If it was the purpose of the leaders to keep the mass of the membership under such control as would effectually destroy all liberty of action, and would curb that freedom of thought to which all responsible people are entitled, then it is difficult to see how any better scheme for achieving that purpose could have been devised than the Mormon doctrine of the "holy priesthood." Given a people who endorse its high claims and submit to them, and you have a community which is under the tyranny of arbitrary rulership. That such power should be provided for in any system, civil or ecclesiastical, and should not be used, is incompatible with the known facts in human nature. That the full power of the Mormon priesthood is exercised is not a matter of doubt among well-informed people. "I shall then define priesthood to be that order of authoritative intelligences by which God regulates, controls, enlightens, blesses or curses, saves or condemns all beings. To it under God all things are subservient in righteousness, whether in heaven or hell."--Spencer's Letters, page 94. "Men who hold the priesthood possess divine authority thus to act for God; and by possessing part of God's power they are in reality part of God. * * * Men who honor the priesthood in them, honor God, and those who reject it, reject God."--New Witness for God, page 187. "The priesthood is the authority delegated to men to act in the name of God, and to have those acts approved of him. Whatever is done by this authority is as if God himself had done it. The one holding the priesthood becomes an agent of the Lord. * * * The curse of God on Cain, the flood, the rejection and dispersion of Israel, the destruction of Jerusalem--these are all typical instances of the judgments of God following the lack of reverence for his priesthood. * * * Faith in the priesthood in general must be supplemented by a specific faith in those who hold the keys of the priesthood and preside in its various organizations, Priesthood without presidency would be unorganized and lacking in efficiency. * * * We cannot honor the priesthood if we do not honor those who hold its keys. They are indeed the living oracles of our time, and the voice of inspiration from them is as the voice of God to us."--Manual, 1901-2, part I, pages 81, 82.