The Mormon puzzle, and how to solve it

by R. W. Beers

III. Falsehood, too, is indulged in, whenever it will conduce to the benefit of the Church and shield her members from harm. A Mormon apostle, in an address at Nephi, Utah, cautioned the children, when asked how many wives their fathers had, to reply that they didn’t know. “I’d rather have you tell a lie,” he said, “to defend your friends and parents, than tell the truth, that will bring trouble upon them.” The Mormons evidently do not pattern after the Apostle Paul.

IV. Perjury is indulged in to a large degree at the command of the priesthood. Dora Young, one of the daughters of Brigham, apostatized and declared that the first thing that opened her eyes to the atrocities of Mormonism was her father’s wholesale perjuries. John Taylor, the present President of the Church, has also set the people the same example. When placed upon the witness-stand, he has always been a very forgetful man, and could never recollect anything that would be of value in any case against any member of the Church. Such an utter absence of memory was, perhaps, never before exhibited in a court of justice. George Q. Cannon, also of the Mormon Presidency, the ruling spirit of the Mormons, said that he did not know whether any record of plural marriage is kept or not, although it is said that that book is one of the most important books they have.

Now, when the leaders commit perjury in that way, what can be expected from those who regard them as gods and as capable of no wrong act? And so we find that Judge Zane had to dismiss one case altogether, owing to the lack of evidence through false swearing. Women in polygamy have sworn that they did not know the father of their children. A daughter of Brigham Young professed on the witness-stand recently not to know that her sister was married, although her sister had had a child by her polygamous husband, and she had been in and out of the house frequently. Some time ago a Mormon mother was called upon to testify before the Grand Jury as to the marriage of her daughter to a well-known polygamist. The mother testified that she knew nothing about the marriage of her daughter, and denied knowledge of any facts connected with it; and afterward, on being questioned by one of her lady friends how she could swear to such a lie, she answered: “I only lied to their God; I did not lie to my God; and the authority justified me in doing so.” Oh, what a picture of moral slavery does that present before our minds! The fearful oaths taken by a Mormon when he passes through the Endowment House require him to defend a member of the priesthood even by perjury, if necessary.

V. But that is not all, nor the worst. Under the head of moral bondage, I think, must be put that vice, which is called a relic of barbarism, and which has put Mormonism in antagonism to Christian civilization and the laws of our land. I refer to the practice of Polygamy, which is with many synonymous with Mormonism, but in reality is only one of the evils of that social system.

Mormonism had its birth in 1830. Polygamy was not promulgated until twenty-two years after, although Joseph Smith, it is alleged, received a revelation on the subject nine years before its formal declaration to the whole Mormon race. In dealing with Mormonism as a system, it must ever be borne in mind that polygamy does not form a part of the organic structure of Mormon society. It is an invention, recent in its establishment, and wholly an exotic in this country as well as in the countries from which Mormon recruits have been largely gathered; and it has been from the commencement to this hour an open and conscious defiance, not only of the public sentiment of the country, but also of its laws. It has known itself to be a transgressor, and every polygamous marriage has been deliberately contracted with this knowledge.

The question at once arises, Why was it promulgated under such circumstances? What was the object of the leaders in declaring it to be a divine revelation? While it may seem to many that polygamy is only an element of weakness in the Mormon institution, and destined to bring destruction upon the entire system, yet if we study the subject carefully it will be seen that it contributes strength to Mormonism in many ways.

1. In the first place, their numbers are increased much more rapidly than could be done by the monogamous system which is in vogue in our land.

2. In the next place, it gives a firmer union to the Mormon people, so that apostasy cannot occur so frequently as it did in Missouri and Nauvoo. By polygamy the Mormons are separated from all the rest of the civilized world; and as the world repels them, they are driven in upon themselves, to be welded closer together, to be mutual supports to each other under persecutions and trials. The unfortunate women who practise polygamy and the children begotten from it, even if they become malcontent, yet know themselves to be caught in a net from which they see no escape; and they remain in their place and practise, because, though their hearts are broken, their homes are saved by a religious sanction from foul disgrace. And even the thousands who are not polygamists (for not more than one tenth of the Mormons are polygamists) will uphold polygamy, because some near relatives, as sisters or daughters, are practisers of it. They, therefore, although not in polygamy, will yet stand up for it; and for them, too, with the actual practisers, it becomes a bond, binding all together into a unity amazingly compact and unbreaking.

Having thus endeavored to answer the question, Why was polygamy promulgated? let us now direct our attention to another and more important question, Why is polygamy practised?

Many suppose it is practised because it allows full sway to the passions of the sensualists, who are the only persons who practise it; but that is a great mistake. Some sensualists there doubtless are, who are polygamists, in Utah; but at the least nine tenths cannot be branded by any such infamous name. It is practised not because it is loved by the people and desired by them, but because they are urged—yea, commanded by the infallible priesthood to practise it. They regard it as the command of God; and that is the only reason why it is practised by ninety-nine out of every hundred of the polygamists of Utah. It is because they are MORAL BONDMEN.