CHAPTER IX.
THE SOCIAL PUZZLE (continued).
Moral Bondage of the Mormons—Implicit obedience to the priesthood enjoined—Crimes committed at their command—Murders—The Mountain Meadows Massacre—Lee’s confession—A Mormon carpenter’s confession—Theft—Falsehood—Perjury—Why was polygamy promulgated?—Why is polygamy practised?
Deplorable as the condition of the Mormon is, as already depicted in the preceding chapter, that is not the worst that is to be said of their social condition. They are not only in personal and mental slavery; far worse than this, they are in Moral Bondage. Sad to relate, their souls, their consciences, are enslaved, and consequently their condition is far worse than that of the negroes of the South before the Civil War. The central thought running through all the discourses of the leaders is obedience to the priesthood, and the consequences of refusing to obey counsel. It matters not how absurd the doctrine may be, or how much it outrages common-sense, if it is the declaration of the inspired priesthood, it must be obeyed; and most of the people are so steeped in superstition and ignorance that they obey without question all orders from their chiefs, and even kiss the hand that rivets the chains that bind them.
The tyranny of the priesthood was well illustrated when one of the apostles on one occasion, while speaking in one of the ward meeting-houses about the solemn duty of obeying the priesthood, happened to look through the window and see a load of wood passing by. “Now I want you,” said he, “to obey the priesthood so implicitly and have so much confidence in everything they tell you that if Brigham Young or any of the Twelve Apostles should tell you that load of wood is a load of hay, you would all say, ‘Amen, that’s a load of hay.’” Even though their very eyes should belie the statement of their leaders, yet they must accept it as true, because, forsooth, it came from inspired lips; and although they might be commanded to do that which their own consciences disapproved, yet they must do it, because it is a command given under inspiration, and their consciences are lulled to sleep by the Jesuit doctrine, “The end justifies the means.” Surely, that is not religious liberty.
On account of this moral bondage, the worst crimes have been committed against both God and man, which have been laid at the door of the Mormon people, when in reality they were only the tools of the Mormon priesthood and the victims of an enslaving fanaticism. They themselves would not have committed them if they were allowed to do what their own consciences dictated; but at the command of the mouthpiece of the Almighty Himself they dared not disobey.
I. Thus, they have been guilty of Murders and Assassinations for no other reason than that the hierarchy uttered their mandates that they should be accomplished.
Take, as an example, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which is, perhaps, the darkest page in the history of Mormonism in Utah. It was a horrible butchery of one hundred and twenty innocent men and women who were emigrants on their way from Arkansas to California; and the dastardly deed cannot by any means be justified. For a long time the massacre was a deep mystery, and the Mormons asserted that it was done by Indians; but the mystery has been unravelled, and it is now known that that cruel deed lies at the door of the Mormon Church, the murderers being Mormons with some hired Indians, all led by John D. Lee, who was convicted of his crime and executed on the ground where the murder occurred March 25th, 1877, almost twenty years after the commission of the crime.