Springville. SUMMARY OF NEWS. But who, alas! from truth had turned aside, But sure as ever shone the radiant sun, 272 WILLIAM CLegg, SUMMARY OF NEWS. GREAT MILITARY PREPARATIONS IN EUROPE.-The Globe says "If, as we hope and expect, the present year is destined to reach its close in peace, it is not the less certain that a great European war is looming in the distance. The universal disquietude which prevails is of itself a sign of impending troubles it is simply a presentiment of actual dangers ahead. Every Government, too, is arming, and on a scale never dreamt of before. Nations, in fact, are being converted into standing armies. And as to the details of military preparation, the subjoined statement just made by the Belgian Minister for War, is worthy of notice: France is having 480,000 muskets made on the Chassepot system, not only in France, but in Belgium and England, and the greater part of them are to be ready by the 1st March, 1868. In Prussia, the arsenals are busily occupied in the manufacture of arms; and 1100 steel cannon, loading at the breech, have been ordered. 'Austria is tranforming 600,000 muskets into Wanzl's system--half of them to be ready by the end of the year. Baden, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, are adopting the Prussian musket, and are casting a considerable quantity of cannon on the Prussian model. 'England has already transformed 150,000 Enfield muskets on Snider's plan, and will have 350,000 ready by the end of the year; she will also by that time have 426 rifled cannon. 'Russia is transforming 600,000 muskets on Carle's system, and half of them will be ready by the beginning of 1868; she is also making 900 cannon. 'In Denmark the Chambers have voted funds for changing muskets into breech-loaders. 'Holland is transferring hers on Snider's system. 'Switzerland has got 40,000 muskets on Ampler-Milbank's system, has ordered 90,000 on Winchester's, and has made or is having made 200 breech-loading cannon. 'Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, are transforming their muskets, and Spain and Greece have commanded cannon of M. Krupp, the celebrated cannon-founder of Prussia. Lastly, Belgium has got rifled cannon on the Prussian plan, and is about to adopt the Prussian musket."" LIST OF DEBTS DUE FOR BOOKS, STARS, &c., BY THE SEVERAL CONFERENCES FOR THE QUARTER ENDING MARCH 31, 1867. (THIS ACCOUNT IS MADE UP TO NO. 13 INCLUSIVE, VOL. 29.) EDITED, PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY BRIGHAM YOUNG, JUN., 42, ISLINGTON. LONDON: FOR SALE AT THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' BOOK DEPOT, 30 FLORENCE STREET, ISLINGTON, AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS." THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' MILLENNIAL STAR. “ARISE YE, AND LET US GO UP TO ZION, UNTO THE LORD OUR GOD."-Jeremiah. No. 18. Vol. XXIX. Saturday, May 4, 1867. Price One Penny. REPORT OF CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. (From the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph, March 10th & 12th, 1867.) RELIC OF HEATHENISM. The House Judiciary Committee denounced polygamy as "contrary to the spirit of the Christian religion, a relic of heathenism and barbarism." Great as is our respect for Congress and its committees, we must dissent from the opinion quoted. We may be permitted further to say, that although we might naturally enough have supposed that the members of Congress would be Doctors of Law, we were not aware that they laid any claim to being Doctors of Divinity, or that it came within the proper jurisdiction of Congress to declare what the people should or should not receive as tenets of the Christian religion. We always understood that religion in this country was a matter between a man and his God, so long as the rights of others were not intruded upon. But it appears that we were altogether mistaken. It now seems that Congress may assume authority to declare what is and what is not consistent with the Christian religion, and the people at large must take due notice and govern themselves accordingly. It is very good of Congress to be This report come the conscience keeper of the people, and we will respectfully suggest that if a few enactments were made defining clearly what doctrine and practices the people must or must not receive as integral parts of the Christian religion, it would save the people a vast deal of trouble, of anxious thought, of grave discussion, and much long sermonizing. of the Judiciary Committee would be a very good beginning of such a policy, and we presume Congress will lose no time in enacting a law declaring polygamy no part of the Christian religion, and that consequently all the ancients -Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and others, who taught and practiced that form of marriage, were profound heathens, ignorant barbarians, without God and without hope in the world. That the Judiciary Committee should have made this brilliant discovery, is an unanswerable proof of the transcendent enlightenment of the nineteenth century. What a pity that Jesus and his Apostles, who lived in a polygamic nation, and came of polygamic stock, had not the slightest idea of the social degradation 274 LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION. of their family trees and of their nation in general! Let us be sufficiently thankful that we of this generation have burst through the thick clouds of heathen and barbarian darkness which enshrouded the minds of Jesus Christ and all other Bible heroes and worthies! We are really afraid, however, that the people of the present generation never can feel sufficiently grateful for the wonderful light vouchsafed to them. Suppose we examine the subject a little more seriously. What must be understood by the terms heathenism and barbarism? We always supposed they meant a departure from the laws of God, a lack of the intelligence of heaven. Now, if Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and the Bible great men, in general and particular, were ignorant of the laws of God, and the intelligence of heaven; if they departed more widely from those laws, and had less of that intelligence than the people of our day, and particularly than the Congress of the United States; or, in other words, if they were heathens and barbarians beside the House Judiciary Committee and the people of these United States, we should very much like to know how all that came about. We always supposed that all the knowledge of the moderns of what constituted the Christian religion, was obtained from the Bible. But it appears that the Judiciary Committee have other sources of information. The committee evidently ignore the Bible as a book of heathen and barbarian traditions, and accept the opinions of modern religionists as doctrines of the Christian religion. We are satisfied that the Judiciary Committee are in error on this point, that they go to the wrong sources for authority and light, that they consequently have been led to call light darkness and darkness light, the laws and knowledge of God heathenism and barbarism, and the conflicting notions of modern theologians and the dark traditions of paganism the Christian religion. If God and Jesus Christ, and Prophets and Apostles, are not authorities and exponents of the Christian religion, then there is no Christian religion. | As for most of the speculations of modern religionists, they are all moonshine any how, and particularly wherein they ignore the teachings of Bible authorities, as they do in the matter of polygamy. If we must tell the truth as it is, the Bible great men were the true gentlemen, the true men of light and intelligence, the true authorities on and exponents of the law of God, the true exemplars of the Christian religion. Not one of them denounced polygamy, but many of the most illustrious taught and practised it. Instead of polygamy being a relic of heathenism and barbarism, it is a part of the law of God. But monogamy, so far as it forbids polygamy, is truly a relic of barbarism and heathenism. The restrictive monogamy of modern times can be directly traced, not to the Bible, or the Christian religion, but to pagan and heathen and barbarian Rome, and has been substituted by the ignorant and heathen and barbarian moderns for the polygamic law of God. Such being undeniably the facts, we solemnly call on Congress to promptly pass an act abolishing the restrictive provisions of monogamy, and legalizing polygamy according to the law of God. There are a great number of people who fall into the same error as did the Judiciary Committee and conclude that polygamy is prostitution. Nothing could be further from the truth than such assertion or opinion. Polygamy and prostitution, instead of being synonomous terms, are the very antipodes of each other. Polygamy is marriage, prostitution is anything but marriage. Marriage is "honorable in all," but prostitution is dishonorable in all. Marriage purifies and exalts. Prostitution defiles, and debases to a condition below that of the brutes. Mar THE COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF JERUSALEM. riage is health, life, prosperity. Prostitution is ruin, disease, death, and damnation. Marriage is the foundation of all honorable and virtuous society. Prostitution is the destruction of all such society. Marriage is the divinely ordained union of the sexes for the propagation of the race. Prostitution is the devilishly invented indulgence for the destruction of the race. Even lexicographers define polygamy as marriage, and prostitution as the vile use of the body. It would puzzle us amazingly to make out wherein polygamy can be truly considered prostitution. Who and what are prostituted, offered for sale, or used, for purposes vile and lewd? We have not the slightest conception of anything of the sort. When a woman is married to a man, she is his wife, a help-mate to him, to bear and raise and educate his children, and help him in any other legitimate manner. If a second or third wife is married to the same man, it is of her own free will and choice, the same as the marriage of the first woman, and similar duties await the second or third wife as awaited the first. What prostitution, what sale or use of the person for vile or lewd purposes is therein induced, we certainly are utterly unable to discover. The marriage of the second or third wife is just as much for pure purposes as the marriage of the first, and is just as legitimate and pure and honorable in the sight of Heaven. We have now devoted a liberal amount of editorial space and time to the late Judiciary Committee, in the fervent hope that our doing so will inure to the benefit of all future Judiciary Committees, and of any other committees which may take Utah matters into consideration. If such 275 committees will read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest thoroughly our humble attempts to enlighten them on the very important matter in question, they will never belittle themselves, and insult Congress by presenting any such anomalous report as that of the late Judiciary Committee on the Utah memorial. We do like to see good sense, wisdom and dignity manifest in our national councils, and we do mortally hate any measure or proceedings which evidently tend to lower that honorable body in the estimation of people of sound understanding and good judgment. Hence our earnest and persistent, though humble, efforts to present before Congress matters and things in Utah as they really are, and not as unprincipled schemers would have them seem to be. There is no subject which can come before Congress of greater importance, or fraught with more vital consequences, than the subject of Utah and the Mormons, and we should like Congress, whenever it shall see fit to legislate upon that subject, to do so in a manner that will redound to the credit of our national councils and the real welfare of the public. At least, if such shall not be the case, it shall not be our fault, it shall be in spite of all our exhortations and our efforts to persuade Congress to the pursuance of a wise and honorable course. If the late Judiciary Committee had taken the trouble to consult the Utah delegate, and had adopted his recommendation, they would never have presented a report so exceedingly illogical and supremely ridiculous. shall not be surprised if Congress yet should call on the common sense men of Utah to save and direct the nation. We cheerfully bide our time. We THE COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF JERUSALEM. We take the following interesting particulars from the Report by Mr. Consul Moore on the Trade and Commerce of Jerusalem for the year 1866, dated January last : 66 Trade and Commerce.-The trade of the Sandjak (or minor province) of Jerusalem is very inconsiderable. Jerusalem, the chief town, is one of the least commercial or industrial of cities. |