Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — MORMONISM. [ARTICLE]

MORMONISM.

It is rumored in Rumis that the uaw eaarpMjMMto adopt rigorous Tvpresaive measures, baring no example .n Russian history, and to thus show the nihilists that be is not disposed to make terms of any kind with them. ; Accor m g to a Berlin letter the recognition ot Roamanla by Austria, Hungary, Germany and Russia was made on the basis of a special upderstnding come to bj these powers. Their mutual good feeling and confidence are now such as has not existed for years.

Fifty Mormon missionaries leave New York for Europe on next Wednesday to seek whom they may de- - vour. They gathered at one of the wharfs of that city on Wednesday last to welcome 197 converts en route from Europe to Halt Lake, started toward - Mormonism by the persuasion of the missionaries now over the water. Bo long as the United States not only allows the Mormon religion to flourish in Utah, but apparently sanct ons it by allowing its missionaries, under United Slates passports, to search the world for proselytes, so long Mormondom will remain a stench in the nostrils of all good people, and a power u nto itself to do as It pleases. W hat the thoughts of European people must be at finding residents of the great United States going about - over their counties winning converts to a religion of blasphemy and whoredom, allowed to flourish without let or hindrance by the authorities of tne “Great America,” it would be hard for us to fathom. It must ba however, that this country loses the respect and esteem of all good people abroad who bear the blasphemies of these longhaired murderers, whoremongers and fanatics, talking up their peculiar religion, and telling of how it is allowed to flourish in the very centre of this nation.

The advance in religious sentiment while doing wonders in the extension of churches and ways and means of religion, in improving the morals of the land, and doing so much for the cause of temperance, can yet do absolutely nothing against Mormonism, because 'it is allewed no opportunities. Bodies of law-makers.pass laws which allow the people to regulate or piohibit other curees, notably the drink curse, but the same law-makers fear to give the people any rights as against polyga my, Moreover, delegates to our highest body of law-makers, the senate itself, are allowed their seats, although they are known to be the possessors of four or more wives, contrary to all the laws of man or of God. It is rather humiliating to feel that a body of morally and spiritually diseased men can close the mouths of - our senators and manacle the hands of.our vast citizenship tn the interests ot a wholesale licentiousness before which the darkest tales told of Rome, previous to its downfall, pale into insignificance. When in Arkansas, a few years since, a sect of fanatics, deeming murder a divine institution, offered some three or four worthless lives a sacrifice to an offended God, the outraged law speedily revenged the bloody religigioua rites and hung a half dozen of the fanatics. But polygamy, Mormonism—with its countess murders; its worse than murder—the prostitution of helpless women; with Its numberless massacres of unpro.tected emigrant trains; its pillages and robberies in the name of the Lord, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, goes on year after year, fastening its tentacles on new states and territories, until, from such example, the whole land is covered with tales of forgetfulness of woman’s purity and the sacredness of the marriage tie, and what is done by r the “powers that be?” Nothing-—abso-lutely nothing. Compared to polygamy, slavery was a blessing; compared to Mormonism, with its horrors, intemperance is a sweet boon. Neither of these touch the soul, or go deep- * er than the mere physical part of man or woman, but the Mormon religion defiles the body and pollutes the soul beyond the cleansing powers of the blood of Christ. And why? Because the woman who is forced into it is surrounded by such guards that escape is impossible, and after fruitless attempts to leave her sin and shame behind her, she gives up and goes down into the grave without a hope or a thought of the future. And where does the responsibility rest? Upon Joe Smith? U\x>n Brigham Young? Upon the Holy Church of the Latter-Day » Saints? Nol The responsibility rests upon our grave and reverend senators

and representatives who do nothing against polygamy, and upon the people who elect men who allow a worse religion than pantheism or infidelity to flourish unchecked and undaunted; The time is coming when a new shibboleth will enter into our political wars. It will not be the cry of Republicanism or of Democracy. It will be the cry of the whole people, and, as twenty yean ago, we went upon the political field crying “ down ' with slavery ” our new shibbo leth ,of no far future day will be . “down with Mormonism.” It can not go on flourishing as a green bay tree, and the United States still keep its place in the respect of the outer world. So foul a stain will blacken the reputation of our whole nation sooner or later unless other steps be taken to wipe it out. Our president has promised to take such steps, and we shall see, what wa shall to* But Mormonism must go down, and if our lawmakers continue to refuse their help, the day will some when it will go down, as the emigrants went down In the Mountain Mead-owassaas,-by the bullet