The Great Brain Religion Quotes

Adenville had a population of twenty-five hundred people, of which about two thousand were Mormons and the rest Catholics and Protestants. Mormons and non-Mormons had learned to live together with some degree of tolerance and understanding by that time. But tolerance hadn't come easy for my oldest brother, Sweyn, my brother Tom, and myself. Most of our playmates were Mormon kids, but we taught them tolerance. It was just a question of us all learning how to fight good enough for Sweyn to whip every Mormon kid his age, Tom to whip every Mormon kid his age, and for me to whip every Mormon kid my age in town. After all, there is nothing as tolerant and understanding as a kid you can whip. (1.3)

"How come they've only got stores owned by the Mormon church in Utah?" I asked.

"Shucks, J.D.," Tom said, "there are other stores in the larger towns and in the cities."

"How come they don't have any in the small towns?" I asked.

"Because the people who live in small towns are mostly Mormons," Tom said, "and the Mormons must give their business to a store owned by their church." (3.98-101)

I knew the way Papa and Mamma were feeling at that moment they would have rather had a cup of coffee than anything. But Mrs. Olsen and Mrs. Winters were Mormons and the Mormons never drank coffee because it was against their religion, just as they never drank tea or any kind of alcoholic beverages or ever smoked any kind of tobacco. (3.179)

Sunday morning we all went to the Community Church. There were only two churches in Adenville, the Mormon Tabernacle and the Community Church. All the Catholics and Protestants in town went to the Community Church. Once in a while a Catholic missionary priest came to Adenville to baptize Catholic babies, marry Catholics, and hold Confessions and Mass in the Community Church. And once a year the Reverend Ingle came to town and held a revival meeting in a big tent on the campground, lasting one week. All the Protestants in town went to the revival meeting. (4.13)

We found Abie lying on his cot in the living quarters of the store. He was holding a Jewish prayer book in his hands, which were clasped on his chest. He was fully dressed, including his Jewish skull cap. His eyes were closed but he was breathing. (6.38)

We stood there shamefaced, an entire town, as Reverend Holcombe of the Community Church looked helplessly across the grave at Bishop Aden of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

"Read the Christian burial service over him," the Mormon bishop said as the wind from a threatening cloudburst made his white beard wave back and forth. "I am sure both God and Abie will understand." (6.57-58)

"It isn't that we dislike the Jews or mean to be unkind to them. It is just that we don't worry about them the way we worry about other people. […] But the fact remains that we let a man starve to death because nobody worried about a Jew." (6.70)

"My great brain has thought of everything," Tom said confidently. "That is why I didn't let any Mormon kids in on this. The Mormons can't drink whiskey because it's against their religion." (7.101)

"Where else could this bottle have come from?" Mrs. Taylor demanded. "You and your boarders are the only people in the block who aren't Mormons, and you know us Mormons never touch alcohol."

"Then you must have a backslider in your midst," Jimmie's mother said. "I would not take in a boarder who drank or smoked." (7.122-123)

And so it came to pass just a week before Christmas of that year a miracle took place in Adenville, Utah. The Christmas spirit arrived at our house early and with the help of a boy with a peg leg made a true Christian out of my brother. (8.360)