Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate/Volume 2/Number 9/Letter from J. M.

To the Editor of the Messenger and Advocate.

DEAR SIR—For the purpose of making a few remarks on the following extract from a paper published at Liberty, Missouri, I ask the indulgence of your columns.

"Independence, Mo. }

May 3d, 1836. }

"Letters from Kirtland Ohio have been received here by the last mail from persons of undoubted veracity giving information that the Mormons in that place and its vicinity, to the number of 1500, or 2000 are arming and coming on to the upper Missouri. This information is confirmed by our merchants returning, and other travelers coming from the East, who say that every boat ascending the River contains more or less of them; some 20, and one as high as 205. Those who did not shew guns openly, had boxes of the size usually made to contain guns. At the last advices from Kirtland all the County Officers were filled with Latter day saints. H. C."

The whole of the above extract, I pronounce to be a base and wicked fabrication; one that is known to be so, by every man that has had any opportunity of viewing for himself the conduct and character of the church of Latter Day Saints, in this town. Instead of boats being crowded with passengers to the number of 205, or even 20, from this place, within the last year, there has not over twenty persons, in all, gone from Kirtland to Missouri, by water, within a twelve month, to my own certain knowledge. The writer's statement in regard to all the officers in this county being filled with Latter Day Saints, is too barefaced to need any comment. Nor should the extract have been noticed at all, but for the purpose of exhibiting to a candid public, the means resorted to by the enemies of religious freedom, to injure a people whose only crime, if so they choose to call it, is a desire to enjoy the privileges guaranteed to them by the constitution of the United States, and a willingness that all others should have the same, to the utmost, of whatever persuasion or name, religious or political.

No respectable man has ever yet, to my knowledge, pretended to say that the Latter Day Saints, as a society, have been guilty of any infringement of the laws of their country; or that they have refused to comply with any of the requisitions of the government under which they live. On the contrary, they are admitted, by all men of candor, to be peaceable, upright and honest in their dealings with the world; kind, benevolent and charitable to the poor and distressed in every situation, whether of their own belief or not; molesting none others in their mode of worship; and in fact, in all things, doing to others as they would wish to be done by.

Then why all this hue and cry against them? Not only are their characters vilified and slandered by every little two penny filthy sheet from Maine to Georgia, opposed to the rights of conscience, and especially by those (and with sorrow and mortification do I say it,) who profess to be followers of the Savior of the world, though their actions bespeak them to be perfect antipodes to every characteristic that should mark the conduct of christians—but time and again, are they perplexed and harassed with suits at law, brought by their enemies on trivial pretences, and often for no cause at all; men dragged or driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet; their wives and children cast headlong into the pitiless storm, to endure all the privations of hunger and cold, without a shelter, or yet scarcely clothing sufficient to cover them from the insults of an infuriated mob; while their goods are destroyed at sight, or thrown to the four-winds, to be left to the mercy of men as regardless of honor or humane feelings as the mobbers themselves. At other times, members of the society, against whose characters not a shade of suspicion has ever yet been brought, are dragged from their slumbers at the hour of midnight by beings who wear the forms, yet deserving of any other than the appellation of MEN, and treated in a manner, to think of which, would cause the most ruthless savage of the forest to blush.

And all this, too, in our boasted land of liberty; under a government where freedom of conscience, of speech, and of the press, are considered to be among the most exalted privileges enjoyed—and for which our fathers left the shores of Europe, and afterwards freely shed their blood in its maintenance on proud Columbia's soil.

Have the Latter Day Saints infringed any of the provisions of the constitution in the exercise of their religious belief? I say they have not.—For that constitution itself says, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercised thereof." From which it must be inferred, that the framers of that instrument did not consider themselves clothed with the right to make any regulations in regard to this matter; nor yet of granting such power to the Congress of the nation.

What does the constitution of Ohio say on the same subject, (to which, if I recollect right, that of Missouri, is nearly similar in regard to religion.)—

It says, "That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of conscience; that no human authority can in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no man shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place or worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent; and that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious society or mode of worship, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or trust or profit."

This extract from the constitution of Ohio, is made for the special benefit of those who have been, and are yet, foremost in persecuting the saints, in this section of country; and it should, I think, be taken as a text-book by those of the different sects in our own neighborhood, between whose professions and works, on the subject of religious liberty, there is so great a contrast—Justice, however, requires me to say that honorable exceptions have been found among men of every denomination; men whose consciences are not bound by the chains of priestcraft; who are not compelled to bow their heads at the beck and call of every man who arrogates to himself the sole right and title to the patent of saving or damning souls, at his own good will and pleasure; and who will exercise their own opinions, regardless of the friendship or enmity of this crooked and perverse generation: and to those my remarks are not intended to apply. But these exceptions are few, and seldom to be found. I wish to be understood as speaking to that class, who, to save their own craft, and to gratify a bigoted and malignant heart, do not hesitate, in their opposition to the saints, to go beyond the bounds of truth and common decency. And as all men will have to give an account, at the bar of God, for their deeds, I would advise those who make, as well as those who publish falsehoods against the church of Christ, to beware, lest in endeavoring to injure an innocent society, they heap up to themselves everlasting condemnation; for the scriptures say that without CHARITY all else is vain; and if the abuse and persecution of the saints evinces a charitable feeling, then I must confess that I am entirely ignorant of the true definition of the term.

Having said thus much, I now ask, in candor and in the soberness of truth, the honorable portion of my fellow citizens, why the church of Latter Day Saints should be deprived of a privilege which the constitution of Ohio says "no human authority can in any case whatever, control or interfere with." For if the principle is good in regard to one society, it must be so to all, so long as they do not interfere with the rights of others. If this society is to be persecuted and mobbed on every occasion that may suit the fancy or interests of men who disregard all law, human and divine, the same may be done to others in like circumstances—and where, I ask, would it be likely to end? To contemplate the consequences of such a course, is enough to chill the blood of every patriot and christian in our land. If this spirit of intolerance is not discountenanced and frowned at by every virtuous man in community, but a few more suns may shine upon the heads of this generation, till we may say farewell to our boasted liberty; till every man's hand will be raised against his brother; till the measure of unrighteousness will be filled up, when God, in his wrath, will come forth from his hiding place, to cut the wicked from the face of the earth, and cast them as stubble, into unquenchable fire; and the righteous be gathered to that haven of rest, even the mount Zion, where the weary will find rest, and the wicked cease from troubling.

I have but a word to say to the author and publisher of the extract in question, that is to repent, speedily, and turn from their service of satan, lest vengeance as a whirlwind overtake them; for the Lord has said that all liars shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!

J. M.