Those Fooled into Believing They are Doing Right, do the Most Wrong

  Ahh, the things we can learn from history. Tonight, I think to tell you of a lesson to be learned from the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Perhaps, you've heard of that event. Perhaps you've heard 100-140 people were killed. Perhaps, you've wondered what would ever possess good, church-going folks to slaughter so many innocent people.
  Remember that yesterday, as I  called for a course covering the lessons to be learned from history, I suggested we always won't agree on which are the lessons. Well, you might disagree with me on whether this lesson I find in Mountain Meadows is valid.  You might disagree as to whether my conclusions are right.
  So, Mountain Meadows, for me? I learn there is a danger in teaching that there are times when we should kill, times when we should exact vengeance, times when we should take the law into our own hands, and times that we should condemn the whole of a group for what is done by perhaps only one or two.
   I look at what the folks who did the killing were going through, and realize they must have felt very justified. Their cause was just, in their eyes. So, the point is that it becomes easy to persuade ourselves that murder is justified, and we must guard against such feelings.
  The lesson to be learned applies to us, because we, also, sometimes are persuaded that killing would be right. Some say they would kill certain criminals -- child abusers or whoever. They say they would kill anyone who breaks into their home, regardless if that person was displaying a weapon or acting threatening.
    I do not say there cannot be rationale for killing another person. I do not say self-defense and protecting one's family are not reasons for doing so. But . . .
   I worry that we take it too far. I think we leave the window open too wide. For example, would we kill anyone who broke into our home? Anyone? Do we reason that the very presence of an intruder is threat enough against our family? If we think that way, if we come to justify killing and think of the situation and prepare for it that way, the day may come when we will live it out and kill someone.
   Only to rue that we did it, just as those who committed the Mountain Meadows Massacre lived to rue what they did.
  Mountain Meadows was one of the vilest of acts, we say. But, we should stop. If we consider the mindset the perpetrators allowed themselves to arrive at, we might realize they felt what they were doing was quite the right thing to do.
   Even as we, today, rationalize our way into thinking killing can be right.
   What possessed good people to do such a thing as Mountain Meadows?
   I have learned that they might have been taught that if they ever ran across those who killed the prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, or killed LDS apostle David W. Patton, or killed . .  apostle Parley P. Pratt, they were to avenge those deaths. I don't know how such a teaching was distributed among them, whether it was taught from the pulpit or whether they just uttered it from one to another, as in, "If any of those varmints come around here, I'm going to plug 'em with a bullet."
   Pratt was killed in Arkansas. Now, the Baker-Fancher wagon train that was on its way to California was from Arkansas. Pratt's wife reportedly said she recognized some of the people as being the murderers of her husband.
   Now, we are reaching the point where you can see why they felt justified. Add some more factors. How about the Baker-Fancher party having reportedly poisoned a spring, killing 18 head of cattle?
   How about a teaching that vengeance is the Lord's? Some might have felt they were only exacting the Lord's vengeance when they killed those in the Baker-Fancher party. Indeed, an inscription carved into the wooden cross placed at the mass graves reflects this, it reading, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord."
   They felt they were but doing the Lord's bidding.
   Even so, today, we can get ourselves worked up, concluding that certain acts of murder would be acts of patriotism, or acts of serving the Lord. Looking back at Mountain Meadows, we can see how dangerous such thinking can be.
   Justifying our wickedness is the bridge that brings us to doing something that is wrong. If we never cross that bridge, we never get to the point of committing the crime. Sometimes, it is not the most wicked people who commit the most wicked acts, but those who have been fooled into thinking that what they are doing is right.