Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1903-10-03

dsmayed By facts so much more thrill
ing than any fiction he might have I'M
agined, that he turned from his hrst
purpose In order ito try to tell what
had really been In this story then,
| says he. the things that are strangest
have most truth. The make believe is
| hardly more than cement 10 Join the
| queerly wrought stones of fact that
| We're found ready" Hence we are t.
| be turned from considering his work as
| fiction to regard II as trutn,
II is exactly at this point that | ar
| raign Mir Wilson before the bar Of pub
| lie opinion, ana tell him that what ha
| represents as true | denounce as false,
| and this quite apart from any books
| from which he has paraphrased much
| Of the matter he weaVcs into his story.
| The trouble Is that the sources whence
he makes his deductions are as untrue
| In their statements as his paraphIasc
| Of them are, Mr., Wilson is as one who
| walks through some splendid orchard
| and gathers here and there the worm-
eaten. frost. bitten, wind blasted
| growth -stunted and rotten fruit, which
| In spite of the best Of care, is TO be
| found I'm every orchard, and bringing
| this TO us he says; This ia the fiutt
| of yonder orchard you see how worth.
| less 1t is; an orchard growing such fruit
| Is ready for the burning, Whereas, the
| fact Is that there are tons and tons OF
beautiful, lucious fruit, az pleasing 10
the eye as IL would be agreeable to the
palate, remaining In the orchard to
which he does not call our attention az
all. Would not such representation
Of the orchard be an untruth, notwith-
standing his bighted specimens were
gathered from its trees? II no presents
10 us the. blighted specimens Of fruit
from the orchard Is he not In truth and
IN honor bound also TO call our attention
10 the rich harvest OF splendid fruit
that etlll remains ungathercd before he
asks us to pass judgment on the
orchard? / am not so blind IN my
admiration Of the Mormon people.
or 80 bigoted In my devotion TO the"Mor-
mon" faith as TO think that there are
no individuals In that Church charge
able with fanatlclsm folly Incorporate
speech, and wickedness; nor am / blind
10 the fact that some I'm their oyer-zeal
have lacked judgment;and that I'm times
of excitement, under stress Of special
provocation, even Mormon lead
ers have given utterance TO IDEAS that
are indefensible. But | have yet TO
learn that 1t is just In a writer Of his
tory, or Of purpose fiction" that must
speak truly" to make a collection OF
these things and represent them as Of
the essence Of that faith against which
said writer draws an Indictment.
mo one would measure the belief OF
Christians says truly great
writer by certain statements in the
Fathers, nor judge the moral princi-
pies Of Roman Catholics by prurient
quotations from the casusts, nor yet |
estimate Lutherans by the utterances
and deeds of the early successors Of |
Luther, nor Calyinists by the burning
of Servetus. In all such cases the |
general standpoint of the times has
to be first taken into account '-Edes- |
hiem's Life and Times Of Jesus the |
Messiah, preface p. So
A long time ago the great Edmund |
Burke in his defense Of the rashness |
expressed in both speech and action |
of some of our patriots of the American |
revolution period, said. 1T Is not fair
to judge of the temper or the dispo-
sition of any man or any set of men |
when they are composed and at rest |
from their conduct or their expressions |
In state of disturbance and irrlta- |
ton" The justice Of Burke's assertion |
has never been questioned and without |
any Wrestling whatsoever 1t may be APP |
piled to Mormon leaders who some
times spoke and acted under the reCol- |
lection Of rank injustice perpetrated |
against themselves and their people; or |
TO rebuke rising evils against which |
their souls reyolted.
Mr.. Wilson's book is a false indlct- |
ment against "MOrmonisn,' and |
against the leading characters Of the |
Mormon Church. The speeches he |
represents as falling from their lips, |
could never be recognized in the ut |
terances Of "Mormons," either among |
the leaders. or the rank and file. The |
blasphemuus phraseology he puts in the |
mouth of his characters was never |
heard in Mormon camps or pulpits,
Such expressions as when that young |
man gets all het up with the Holy |
Ghost, the angel Of the Lord just has
20 give down. or Lord, what won't |
Brother Brigham do when the Holy |
Ghost gets Il strangle-holt on him.
are blasphemles utterly impossible TO
the Mormon" mind. Such express
sions as the following, represented as
coming from Brigham Young: "The
Lutte of the Holy Ghost Will now say
q word of farewell from our pioneers
to those who must stay behind" Is |
equally impossible and so are many
other speeches which he puts into the
mouths of leading characters OF the
Mormon" Church.
The most serious injustice Mr.. VIII
son does the Mormon" people, how
ever the thing In which he most de-
only by history but by the decisions Of
the United states courts in Utah. is in
that he makes the awful crime Of the
massacre OF emlgrants at Mountain
Meadows in 1851 the crime Of the Nor
mon" Church over and over again |
i'm fact he makes that charge, and rep
resents his chief character Joel Rae
as seeking TO take upon himself the
sins of the Church for committing that
la, V,lu - |
him as saying. "For fifteen years |
have lain in he'll for the work this
Church did at Mountain Meadows To
bear false witness against ones neigh
Dor even in matters that may be trivial,
is a contemplate orimei but when in
bearing false witness the charge is that
OF murder wholesale murder and that
under circumstances the most revolving |
and horI ble, the crime then OF bearing |
false witness rises above the merely
contemplate and TO be seen in Its true
enormity must be regarded as bearing |
a due proportion to the crime charged.
That is next TO being guilty Of the
crime Itself must he the crime OF false
ly charging II to the innocent. | care
nothing for the fact that predecessors
of Mr., Wilson, in works Of fiction on
the West have made similar charges,
He will not be justified In following
their evil example, a man OF ms eX-
allied standing in the world of letters,
starting out TO try to tell what had
really been" to write fiction that must
speak mo less than truth was under
both 10 himself and the peo-
ple To whom his message should go, TO ,
investigate all the facts and speak
truly In harmony with them In every
case.
IL is not necessary here to enter into
any argument or even produce the evil
tt,.t ~, tsMortppnh Church Nyng |