This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...of what I should term Priestly Tyranny. Permit me, sir, through the medium of your pages, to call the attention of those, who do not think it beneath them to notice the little things of life to an act which might have been a tolerated exercise of authority, in a ruder age, if we could suppose, that even then the minor creature would not feel his passions aroused, to find the sanctity of his home violated, and his rational feelings insulted; but in our age, when the lights of civilization burn so clear as to excuse the constant boast, that " knowledge penetrates the poor man's dwelling, and makes him a thinking and another being," it does call for severe animadversion, and leads one to wonder that the intruder was not immediately driven out and the door for ever closed upon him. Most people remember a controversy that took place awhile ago, not direct, but a sort of circumlocution. The whole town was full of it; it wag between the Mormons and some of the clergy, the effects of that controversy may bo questionable, but my present purpose is not with doctrinal points. The extreme publicity they effected then, was checked, and has dropped. Lately they have adopted another method of publishing themselves, and making proselytes--that of distributing tracts. That body, which in our town contains none but the humble, have a right to use such means, those who dislike them can refuse them at their own door; and what is their in this, to raise the bile of the clergy--are they afraid it will undermine the walls of their churches, or destroy their hold of a living, that they should wish to destroy the paper that contains the teaching of Orson Pratt? It is more particularly to the Abbey parish I allude, where Mr. Johnson has made himself so busy in the work tha...