Читать книгу Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Vol.1&2) - B. H. Roberts - Страница 33
THE SOCIAL ASPECT.
ОглавлениеI dismiss the religion with my profound respect; if it can comfort them, I would not, if I could, disturb it. Coming to the social aspect of the society, it is apparent that the great founder sought first to establish equality among men, and then to draw from those equal ranks a special class, who were permitted to practice polygamy and to whom special privileges were accorded in their association with the consecrated temples and the administration of mystic ordinances therein. The polygamous group, or cult as it may be called, soon became the ruling factor in the organization; and it may be observed that ever since the founding of the church almost every man of prominence in the community has belonged to this order. It was so in the time of the martyrs, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, who were killed at Carthage jail in Illinois, and both of whom were polygamists, although it was denied at the time. There were living until recently, and perhaps there are living now, women who testified that they were married in polygamy to one or the other of these two men, Joseph having the larger number. It has been so ever since and is so today, that nearly every man of the governing class has been or is a polygamist.
Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith, and he set up a kind of kingly rulership, not unbecoming to a man of his vast empire-building power. The Mormons have been taught to revere Joseph Smith as a direct prophet from God. He saw the face of the All Father. He held communion with the Son. The Holy Ghost was his constant companion. He settled every question, however trivial, by revelation from Almighty God. But Brigham was different. While claiming a divine right of leadership, he worked out his great mission by palpable and material means. I do not know that he ever pretended to have received a revelation from the time that he left Nauvoo until he reached the shores of the Dead Sea, nor through all the thirty years of his leadership there. He seemed to regard his people as children who had to be led through their serious calamities by holding out to them the glittering thought of divine guardianship. So firmly did Brigham establish the social order in Utah that all of the people were equal, except the governing body. This may be said to consist of the president and his two counsellors, they three constituting the first presidency; the twelve apostles; the presiding bishopric, consisting of three men, the chief bishops of the church but much lower in rank than the apostles; the seven presidents of seventies, who are, under the apostles, the subordinate head of the missionary service of the church; and the presiding patriarch. These altogether constitute a body of twenty-six men. There are local authorities in the different stakes of Zion, as they are called, corresponding to counties in a State, but with these it is not necessary to deal.
Practically all of these men under Brigham Young were polygamists. They constituted what one of their number once called the "elite class" of the community. To attain this rank one usually had to show ability, and attaining the rank he was quite certain to enter into or extend his already existing plural-marriage relations. These rulers were looked upon with great reverence. Brigham Young, besides being a prophet of God, as they believed, had led them through the greatest march of the ages. His nod became almost superhuman in its significance. His frown was as terrible to them as the wrath of God. He upheld all the members of the polygamistic and governing class by his favoritism toward them. He supremely, and they subordinately, ruled the community as if they were a king and a house of peers, with no house of commons. Not elsewhere in the United States, and not in any foreign country where civilization dwells, has there been such a complete mastery of man over modern men. The subordinates and the mass would perform the slightest will of Brigham Young. When he was not present the mass would perform the will of any of the subordinates speaking in his name. Below this privileged class stood the common mass. It had its various gradations of title, but, with the exception of rare instances of personal power, there was equality in the mass. For instance, as business was a part of their system, the local religious authority in some remote part might be the business subordinate of some other man of less ecclesiastical rank, with the result that this peculiar intermingling kept them all practically upon one level of social order; and the man who made adobes under the hot sun of the desert through all the week might still be the religious superior of the richest man in the local community, and they met on terms of equality and friendship. Their children might intermarry, the difference in wealth being countervailed by a difference in ecclesiastical authority.
It was a strange social system, this, with Brigham Young and his coterie of advisers, to the number of twenty-six, standing at the head, self-perpetuating, the chief being able to select constantly to fill the ranks as they might be depleted by death; and all these ruling over one solid mass of equal caste who thought that the rulers were animated by divine revelation, holding the right to govern in all things on earth and with authority extending into heaven.
So firmly entrenched was their social system that when Brigham Young passed away his various successors who came in time to his place by accident of seniority of service found ample opportunity without difficulty to perpetuate this system and to maintain their social autocracy. As the matter has appeared so fully before the country, I will not speak further of the method of succession, but will merely call to your minds that after Brigham Young came John Taylor, then Wilford Woodruff, then Lorenzo Snow, then Joseph F. Smith, the present ruler.
Under these several men the social autocracy has had its varying fortunes, but at the present time it is probably at as high a point as it ever reached under the original Joseph or under Brigham Young. The president of the church, Joseph F. Smith, affects a regal state. His home consists of a series of villas, rather handsome in design, and surrounded by such ample grounds as to afford sufficient exclusiveness. In addition to this he has an official residence of historic character near to the office which he occupies as president. When he travels he is usually accompanied by a train of friends, who are really servitors. When he attends social functions he appears like a ruler among his subjects. And in this respect I am not speaking of Mormon associations alone, for there are many Gentiles in and out of Utah who seem to take delight in paying this extraordinary deference.
If I have seemed to speak at length upon this mere social phase it has not been without a definite purpose. I want you to know how this religion, claiming to recognize and secure the equality of men, immediately established and has maintained for the mass of its adherents that social equality, but has elevated a class of its rulers to regal authority and splendor. Understanding how the chief among them has the dignity of a monarch in their social relations, you will better understand the business and political autocracy which he has been able to establish.
In all this social system each apostle has his great part. He is inseparable from it. He wields now, as does a minister at court, such part of the power as the monarch may permit him to enjoy, and it is his hope and expectation that he will outlive those who are his seniors in rank in order that he may become the ruler.
Therefore, if there be evil in this social relation as I have portrayed it, every apostle is responsible for a part of that evil. They enjoy the honors of the social class; they help to exert the tyranny over the subjugated mass. Those of you who do me the honor to follow my remarks will realize how close is the relation between the apostles and the president, and that the apostle is a responsible part of the governing power. While I may speak of the president of the church segregated from his associates and as the monarch, it must be understood constantly that he maintains his power by the support of the apostles, who keep the mass in order and in subjugation to his will, expressed through them.