The Mormon Prophet and His Harem: Or, An Authentic History of Brigham Young, His Numerous Wives and ChildrenWaite, C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg)
History
The Mormon Prophet and His Harem: Or, An Authentic History of Brigham Young, His Numerous Wives and Children
Waite, C. V. (Catherine Van Valkenburg)
Latter Day Saint churches; Young, Brigham, 1801-1877
But all this arrangement and subordination does not suffice to prevent
disaffection in the church. This will arise, and results in differences,
schisms, and divisions.
Not to notice smaller matters of difference, three systematic and
organized attempts have been made by large bodies of Mormons, since
their arrival in Utah, to throw off their allegiance to Brigham Young.
They have all been met and treated by him with a fierce bitterness,
indicating how thoroughly he is alarmed by such movements.
The third of these is now in progress, and promises to be successful.
The first of the "apostasies," as they are called by the Mormons, was
headed by Gladden Bishop, in 1852-53, and his followers were called
"Gladdenites."
Some idea of the manner in which they were met by Brigham, and of his
mode of dealing with apostates generally, may be gathered from the
following extracts from a sermon preached by him in March, 1853:--
"I will ask, What has produced your persecutions and sorrow?
What has been the starting-point of all your afflictions? They
began with apostates in your midst; those disaffected spirits
caused others to come in, worse than they, who would run out
and bring in all the devils they possibly could. That has been
the starting-point and grand cause of all our difficulties,
every time we were driven. I am coming to this place,--I am
coming nearer home. . . . Do we see apostates among us now? We
do.
"When a man comes right out like an independent devil, and
says, 'Damn Mormonism and all the Mormons,' and is off with
himself to California, I say he is a gentleman by the side of
a nasty, sneaking apostate, who is opposed to nothing but
Christianity. I say to the former, 'Go in peace, sir, and
prosper if you can.' But we have a set of spirits here, worse
than such a character. When I went from meeting last Sabbath,
my ears were saluted with an apostate, crying in the streets
here. I want to know if any one of you who has got the spirit
of Mormonism in you, the spirit that Joseph and Hyrum had, or
that we have here, would say, 'Let us hear both sides of the
question. Let us listen and prove all things.' What do you
want to prove? Do you want to prove that an old apostate, who
has been cut off from the church thirteen times for lying, is
anything worthy of notice? I heard that a certain
picture-maker in this city, when the boys would have moved
away the wagon in which this apostate was standing, became
violent with them, saying, 'Let this man alone; these are
saints that you are persecuting.' [Sneeringly.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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