Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches
The subject treated under this title, "How," is an address delivered
in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle on Sunday, May 31, 1903, in
one of the sessions of the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual
Improvement Associations Annual Conferences. The associations are
auxiliary organizations in the Church of the Latter-day Saints for
the improvement of the youth. In May of the above year, the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was appointed to convene in Los
Angeles. A large number of ministers of this persuasion from eastern
states made it a point to pass through Salt Lake City _en route_ for
Los Angeles, and the Ministerial Association of Utah, an organization
comprised of Protestant ministers of all the Evangelical Churches
in the State, made it their business to call the attention of such
visiting ministers to the "Mormon Question," and invited their
co-operation against the Mormon Church. As preliminary to this action
on their part they published two pamphlets, one under the title,
"Claims of Mormons to be Considered Seriously." This pamphlet pretended
to give a brief history of the origin of the Mormon Church, and
declared that the Prophet Joseph Smith was considered by his neighbors
to be a character who was "low, unworthy, of bad repute in general, and
that he was especially unworthy of confidence." It was a re-hash of the
silly stories that sprang up in western New York and that are utterly
unreliable, and which, while the Prophet lived in New York, could never
be established against him, though every possible effort to do so was
made.
The second pamphlet was entitled "Temple Mormonism." The chief
purpose of this pamphlet was evidently to prove that Mormonism was an
oath-bound secret organization, "for the encouragement and protection
of polygamous living." These pamphlets were distributed to the one
thousand Presbyterian ministers who are said to have passed through
Salt Lake at that time. It was the intention also to have them
presented to the Presbyterian Assembly in Los Angeles, and I believe
they were so presented. Later they were to be presented to the Baptist
Convention to be held that year in Buffalo, New York; also to the
Congregational Conference at Portland, Oregon, and then to the W. C.
T. U., to the Y. M. C. A. and W. C. A. conventions of that year; and
finally to the Inter-Denominational Association of Women. Whatever
became of the presentation of these pamphlets to the respective
organizations other than the Presbyterian Assembly, I do not know;
but their presentation to the gathered Presbyterian ministers at Los
Angels doubtless had the desired effect, for it resulted in some very
heated speeches upon the subject of Mormonism, more especially in one
delivered by Dr. Charles L. Thompson of New York, secretary of the
Assembly, who, in the course of a speech widely heralded through the
secular press of the country, said--and this was the report of the
speech according to the dispatches--of Mormonism:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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