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2nd June 13:38
External User
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Will Bagley on Discovery Channel right now..... (order temple prophets church apostle)
If anyone wants to see a smoking gun in Young's hand, they can try this one on
for size:
In 1859, U. S. Army Brevet Major M.H. Carleton led the first official
investigation into the MMM. Upon visiting the site, his soldiers built a crude
memorial to the victims out of stones, with a wooden cross atop it, inscribed
with the saying "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord."
In 1861, Brigham Young visited southern Utah, including the MMM site. The
following statements were recorded of Young's reaction upon viewing the
memorial:
"We visited the Mt. Meadows Monument put up at the burial place of 120 persons
killed by Indians in 1857. The pile of stone was about twelve feet high but
beginning to tumble down. A wooden cross is placed on top with the following
words, Vengeance is mine and I will repay saith the Lord. Pres. Young said it
should be Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little." (Wilford Woodruff's
journal, May 25, 1861.)
"My grandfather, Dudley Leavitt, was present, and he told the incident
repeatedly, so that it has been verified by three of his sons. One preserved
it in these words, quoting his father: 'I was with the group of elders that
went out with President Young to visit the spot in the spring of '61. The
soldiers had put up a monument, and on top of that a wooden cross with words
burned into it, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. Brother
Brigham read that to himself and studied it for a while and then he read it out
loud, Vengeance is mine saith the Lord; I HAVE repaid. He didn't say another
word. He didn't give an order. He just lifted his right arm to the square,
and in five minutes there wasn't one stone left upon another. He didn't have
to tell us what he wanted done. We understood.' " ("Mountain Meadows
Massacre," Juanita Brooks, p. 183.)
"Went past the monument that was erected in commemoration of the massacre that
was committed at that place.....On one side of the cross is inscribed Mountain
Meadow Massacre and over that in smaller letters is vengeance is mine & I will
(Journal of Lorenzo Brown, as quoted in ibid, p. 183.)
Brigham Young's attitude and remarks clearly indicate that he was not sorry
that the MMM had occurred, and that the massacre was an appropriate act of
"vengeance."
On that same visit to southern Utah, Young spoke in a church meeting. Many
Mormons in attendance had been among the murderers at Mountain Meadows four
years prior, including Bishop John D. Lee, who recorded Young's comments in
that church meeting:
"Pres. Young said that the company that was used up at the Mountain Meadows
were the Fathers, Mothers, Bros., sisters
& connections of those that murdered the Prophets; they merited their fate, &
the
only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the women & children, but
that under the cir***stances this could not be avoided."
---John D. Lee's diary entry of May 30th, 1861, as published
in "A Mormon Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848-1876", edited by
Robert G. Cleland and Juanita Brooks.
Several southern Utah Mormons had alleged that some members of the Fancher
emigrant train had boasted of being among the murderers of Joseph and Hyrum
Smith in 1844.
Also, LDS apostle Parley P. Pratt had been murdered in Arkansas a couple of
months before the Fancher train, which had originated in Arkansas, passed
through southwestern Utah. Some Mormons stated that it was Pratt's murder, in
Arkansas, that enraged them to massacre the party, on the spurious grounds that
they had something to do with Pratt's murder.
The reason Mormons would kill people whom they believed, or were told, had
murdered Joseph or Hyrum Smith, or Parley P. Pratt, is that Brigham Young had
implemented an "oath of vengeance" into the temple endowment ceremony, in which
patrons swore to "avenge the blood of the prophets unto the third and fourth
generation."
Since the doctrine of "blood atonement" was promoted by the institutional LDS
church, and specifically by Brigham Young-----
and the "Oath of Vengeance" against the killers of Mormon leaders which Mormons
swore allegiance to in the temple endowment ceremony was instituted by Brigham
Young-----
and participants in the MMM referred to that oath as being their "authority" to
commit the massacre-----
and Brigham Young spoke approvingly of the MMM as an act of justifiable
"vengeance", and that the victims (except for the women and children) "merited
their fate"---
then it is obvious that the man ultimately responsible for the Mountain Meadows
Massacre was Brigham Young.
Randy J.
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