officials in Nauvoo had consulted the Savior's answer to the Sadducees' question, and had any respect for the great Teacher they would not have been concerned about a wife in eternity! President Smith further says:
"That which in life they (Joseph and Hiram Smith) were powerless to prevent, rapidly took the successive forms heretofore stated and polygamy, after eight years of further fostering in secret, rose in terrible malignity to essay the destruction of the church. That my father may have been a party to the first step in this strange development, I am perhaps prepared to admit, though the evidence connecting him with it is vague and uncertain; but that he was in any otherwise responsible for plural marriage, plurality of wives, or polygamy, I do not know, nor are the evidences so far produced to me conclusive to force my belief." Tullige, pp. 798, 799, 800.
Mr. Smith was very confident of his ability to vindicate his father's character so far as polygamy was concerned, and in this confidence he provoked a controversy with the Utah branch of the Mormon family. The evidence on the other side will be given. We are willing, however, for our readers to hear the best that can be said in Smith's defense. As published in The Saint's Herald, Lamoni, Iowa, Elder William Marks, a stanch member of the Reorganized church, says:
"About the first of June, 1844, situated as I was at that time, being the Presiding Elder of the stake at Nauvoo, and by appointment, the presiding officer of the High Council, I had a very good opportunity to know the affairs of the church, and my convictions at that time were that the church, in a great measure had departed from the pure principles and doctrine of Jesus Christ. I felt much troubled in mind about the condition of the church. I prayed earnestly to my heavenly Father to show me something in regard to it, when I was wrapped in vision and it was shown me by the Spirit that the top or branches had overcome the root in sin and wickedness, and that the only way to cleanse and purify it was to disorganize it
