hand against him;" brothers, like Joseph's brothers, selling him to slavery, and dooming him to death; women, like Rebekah, cheating her husband on his death-bed; wives, like Leah and Rachel, contending disgustingly together about Jacob's bed; sons, like Reuben, committing incest with his father's concubine; or, like Amnon, defiling his sister Tamar; or, like Abraham, threatening his father's life; or, in later times, like the Chinese, the Turk, and the savage; or the neglected children of Mormon parentage. God sought a godly seed, and monogamy was the means he instituted.
2. When Adam and Eve were formed, and God rested from the work of creation, he gazed at the labor of his hands, and pronounced it "very good." The fiat of universal approbation went forth. Monogamy was then instituted and practiced, and that was "very good." To seek to amend that monogamy by polygamy, is for man to attempt to improve the God-approved institution of divine appointment. Until Jehovah just as explicitly declares polygamy to be "very good," we have no right to charge it on his wisdom or design. Two things essentially opposite can not be both true at the same time. Monogamy was "very good;" polygamy must, therefore, be "very bad."
3. When the Lord destroyed the inhabitants of the earth, because of their wickedness, he saved Noah and his three sons, and only one wife each. Peter says, "eight persons were saved in the ark." Any argument as to "more rapid increase of population," will certainly apply to Noah. Any argument as to polygamy "being a peculiar blessing," will apply to Noah too; for, while holy enough to be saved from
