[Scott Anderson to John Taylor]
.... President John Taylor
Sir
Duty imperatively demands that as I am about to withdraw from the Church over which you preside I make known to you and to all whom it may concern the reasons which have compelled me to take this step.
... I joined your Church on the 20th of May 1879 and during the first 2 years of my membership I faithfully adhered to it and would have given my life to defend it, during all this time I never heard of Adam being God, never heard of Blood Atonement, never heard of polygamy being required of all men before they could attain to highest glory. Never dreamed that Brigham Young or any one else cooly threw the Bible overboard and preached whatever they pleased which I was bound to accept as the revelations of God. I do not and cannot accuse these men of having told my anything absolutely false, but they certainly withheld the horrible I was in the Church some five years before I heard or knew anything about these things--doctrines against which my soul revolts. ...
Judge my horror and amazement when I found that he [apostle Albert Carrington] constantly used language which I had only heard from the lips of the lowest blackguards and that his conduct generally was something disgraceful. I saw him myself in the presence of several hundred witnesses on board a tugboat in Liverpool conduct himself so disgracefully with a young girl, then a servant in the Mission House, that every Elder present held his head down with shame. ...
Brigham Young teaches I quote his words, "When our Father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body and brought Eve one of his wives with him. He is our Father and our God and the ONLY God with whom we have to do." At first I could not bring myself to believe that this doctrine was accepted by the Church, but on careful enquiry found to my horror and astonishment that it was really so. It is true a great many know nothing about it and are simply in ignorance....
Then there is the Doctrine of Blood atonement which to me is simply a doctrine of murder. Brigham Young says "I could refer you to plenty of instances where men have been righteously slain in order to atone for their sins." Again he says, "I have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance if their lives had been taken and their blood spilt upon the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty." ...
If he has no wife or wives (and you teach that he must have at least three or he cannot have the highest glory) God (Adam) is utterly unable to help him You have the keys and he must wait your leisure and pleasure. ...
Joseph F. Smith during last conference told the Priesthood meeting that to obey the higher law they must have at least three living wives at one and the same time, and that anything to the contrary was a damned lie. You yourself in the Ogden Tabernacle speaking of what the Gentiles were trying to do said "Who the Devil cares." Surely you do not think I can believe such language from the Holy Spirit of God.
I now request you to erase my name from your books, and only add in conclusion that I have had no quarrel...
Yours respectfully,
Scott Anderson
[Letter to Pres. John Taylor from Scott Anderson; Salt Lake City; Sept 22nd 1884 as quoted in Quotations Dealing with the Relationship of Our First Earthy Parents to Our Heavenly Parents (1830-1978)]
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