it, to itself. He believes (as Apostle Orson Pratt taught, by
authority of the Church): "The Kingdom of God is an order of government
established by divine authority. It is the only legal government that
can exist in any part of the universe. All other governments are illegal
and unauthorized.... Any people attempting to govern themselves by laws
of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are in
direct rebellion against the Kingdom of God." Smith believes that over
this Kingdom the Smiths have been, by Divine revelation, ordained to
rule. He believes that his authority is the absolute and unquestionable
authority of God Himself. He believes that in all the affairs of life
he has the same right over his subjects that the Creator has over His
creatures. He believes that he has been appointed to use the Mormon
people as he in his inspired wisdom sees fit to use them, in order the
more firmly to establish God's Kingdom on Earth against the Powers of
Evil.

He believes that the people of the American Republic, "being governed by
laws of their own making and by officers of their own appointment," are
in direct rebellion against "his Kingdom of God." He believes that the
national government is destined to be broken in pieces by his power;
that it has only been preserved from destruction by the concessions
recently made by the Federal authorities; and that it can only continue
to save itself so long as it shall recognize Smith's ambassadors at
Washington--and so allow him to work out its destruction in the fullness
of time.

But with all this insanity of pretension he has a sort of cowardly
shrewdness, acquired in his days of hiding "on the underground." On
the witness stand in Washington he denied that he had had any direct
communication with God by revelation; and then he returned to Utah and
pleaded from the pulpit that on this point he had lied in Washington in
order to escape saying what his "inquisitors" had wished him to say in
order to "get him into a trap." He preaches in Utah that to deny the
doctrine of polygamy is to reject the teaching of Jesus Christ; before
the Senate committee he was coward enough to put the blame of his
polygamous cohabitation upon his five wives. In Washington he claimed
that the Gentiles of Utah condoned polygamous cohabitation and had a
liberal sympathy for the Church; but at St. George, Utah, for example
(in September, 1904), he was reported by a Church newspaper as sa