Saturday, July 15, 2023

Reed Smoot on Free Agency being a Gift of God

  

Senator SMOOT. As a rule of the church, but not binding upon any member of the church who does not want to follow it. Free agency in our church is a heritage God has given, and not only in our church, but given to everybody. That God can not take that free agency away from me. If He could, he could not judge me when I died and went to the bar of justice, . . . (Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat, 4 vols. [Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906)], 3:249)