by the church to provide to the less fortunate, who would be required to pay it back either monetarily or by labor. The private property owner was not forced to participate in the Order nor was his property forcefully confiscated. Private property owners were free to join or leave the orders and were in control of their stewardship. J. Reuben Clark, a member of the First Presidency, explained: The fundamental principle of this system was the private ownership of property. Each man owned his portion, or inheritance, or stewardship, with an absolute title, which he could alienate, or hypothecate, or otherwise treat as his own. The church did not own all of the property, and the life under the United Order was not a communal life. ... The United Order is an individualistic system, not a communal system. Lorenzo Snow, a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also highlighted the United Order's preservation of individual free will: In things that pertain to celestial glory there can be no forced operations. We must do according as the spirit of the Lord operates upon our understandings and feelings. We cannot be crowded into matters, however great might be the blessing attending such procedure. We cannot be forced into living a celestial law; we must do this ourselves, of our own free will. And whatever we do in regard to the principle of the United Order, we must do it because we desire to do it. Relation to Marxist communism This United Order was an attempt to eradicate poverty and promote a sense of unity and brotherhood within Latter Day Saint communities. The LDS Church's view is that the doctrine and the various attempts at practicing it should not be seen as part of the 19th-century utopian movement in the United States, and is distinct from both Marxist communism and capitalism. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 20th century sought to make a clear distinction between Marxist communism and the law of consecration as practiced by the United Order, teaching that the practices differed as related to the topics of free will, private property, and deity. The law of consecration and the United Order can be compared to the shared economic arrangement presented in the New Testament as practiced by 1st-century Christians in Jerusalem. In the 20th century, leaders of the Church of