"No one would measure the belief of Christians," says a truly great writer, "by certain statements in the Fathers, nor judge the moral principles of Roman Catholics by prurient quotations from the casuists; nor yet estimate Lutherans by the utterances and deeds of the early successors of Luther, nor Calvanists by the burning of Servitus. In such cases the general standpoint of the times has to taken into account." (Edeshiem's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, preface, page 8.)
A long time ago the great Edmund Burke, in his defense of the rashness expressed in both speech and action some of our patriots of the American Revolution period, said: "It is not fair to judge of the temper or the disposition of any man or set of men when they are composed and at rest from their conduct or their expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation." The justice of Burke's assertion has never been questioned, and without any wresting whatsoever it may be applied to Mormon leaders who sometimes spoke and acted under the recollection of rank injustice perpetrated against themselves and their people; or rebuke rising evils against which their souls revolted.
Mr. Wilson's book is a false indictment against Mormonism, and against the leading characters of the Mormon Church. The speeches he represents as falling from their lips, could never be recognized in the utterances of Mormons, either among the leaders, or the rank and file. The blasphemous phraseology was never heard in Mormon camps or pulpits. Such expressions as "When that young man gets all het up with the Holy Ghost, the angel of the Lord just has to give down;" or "Lord, what won't Brother Brigham do when the Holy Ghost gets a strangle-holt on him?" are blasphemies utterly impossible to the Mormon mind. Such expressions as the following, represented as coming from Brigham Young: "The Lute of the Holy Ghost will now say a word of farewell from our pioneers to those who must stay behind," is equally impossible; and so are many other speeches which he puts into the mouths of leading characters of the Mormon Church. Even this blasphemous phrase-name given to Joel Rae—"Lute of the Holy Ghost"—is not original with Mr. Wilson. It was a cognomen given to Ephraem Syrus, "the greatest man," says Andrew D. White, author of "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom,"—"the greatest man of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the 'Lute of the Holy Ghost.'" [1]
The most serious injustice Mr. Wilson does the Mormon people, however, the thing in which he most departs from the facts established, not only by history but by the decisions of the United States courts in Utah, is in that he makes the awful crime of the massacre of emigrants at Mountain Meadows, in 1857, the crime of the Mormon Church. Over and over again in fact he makes that charge, and represents his chief character, "Joel Rae," as seeking to take upon himself the sins of the "Church" for committing that crime; and in one place represents him as saying: "For fifteen years I have lain in hell for the work this Church did at Mountain Meadows." To bear false witness against one's neighbor even in matters that may be trivial, is a contemptible crime; but when in bearing false witness the charge is that of murder, wholesale murder, and that under circumstances the most revolting and horrible, the crime then of bearing false witness rises above the merely contemptible, and to be seen in its true enormity, must be regarded as bearing a due proportion to the crime charged. That is, next to being guilty of the crime itself must be the crime of falsely charging it to the innocent. I care nothing for the fact that the predecessors of Mr. Wilson, in works of fiction on the West have made similar charges. He will not be justified in following their evil example. A man of his standing in the world of letters, starting out to "try to tell what had really been," to write fiction that must speak "no less than truth"—he was under obligations both to himself and the people to whom his message should go, to investigate all the facts, and speak truly in harmony with them in every case.
It is not necessary here to enter into any argument or even produce the evidence that the Mormon Church was in no wise responsible, in no wise connected with the awful butchery at Mountain Meadows. The evidence of these things appear upon the very surface of our history in Utah, and also in decisions of United States judges who would only have been too happy to have implicated the Mormon Church officials in that awful crime if it had been possible. In fact they tried to so fix the responsibility, and failed. But it is enough here to tell Mr. Wilson, that he has Committed an act of injustice for which I would not like to stand responsible at the judgement bar of God; I am confident that he will be driven to the necessity of choosing between these alternatives: either that he has consciously spoken contrary to truth in the matter; or else he has given merely surface consideration to one side of the subject only which he represents himself as having considered profoundly; in either event Mr. Wilson has assumed a most serious responsibility.
[1 Vol. I, p. 92 of work named in text.]
IV.
A BRIEF DEFENSE OF THE MORMON PEOPLE.
FOREWORD.
In the year 1903, Mr. L. C. Bateman, one of the editors of the "Lewiston (Maine) Journal" visited Salt Lake City and other parts of Utah. He formed a favorable impression of the Mormon people, and their progress in all that makes for civilization. The result of his observations while in Utah Mr. Bateman published in his paper, the "Lewiston (Maine) Journal." This article attracted the attention of the Deseret News, which made some favorable comment upon its general fairness. Observing this, a non-Mormon resident of Salt Lake City wrote the "Journal," protesting against the letter published by its editorial staff correspondent, saying that such treatment of the "Mormon question" was harmful in that it gave encouragement to Mormonism. The communication of "M" was sent to this writer—who met Mr. Bateman, during his visit to Utah—with the request that he make answer to it, which he did under the title "A Brief Defense of the Mormon People," which was published in the "Journal." Of the success of this answer Mr. Bateman, the editor of the "Journal," wrote as follows:
LEWISTON, MAINE, Oct. 4, 1903.
My Dear Mr. Roberts:
Permit me to congratulate you on the magnificent and overwhelming reply that you made to my critic "M." from Salt Lake. It is one of the finest and most crushing things that we have printed for years. I could easily have replied to "M" myself, and made him an object of ridicule, but I thought it would be better to have the reply come from a Mormon. My original article neither endorsed nor condemned. I merely told facts and the truth as I saw them. And I personally am an agnostic. It is only from that class that you can get justice.
This article of yours will create a profound impression all over New England. It is so complete and conclusive that I anticipate nothing more from the "jaundiced" "M." I send you copy of Journal.
Yours cordially,
L. C. BATEMAN.
I.
Eastern Eulogy of Mormons' System.