The Rocky Mountain Saints/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
" Nothing extenuate,
The purpose of the Author of this volume is to issue a book that will be of interest to the reading public, and of service to the people of whom it treats: the former ask for such information, and the latter cannot properly object to being understood as they really are.
In addition to his own personal experience, the works that have been previously written on Mormonism, both by friends and foes, have been carefully studied and collated. The contents of this book may, therefore, be regarded as an impartial summary of what can be said respecting the faith of the "Mormon Saints," by one who had the fellowship of the Church for over a quarter of a century, who occupied a public position in that relationship, enjoyed familiar intimacy with the apostles and leading elders, and for a dozen years had daily intercourse with Brigham Young.
The Author has no pet theories to advance, no revelations to announce, no personal animosity to satisfy. He has simply outgrown the past, and utterly disbelieves Brigham Young's recent claim to the possession of "a Priesthood that is Infallible," and the assumption that the Mormon Church is the exclusive and only true Church of Christ upon the earth, and membership therein the only passport to the presence of God.
Having contributed both by tongue and pen, from the rostrum and by the press, with the best years of his life and with whatever talents he possessed, to teach the Mormon faith while he believed it, he now considers it due equally to the Mormons as to the public to exhibit what that earnest people have accomplished, and thus exemplify the ease with which a religiously-disposed community may naturally mistake the legitimate results of united faith and labour for the special mark of Divine guidance.
The change which the Author has experienced in his views of Mormonism has not been the work of a day or a year, has not resulted from any personal injury ; neither is it due to any special gifts or miraculous conversion. There are to-day thousands of persons in the Mormon communion in Utah, travelling in the same direction, without that living faith in the announced mission of their Church which they once possessed. They still cling to it with anxious solicitude, hoping for some deliverance; knowing not what to expect, yet realizing that "something must come." Hence the readiness with which many have listened to those who claim to have received new revelations and new missions among themselves.
While the tendency of the age has been to accept "revealed truths" on account of their own intrinsic value only, and not from the assumption of their authority, the Mormon Church has travelled in the very opposite direction, and has resuscitated the Jewish prophets to support the teachings of modern apostles.
In the examination of Mormonism, the student will meet the reproduction of nearly every principle, doctrine and usage to be found on record from Genesis to Revelation if not in practice, at least in acknowledgment; and where the practice is in abeyance, it is not its wrong but its expediency that furnishes the justification of its momentary neglect.
Before the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, slavery as well as polygamy existed in Utah. The nation, by the stern arbitrament of the sword, settled the one, and the other is now in controversy. Both institutions, in the Mormon faith, are ordinances of God.
No antiquity, however, is respected by the Mormon teacher, unless it is harmonious with the inspirations of the modern priesthood. This is exemplified in the unceasing use of the Old Testament in support of polygamy, the "Blood Atonement," [i. e., shedding of the saintly sinner's blood as an atonement for adultery or apostacy] and kindred teaching, while the New Testament is unceremoniously set aside when it militates against the establishment of "a literal kingdom of God" upon the earth.
The breathings of every anguish-burthened soul among the Hebrews, in its longing for the restoration of monarchy and glory to Israel, are accepted as Divine inspiration and revelation pointing directly to the times in which we live. That disturbing dream of the King of Babylon, interpreted by Daniel, has been a perennial fountain of living waters to the Mormon preacher. The anxious monarch and the heaven-gifted interpreter may not have anticipated in that hour of solicitude in the land of Shinar, that "the stone cut out of the mountains without hands," which was to "break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold" of the "great image" of the king's dream, was to find its fulfilment in the discovery of the stone box containing the plates of the Book of Mormon, by Joseph Smith, in western New York, in the year of grace 1820! It requires considerable faith to accept the statement that the migrations of the Mormons from Fayette County, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio; thence to Jackson County, Missouri; to Nauvoo, Illinois; on to the Rocky Mountains; spreading over the Great Basin; and the Church sending thence its missionaries to the nations, was the rolling forth of the "stone" of prophecy, which was to "become a great mountain and fill the whole earth." [1]
The dim light of a far distant past, added to their own revelations, preserves among the Mormons a perpetual conflict between barbarism and civilization, for the people are, in head and heart, far in advance of their religious teachings. Hence the frequent "apostacy."
No faith could well be more liberal than written Mormonism. In the beginning of its mission it was a beautiful ideal to those thoroughly imbued with its inspiration; yet no professors of religion in the nineteenth century could be more bitterly bigoted than the rigidly orthodox and ignorant among the Mormons to-day. Without intending it, probably, and, it may be, even without realizing it, as others do who differ from them, their profession and their practice have been the very antipodes of each other. In moments of creed-writing they are liberal and broadly cosmopolitan in sentiment, warmly inviting to "fair freedom's feast," away up in the Rocky Mountains—
"Christian sects and pagan,
Pope, and Protestant, and Priest,
Worshippers of God or Dagon.[2]"
But when once the Plains have been traversed, there the reception of, and intercourse with, the religious stranger have been like the chilling breezes of the frigid zone. After all, this very paradox is harmonious and consistent even in its contradictions. The written invitation is the breathing of their souls' best and divinest impulses—the Deity of their nature recognizing one common parentage in the family of man, reaching forth the hand of fellowship to humanity everywhere; but, in the practical part, in intercourse with mankind, it is the trampled worm still in agony, the remembrance of "persecutions" that chills every forward, generous impulse and withers the soul with the baneful teaching that "he that is not for us is against us."
Through the first twenty years of their occupancy of the Territory of Utah, the advanced and liberal minds among them hoped for a change from the ostracizing teachings of the Tabernacle, but it was almost hoping against hope. A brighter day, however, is dawning, when the barriers that have forbidden intercourse with the rest of the world, because of differences of faith, will be gently lowered and a better understanding prevail between the favoured Saints and the unbelieving Gentiles, and in some respects the former will be the greater gainers by the change. "No feud," says the shrewd and witty Sydney Smith, "can withstand social intercourse."
Throughout this work there will be found no disposition to pander to the charge of "wilful imposture" against Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. The facts of their history, to the Author's mind, do not warrant that conclusion. Men who publicly utter predictions which time must verify or prove false within the scope of their own natural lives, are entitled to the credit of honestly believing in their own mission. It is safe and sound philosophy to admit that men can be, and are frequently as zealous in the propagation of an error as of a truth; or what shall be said of the great "army of martyrs," of whom not one in a thousand ever reached the stake, the rack, or the guillotine for an absolute verity?
Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the western desert and to transform a barren and desolate region of a hitherto "unknown country" into a land that seems destined at no distant day to teem with millions of human beings, and which promises to stand preëminent among the conquests of the republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other citizens—unmoved by religious impulses—would ever have traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by faith. That was the Providence of the Saints, and it must be conceded that as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon element has been used in the Rocky Mountain region by the Almighty Ruler for developing the best interests of the nation, and for the benefit of the world at large.
Should this work contribute to encourage the feeble, doubting Mormons to persevere in the domain of thought, to cultivate the reflex of the Deity within their own humanity, to trust more to the whisperings of the "still, small voice" than to the dogmas of men; and thus aid the downcast, sorrowing, and oppressed, to reach the peace and happiness of true liberty and manly independence, the Author will feel that his labour has not been in vain.
It will be a matter of sincere regret, if, in the following pages, any statement has been made that is incorrect in fact or unfair in inference; but errors—should there be any—to which attention may be called, will be carefully eliminated from a future edition.