is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but
will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.
I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account
commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution
which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels
called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might
be said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged new
revelation, and a religion founded on it, the product of palpable
imposture, not even supported by the _prestige_ of extraordinary
qualities in its founder, is believed by hundreds of thousands, and has
been made the foundation of a society, in the age of newspapers,
railways, and the electric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that
this religion, like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that
its prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by a mob;
that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless
violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in a body, from the country
in which they first grew up; while, now that they have been chased into
a solitary recess in the midst of a desert, many in this country openly
declare that it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send
an expedition against them, and compel them by force to conform to the
opinions of other people. The article of the Mormonite doctrine which is
the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the
ordinary restraints of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy;
which, though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and Chinese, seems
to excite unquenchable animosity when practised by persons who speak
English, and profess to be a kind of Christians. No one has a deeper
disapprobation than I have of this Mormon institution; both for other
reasons, and because, far from being in any way countenanced by the
principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being
a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the community, and an
emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them.
Still, it must be remembered that this relation is as much voluntary on
the part of the women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the
sufferers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage
institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it has its
explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world, which teaching
women to think marriage the one thing needful, make it intelligible that
many a woman should prefer being one of several wives, to not being a
wife at all. Other countries are not asked to recognise such unions, or
release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws on the
score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissentients have conceded to
the hostile sentiments of others, far more than could justly be
demanded; when they have left the countries to which their doctrines
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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