News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 3, 1871

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

Mormonism.

From Utah we this week receive news of interest. Some time since we recorded the fact that suit had been brought into the Third District Court of the Territory by a lady—one of the wives of a Mormon—for divorce on the ground of adultery. It would appear that this is being made a test case for the trial of the institution of polygamy as existing in Utah. In impaneling the jury, all polygamists were excluded by the U. S. law officers. Chief Justice McKean, in his charge to the jury, said:

“You are summoned not to try criminal cases, but to say what criminal cases shall be presented for trial. In the discharge of this duty you will be governed by the same principles of law which govern grand juries in Maine and Montana, in Georgia and Arizona—principles of law everywhere applicable throughout the Republic. The crimes of murder, arson, larceny, bigamy, adultery, and riot in Utah are the same crimes elsewhere throughout Christendom. If there is anything peculiar in the situation in Utah, it is the peculiar conduct of some men here, and not any peculiar principles or policy that are to be enforced here. Utah belongs to the United States; and the people of Utah, like the people of the rest of the country, are amenable to the laws of the United States. Those who obey the laws must be—shall be—protected in their rights. Those who do not must answer at the bar of justice; and those men of influence who, in practice, defy the law, trample upon the laws themselves, and by precept teach others to do so, should be the first to feel the firm grip of the law, rather than the obscure men whom they have misled. Gentlemen, it is your duty and mine to enforce the laws. Let us do so without fear, favor, affection, prejudice, or the hope of reward.”

Subpoenas have been issued to bring before the grand jury Brigham Young and some fourteen of his wives, and also George A. Smith, who ranks next to Young in the Mormon Church. Brigham says he will obey the summons as witness, or submit even to a warrant of arrest, but will not yield to imprisonment. Judge Hawley, of the Supreme Court, has caused to be issued from the Second Judicial District Court a writ of prohibition against a Mormon bishop, John R. Murdock, Probate Judge of Beaver county, restraining him from taking or exercising either chancery or common law jurisdiction, and confining him to simple probate business. Disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court, Brigham Young had directed his bishops, who are the probate judges, to continue chancery and common jurisdiction. There is a good deal of excitement among both Mormons and Gentiles. At a recent sale of U. S. ordnance at Camp Douglas, Gen. Clawson, the Mormon adjutant general, purchased 1,000 stand of arms and 150,000 rounds of fixed ammunition, and it is reported that squads of Mormon militia are drilling at night at Salt Lake City. The Herald, the Mormon organ, speaking of the purchase of arms by Gen. Clawson, says: “In time of peace prepare for war.” It is generally thought throughout the Territory that a crisis is at hand.

The foregoing is from the N. Y. Independent of Sept. 28. In another column that paper speaks further of Mormonism, and touches upon another abomination nearer home, as follows:—

In another column we give the progress of the new fight just organized by the government against polygamy in Utah. That “relic of barbarism” must now be brought face to face with civilization, and its doom settled. Hitherto its distance from us, and the pressure of the business of destroying its “twin relic,” have united to keep it from commanding the attention it deserves. But our people must prepare to take a broader view, that will include other institutions kindred to Mormonism. The Oneida Community is a plague-spot just by our side, an abominable outrage, worse in essence than polygamy. That allows marriage; but this utterly ignores the marriage tie and reduces the relation of the sexes to a form which under the name of religion is little better than that which connects the brutes. We must not forget this bestial phase of Mormonism in our easy denunciations of that of Utah.