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The Fundamentals The kind of man Pratt was is illustrated by the fact that he lost his life in 1857 near Fort Gibson, Arkansas, at the muzzle of a shot-gun in the hands of an enraged husband, whose wife Pratt had induced to desert her home and her children, and go with him to Utah as one of his plural wives. These three unprincipled men were the fabricators of the Mormon system. T H E CHARACTER IST ICS O F MORMONISM , W H ICH MAKE IT W HA T IT IS 1. I t is a strongly anti-American system. By that is meant that it flatly contradicts the fundamental principles of our free, representative government, by insisting that priesthood government in civil affairs is the only rightful government in this country, or any country. Apostle Orson Pratt, speaking for the Mormon Church, thus lays down the law: “The kingdom of God [by which he means the Mormon priesthood] is an order of government established by Divine authority. . . . All other governments are illegal and un authorized. . . . Any people attempting to govern them selves by laws of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God”. (Orson Pratt’s Works, p. 41.) Nothing is left undone to magnify the power and au thority of the priesthood, and the people are instructed that to disobey the priesthood is the same as disobeying God. One of the official books of the church thus sets forth this ex travagant and blasphemous claim: “Men who hold the priesthood possess Divine authority thus to act for God; and by possessing part of God’s power, they are in reality part of God; . . . and those who reject it, reject God, even the power of God”. ( “New Witness for God,” p. 187.) This tyrannical priesthood dictates and controls all the affairs of the people in the average Mormon community.
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