General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Subjects: Philosophy / Religious Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE PRELUDE. WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH MORMONISH ? Congress has the same power in Utah as in the District of Columbia. Nevertheless there exists in the Basin States and territories an American Bluebeard’s chamber, full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. For twenty-five years the American Bluebeard has been standing with one hand on the locked door of his chamber of horrors, and with the other has been knocking for admittance to a place among the legislators of the foremost Christian republic on earth. Bluebeard wants a seat in the Senate. He is becoming importunate. As to the pest-house ruled by the American Bluebeard Mr. Beecher says:
Hands off
President Arthur says:
Hands on.

Use only moral measures against Mormonism, says the former.
Use moral measures, says the latter,
but the stoutest legal measures, also
In order to enable us to decide which of these policies to adopt, I raise this morning three questions: 1. What is likely to happen in Utah if polygamy be allowed to run its course through ten or twenty more years ? 2. What is likely to happen in Washington in connection with the political power which Utah must gradually acquire ? 3. Are moral measures only, or stick as schools and churches are now using in Utah in a manner so praiseworthy, likely to be rapid enough in their operation to meet the exigencies of the Mormon problem ? Will moral measures alone abolish polygamy before Utah has acquired political power enough to demand admission to the Union and dangerously tempt rival parties to grant it ? Mr. Beecher says that missions ar…