I. Personal bondage.—Every Mormon goes through the Endowment House, from which no man emerges with his manhood remaining. He has sunk to be the slave of the priesthood. In that house an awful oath is administered to every one, obligating the individual, under fearful penalty, to uphold the Church at every cost and obey it in all things. That terrible oath unmans the whole Mormon race and brings them into bondage. The Mormon leaders claim to be infallible—men inspired, who catch the very thought of God and pronounce His words. They are the direct vicegerents of the Almighty, and are at all times endowed by means of revelations with the wisdom to guide their people aright in all things, temporal as well as spiritual. This claim is admitted by all their followers. Accordingly, in the most tyrannical way the priesthood dictates about all the affairs of the people, telling them what store they must trade at, what newspaper they must read, what school they must patronize. In fine, Brigham Young claimed that his people could do nothing without his knowledge and approval, “even to the ribbons a woman should wear.” The control of the Church over all the temporal affairs of the people is as absolute as their control of purely spiritual matters. One of their prominent speakers said a few years ago: “I cannot separate between temporal and spiritual affairs. The priesthood has as much control over one as the other.” Therefore the Mormons are under personal bondage. Their persons, their services, their property—all are under the control not of themselves individually, but of their leaders.
At each semi-annual conference missionaries are appointed to go to the outside world and proclaim the doctrines of their religion. At the least calculation there are three hundred such missionaries constantly in the field, going up and down in the States of our own land, and also the countries of Europe and the isles of the sea. They must go at their own expense, and are required to stay until recalled by the priesthood. If it is necessary for a missionary to sell his last cow to get the means to pay his expenses, he must do so, even though his family should be left entirely destitute; and he is taught to believe that the greater the sacrifice, the greater the glory in the next world.
A Presbyterian minister in the southern part of the Territory got the privilege of boarding in a Mormon family. As soon as the priesthood found it out this family was required to close its doors against the minister, although they were greatly in need of the money which he was ready to pay for his board.
Another minister in the northern part of the Territory hired a building for a mission school from an old lady connected with the Mormon Church, and paid a month’s rent in advance. As soon as the priesthood found out what she had done, they brought such pressure to bear upon her that she went to the minister and urged him to give her back the building, although in her poverty she greatly needed the rent. Is not that slavery? And yet President Taylor has stood up in the great Tabernacle at Salt Lake City and declared that they were in favor of the largest liberty for their own people and for all mankind.
Thousands of converts to Mormonism are brought from Europe to Utah every season, and this large immigration is under the complete control of the Church. It can be sent to any place it is thought best. If a colony is started in Arizona or Nevada, and it is thought best to enlarge it, the immigration is sent thither. The persons must go where they are directed, however much they might prefer to settle somewhere in the beautiful Salt Lake Valley, the Switzerland of America. Every settlement is made under the direction of the Church.
Not only is the foreign immigration under the control of the priesthood, but all members who have already settled either in Utah or elsewhere are subject to the orders of the Church. If the priesthood think it expedient to send a thousand or two thousand into Colorado or Arizona or any other locality, the number is divided out among the different wards, and each ward must not only furnish its quota of men, but all the means for the emigration; and the persons selected must go, although it is a great sacrifice to them to leave their cultivated lands and comfortable homes and go into the unbroken country of another Territory to again undergo the trials and sufferings incident to pioneer life.
The power of the Church is also brought to bear on all the daily business of life. In the mining districts of Southern Utah, the contractors for furnishing salt, wood, charcoal, etc., are all Mormon bishops. They hire the persons under them at starvation prices, and pay them in orders on the co-operative supply stores, in which they are either principals or partners; and the men so employed never see a dollar of cash. Should one of the common people undertake to do any hauling, wood-supplying, or other business with the mines, they would get an intimation that they must desist. If this hint is disregarded, a meeting of the Council is called, composed of the bishops and apostles; and as it is shown that some one of them is being interfered with, the order goes forth from the Church that this private enterprise must stop; and this no Mormon dare disregard. If one of the mining companies undertakes to do its business with any except the bishops, every obstacle possible is thrown in its way. Teams cannot be hired. The bishop pays wages at about a dollar a day, payable from the co-operative store; but if a mining superintendent wants men, he must pay four dollars a day. Thus the Mormon bishops secure all the profits of contracts from the mines. They take possession of all the woodlands and cut off the wood, never taking the trouble to comply with the law. They rule everything with a heavy hand, and woe to the poor man who dares to try to make his living independently. The serfs of Russia in the olden time were not more abject slaves than these people under the terrible power of the Church. Independence of action is entirely taken away from them. They are in personal bondage. Well may we exclaim: “Genius of America! Spirit of our free institutions! where art thou?”
“Shall our own brethren drag the chain
Which not even Russia’s menials wear?”
But this is not all.
II. The Mormons are not only in personal bondage, but worse than that—they are in Mental Bondage.