The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1912-01-18

came to them the divine mandate:
You shall take the things written In
my law to be law 10 govern this
! church,, and it was clearly shown
that this law was contained in the
Bible and Book of Mormon and such
of the Doctrine and Covenants as had
been accepted by the popular vote of
the church. And yet Brigham Young
went SO far in demanding this I'M
questioning obedience, that he piled
these three books on the stand in
front of him and said they were not
worth the ashes of q rye straw. When
anything was given to the people by
the Giving oracles" Gas the mon
holding the priesthood are termed)
which came in contact with the writ
ten word, the people were obliged to
take the law as given by these men
and let the written word go.
Let me given you an idea of how
far this demand for unquationing
obedience was carried. Out there
the hierarchical order of government
is observed rigidly in grading the Of
fees of the priesthood, from deacon
up to president. MILFORD Woodruff,
one of their presidents, the one thru
whom the manifesto was presented,
preached one time a sermon in which
he stated that it was his belief, and
he represented it as being a funda-
mental principle of Mormon belief and
practice, that no matter what a man
may have learned by research and
study Of governments, or economics,
or law, even after years of research,
yet he is compelled to give it all UP
and teach something else at the mere,
suggestion of his "file leader in the
priesthood. Can you imagine what a
srupenduous thing this is? Suppose
| should tell you after you had spent
years in research and study and had
learned things demonstrated by facts,
that at my suggestion YOU would be
compelled to give up your own, ideas
and teach mine, would you believe
me sane?
Yet, such was the teaching by Pres
ident Woodruff, and undenied by the
Mormons today. but acceded to.
The Heresy Of Poiygamy.
The church in 1885, while Joseph
Smith was it's president and direct
ing its affairs as general officer, took
an official attitude on the marrige
question, by adopting what that year
appeared in the Book of Doctrine
and Covenante and remained in
every edition until 1876, when Brig
ham Young eliminated it. from his
edition and inserted his document on
the ETERNITY of tho Marriage Cove
nant. " Every church organization
has sooner or later to wrestlef with
| the marriage question or the sex
problem. SO it is not to be presum-
ed that this church organization start
ed in 1880 would escape it. In 1885,
| when they were about to send mis-
sionaries among the Shakers, they or
| tically announced their attitude on
the marriage question-strictly mono
! samic This was published in the
doctrine and covenants in 1885, and
properly represented the church then
and its true succession now. But
! Brigham Young repudiated it and
substituted one which permitted the
! taking of more than one wife. He
was able to make this change because
he had by 1852 so thoroughly incul-
Gated the doctrine Of unQuesttonine
| obedience that his merest suggestion
was followed as being 1.-The word OF
the Lord At conference at Salt
Lake City in 1852, he presented the
document and told the people they
must accept tho vote was taken On
it, and there never has been even
by the Mormon people. This docu-
! ment on the eternity of the mar
riage covenant as they call it, con-
tains heresies other than the doc
:! trine Of plurality of wives, and az
, fords an interesting study to one who
cares to see how far from the origin
al teachings of the church Brigham
Young led his following. Just one.
by way of illustration: A portion
Of that document, which is Section
1872 of their Book of Covenants, says
that, man can obtain Celestial OK
altation even after he has committed
all manner of sin excepting the she'd
ding of innocent blood. This NEW
covenant" you see, is very potent in
saving and exalting the members OF
the Mormon priesthood.
shall not attempt at this time to
define all the differences, for II
should ,1nderfako II, eYDlain All the