1870-01-04-New York Sun-Mormonism in Brooklyn
- The Sun, 4 Jan 1870, p. 2. c. 6
Mormonism in Brooklyn
The Services on Sunday—Bitter Harangues against the Sun—A Mormon Bishop Challenges the World to a Polygamic Discussion.
It is a trite proverb that evil things hate the light; we need not, therefore, be surprised that the emissaries of Brigham Young and the small prophets of the Mormon persuasion detest THE SUN. The last beams of light shed upon their tabernacle aroused the saints to frenzy, and the looks cast upon our reporter as he took his seat among them on Sunday afternoon were not by any means friendly. The few girls who were present stared and giggled, but the men bent their brows and looked daggers, metaphorically, of course. But should he meet any of them in Utah, there might be more truth than poetry about the saying.
A small sandy-whiskered man, who we believe is the President of the Association, one Potts, was on his feet at the time, engaged in prayer. He instantly diverged from the subject, and dashed into a fierce attack upon THE SUN and its scribe. He denied that the stairs were rickety, that the Tabernacle smelled of fish, that the elders were in copartnership with the keeper of the oyster saloon, and that the piles of clam shells were used as a sign. They were rather an ornament than otherwise, and had never incommoded him. He was astonished at the impudence—yes, the impudence, the scandalous impudence of the reporter (whom he was good enough to indicate to his faithful with his finger), that after writing such abominable articles about the saints, he should show his brazen face among them. He called the Saints ignorant, and no doubt thought himself much wiser than they were. Yet he did not know that the Hebrews in the time of David were in a most prosperous condition.
"Why, in his time, my brethring," he burst out with extraordinary rapture, "In his time, they 'ad sich huncommon quantities hof gold that silver was no hobjie, was as plentiful as paving stones, and cedar was as cheap has common deal."
This seemed to have a great effect on the brethren, who were convinced that the Israelites couldn't have degenerated from their original parity of manners when they had so much money about them.
Mr. Potts wound up his prayer in a frame of mind not exactly suitable for an appeal to the Divine Being. A hymn was then given out, and during the singing, the bread and water made their usual rounds. When every one had partaken save the guilty reporter, who was sternly asked by the deacon whether he was a saint or a reporter, to which he humbly replied that he was the latter, one of the emmissaries from Deseret mounted the rostrum and announced himself as a bishop from Brighamia. He said he had been in the faith twenty-nine years, that he was once on probation as a Methodist in Hull, in the old country, but was not satisfied with it, did not understand it, heard fellows talk about getting the knowledge of Jesus; asked them how they got it, and what it was? but they couldn't tell him., and at last he fell in with an old Mormon, who expounded to him the Book of Mormon, since which time he had been a sincere believer. He considered the reporter of the SUN a blinded individual, rendered unjust to the truth by his Christian belief. He called the Mormon bishops emissaries of Brigham Young, but clergymen of any other denomination would be styled reverend.
There was the man Frothingham, who inculcated a belief in free love, yet he was styled Reverned. He would be welcomed to any pulpit in the country, yet the Mormon Bishops would be refused because they were impure. What made them impure? Was it polygamy? Ah, that was the secret. A man who, before heaven and earth, fairly and squarely married two wives was a hideous wretch, but the man who married one wife and defiled all the daughters of Eve that he could get hold of, he was pure. There was Henry Ward Beecher and there was Greeley; they were pure men of course because they only had one wife. Now he would just say this; the subject was distasteful to him, but was forced upon him by the attacks of THE SUN. He never wanted to speak of polygamy, but every man who spoke or wrote about Mormonism seemed to think that polygamy was Mormonism and Mormonism polygamy. He then went into a defence of the peculiar institution, which was given in rough, unstudied language and with a broad North country English accent, but was very able, and undoubtedly sincere. It rested mainly on the Old Testament, wherein it appeared that various historic personages had been polygamists. David's action with regard to Bathsheba was dragged in, and the Bishop, whose name our reporter could not learn, broached the curious doctrine that as it was necessary for God's purpose that David should possess Bathsheba; she would have been given to him by the Almighty in His own good time, but that David sinned deeply by making himself the finger of Providence, and shoving Uriah into a bloody grave. Still Bathsheba became the mother of Solomon, who was wonderfully blessed by the Lord. He didn't say to him, "Your father was a polygamist." No, on the contrary, he blamed him gently. He pitched into Monogamy and the free love hypocrites right and left, pointed out the festering sore, and wound up by a public challenge to any Christian minister to meet him and discuss the matter.
