This theocratic government, where one man calls himself God’s vicegerent and imposes his revelations on a narrow minded fanatical class of men, carries its own hand into all its branches, nothing being too small or petty for its fingers to grasp, and implicit obedience is to-day, as it always has been, the watch-word of the church.  At church conferences there is never a dissenting voice and at the polls always the same unanimous vote.  The following quotations give an idea of how the power is placed in Utah and of what theocracy consists:—­Brigham Young said in the Tabernacle in 1869, “what is the greatest miracle that can be wrought before God, our Saviour, the angels, the inhabitants of the earth and the infernal regions?  Is it raising the dead or healing the sick?  No—­it is not—­it is bringing a people to strict obedience to the rule of the priesthood.”

Orson Pratt, the learned apostle, has always taught that “people cannot govern themselves by laws of their own making or by officers of their own choosing, for that would be in direct rebellion to the law of God.  Absolute power vested in one man is the best and most efficient human government.  There is one kind of government that will secure permanent prosperity and happiness, and that is theocracy or the government of God through his prophet, seer and revelator.”

President Kimball said in the tabernacle:—­“Have not the majority of this congregation made most solemn covenants and vows that they will listen, obey and be subject to the priesthood?  Have not the sisters made the same solemn covenant before God, angels and men that they will be subject to their husbands?”

President Taylor says:—­“You want to pay your tithing fairly and squarely, or you will find yourselves outside of the pale of the church of the living God.  You must also uphold the co-operative institutions.”

Col.  Hollister, a gentleman thoroughly acquainted with Mormonism, writes thus:—­“There is no rule of the people intended in the Mormon church.  There is no state government contemplated because it has every organ of despotic state government in and of itself.  It takes no account whatever of the natural right of man to life, liberty, property, freedom of opinion or of conscience.  Its bill of rights, its constitution, its laws are the revelations of the prophet.  It has not a single idea or institution common to free government or free men.  As long as they hold this theocratic idea, to force democratic government upon them, is a farce.  Its political party is the church and into that political party no one can enter excepting through the church.”