History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

THE ETHICS OF POLYGAMY. 371
that these spirits have bodies as speedily as possible,
that they become saints on earth and in his kingdom,
those who keep this commandment thus to multiply
being as gods; otherwise these spirits will take refuge
in the bodies of unbelievers, and so sink to perdition.
But civilization has pronounced polygamy a curse
and a crime, a retrogression, an offence against society
and against morality, a beastly abomination, immoral,
incestuous, degrading, a relic of barbarism, a sin, a
shame, a vice, and as such has discarded it and passed
laws against it. And the issue between polygamy and
monogamy is one purely for civilization to determine
Christianity has not a foot of ground to stand upon
in the matter.
Culture cares nothing for religion ; it is what a man
does, not what he believes, that affects progress. It
will not do to break the law in the name of religion.
Suppose a man's religion authorizes him to commit
murder: does that make it right? Civilization seeks
the highest morality; and the highest morality, it says,
is not that of the bible, of the book of Mormon, or of
any other so-called holy book. The highest morality is
based on nature, and by a study of nature's laws men
may find it. Long before Christ, civilization awoke
to the evils of this custom, which is not in accord
with its morality. The religious reformer, Buddha,
who died 470 years before Christ was born, and
whose followers now number about one third of
the whole human race, preached against polygamy.
When Greece and Borne were the foremost nations
of the world, they did not practise polygamy, nor has
ever the highest civilization entertained it. Polygamy
is to monogamy as Greece to China, or as England to
India.
All very religious people, as well as science fanat-
ics, are partially insane. This insanity may be passive
and harmless, or aggressive and hurtful. We
have innumerable instances of both kinds in the history
of the Christian church. But as the world
;