G.-Do your Territorial laws up
hold slavery?
Is. Y.-Those laws arc printed-you
can read for yourself. If slaves are
brought here by those who owned them
in the States, we do not favor their es-
cape from the service of those owners.
II. Gam / to infer that Utah, if
admitted as a member of tho Federal
Union, will be slave State
B. Y.-No; she will be free State.
Slavery here would prove useless and
Improbable. | regard it generally as a
curse to the masters. myself hire many
laborers, and pay them fair wages; |
could not afford to own them. can do
better than subject myself to an obliga-
ton to feed and clothe their families, to
provide and care for them in sickness
and health. Utah is not adapted to
slave labor.
II. G Let mo now be enlightened
with regard more especially to your
church polity. | understand that you
require each member to pay over one
tenth of all he produces or earns to the
church.
b. Y.-That is requirement of our
faith. There is no compulsiou as to the
payment. Each member acts in the
premises according to his pleasure, under
the dictates of his own conscience.
II. G What is done with the pro-
cceds of this tithing2
b. Part of it is devoted to build
ing temples and other places of worship
part to helping the poor and needy CON
verts on their way to this country, and
the largest portion to the support of the
poor among the Saints.
H Cts none of it paid to bishops
and other dignitaries of the church
b. Y.-Not one penny. No bishop,
no elder, no deacon, or other church
officer, receives any compensation for his
official services. A bishop is often re-
CURED to put his hand in his own pocket,
and provide therefrom for the poor of
his charge; but he mover receives any
thing for his services.
II. Glow, then, do your ministers
liver
B. by the labor of their own
hands, like the first apostles. Every
Bishop, every elder, may be daily seen
at work in the field or the shop, like his
neighbors; every minister Of the church
has his proper calling, by which he earns
the bread of his family; he who cannot
or will not do the church's work for
nothing is not wanted in her service ;
even our lawyers (pointing to Gen. Fur
gerson and another present, who are the
regular lawyers of the church, are paid
nothing for their services; lam the only
person in the church who has not reg
ular calling apart from the church's ser
vice, and | never received one farthing
from her treasury; if | obtain anything
from the tithing-house, | am charged
with and pay for it, just as any one else
would the clerks in the tithing-store
are paid like other clerks, but no one is
ever paid for any service pertaining to
the ministry. We think a man who can
not make living aside from the minis
try Of Christ unsuited to that office.
am called rich, and consider myself worth
$3.50, 900, but no dollar of it was ever paid
me by the church or for any service as
minister of the everlasting gospel.
lost nearly all | had when we were
broken up in Missouri and driven from the
State. | was nearly stripped again when
Joseph Smith was murdered and we
were driven from Illinois; but nothing
was made up to me by the church, or by
any one. believe | know how to ac-
quirc property and how to take care Of
it.
II. G.-Can you give me any rational
explanation of tho aversion and hatred
with which your people are generally re-
gardcd by those among whom they have
lived, and with whom they have been
brought directly in contact?
i. Y.--No other explanation than is
afforded by the crucifxion Of Christ and
the kindred treatment Of Gods ministers
prophets and saints in all ages.
ii. G.-I know that a now sect is all
ways decr;cd and traduced; that is hard
ly ever deemed respectable to belong to
one that the Baptists, Quakers, Uni
versalists, Methodists, ETC., have each in
their turn, in the infancy Of their sect,
been regarded as the ofscouring Of the
earth yet cannot remember that either
Of them were ever represented and re-
garded by the older sect Of their early
day as thieves, robbers, murderers.
i. Y.--If you will consult the CON
temporary Jewish accounts Of tho life
and acts Of Jesus Christ you will find
that He and His Disciples were accused
Of every abominable deed and purpose,
robbery and murder included. Such a
work is still extant, and may be found
by those who seek it.
II. G.--What do you say Of the so
called Danites, Or Destroying Angels, be-
longing TO your church
b. Y.--What do you say? I know
Of no such band, persons or organiza-
ton. hear Of them only in the SLAM
ders Of our enemies.
II G.--With regard, then, TO the
grave questions on which your doctrines
and practices are ayowedly at war with
those Of the Christian world--that Of
plurality Of wives--is tho system Of
your church acceptable to a majority of
its women?
b. Y.-They cannot be more ayerse to
it than was when it was first revealed
TO me as the Divine will. | think they
generally accept it, as | do, as the will
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