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Show GUILTY OR NOT GUILTYf 523 Isaac ( Haight), for he said there was not a drop of innocent blood in the whole company." When I was through he said it was awful; that he cared nothing about the men, but the women and children was what troubled him. I said : " President Young, you should either release them from their obligation, or sustain them when they do what they have entered into the most sacred obligations to do." He replied: " I will think over the matter, and make it a subject of prayer, and you may come back in the morning and see me." I did so. He said: " John, I feel first- rate. I asked the Lord, if it was all right for the deed to be done, to take away the vision of the deed from my mind, and the Lord did so, and I feel first- rate. It is all right. The only fear I have is of traitors." He told me never to lisp it to any mortal being, not even to Brother Heber. President Young has always treated me with the friendship of a father since, and has sealed several women to me since, and has made my home his home when in that part of the Territory until danger has threatened him. This is a true statement, according to my best recollection. This statement I have made for publication after my death, and have agreed with a friend to have the same published, with many facts pertaining to other matters connected with the crimes of the Mormon people under the leadership of the priesthood, from a period before the butchery of Nauvoo, to the present time, for the benefit of my family, and that the world might know the black deeds that have marked the way of the Saints from the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints, to the period when a weak and too pliable tool lays down his pen to face the executioner's guns for deeds which he is not more guilty than others, who to- day are wearing the garments of the priesthood, and living upon the " tithing " of a deluded and priest- ridden people. My autobiography, if published, will open the eyes of the world to the monstrous deeds of the leaders of the Mormon people, and will also place in the hands of the attorney for the Government, the particulars of some of the most blood- curdling crimes that have been committed in Utah, which, if properly followed up, will bring many down from their high places in the Church to face offended justice upon the gallows. So mote it be. ( Signed) JOHN D. LEE. The autobiography, of which Lee speaks, is for the present withheld, for obvious reasons. But when the confession was forwarded to the New York Herald for publication, the proprietor telegraphed Brigham, asking if he had any statement to make in connection with the publi-cation. Brigham replied as follows : ST. GEORGE, UTAH, March 22. James Gordon Bennetl, New York: Yours just received. If Lee has made a statement fa his confession implicating me, as charged in your telegraph of the 21st inst., it is ut-terly false. My course of life is too well known by thousands of honorable men for them to believe for one moment such accusations. ( Signed) BKIGHAM YOUNG. Only that and nothing more. And straightway all the Mormon papers of Utah, and all of Brigham's apologists in the East, cried out that the Prophet was completely exonerated; that no one would take the word of a murderer like Lee against so good a man as Brigham. How easily are people deceived, if they ardently wish to be. |