The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-07


children are legitimate. The Mormons
rested their plea for plurality OF wives
upon the Scriptures, and If this is unlaw-
full they said all is unlawful. They argued
that Christ nowhere condemned the
polygamy of the patriarchs; that God
blsssed them and their polygamous Off
spring, saying nothing in condemnation
of plural wives" In short, the Mormons
were . striking modern object lesson Of
the deplorable practical consequences
which ensue when ignorant fanatics insist
on the acceptation of the Bible. the whole
of it literally, and follow it to its logical
consequence.
Nor was it'remarkable that in $780, when
both the Northern and the Southern pull
pit united in defending human slavery
from the Bible, vast number of hard,
hteral-minded religious fanatics should, in
their superstition, accept polygamy as
justified by the Bible. The evil growths
of slavery and polygamy secured modern
survival through the pernicious teaching
from the puipits that the Bible history of
Hebrew civilization. whether social or theo-
cratic, was moral law and spiritual guild
ance for the modern world. The failure to
distinguish between the eternal spiritual
truths of the Scriptures and the transient
social and civil life of the He
brew people has borne frightful fruit
in ignorant, coarse. literal minds. This
fact is responsible for modern faith in
slavery, polygamy, modern spiritism.
and ali other manifestations of this sort,
sincere stolidity, eff there was ever slav-
cry or plurality of wives permitted by God,
why not now? If there was ever q mira
Gle, resurrection, return of departed
spirits, why not today as yesterday?
Civilization learned to drop the blood
atonement, the burnt offerings, the ston.
ing Of Sabbath breakers. the killing in war
of men, women and children and prison.
ers; the reduction of whole nations to
slavery, and other revolving customs Of
the barbarian Israelites recorded in Holy
Writ, but the ignorant, literal religious
fanatics. who revived polygamy, were
modern survival Of the Scottish Cova-
nanters, like Balfour, of Burley, who,
when they murdered Archbishop Sharpe,
quoted the example of Samuel hewing
asunder the captive King Agag. The in
telligent modern world had not only out
grown its respect for polygamy and slavery.
but for modern miracles, and even
for the contempt for riches preached and
practiced by the Apostles and the early
fathers of the church. The world had
learned to cast out the unnatural and emo
tional from things spiritual and
worshipful in practice before the clerical
bigot consented to repudiate the barpar-
Gus precept under which the church Or
ganized the Inquisition. lit the fires of
Smithfield, massacred and tortured the
dissenters in all lands. and rested its de-
Tense on the Bible which the Mormon
quoted for his polygamy. The heather
captive was murdered because Samuel
as 1850 Northern pulpits urged obedience
to the fugitive slave law, saving "As Paul
sent back Onesimus, my Christian
friends, We send her." Now we are all
ashamed today of our old-time de-
Tense of slavery from the Bible, and
yet we have charity for those
who probably sincerely believed that God
meant to damn a whole race to bondage
when he said "Cursed be Canaan" If we
plead charity for intellectual men and
scholars like DR.. Lord and Bishop Hop
kins, who defended slavery from the
Bible, why Is there not more charity due
to the ignorant, fanatical persons who at
tempted q religious revival of Hebrew
polygamy. Mormonism was nothing but
modern return on the part of ignorant,
sincere, fanatical minds to the obsolete
acceptance of the ancient Hebrew civiliza-
ton as the model for man today in all
matters, religious, social and civic. The
Mormon church was a sincere attempt to
re-establish literally the Hebrew theocracy
in Utah.
The highest civilization has always re-
jected polygamy for monogamy, which
gives US family, social and political
relations. the best and most refined results
reproduction. All the great nations are
monogamic, and polygamy only existed
among the Mormons because of the force
always exerted upon ignorant and uncult-
ured minds by the appeal to superstition.
Return to the low civilization of the Old
Testament in the matter of polygamy Is
as absurd as a return to slavery or any
other barbarous custom of barbarous
times.