Frequent elections are held to be the bulwarks of liberty in civil government; I see no reason why they should not be equally so in ecclesiastical government; and as in the one case they make the tyranny of secular rulers impossible, so in the other they disarm priests of the power to lord it over God's heritage, the church. If the frequent election of a parliament in Great Britain, and the frequent election of executive and legislative officers in the United States are held to be on the one hand a safeguard against the tyranny and injustice of those elected to manage the affairs of civil government for the people; and on the other hand they are esteemed equally as a safeguard against revolution, because full and frequent opportunity is afforded for correcting all abuses of power and effecting whatever reformation may be necessary in the laws--if, I say, these frequent elections in the government of the United States and Great Britain accomplish all this, how much more carefully are the liberties of the people guarded; how much more readily may a tendency to oppression be rebuked, and reformation without disorder be accomplished by the still greater frequency of elections in the church? Especially since those elections are not only more frequent than in the states named, but are also conducted without expense. It is the law of the church that the decisions of the quorums of the priesthood are to be "made in all righteousness, in holiness, and lowliness of heart, meekness and long suffering, and in faith, and virtue, and knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity; because the promise is if these things abound in them they shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord." [21] There is nothing in this which justifies the exercise of arbitrary power or any improper authority over men.