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few years, before the disintegration of Protestantism began, these men have been regarded by their respective followers as the true, authorized and sufficient guides to an understanding of the truths of God. They have had ascribed to them all the functions of prophets and apostles, except the right to be so called. Indeed, in view of the varied deportment of Calvin, and numerous other "Christian" lights, the charges of "ignorance" and "rascality" might seem to lie, not altogether on one side, If, then, the teachings of the Book of Mormon, of Smith, and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are not proved to be hostile to Scripture and sound reason, they are entitled to the same respectful consideration and attention as are those of our Luthers, Wesleys, Calvins and other "prophets." If, as would not be difficult to prove, they are of a far more practical" nature, and even better calculated to meet the needs of the world, morally and sociologically, if no otherwise, the inference is that, in these respects, at least, they come nearer to the ideal of truth. But, as the truth of what a man teaches is not to be judged on the basis of knowledge regarding his personality, history or local reputation,- be these the best or the worst possible so a book is not to be judged as a divine revelation," because of its "elegant diction" and "lofty flights"; nor rejected in this same character, because of defects in these same particulars. "Ripe scholars," and other varieties of fault-finders, are now busily picking flaws in the Bible itself, and gaining adherents, even among professing Christians-and many of these absurdly argue that the "higher criticism," so called, is laying the foundations of a "deeper and more vital faith." It is possible to find faults with any book, and condemn its literary and other qualities, just as the "higher critics" mangle the Bible. It is no argument./Obviously, an excellent method of settling such a dispute, and finding out the real truth of the claim of divine authority, supposed to be back of a book, is to apply the test prescribed in the Book of Mormon itself:

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"Behold I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them... that ye would ask God, the eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost; and by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."- Moroni, x. 3-5.

No anti-Mormon has ever stated that he has followed this advice, and received no "testimony." This may be, however, because anti-Mormons are afraid that they might learn "something disagreeable."/

NOTE I.- DANITES OR DESTROYING ANGELS.

The stories persistently circulated about a murderous order among the Mormons, known as "Danites," or "Destroying angels," deserve some kind of brief notice in a book like this. As a matter of fact, in spite of the repetition of this story by all anti-Mormon writers, all on the same allegations at the start, there is no respectable evidence that any such order or society was ever prominent in Mormon affairs, or that it ever committed the atrocities charged by enemies. The sole excuse for the tale in the beginning was the "affidavit" uttered by Thomas B. Marsh, and affirmed by Orson Hyde (page 102), which, however, was negatived by their subsequent return to the Church. The following account of the matter appears in the journal of Joseph Smith, among entries made sometime in the latter part of 1838:

"While the evil spirits were raging up and down in the state (Missouri) to raise mobs against the Mormons,' Satan himself was no less busy in striving to stir up mischief in the camp of the Saints: and among the most conspicuous of his willing devotees was one Doctor Sampson Avard, who had been in the Church but a short time, and who, although he had generally behaved with a tolerable degree of external decorum, was secretly aspiring to be the greatest of the great, and become the leader of the people. This was his pride and his folly, but as he had no hopes of accomplishing it by gaining the hearts of the people openly he watched his opportunity with the brethren-at a time when mobs oppressed, robbed, whipped, burned, plundered and slew, till forbearance seemed no longer a virtue, and nothing but the grace of God without measure could support men under such trials—to form a secret combination by which he might rise a mighty conqueror, at the expense and the overthrow of the Church. This he tried to accomplish by his smooth, flattering, and winning speeches, which he frequently made to his associates, while his room was well guarded by some of his followers, ready to give him the signal on the approach of anyone who would not approve of his measures.

"In these proceedings he stated that he had the sanction of the heads of the Church for what he was about to do; and by his smiles and flattery, persuaded them to believe it, and proceeded to administer to the few under his control, an oath, binding them to everlasting secrecy to everything which should be communicated to them by himself. Thus Avard initiated members into his band, firmly binding them, by all that was sacred, in the protection of each other in all things that were lawful; and was careful to picture out a great glory that was then hovering over the Church, and would soon burst upon the Saints as a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, and would soon unveil the slumbering mysteries of heaven, which would gladden the hearts and arouse the stupid spirits of the Saints of the latter day, and fill their hearts with that love which is unspeakable and full of glory, and arm them with power, that the gates of hell could not prevail against them; and would often affirm to his company that the principal men of the Church had put him forward as a spokesman, and a leader of this band, which he named Danites.

"Thus he duped many, which gave him the opportunity of figuring as a person of importance. He held his meetings daily, and carried on his crafty work in great haste, to prevent mature reflection upon the matter by his followers, until he had them bound under the penalties of death

to keep the secrets and certain signs of the organization by which they were to know each other by day or night.

"After these performances, he held meetings to organize his men into companies of tens and fifties, appointing a captain over each company. After completing this organization, he went on to teach the members of it their duty under the orders of their captains; he then called his captains together and taught them in a secluded place, as follows:

“My brethren, as you have been chosen to be our leading men, our captains to rule over this last kingdom of Jesus Christ-and you have been organized after the ancient order-I have called upon you here to-day to teach you, and instruct you in the things that pertain to your duty, and to show you what your privileges are, and what they soon will be. Knew ye not, brethren, that it soon will be your privilege to take your respective companies and go out on a scout on the borders of the settlements, and take to yourselves spoils of the goods of the ungodly Gentiles? for it is written, the riches of the Gentiles shall be consecrated to my people, the house of Israel; and thus you will waste away the Gentiles by robbing and plundering them of their property; and in this way we will build up the kingdom of God, and roll forth the little stone that Daniel saw cut out of the mountain without hands, and roll forth until it filled the whole earth. For this is the very way that God destines to build up His kingdom in the last days. If any of us should be recognized, who can harm us? for we will stand by each other and defend one another in all things. If our enemies swear against us, we can swear also. (The captains were confounded this, but Avard continued). Why do you startle at this, brethren? As the Lord liveth, I would swear to a lie to clear any of you; and if this would not do, I would put them or him under the sand as Moses did the Egyptian; and in this way we will consecrate much unto the Lord, and build up His kingdom; and who can stand against us? And if any of us transgress, we will deal with him amongst ourselves. And if any one of this Danite society reveals any of these things, I will put him where the dogs cannot bite him.'

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'At this lecture all of the officers revolted, and said it would not do, they would not go into any such measures, and it would not do to name any such thing; such proceedings would be in open violation of the laws of our country, would be robbing our fellow-citizens of their rights, and are not according to the language and doctrine of Christ, or of the Church of Latter-day Saints.'

"Avard replied, and said there were no laws that were executed in justice, and he cared not for them, this being a different dispensation, a dispensation of the fullness of times; in this dispensation he learned from the Scriptures that the kingdom of God was to put down all other kingdoms, and the Lord Himself was to reign, and His laws alone were the laws that would exist.

"Avard's teachings were still manfully rejected by all. Avard then said that they had better drop the subject, although he had received his authority from Sidney Rigdon the evening before. The meeting then broke up; the eyes of those present were opened, Avard's craft was no longer in the dark, and but very little confidence was placed in him, even by the warmest of the members of his Danite scheme.

"When the knowledge of Avard's rascality came to the Presidency of the Church, he was cut off from the Church, and every means proper used to destroy his influence, at which he was highly incensed, and went about whispering his evil insinuations, but finding every effort unavailing, he again turned conspirator, and sought to make friends with the mob.

"And here let it be distinctly understood, that these companies of tens

and fifties got up by Avard, were altogether separate from those companies of tens and fifties organized by the brethren for self-defense, in case of an attack from the mob. This latter organization was called into existence more particularly that in this time of alarm no family or person might be neglected; therefore, one company would be engaged in drawing wood, another in cutting it, another in gathering corn, another in grinding, another in butchering, another in distributing meat, etc., etc., so that all should be employed in turn, and no one lack the necessaries of life. Therefore, let no one hereafter, by mistake or design, confound this organization of the Church for good and righteous purposes, with the organization of the 'Danites' of the apostate Avard, which died almost before it existed."- History of the Church, Vol. III, pp. 178–182.

NOTE II.- POLYGAMY AND THE LAW AS INTERPRETED BY

CHRIST.

On page 217 of the present volume the remark occurs that the institution of polygamy, or plural marriage, as recognized, or allowed, by the Mosaic Law, was recognized by Christ Himself, and not repudiated. The evidence for this statement is to be found in such analysis of Christ's teachings on marriage and divorce, as are given in the little volume, "The Scriptural Doctrine of Divorce," by Edward Williams, A.M. This author adopts the thesis that the dicta of Jesus upon the subject of divorce are all framed in perfect harmony with the precedent principles of Jewish law, and are to be understood only in their relation to them. Commenting on the teachings involved in Christ's divorce dicta (Matt. v. 32; xix. 9; Luke xvi. 18; Mark x. 11-12), he says:

"In every one of Jesus' dicta on marriage and divorce He is as surely combating an existing evil as enunciating a vital principle. Dr. Scott, a thoroughly conservative, and highly scholarly commentator, says (in loc. Deut. xxiv: 1) 'In the days of Christ the Jewish teachers, having construed this permission into a commandment, extended it to the most frivolous matters: so that a licentious mind could not desire more allowance. Hence, divorces prevailed to the disuse of polygamy and to the still greater hardship of the women who were sent away, one after another, under color of this law, on various pretexts, to make way for a new object of the roving affections.'

"In support of the accuracy of this statement another commentator remarks, Josephus saith, "The law runs thus, He that will be disjoined from his wife for any cause whatsoever, as many such cases there are, let him give her a bill of divorce," and he confesseth that he himself put away his wife after she had borne him three children, because he was not pleased with her behavior.' Rabbi Hillel's interpretation of the Law seems to amount to an almost unlimited freedom in the repudiation of wives, and the familiar quotation from some unnamed rabbi, to the effect that, 'if a man sees a woman, whom he loves better than his wife, let him divorce his wife and marry her,' may be considered a fair sample of the opinions current in Jesus' time.

"It may be readily seen that Jesus' objection to such a practice as this is on perfectly Mosaic grounds; for, in the first place, contrary to Mosaic Law, the woman is faultless, hence not divorceable; secondly, she is repudiated in order to make room for another wife, which is impiously contrary to the provisions of Exod. xxi. 10, which specifies: 'If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish.' We can see, therefore, with how great consistency this practice of 'covering violence as with a garment' and 'dealing treacher

ously' with a wife, operating, as it certainly did in Jesus' time, not only to iniquitously dissolve many marriage contracts, but also, and particularly, to practically annihilate the very institution of matrimony can be described by no gentler term than adultery.

"In divorcing a legally faultless wife, in order that he may marry another, a man is declared guilty, not because of either the divorcing or the remarrying divorce, remarriage and polygamy are all allowed by the Mosaic statutes- but solely and entirely because the motive and object of divorce is the remarriage. For this reason the repudiating husband who does not immediately remarry is not accused of direct offence; his only fault being that in the act of divorcing a wife, apart from grave and sufficient reason, he causes her thereby to adulterate (Matt. v. 32), probably in the event of her taking a second husband. The consistency of this dictum with legal principles is readily perceived when we consider that a woman illegally divorced is, in reality, still in coverture; and that in contracting a union with another man, she is not married, but, technically and morally, adulterous.

“To sum up, then, the occasions of the crime of adultery, as we have thus far discovered them, we find, on lines strictly Mosaic, that:

“(1) A husband is guilty in marrying one woman after groundlessly divorcing another, in order to make room for that second woman.

(2) A wife so divorced is guilty in taking a second husband when not legally free herself.

"(3) The second husband is guilty in marrying a woman, who, strictly speaking, is still another's wife.

"If, however, as some hold, the Lord, in His dicta on divorce, is only advocating the original and essential indissolubleness' of all ratified marriages, with reference to no law or practice whatsoever, it were difficult, indeed, to understand how it is that He makes adulterous a man marrying a repudiated wife-and his motives for so doing may have been of the noblest and most Mosaic character, to provide her a home and protection, also quite in harmony with modern laws on the subject, since he is marrying the aggrieved party' while the woman married by the repudiating husband is accused in no regard. To be sure, Mark (x. 11-12) incriminates neither the second wife of the repudiating husband, nor the second husband of the repudiating wife, when a woman has thus usurped the man's prerogative, but if, by comparison of his version with those of Matthew and Luke, we are to assume that those persons marrying the guilty and adulterous parties in such invalid divorce transactions are innocent of all offense, while those persons marrying the innocent and violenced parties are accused of adultery, we have a very remarkable pronouncement indeed, and one also utterly at variance with all ancient or modern principles of law.

"But what light can the Mosaic Law throw upon this apparently 'contradictory' situation? Here the matter is only too simple, for we readily perceive that the second wife of the repudiating husband is technically guiltless, because that according to the Jewish Law polygamy was lawful, a fact which Jesus evidently recognizes, consistently preferring a plurality of wives to monogamy maintained by a series of legally invalid and iniquitous repudiations. The repudiated woman's second husband is guilty of offense because, upon the strict grounds of interpretation that Jesus adopts he has taken to wife a woman still rightfully in bonds to another and this by the old law was a capital crime.”—Scriptural Doctrine of Divorce, pp. 38-39, 45-46, 47.