Blood Atonement After Brigham Young
By 1877, when Brigham Young died, the blood atonement doctrine, whether or not it was properly understood by the public, had "done more than any other thing save polygamy to bring Mormonism into disrepute". In response, church leaders and journalists took an active interest in explaining and justifying the doctrine, and in countering the negative press. John Taylor, Young's successor, acknowledged in North American Review the "we believe some crimes can only be atoned for by the life of the guilty party"; however, he said, "all culprits worthy of death...should be executed by the proper civil officer, not by any exercise of the lex talionis or the intervention of ecclesiastical authority".
Chief among the Latter-day Saint writers defending the doctrine in the late 19th century was Charles W. Penrose, editor of the church-owned Deseret News, who would later become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency.
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Famous quotes containing the words blood, atonement, brigham and/or young:
“My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike’s in the cabin still,
With Hessian blood on the blade.””
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“How much atonement is enough? The bombing must be allowed as at least part-payment: those of our young people who are concerned about the moral problem posed by the Allied air offensive should at least consider the moral problem that would have been posed if the German civilian population had not suffered at all.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“Looks like we got a trial ahead of us. But it’s not the first time. We’ve had to go it alone before, and we’ll have to go it alone again. We’re tough. We’ve had to be tough ever since Brother Brigham led our people across the plain. Well, they survived and I dang it, we’ll, well, we’ll survive too. Now put out your fires and get to your wagons.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.... I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)