![\"Karl](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/12\/Karl_Marx_001.jpg\")
<\/a>The second part of our discussion with Matt Grow<\/a>, the Managing Director of the Church History Department in Salt Lake City, is now up: \u201cWhy Brigham Young, An Introduction,\u201d Part Two<\/a>. \u00a0All<\/em> of the five currently-available episodes (along with some other supporting materials) are accessible at becomingbrigham.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n I wanted to add a comment to something that he said in this second part of our discussion: He mentioned Brigham Young\u2019s encounter with the social and economic conditions of the middle and lower classes during the tumultuous days of the Industrial Revolution in England, and the impact that encounter had upon him. \u00a0This was the period when the Latter-day Saint missionaries first arrived in the British Isles, in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Things were very difficult, which probably played a role in the remarkable success of those early emissaries of the Gospel: They brought a message of hope, and, not unimportantly, the idea of emigrating had likely become unusually attractive.<\/p>\n These were the social conditions described by Dickens (in such notable stories as A Christmas Carol<\/em>) and by other Victorian novelists, as Professor Jamie Horrocks told us last year in a video lecture that remains available on the website of the Interpreter Foundation and that I heartily recommend, especially for those who might be coming with us on our tour of England in May of this year<\/a>: \u00a0\u201cTruth Will Prevail!: Victorian Britain in the First Missionary Moment.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n They were also the conditions that, unfortunately, gave rise to Marxism. \u00a0I\u2019m thinking particularly of the German philosopher, social and political theorist, journalist, businessman, and revolutionary socialist Friedrich Engels (born in 1820; died in London in 1895), who was a lifelong collaborator with his fellow-German Karl Marx, who eventually moved to England in 1850 but with whom Engels had already co-authored The Communist Manifesto<\/i> (1848). \u00a0After Marx\u2019s death in London in 1883, Engels served as the editor of his works, completing (among other things) the second and third volumes of Das Kapital<\/i>.<\/p>\n Although Engels was German, his father had sent him to Manchester, England, in 1842 to work in a cotton mill in which the family had an investment. \u00a0Manchester is commonly considered to have been the world\u2019s first industrial city, transforming itself from a small town into a global hub of cotton manufacturing and trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Sometimes known as \u201cCottonopolis<\/span>,\u201d it pioneered huge factory systems, steam power, and infrastructure like canals and railways \u2014 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (1830), connecting the mills of Manchester with Liverpool\u2019s port, was the world\u2019s first modern inter-city railroad system \u2014 <\/span>driven by technological innovation and its helpful proximity to coalfields.<\/p>\n Friedrich Engels\u2019s experiences with the industrial working class there in Manchester in his early to mid-twenties impelled him to write his first significant work, The Condition of the Working Class in England <\/i>(1845). \u00a0Although the diagnosis that was eventually offered by Marx and Engels was seriously flawed, and despite the fact that their recommended cure, Communism, has proven not only deeply wrong in theory but economically catastrophic and massively lethal in practice, their observations on the actual plight of the English working classes were not dissimilar to some of the observations made by Brigham Young and the other apostles, who were shocked by what they saw. \u00a0Marx and Engels and the apostles diverged widely, but, to some degree, they shared indignation.<\/p>\n Brigham Young\u2019s passion for building Zion was certainly not lessened by what he saw in England. \u00a0William Blake\u2019s famous 18o4 poem, which has now become a find of unofficial national anthem for England<\/a>, expresses a similar dream:<\/p>\n And did those feet in ancient time And did the Countenance Divine, Bring me my Bow of burning gold: I will not cease from Mental Fight, In the comments section of this blog, a reader raises an important issue: \u00a0\u201cIn the discussion with Matt Grow about the Priesthood ban on those of Black African descent,\u201d he writes, \u201cit seems that the assumption was that B[r]other Brigham made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s certainly a possibility, but I don\u2019t think that we actually said that and it\u2019s not necessarily my position.<\/p>\n He goes on to observe that \u201cBrigham served for another 26 years after his announcement, and there was nine Church Presidents after Brigham who did not correct it. This was a serious and important issue which I doubt the Lord would have permitted if He hadn\u2019t ordered it.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m inclined to agree. \u00a0Somewhat. \u00a0It certainly seems to me that the Lord permitted<\/em> the policy to continue, whether he originally ordered it or didn\u2019t<\/em>. \u00a0I set forth a major reason for my view in a blog entry that I posted here back on 5 September 2018 under the title \u201cWhy I Can\u2019t Simply Dismiss The Pre-1978 Priesthood Ban As A Mistake.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
\nWalk upon Englands mountains green:
\nAnd was the holy Lamb of God,
\nOn Englands pleasant pastures seen!<\/p>\n
\nShine forth upon our clouded hills?
\nAnd was Jerusalem builded here,
\nAmong these dark Satanic Mills?<\/p>\n
\nBring me my arrows of desire:
\nBring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
\nBring me my Chariot of fire!<\/p>\n
\nNor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
\nTill we have built Jerusalem,
\nIn Englands green & pleasant Land.<\/p>\n<\/a>
(LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote>\n