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Show 196 HOW MORMONISM asked if he should be taught that it was God's will for him to kill his son, or his enemy, would he do so. The reply was prompt in the affirmative. Then how is God's will com municated ? They believe, most implicitly, through their Revelator, their President. Hiscommands, tothe Mormon, are the commands of Heaven. If Brigham Young tells a saint to murder his son, or his enemy, as a sacrifice, that saint tells us he would do so. Where is greater infatuation than this ? or where more dangerous power in the hands ofone man ? I can more easily understand the people than I can un derstand their leader, and have been in doubt whether to re gard him as an impostor, or class him in the same category as his followers. The man viewed from one stand- point would appear as honest in the discharge of a stern, religious duty, and when viewed from another he would appear as an impostor. There is but little doubt of his honesty when he embraced Mormonism ; and his devotion to the sect, when there was no prospect of personal benefit in life following, even in her darkest hours, when everything seemed to foreshadow its destruction, cannot be accounted for on selfish motives. But without discussing this question further I will admit the possibility of his being sincere ; but at the same time I must believe him to be unscrupulous as to the means he uses to accomplish his plans. His acts must be upon that corrupt principle, that the end justifies the means, and he does what he knows to be evil with the hope that good may result. If he is honest in his present conceptions of right and truth, such honesty must be the result of gradual educa tion of his conscience. While I can conceive of the possi bility of this, I cannot conceive of the possibility of a man of Brigham Young's opportunities being always so morally blinded. I think that, now, he may do much for expediency, that would have been very repugnant to his ideas of propri ety twenty years ago. An impostor is dangerous only so far as he may be able to carry his deception. In his practices he is controlled some what by reason, as to his surroundings ; and is mindful of the consequences of over- reaching probabilities, as deter |