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3 The Seventh Angel Speaks Joseph Morris waited ten months before writing a second letter to Brigham Young. It was dated October 11, 1858. By this time many of the serious differences between the Saints and the United States government had been largely settled. The “invading” troops were stationed at Camp Floyd, south of Salt Lake, and Brigham Young had relinquished the governorship to Alfred Cumming. Young was still the most potent religious and political force in Utah, but the sovereign power of the United States had been reaffirmed, and except for a brief time in 1862 the autonomy and independence of the Mormons were gone forever. The times were changing, and Joseph Morris took the opportunity to propose a dramatic change in the Mormon church. To Brigham Young he wrote: . . . thus saith the Lord unto you, that I the Lord chose you to be the Chief Shepherd of my flock and I delivered them into your hands. And you have given your mind to trading and to speculating and you have increased in riches. In abundance you have added house to house and barn to barn and land to land, and you have thrust my poor away from me and you have given the adversary the advantage over the remainder to lead them to idolatry by running them too fast. They saw the progress that you were making in wealth and they thought that they must follow your example and become wealthy. Also no matter which way their wealth came their eyes were filled with greediness and their hearts were set upon their cattle and their horses and their houses and their lands, their wives and their children and not upon me saith the Lord. They have oppressed the poor and needy and turned them away from their rights and forced away those that were better than they. But I will gather them together again and they shall no more be scattered, saith the Lord. Surely the Smiths Family are now satisfied now they have thrown down the authority of the Church and [have] brought all the people under the power of the devil—they may rest satisfied. They have always thought that the presidency of the Church belonged to their family and Lucifer, the devil, has deceived them and being influenced by the devil they have run an undercurrent against you [Brigham Young] until they have accomplished their desire. 28 The Making of a Prophet I will now satisfy you concerning Joseph Smith. The Lord commanded him to leave Nauvoo and start for this place and he did so and returned back again from following the Lord, and the Lord had no more use for him on the earth. . . . The Lord then permitted him to be slain that he might . . . be saved. And in consequence of this his seed was cut off from the reigns of government . . . . It is true that Joseph Smith laid the foundation of a great and mighty work on the earth and he laid the foundation also to throw it down again, and that brings him on a level with an ordinary man. He laid the foundation to make thousands of devils, and if the Lord had not provided a redeemer, this people must have remained devils to all eternity. Dear sir, you might think it hard that the Almighty has dealt so hard with you, but I will now appeal to your judgment. Were you not the first person that the Lord manifested the true situation of his people to? Yes you were. And you saw that the devil had got possession of the Church and you made an effort to gain your power back and forced the influence back again until you came in open contact with the devil and then you could go no further and, there you stopped. . . . Then the devil tried his hand to see what he could do and he forced the influence back upon you and the people were worse than ever. Now what can you do? Was the Lord justified in raising up a deliverer to deliver you and this people or not? If he was, I should think that you would not think it hard to take his counsel. I, therefore, counsel you to seal no more people; for you have continued to seal people off and on ever since I first wrote to you and you have hurt my feelings grievously. Ye, you have grieved the Holy Ghost. This has not been a time...

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