| 549 "In all this city of about twenty thousand inhabitants, and a corresponding number of assembly rooms, besides two large tabernacles, halls, and public rooms of every kind nearly, we have only the privilege of one room, 'Independence Hall;' and for that, we are indebted not to the professed saints of the city, but to the Gentiles, the liberal, nonreligious citizens, and the members of the Episcopal denomination.
"There is a system of intoleration, and a policy the like of which I never before experienced, and at which I am the more astonished, practiced as it is by a people who have complained so bitterly of the like spirit exhibited towards them by the world. Of all the phases of this intoleration, none assumes such low, cowardly, and mean aspects as that expressed by the odious word policy. Now Mr. Editor, I trust you will insert this, inflammatory as it may appear. It is a principle, and an evil one at that, that I denounce; and if you, (being devoid of this policy,) were brought face to face with it, I am sure you would feel a Christian obligation to pronounce against this evil with which Satan has corrupted the hearts of thousands here.
"It is policy that debars a line from the pen of a Josephite from appearing before the public in all the journals of the valley, save the Reporter, published at Corinne.
"It is policy that forbids us the use of water for baptism, causing us to walk weary distances, repeatedly, to perform this ordinance; while the authority rolls proudly past in rich equipages.
"It is policy that causes many to avoid our presence, and smother their honest convictions; nay, even forces them to utter sentiments averse to their very heart's belief.
"It is policy that takes away the employment of the Josephite, and comes down suddenly upon him for debts, mortages [mortgages], emigration money, and tithing, and wrests his property from him, if possible, sets a thousand slanders afloat in regard to him, dogs his footsteps, watches his door, sets the teachers to questioning his wife, cuts him off from the church for reading the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and burns Grandma Smith's history, while it
(page 549) |
