Contempt for God's Law
By Editor
IN our news column this week is an item which might serve as a text for those who decry the law, and fling contempt on it, while they profess to exalt the gospel. When the polygamist Clawson was arraigned for sentence, he stated that he had no respect for the law against polygamy; that polygamy was right in his eyes, and that he intended to practice it. The Judge said that he had designed to pass a light sentence, but could not after such a declaration; a "defiant criminal," said he, "is entitled to no leniency." "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" Can they who manifest contempt for God's law, calling it "an old Jewish law," entirely unsuited to the present age, expect to receive pardon at his hands? Men who will justly applaud the action of Judge Zane, will preach the gospel, announcing pardon for the transgression of God's law, while at the same time they defy that law by breaking it and teaching men so. "Such a gospel," said Bishop Simpson, "may rear a beautiful structure; but its foundation is on the sand." We would earnestly entreat those who are rearing such a structure, to desist at once, lest when the rain shall descend, and the floods come and beat against it and cause it to fall, they should "be consumed in the midst thereof."