That is, the revelations received were given for the government of the Church, not for the laws of the state; to instruct the saints in their religious duties and privileges, not to interfere with them in the exercise of their civil rights, nor to dictate to them in their political actions. This doctrine has been affirmed over and over again by the present officials of the Mormon Church. And as for the exercise of "priesthood rule" in practice in political affairs, in all good conscience and form both observation and experience: I can say that there is less of it chargeable to the Mormon Church officials than to ministers of any other denominations whatsoever in our land. And no other people of our land have suffered so much from mingling religious influence in political affairs, as have the Mormon people. Nearly every Legislative enactment, either state or national, has been the direct result of the exercise of sectarian ministerial influence upon legislators, state and national, as also have been nearly all the acts of mob violence perpetrated against the same people which resulted in their expulsion from Missouri and Illinois. Your correspondent says that the multiplied statements of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors prove that he was was immoral and corrupt, and that since Mormonism has such an origin he wants to know "how it could be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results." Your correspondent here assumes that Joseph Smith was immoral and corrupt, and hence his system can be none other than mischievous and evil in its tendencies. "But," it will be said, "his premise rests upon the alleged testimony of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors." What acquaintances and neighbors? Of course if you eliminate from this list all those who knew Joseph Smith best, his friends and followers, who so far believed in him and his honor and integrity as a man and prophet of God that they sacrificed their own good name, together with property and all earthly prospects in accepting the doctrine he taught, and then rely alone for a description of his character upon the testimony of his persecutors and revilers led on by bigoted priests who hounded him through fourteen years of his troubled life, until they succeeded in bringing about his murder in cold blood at Carthage, Illinois, why, of course; I suppose that such testimony could be said to prove that he was immoral and corrupt. But under such methods of proving things how would the immaculate life and character of the Son of God himself stand before the world? Jesus would be proved to be a wine-bibber, an associate of sinners and publicans, one who went about the country in the companionship of women of questionable character, an imposter who was so in league with Satan that he cast out devils by the power of Beelzebub, an agitator disturbing the peace, a leader of seditions, a perverter of laws and customs, and who at the last was fittingly