History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

372 MORMONISM AND POLYGAMY.
progresses, religion becomes less dogmatic, and the
insanity assumes more and more the milder form.
Thus it is with the Mormons as with others; they
would not feel justified in doing now some things
which were done by their predecessors, any more
than gentile Christians would wish to burn here-
tics, or slaughter millions in the name of the redeemer;
or any more than they would accept Joseph
Smith as- a prophet from God, or believe in his metal
book of Mormon, or his pretended revelations.
But admitting man's obligation to follow the precepts
and example of the bible, which, if done literally,
would lead him into all manner of contrarieties and
absurdities, even as it does the Mormons to-day, the
scriptural argument in support of polygamy does not
go for much. Among the half-savage Israelites the
custom obtained, but as they grew more civilized, it
died out. The first apostles had none of them two
wives, and St Paul maintained that it was best not
to have any; the spirit of the new testament is all
against plurality of wives, and, though it nowhere in
so many words condemns the system, the books of
Mormon and doctrine and covenants do.
Thus we see that holy books are contradictory and
unreliable, not being consistent in themselves, or producing
consistent followers. Codes of morality depending
on the divine will are without foundation : are,
indeed, not codes of morality, which to be genuine
must be based on nature as the law-giver and punisher
for otherwise all men to whom the will of God has not
been revealed, or who do not believe in any god or
revelation, would be without any knowledge of right
and wrong, or any standard of morality.
Innate perceptions, supernatural intuitions, or a conscience
divinely given, instead of one evolved from the
ever-increasing accumulation of human experiences,
are not safe guides to right conduct, as the doctrines
and doings of the Mormons clearly show. By the result
of an act, not by supernatural revelation, we know
;