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
Wonderful wisdom! worthy of a great divine! a mighty climax to a great
sermon! Seriously, however, a most perfect example of an anti-climax;
"a most lame and impotent conclusion," more ridiculous than the
fable of the mountain laboring, to bring forth a mouse! If my voice
could reach the reverend gentleman, I would inform him that there
is not even the charm of novelty in what he recommended. We have
heard something like this before. Why, within my own recollection,
I can remember something like that having been proposed as a means
of crushing Mormonism. Way down deep in the innermost recesses of my
sub-consciousness, I have a recollection of suggestions made in like
spirit, about the year 1898. This Doctor of Divinity's thundering
fulmination against Mormonism, when I hear him pronounce it, has
something familiar about it. In fact it has all the monotony of the
refrain of some old familiar song. Much was said about an octopus,
too, and about it thrusting forth its head, at the time to which I
refer, 1898. Then its "High Priest," it was said, claimed a seat in
the lower house of Congress, when a certain gentleman by the name of
Roberts was elected to Congress from the State of Utah. They said,
then, that the octopus was putting forth its head; then was the time
to strike; to fail then would be to be lost; so they induced the House
of Representatives to strike, by excluding the gentleman from the seat
to which he had been legally elected, and for which he possessed, as
was admitted, every constitutional qualification. But I have never
heard that the achievement, which was accomplished at the cost of an
outrageous violation of the constitution of our country, affected the
Mormon Church. What effect did that illegal act of Congress have on
Mormonism? About as much effect as a mosquito alighting on the moon
would have on that sphere. The "Mormon" octopus survived that awful
blow! And even the gentleman who was denied his seat, I am informed,
survived also; and I have not heard that his shadow has grown less
because of that experience. And should the agitation against Senator
Reed Smoot result in his expulsion from the Senate of the United
States--a thing which is as unlikely as it is unjust--I verily believe
that Mormonism would survive even that blow. The trouble with our
reverend friends is, that they persist in mistaking always the head of
the octopus, and hence never strike it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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