Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-08
THE PLEA.


without our special wonder. 1t treats at
large of political rights and calls the Con-
stitution an inspired instrument, and yet
denounces the laws made in pursuance of
it by the very authority mentioned In
the instrument, and when these laws are
declared valid by the same Supreme
Court which is provided for by the Con-
stitution itself to determine their validity.
The SupremeCourt is not always infallible;
it sometimes reverses its own decisions,
thing which proves its utility, as to
make a decree that could never be
changed would be to assume that man is
without error; but it is always supreme
although it may be wrong. As a matter
of everyday experience, is it not as likely
that some fifty millions of people may be
right in their ideas and practices as some
hundred and fifty thousand? And if
things are to be granted because they are
claimed to be given from heaven, shall
we not soon see some denomination again
trying to extirpate all heretics
and claiming that the Consti-
tuition guarantees them the
right to propagate theirreligious doctrines
and that the extirpation of heretics is a
cardinal one? This has been done re-
peatedly in Europe, and under tie
theories of the epistle, if allowed full
sway, would again be done in America
No religious body should be allowed to
control and direct the affairs of the State
as religious body, and to invoke the
Constitution to uphold the right and to
ask all citizens to see that it is done,
when the very citizens who are
asked to aid will be deprived Of
this same right, is sheer nonsense; !;
and i the fifty millions should consent to
such theories, the fifty millions would
show themselves to be all fools, and not
mostly fools, as Carlyle put it.
The epistle inculcates the doctrine that
God created man merely that he might
marry and marry many times, and says
little or nothing about man being created
that he might glorify God and make the
earth a fit place to which Christ might
come and reign thousand years. From
the epistle one would imply that God
created man that he might marry
and having done this, afterwards
inspired the founders of the United States
government to draw up the Constitution
that the right of cohabitation may not
be abridged.
Among the facts oftenest cited in
support Of the doctrine Of polygamy and
the natural law of marriage" is the fact
that in all societies there exist social
evils, and that while this doctrine NAV
be an evil, still it is lesser evil, and that
it can more easily be controlled. Are we
always to have but two choices between
evils, and must we necessarily choose a
lesser evil? Rather is it not better
to choose neither, and strive to introduce
such order into society as will have no
social evils? The social evil of society is
acknowledged by society to be an evil
and is not justified, while the theories of
Utah justify a lesser evil. So strongly
have the majority of the people of Utah
become imbued with these theories, that
this very epistle, which was matured in
quiet and retirement, contains the follow
ing revolving and disgusting language
in referring to the monogamic
system of marriage of the world !:
"The system which they taught was not
Gods system; it did not, therefore, meet
mans wants. Those channels which
God has provided for the lawful exercise
of the appetites with which He has en-
dowed man, under the system now in
vogue have been damned up, and the
history of Christendom informs us with
what terrible results-the degradation and
prostitution of woman and the spread of
the most terrible scourge known to hui
manity, the social evil, with its attendant
train of loathsome horrors.
And are such statements as these, such
belief in the depravityof man as this shows,
to be taken as evidence of the divinity
of an institution which is to regenerate
the world, physically and morally? Do
they not show the depravity which they
say they deplore rather than the fitness
of the system to which they adhere and
invite the world to accept? We frankly
admit that the great mass of the Nor
mons have been chaste and have kept the
marriage tie inviolate; but we firmly be-
lieve that when any of them have vio-
lated that tie there have been more
polygamic Mormons to do so than mon
ogamic Mormons. Yet this epistle con-
tains these two statements which are ir-
reconcilable with the doctrine of polyg-
amy and its non-practice by the vast ma
jority holding it to be divine.
"The Lord has revealed to us by His
special revelations, as clearly and posi-
lively as He ever did to any of the an
cient Prophets, certain principles associ-
ated with the eternity of the marriage
covenant, has given definite commands
pertaining thereto and made them oblig-
atoly upon us to carry out He
has, moreover, told us that if we do not
obey those principles we shall be damned.
Believing the principles to be of God and
from God we have entered into eternal
covenants with our wives under the most
solemn promises and in the most sacred
manner"
This soul-saving principle, then,
l.