“[Heber C. Kimball] declared to the people that Brigham Young was his God, and their God, and the only God they would ever see if they did not obey him: ‘Joseph Smith was God to the inhabitants of the earth when he was amongst us, and Brigham is God now.’ This strain was caught up and reiterated by many of the elders, from Orson Hyde, the president of the twelve apostles, down to the most ignorant teacher, and to question it openly was to be put under the ban.”
T.B.H. Stenhouse, The Rocky Mountain Saints : A Full and Complete History of the Mormons (Salt Lake City, UT: Shepard Book Company, 1904 edition), 294.