Footnotes
[1.] I am not so blind in my admiration of the "Mormon" people or so bigoted in my devotion to the "Mormon" faith as to think there are no individuals in the Church chargeable with fanaticism, folly, intemperate speech, and wickedness; nor am I blind to the fact that some in their over-zeal have lacked judgment; and that in times of excitement, under stress of special provocation, even "Mormon" leaders have given utterances to ideas that are indefensible. But I have yet to learn that it is just in a writer of history, or of "purpose fiction," that "speak truly," to make a collection of these things and represent them as the essence of that faith against which said writer draws an indictment.
"No one would measure the belief of 'Christians,'" says a truly great writer, "by certain statements in the Fathers, nor judge the moral principles of Roman Catholics by prurient quotations from the Casuist; nor yet estimate Lutherans by the utterances and deeds of the early successors of Luther, nor Calvinists by the burning of Servetus. In all such cases the general standpoint of the times has to be first taken into account."—Edeshiem's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, preface p. 8.
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: "It is not fair to judge of the temper of the disposition of any man or any set of men when they are composed and at rest from their conduct or their expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation."
[2.] Writing of the Mormon Meadows massacre Hubert H. Bancroft, in his History of Utah, page 544 says: "Indeed it may well be understood at the outset that this horrible crime, so often and so persistently charged upon the Mormon church and its leaders, was the crime of an individual, the crime of a fanatic of the worst stamp, one who was a member of the Mormon church, but of whose intentions the church knew nothing, and whose bloody acts the members of the church, high and low, regard with as much abhorrence as any out of the church. Indeed, the blow fell upon the brotherhood with threefold force and damage. There was the cruelty of it, which wrung their hearts; there was the odium attending its performance in their midst; and there was the strength it lent their enemies further to malign and molest them. The Mormons denounce the Mountain Meadows massacre, and every act connected therewith, as earnestly and as honestly as any in the outside world. This is abundantly proved, and may be accepted as a historical fact."
[3.] See also Doctrine and Covenants section 101:80, on this point.
[4.] A polygamist the friend of God, whose praise you sing, and the man you are glad to call the father of the faithful.—Saints' Herald 52:437.
[5.] Those thirty-one witnesses were: S. Bennett, George Miller, Alpheus Cutler, Reynolds Cahoon, Wilson Law, Wilford Woodruff, Newel K. Whitney, Albert Petty, Elias Higbee, John Taylor, Ebenezer Robinson, Aaron Johnson, Emma Smith, Elizabeth A. Whitney, Sarah M. Cleveland, Eliza R. Snow, Mary C. Miller, Lois Cutler, Thirza Cahoon, Ann Hunter, Jane Law, Sophia Marks, Polly Z. Johnson, Abagail Works, Catharine Petty, Sarah Higbee, Phebe Woodruff, Leonora Taylor, Sarah Hillman, Rosanna Marks, and Angeline Robinson.