The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-03-08
DARKER FOR THE CHURCH.

The Northwestern Christian Advocate
prints for It's leading article in its
issue of February 81, 1907, Z" a Dark
Day in the History OF the Republic. -
The learned Christian editor of that
| great journal has been watching the
trial of the Mormon church in the
Smoot case, and he voices his profound
and patriotic regret at the conclusion
which was reached by the Senate of the
United States,
The Tribune says freely that the
Mormon church hierarchy were on trial,
Reed Smoot, apostle and member of the
! hierarchy, placed them in the prison
er's dock by his answer to the pro,
test which was fled against him. The
members of the hierarchy gave the tes-
timony of self conviction upon all the
charges when they testified before the
committee,
When q Judgment was procured from
the Senate, the hierarchy and their or
gans declared that the church had been
vindicatcd, thus accepting and assert
ing the fact that the Mormon church
hierarchy were on trial.
So far as this Republic is concerned,
the day must surely come when en-,
lightenment on this serious subject will
set every National authority in the
right path. Not always will falsehood
and evasion and extraneous influence
prevail upon Congress or the admins
tration. The aid of the Mormon church
hierarchy in politics is one which no
party can accept and retain its self
respect. Bargaining with the Mormon
hierarchy, while temporarily useful to
the politicians, provokes inevitable con-
sequences which no ambitious man can
endure, The relation between the hicr-
archy and certain Western Senators and
certain political leaders of the East
will fall of its own weight, and the
Republic will be relieved in time of
the offensive responsibility, The moral
conscience OF the Nation is aroused,
and never in the history of this Re
public has that conscience been stIlled
when once awakened, until the moral
victory is won.
But for the Mormon church itself
its tyrant hierarchs, its criminal cult
there is a long, dark night from which
it is difficult TO see the time of emer-
gence Never before in the history of
the cult have the leaders been com
pelied to deny TO their own people their
faith and practice; never before have
they been compelled to. pretendedly
discard the essentials; never before
have they sacrificed solidarity of the
cult to an immediate object of cxpe-
thency. This time, to gain n Senator
ship, the church and its leaders have
followed such devious path that even
their most faithful followers shuddcr
when they are confronted by the neces-
slty Gas in some cases all the intclli-
gent men and women have been con
fronted) of choosing between one state
ment of the hierarchs and the books
and an utterly contradictory statement
by the hierarchs and the books. What
no external pressure could produce, the
falsehood and treachery of the chiefs
themselves has brought into vigorous
being-among the faithful doubt of
the divinity of the work itself, a doubt
of the sincerity Of the leaders, con-
tempt for the worldly ambitions of
apostles and president. and a feeling of
resistance against the sacrifices of the
mass for the aGgrandizement of the
class.
The evangelical churches which have
labored for nearly century to with
stand the aggressions of this cult NAV
now pause in peace; for a theology
which is denied by its chief exponents,
and practice which is condemned in
the most cxtravagant terms by its
spokesman: cannot long survive the in
eyltablc disintegration of its own sys.
tenn.
When president can lie and an
apostle can forswear, the individual
will soon learn to exercise his
right of detection and no fear of the
church can hold him.
The article of the Northwestern
Christian Advocate, written by the
learned Doctor Thompson, one of the
men OF this country best acquainted
with the Utah situation, is reproduced
In this issue of The Tribune.