Home and liberty and life, with the right to worship God, are just as dear to a "Mormon" as to members of any other denomination or even an apostate "Mormon," and when the "Mormons" are persecuted, driven and slain and forced to seek a home in the savage wilds, would any honest man blame them if they declined to move again?
Why is it worse for "Utah Mormons" to defend themselves than for "Mormons" at Crooked river and Nauvoo? Even the noble Prophet Joseph Smith, when dragged from home and persecuted by wicked men, solemnly demurred. Said he to the Saints at Nauvoo on the 30th day of June, 1843, after his escape from Missourian assassins:
"Before I will be dragged away again among my enemies for trial, I will spill the last drop of blood in my veins and will see all my enemies in hell! To bear it any longer would be a sin, and I will not bear it any longer. Shall we bear it any longer? (one universal, No! ran through all the vast assembly like a loud peal of thunder.) * * * If mobs come upon you any more here, dung your gardens with them. We don't want any excitement; but after we have done all, we will rise up Washington-like and break off the hellish yoke that oppresses us, and will not be mobbed!"
I have copied this from the manuscript history of the Prophet Joseph Smith, as it was recorded at the time. I have learned also that it is corroborated by the journal of Wilford Woodruff of the same date—June 30th, 1843.
UTAH NOT A FIELD OF BLOOD
You say, "I have read that which leads me to believe that under Brighamism"—as you slurringly remark—"Utah was for years a land of assassination and a field of blood," and then you ask me, "what of the Mountain Meadows massacre,—the destruction of the Aiken party; the dying confession of Bishop J. D. Lee; the Hickman butcheries; the Danties?"
Well, that which you have read counts for but little when the source is considered. Your case is most certainly desperate when you are forced to accept the statements of murderers.
It's a strange thing that you and many of your elders accept all the blood-curdling tales from Beadle, Stenhouse and other apostate sources when they happen to refer to Brigham Young and "Utah Mormons," and denounce the same sources when they refer to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Yet, I repeat, the same class of charges—in many respects identical—that you charge against Brigham Young, of murder, bloodshed, adultery, and even Danties, were first made by bitter enemies of the Church before the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and that just such falsehoods brought about the bitterness that resulted in his death.
You resort to sources that even the editor of your official paper denounces as "Idle and vicious stories gathered from the awful files of terrible tales told about the Mormons, by those at enmity with them."—Saints Herald 52:2.
If you desire to know the character of Christ do you accept the statements of the Roman guard at the sepulchre? the Jew with blood-stained hands who rejoices in his death? and the anti-Christian? Wherein then, is your consistency in asking me to accept the testimony of those whose hands are imbrued in blood, apostates and bitter enemies of my people?