| 556 called without reason. Will the leaders, those who can, if they will, now take measures to avert the impending storm most likely to burst over those illy prepared to meet it.
Did we not feel the most confident assurance that for which the church in Utah is certainly suffering and likely still to suffer, was not designed of God, or sanctioned by him, we should be alarmed at the apparent threatening to American liberties found in this bill. But the fact that the Lord, who in his own wisdom laid the political foundation upon which alone it could rise and flourish, did in most emphatic terms declare to the church that in keeping the laws by virtue of which the church was established, there would be no necessity to break the laws of the land upon which it was organized, and on which it was to achieve a final triumph, warrants us now, as it has warranted us in the past, to declare that no matter through what human instrument it may come, whatever asks, or demands that a member of the Church of Christ shall disregard or break the law of the land is not from God. And while we state this we know, full well, how that it may be urged that we should obey God rather than man; which we subscribe to most heartily; but it must not be forgotten by those in Utah who may urge this, that the presumption is not only fair but is unavoidable, that God must have known what sort of laws regarding the marriage relation would be prevalent at the instituting of the church and that he would also know the character of the men who would be called from time to time by the people to make the laws to govern the nation as a whole; and if he should have foreseen that there would ever come a time at which he intended to require his people to disregard the laws of the country where his work was to be performed, he would have provided for such an emergency, by shaping the legislation of Congress to that end; which any one can easily see has not been done. Up to the introduction of plural marriage the church was singularly free from suits at law against its members based upon their transgression of the laws of the States where they lived, and founded on facts; but now the strange spectacle is presented, by the people who claim to be the church, of hundreds being arrested, tried and convicted for flagrant and gross violations of well-known and well-defined laws. To believe that such a condition of things was designed of God, is not only beyond the pale of common sense, but is, also beyond the compass of sound reason.
The leading men of the church in Utah may continue to lull the spirit of inquiry among the people, and by their peculiar sophistry make them believe that it is a crusade of hate and persecution that is being waged against them, "for their religion's sake;" but sophistry does not change the facts, that all the rules, regulations, and laws given of God to the church at its establishment, and during its days of prosperity in propagating the gospel of which the church was made the repository, and its elders the heralds were monogamic, under the laws of the United States also monogamic, and in States in all of which the domestic relations were monogamic. What an astounding array of most stubborn facts are these!
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