| 492 have tried to show the people, telling them how the blow would fall when it came, because one foundation principle on which the church was originally built was, 'He that keepeth the law of God hath no need to break the laws of the land.'"
"What do you think of the Edmunds law and its enforcement, for that is really the question of the hour?"
"The law has been sustained by the courts; for that reason I have no opinion as to its constitutionality. It should either be enforced or promptly abandoned. All law is arbitrary, and its operation sometimes harsh. This law may be so enforced as to wound and bruise those whom it was intended to reach as a curative agent. And here is where I think the crisis is. The province of government should be to so treat all subjects that the citizen is saved to the state, while the integrity and dignity of the government are preserved. It is too early to determine whether this will be done, or the law be made odious by an overstraining of its provisions. Thoughtful men everywhere are anxious that the right should prevail. If the government proposes to stand by the law, it should be uniformly, equally, and justly enforced."
"What is the membership of your church?"
"Between eighteen and twenty thousand. We have branches all over the Union and members in nearly every State."
"Do you meet with the same opposition from Gentiles that the Utah Mormons do?"
"No; not when it is understood that we do not teach or practice polygamy. Of course, we meet with more or leas opposition from other denominations, but our missionaries are always given a hearing. We held our last General Conference at Independence, Missouri, at the same time the Utah conference was being held at Logan. We had an immense attendance, the opera-house and court-house being crowded. It was the largest religious gathering ever held in that part of the country."
On page 562 of the Advocate for July, is found the following from the pen of President Joseph Smith, which was called forth by the Deseret News branding President Smith's reported statement in Chicago as an atrocious lie.
SALT LAKE CITY, July 2, 1885.
Editor Deseret News: Please do me the justice of the following correction:
The statement complained of by you in your to-day's issue, as given in the Chicago Tribune's report of my Chicago speech, February 22, 1882, was not made by me in the form stated. The statement made by me was, "That while in Salt Lake City, in 1876, I became acquainted with an unmarried man, then 39 years old, whose youth and early manhood had been spent in Utah. I asked him the question why he had not married, and he gave in reply, substantially, that he did not know where to go in the Territory to get a wife; that it was not easy to find young marriageable
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