Report on the Middle States Mission

(President of the Middle States Mission.) My brothers and sisters, it has been promised by the Lord that in the last days He would establish a kingdom upon the earth, and the promise was also given that it would never more be thrown down or given to another people, but that it would be like unto a little stone cut out of the mountains without hands, which should roll forth and eventually fill the whole earth with righteousness. It was promised by our Master while He was dwelling in mortality that one of the signs of His second coming would be the preaching of that Gospel planted upon the earth by Him, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets and revelation from God, preached without purse or scrip, the fundamental principles of which would be faith in Him, repentance of sin, baptism for the remission of sin, and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. ¶

We are living in an age, whether the world believe it or not, when these promises are being fulfilled; when the God of heaven has established a kingdom upon the earth, and notwithstanding the fact that the powers of the earth have been arrayed against it from its organization up to the present time, it has been rolling forth, it has been growing and multiplying in strength and influence. Its destiny is to fill this earth with the righteousness of our God, and it is being preached in fulfillment of the Master's word, as a witness unto all the nations of the earth, before the end of Wickedness shall come. ¶

We have been blessed to live in this dispensation, and to be made acquainted with the principles of the Gospel; and God has given to us through the whisperings of His Spirit a testimony of the truthfulness of the same. It has been my privilege to be in the world for some little time, directing the missionary work in some of the states and aiding to warn the people of the world to flee from the wrath to come. We do not anticipate converting the world. Our mission is to gather in the honest in heart from among the nations of the earth, to warn all mankind, and to preach the Gospel as a witness, in fulfillment of the Master's word. ¶

In the missionary field we meet many things that you do not meet at home. Many things happen that you pay no attention to, and yet they are magnified by the people of the world; and unless the Almighty continued to magnify us and our ability before the people of the world and softened the hearts of the people towards us, and led us to the doors of those who are searching after the truth, we would have a very hard time indeed. The missionaries are entitled to the faith and prayers of all Saints. The sun should never go down without the Latter-day Saints being able to say, This day I have prayed for those who are laboring in the nations of the earth to spread the principles of eternal truth. Everything that happens is construed by the world in such a way as to bring the work of God into ill repute before the people. Inasmuch as I am laboring in the world where we have to meet these things, I may be justified in alluding to the fact that this awful crime which was committed recently in New York City (you all know what I refer to) has been magnified in all the great newspapers of the country in an effort to bring the horrible deed home to the "Mormon" Church. In flaming headlines they state that the doctrines of the "Mormon" Church are responsible for that crime and the condition of that unfortunate creature who now rests in a prison cell! I have wondered many times if the non-Mormons who live here, who are reaching out after the patronage of the Latter-day Saints, and who know us as we are, would not have the manhood, the independence, the Americanism burning in their veins to raise their voice in a protest against the awful things charged against these good men who stand at the head of this religious organization. The Latter-day Saints do not have to rely upon any man for a testimony of the truth of the Gospel. They have received it, according to promise, from heaven. The whispering of the still small voice of God has told them that Joseph Smith was a Prophet; that his successors in office at the head of the Church have been and are Prophets, Seers and Revelators; that these brethren here are Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ,' and that the Gospel is true. They have been taught to let their light so shine that it will not be hid. But those who are not of our faith, and who have lived for years in our midst, know the many falsehoods that have been circulated about us. They know that men who have resided here, and who have been treated in a kindly way, have gone east and filled the minds of the people with the most damnable lies about us. And I have waited for many years to see if there would not be a spirit of fairness bubble up in the hearts of the non-"Mormons" of Utah, and a protest sent out by them against the many lies circulated concerning this people. ¶

They say that the "Mormons" believe in blood atonement. "We do believe in blood atonement; and so does all the Christian world believe in blood atonement. We believe in the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it will cleanse mankind from all sin, upon condition of obedience to the laws of the Gospel. There is not a Christian nation on earth who does not believe or pretend to believe in blood atonement just as the Latter-day Saints believe in it. Oh, but the "Mormons" believe in another kind of blood atonement! it is said. Well, we do, in the same way that this nation believes in it, and in no other way — in the way that God revealed it to the ancients, that if man spilt man's blood, by man should his blood be spilt. There is not a state in this glorious Union of ours that does not believe in that kind of blood atonement. So far as putting a murderer to death is concerned, we believe that if the right punishment were inflicted upon the individual it would not be by strangling him to death or by placing him in an electric chair, but it would be an execution whereby his blood would be shed. Thank God, In this state there were enough in the Constitutional Convention who believed in that principle to wisely place in that constitution a clause which provided that in dealing out the death penalty the murderer should have a choice between being shot and being hung; and if there were a particle of belief in the law of God in the heart of the convicted murderer the law would give him the chance to choose a death whereby his blood could be spilt by man legally, seeing that he had spilt the blood of his fellow man. But this being the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, we believe in the doctrines laid down by Him, and therefore we believe in rendering unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and unto God that which belongs to Him. ¶

Last Tuesday evening's Deseret News contained an article that had been published in 1889. It was signed by the First Presidency of the Church, by the Twelve Apostles, and also by Daniel H. Wells and John W. Young, who were then acting as counselors to the Apostles. You will pardon me if I read that article. It is a declaration made by the leaders of the Church upon the subject I am speaking of. ¶

"That this Church views the shedding of human blood with the utmost abhorrence. That we regard the killing of a human being, except in conformity with the civil law, as a capital crime which should be punished by shedding the blood of the criminal after a public trial before a legally constituted court of the land. ¶

"Notwithstanding all the stories told about the killing of apostates, no case of this kind has ever occurred, and of course has never been established against the. Church we represent. Hundreds of seceders from the Church have continuously resided and now live in this territory, many of whom have amassed considerable wealth, though bitterly opposed to the Mormon faith and people. Even those who made it their business to fabricate the vilest falsehoods, and to render them plausible by culling isolated passages from old sermons without the explanatory context, and have suffered no opportunity to escape them of villifying and blackening the characters of the people, have remained among those whom they have thus persistently calumniated until the present day, without receiving the slightest personal injury. ¶

"We denounce as entirely untrue the allegation which has been made, that our Church favors or believes in the killing of persons who leave the Church or apostatize from its doctrines. We would view a punishment of this character for such an act with the utmost horror; it is abhorrent to us and is in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of our creed. ¶

"The revelations of God to this Church make death the penalty of capital crime, and require that offenders against life and property shall be delivered up and tried by the laws of the land. ¶

"We declare that no Bishop's or other court in this Church claims or exercises civil or judicial functions, or the right to supersede, annul or modify a judgment of any civil court. Such courts, while established to regulate Christian conduct, are purely ecclesiastical, and their punitive powers go no further than the suspension or excommunication of members from Church fellowship." ¶

This same thing has been proclaimed many times by the authorities of the Church since its organization; but notwithstanding this, an opportunity is never let pass by the people of the world, and especially the leaders of Christian churches, to try and bring this old charge up and frighten the people from hearing the Elders when they go forth to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not over two weeks ago I was asked by a man who was supposed to be intelligent, a minister of one of the churches, "Is it not true, if anyone joins your Church and then leaves it, that the orders of the leaders of the Church are that you must kill that man and shed his blood?" I asked him where he got that idea; and he replied, "from publications and writings of ministers and others who have been in your midst." Oh! you men who do not believe in the "Mormon" Church, and who have lived here for years unmolested, it is your duty to fling these lies back into the teeth of the world. It is your duty to say to the people of the world that men who have gone from here and lied are not worthy of consideration. One minister in the east, who used to live in Brigham City, is telling stories about how not over six years ago women would walk from Salt Lake City on the railroad track to Brigham City, seeking protection from him to keep their husbands from shedding their blood, under the doctrine of blood atonement. Well, my non-"Mormon" friends of Salt Lake City, that is placing your protective powers at a minimum, is it not? Shame on you, to make a woman walk from Salt Lake City to Brigham City— that stronghold of anti-"Mormonism" (?) — to ask "for protection! Yet that man pretends to be a minister of the Gospel. Perhaps in his lifetime he has opened the Bible; but he has forgotten that he read there the words of God which say, "Thou shalt not lie." "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." "Why. right in Salt Lake City, a few years ago, one of these ministers murdered two girls, cut their bodies up and burned them in the church furnace. He took their effects, and they were found in a pawnshop in Butte. Have the "Mormon' 'people ever charged that that was due to the teachings of the doctrine of that church? Have we ever borne false witness against them in this respect? Has the world ever laid that horrible crime to the church with which that minister was connected? How different it would have been if that had been one of these "Mormon" presidents of stakes, or a "Mormon" Bishop! What headlines would have been printed in the papers, giving an account of the affair; and how it would have been published to the world that the doctrines of the "Mormon" Church were responsible for the murder of these two girls! But it was one of these good Christian churches here; and if that man had followed the doctrines of the church he pretended to preside over he never would have committed that murder. The "Mormon" people know that, and are willing to bear witness to it. "Why do not some members of these other churches say that if this young man in New York had been following the doctrines of the "Mormon" Church, he probably would have been in New York standing upon the street corners bearing testimony that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ, instead of being locked up in a prison cell. A few years ago, in San Francisco, you remember, two girls were murdered in a church there, their nude bodies being found in the tower of the church; and for quite a while the minister of that church was accused in the public press of being implicated in the awful crime. But there was no attempt made in the press throughout the United States to show that the teachings of that church were responsible. They declared that it was the depraved condition of the criminal, and that all churches had good and "bad. How different it would have been if that had happened in this Tabernacle, and the bodies of two murdered girls had been found secreted around this organ! The world would have known it in twenty-four hours, and it would have been charged to the doctrines of the "Mormon" Church. The Cincinnati Enquirer of Sept. 7— about ten days before this awful thing happened in New York— gave an account of a minister belonging to the Baptist church. He had cut the throat of his wife, and was found with a razor in one hand and the Bible in the other hand. He was reading extracts from the Bible on blood atonement, and he was crying out that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness; and he endeavored to justify his terrible crime by what he found in the Bible. The paper went on to say that he was very high in Baptist church councils, and that he had occupied some of the most prominent pulpits of the Baptist church in the state. But did they charge the deed up to the Baptist church? No! How different it would have been if a "Mormon" Apostle had done such a thing! They would not have said the poor man had gone crazy; but they would have said that he was following the instructions, given him by the authorities of the "Mormon" Church. ¶

I tell you they circulate some most infamous lies about this people, and if they do not repent they will be damned, and they will stay in that condition until the Lord in His mercy permits some "Mormon" Elder to go and help them out of it. I pray that their eyes may be opened, and that they may repent; and if they do not repent, I pray God in His mercy to take them away from the earth, to where they cannot do any more lying. ¶

My brethren and sisters, you can see that I am a little warm; but if you will go out in the missionary field and meet these things as I have met them, and as every Elder meets them, you will at least be indignant when you know how the leaders of church organizations and the newspapers throughout the length and breadth of this land are lying about your faith. I have been born and raised in this Church. I received a testimony of the Gospel from God, not from my father But my father and my mother taught me from infancy that in the sight of God murder is the most awful crime man can commit, and next to that is adultery. The way was pointed out by them whereby I could receive a testimony of the Gospel for myself, and I have listened to the whisperings of the still small voice, which has given me a testimony, so that I do know, as I know that the sun shines, that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. I do know that his successors were prophets of God, and I do know that President Joseph F. Smith is the Prophet, Seer and Revelator of God upon the earth today, and that these men here are Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. I never received this testimony from my parents; I received it from God; and I know that when I stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty and the books are opened, this testimony will be recorded there for or against me. So that I bear my testimony intelligently, knowing that I have to meet it, and in the name of Jesus Christ I say I know that this is the Gospel of our Lord and Savior that has been restored to the earth in the age in which we live, and that it is now being preached as a witness unto all the nations of the earth, that the end may come. In the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶