The Rocky Mountain Saints/Chapter 28

by T. B. H. Stenhouse

CHAPTER XXVIII.

• POLYGAMY REPUDIATED.
• Joseph Smith and the Mormon Leaders deny it
• The Revelations of the Church condemn it
• The Sons of the Prophet defend their Father's Reputation
• The Evidences of his Polygamic Life.

The storm that arose from Bennett's exposure of what he asserted to be the teachings of the Prophet suggested the publication of counter-statements. In the Times and Seasons there was inserted on page 939, Vol. III., an article upon "Marriage," written by Oliver Cowdery, and placed as an appendix to the book of modern revelations. To this, Joseph added an editorial note in which he states:

"We have given the above rule of marriage as the only one practised in this Church, to show that Dr. J. C. Bennett's secret-wife system is a matter of his own manufacture, and further to disabuse the public ear and show that the said Bennett and his misanthropic friend, Origen Bachelor, are perpetrating a foul and infamous slander upon an innocent people, and need but to be known to be hated and despised."

A certificate from "persons of families" followed, in which it was declared that they knew of "no other rule or system of marriage than that one published from the 'Book of Doctrine and Covenants,'" and "that Dr. John C. Bennett's secret-wife system is a creature of his own make." To this is appended a dozen names of leading elders, which was followed by another certificate and declaration from "members of the Ladies' Relief Society, and married females," to the same purport and almost in the same language. The signatures were headed by Mrs. Emma Smith.

It is quite possible that those dozen elders and apostles, those nineteen "married and unmarried females" were fully justified in asserting that "Dr. John C. Bennett's secret-wife system is a creature of his own make," and "a disclosure of his own make, and that they knew of no such society in the place, nor never did;" but how some of them could "certify and declare" in October, 1842, that they knew of no other than the monogamic marriage prescribed in the "Doctrine and Covenants," is a little more than marvellous. Some of them did know it!

The names appended to those certificates will be read with interest by the Mormon people. They are as follows: S. Bennett; George Miller; Alphæus Cutler; Reynolds Cahoon; Wilson Law; Wilford Woodruff; N. R. Whitney; Albert Petty; Elias Higbee; John Taylor; E. Robinson; Aaron Johnson; Emma Smith—President [Ladies' Relief Society]; Elizabeth Ann Whitney—Counsellor; Sarah M. Cleveland—Counsellor; Eliza R. Snow—Secretary; Mary C. Miller; Lois Cutler; Thyrza Cahoon; Ann Hunter; Jane Law; Sophia R. Marks; Polly Z. Johnson; Abigail Works; Catherine Petty; Sarah Higbee; Phoebe Woodruff; Leonora Taylor; Sarah Hillman; Rosannah Marks; Angelina Robinson.

Had the revelation on polygamy not followed Bennett's exposure of the Prophet's teachings, there might have been good grounds for doubting his—Bennett's—statement; but with the immediately subsequent avowal of polygamy, and the acknowledgment in the revelation itself that "the Lord" had already given wives unto his servant Joseph, the reader will readily perceive that the denials and prevarications were unfortunate for the Church.

It is easy to comprehend the statement so frequently made by the Mormon teachers that, influenced by certain notions of duty, even good men may try to "steal a march " upon their fellow-men with the purpose of doing them service; and also, that kind-hearted parents may find it inconvenient to answer directly the awkward questions of juvenile minds about marital relations and many other matters of daily life. But it seems a pity that a whole people's conceptions of the necessities of Deity should partake so much of this doubtful morality, under the name of "policy." In the early history of Mormon polygamy, it is claimed that it was the conclusion among the leading elders that "the world" should not know everything that "the Lord." had revealed, and that evasiveness on the subject of marriage was an obligation for the protection of the Church, and to aid "the Lord" in the establishment of that institution until it became strong enough to take care of itself. Besides, great truths freely offered to the world might be like "casting pearls before swine."

Support for this equivocal position is drawn from the report of Peter denying his acquaintance with Christ; of Abraham, who, to avoid personal injury, called Sarah his "sister;" and of some other gentleman in Bible history who feigned imbecility in an enemy's camp until favoured with opportunity to escape. The personal evasiveness named, where the situation was accidental and not courted, is not without a certain amount of defence; but the evasive denial of polygamy by the Mormon elders does not fare so well, as they were in no accidental position, but in one of their own choosing. With the cases cited from the Bible, the act and consequences terminated with the deliverance of the persons mentioned; but the Mormon Church may never see the end of the denial of polygamy. It requires no profound study of human nature to comprehend to what that principle may extend. If once admitted to be justifiable, how frequently and to what other ends may it not be used? It is indeed a dangerous doctrine.

As early as 1835, when the revelations given through Joseph Smith were compiled and published, under the title of "The Book of Doctrine and Covenants," the opportunity was seized to assure the world in an article upon "Marriage," in the Appendix of that book, that the Saints were monogamic and pure. That "Book of Covenants" was published by Joseph Smith, and contains the following passages:

"Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy; we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

After relating the form of marriage ceremony to be used in the Church, the person officiating is to address the parties about to be united:

"You both mutually agree to be each other's companion, husband and wife, observing the legal rights belonging to this condition; that is, keeping yourselves wholly for each other, and from all others during your lives."

This very definite language was well calculated to silence those who "reproached" the Church, and to assure at least its lay members that there was no foundation for the charges against their leaders, of either "fornication or polygamy" as a principle of faith. Sincerely believing that there was neither a quibble in language, nor double meaning in the manner of its expression, the missionaries cited it in sermons and published it from the press in every country where Mormonism was taught. Unfortunately it is now very clearly evident that those very passages upon marriage were written purposely for the deception of the public.

From the light thrown upon the writing of this Appendix by Brigham Young—in a sermon delivered in Logan, Utah, five years ago, and which the Author listened to—it is now easy to see that the article upon marriage was published to deceive. Brigham on that occasion made the damaging avowal that the Appendix was written by Oliver Cowdery against Joseph's wishes, and was permitted to be published only after Cowdery's incessant teasing and Joseph's warning to him of the trouble which his course would create.^[1]

According to this confession, Cowdery would seem to have had either a glimpse of polygamy at that early day, or that he was, at the very moment of receiving revelations, a profligate in morals, for he insisted, Brigham says, upon adding to his marital relations a young woman familiar with his family, and did hold the relation of husband to her. To silence the clamour and surmising that arose over this "second wife," he wrote that Appendix; and, as will be seen hereafter, it has been used by the apostles in the Mormon Church for many years—and that, too, after they well knew that its use was a direct deception and falsehood.

Throwing the responsibility of the Appendix on to Cowdery seemed to Brigham better than no defence at all, but it is certainly a very damaging confession. It places the greatest witness that the "Divinity of Mormonism" ever claimed to have, in a most unenviable position, and it opens up a budget that is exceedingly suggestive. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery must as early as the first year of the Church have contemplated the introduction of polygamy at some time in the future, or Cowdery could not well have become a "practical polygamist," and still have maintained fellowship with Joseph as he did, if there were any standard of morality in the Church.

The reader in re-perusing these short extracts from Cowdery's pen will now perceive with greater force the double deceitfulness of their wording when it is observed that "crime" is only attached to the word fornication, but not to polygamy—"the crime of fornication, and polygamy." The Mormon apologist claims that the expression being "crime," and not "crimes," the condemnation is not attached to polygamy, but only to fornication. Grammatically, the apology is good; morally, it is very bad—a pious fraud, corrupting and degrading.

The "witness," Cowdery, is further interesting.—"We declare," says he, "that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband." The "but" is here cleverly put in. He designed to deceive under the guise of fairness. "One man should have one wife" (at least "one," is the after interpretation), and as many more as he should find it convenient to get, take, or acknowledge; and "the woman but one husband." She, of course, was to be the monogamist of the family.

As in every experience of falsehood, this doubly-deceitful Appendix has wrought the greater wrong the more it was believed and the longer it has lived. Nearly twenty years after it was first published, the apostle John Taylor, in a public discussion at Boulogne-sur-mer, in France, in 1850, made use of it to answer the charge brought against the Mormons of practising polygamy then. When pressed on the subject, elder Taylor answered:

"We are accused here of polygamy and actions the most indelicate, obscene, and disgusting, such as none but a corrupt and depraved heart could have contrived. These things were too outrageous to admit of belief; therefore leaving the sisters of the 'white veil,' the 'black veil,' and all the other 'veils' with those gentlemen to dispose of, together with their authors, as they think best, I shall content myself with reading our views of chastity and marriage, from a work published by us containing some of our articles of faith, 'Doctrine and Covenants,' page 330."^[2]

Elder Taylor read the entire chapter upon marriage, from which the foregoing passages from the pen of Cowdery have been cited, and he undoubtedly satisfied the audience that the Mormon Church had been vilely slandered by the accusation of polygamy. At the very time that "brother Taylor" read these pages in Boulogne-sur-mer, he had himself, living in Salt Lake City, five wives; one of his two companions who likewise testified during the discussion, had also two wives there; and the other companion had likewise two wives in the persons of a mother and her own daughter! In less than eighteen months after that discussion the revelation on polygamy was publicly proclaimed.

Whatever value may have been placed upon this momentary triumph in France, the victory was soon seen to be dearly purchased in England. The native elders in Britain waxed so bold in the monogamic argument after the Boulogne discussion, that they raised an almost impregnable barrier against the polygamy that was soon to be introduced. What was temporarily gained in France was a thousand times permanently lost in Britain.

That an institution so repugnant to the spirit of the age, so much at war with the natural instincts of woman, could be accepted by disciples of the Prophet's own converting, already believing in monogamy, and that also confirmed by his own teaching, must be inexplicable to all outside of Mormonism. Were the personal testimony not so abundant that Joseph Smith both taught and practiced polygamy, "or," as a Mormon lady who knew him well once said, "practiced something else," there would be good grounds for believing that the foregoing revelation was not of his authorship—it is so inharmonious with his own preceding revelations and so distinctly condemned by his own translated Book of Mormon.

The following passages from these Mormon Church books are exceedingly forcible:

"And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices; such as, like unto David of old, desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon his son."—Book of Mormon, p. 115.

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"And were it not that I must speak unto you concerning a grosser crime, my heart would rejoice exceedingly because of you. But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For, behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord."

"Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise me up a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I, the Lord, will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old (i. e., David and Solomon). Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: for there shall not any man among you have, save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none."—Book of Mormon, p. 118.

To this the Mormon polygamist answers:

"Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes. For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people, otherwise they shall hearken unto these things."—Page 118.

In a revelation given February, 1831, the Prophet was very explicit in commanding monogamy:

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her, and none else."—Book of Covenants, p. 124.

A month later a revelation given to Sidney Rigdon, Parley P. Pratt, and Lemon Copley, in which occurs the following passage:

"Marriage is ordained of God unto man; wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh."—Book of Covenants, p. 218.

It is not a little singular that the most forcible arguments that have yet been adduced against Mormon polygamy are those furnished by the pens of the three sons of Joseph Smith.

The name of the eldest son of the Prophet is found at the head of a "Memorial to Congress," protesting against Brigham Young's Church being regarded as the true "Latter-Day" Church founded by his father—principally on account of polygamy. In that memorial the following points are given:

"We, your memorialists, would therefore submit for the consideration of Congress, in its action on the Utah question, and in its legislation on the question of the right of Congress to interfere with polygamy, as being a part of the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

1. "That the law of the Church, as found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Covenants, accepted by the polygamists themselves, expressly forbids to one man more than one living wife.
2. "That the law contained in these books is the Constitution of the Church; that no law can obtain in the Church in contravention thereof; and that therefore the pretended revelation on polygamy is illegal and of no force.
3. "That in the remonstrance presented to Congress by the polygamists of Utah, dated March 31, 1870, the non-publication of this pretended revelation till the year 1852, is admitted in the following language:
   "Eighteen years ago, and ten years before the passage of the Anti-Polygamy Act of 1862, one of our leading men, elder Orson Pratt, was expressly deputed and sent to Washington to publish and lecture on the principles of plural marriage as practiced by us. . . . For ten years before the passage of the act of 1862, the principle was widely preached throughout the Union and the world, and was universally known and recognized as a principle of our holy faith.'
4. "That the plea of polygamy not being at variance with the law of the land, because not expressly in violation of any law on the statute-book of the Territory of Utah, is not admissible for this reason: The polygamic revelation claims to have been given in 1843, when the Church as a body was in Illinois, in which State bigamy or polygamy was then, as now, a crime.
5. "That polygamy, being a crime against the law of the State of Illinois, could not have been authorized by revelation from Him who, polygamists themselves affirm, gave the revelation found in 'Book of Covenants,' Sec. 58, par. 5, which declares: 'Let no man break the law of the land; for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land; wherefore be subject to the powers that be.'—(Old Edition, Sec. 18.)
6. "That the pretended revelation on polygamy was not published till 1852, is strong presumptive evidence that it was not in existence; but, even if it were, it would still be of no force in the Church, as it contravenes revelations previously given to and accepted by the Church, and is, therefore, precluded from becoming a Church tenet, by that clause of the Church law before quoted, which declares: 'Neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this Church contrary to the Church covenants.'"

This statement of the sons of Joseph is lucid and forcible to the rationally thinking portion of the Mormon Church. But while the force of the sons' argument is acknowledged, the teaching and practice of the father silence everything. When he secretly taught polygamy to be a divine institution, he was right, according to the ideas of the Saints: when he publicly denied it within the same hour, he was equally right in their estimation. Stripping this period of Mormonism of all the verbiage of the Tabernacle, banishing that faith which accepts all things, and looking at the facts of its history, Mormonism was at this time a fearful tumult of contradiction and very doubtful morality.^[3]

One of the highest dignitaries of the Mormon Church at that period, William Law, the principal counsellor of Joseph, writing to the Author, November 24, 1871, says:

"I have but a faint recollection of the certificate you speak of, signed by a number of ladies; but I presume that most of them stated the truth, as they knew of no doctrine of the kind at that time, for it was denied most positively by Joseph and Hyrum, at even a later date. In 1842 I had not heard of such teaching. I believe now that John C. Bennett did know it, for he at that time was more in the secret confidence of Joseph than perhaps any other man in the city. Bennett was a tool of Joseph for a time, but for some cause which I never knew, Joseph cast him off. Perhaps there was jealousy in the matter.

"I think it was in 1843 that I first knew of the 'plurality doctrine.' I believe, however, it existed possibly as early as 1840. A great many, like myself, were considered not strong enough in the faith to swallow such 'strong meat;' so we were fed on milk, hoping that we should get our strength after a time, and be able to appreciate the good gifts of heaven (or hell).

"I think Joseph's sons knew that their father taught and practiced the 'spiritual-wife' doctrine. Their mother knew all about it, and, I believe, opposed it at first. But her antagonism, or the opposition of others, availed nothing. I begged of Joseph, and pled with him, as a man might plead for the life of his best friend, to stop all these evils, and save the Church from ruin; but he seemed determined to rush on to utter destruction, and carry all with him that he could; and thus he met his doom."

In the Times and Seasons, Vol. IV., p. 143, March 15th, 1843, appears the following:

"We are charged with advocating a plurality of wives, and common property. Now this is as false as the many other ridiculous charges which are brought against us. No sect has a greater reverence for the laws of matrimony or the rights of private property; and we do what others do not, we practice what we preach."

Four months after this date the revelation was given, and on February 1st of the following year, it is denied again, and an elder is excommunicated for teaching the "false and corrupt doctrine:"^[4]

"As we have lately been credibly informed that an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, by the name of Hyrum Brown, has been preaching polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines, in the county of Lapeer, State of Michigan, this is to notify him, and the Church in general, that he has been cut off from the Church for his iniquity; and he is further notified to appear at the special conference on the 6th of April next, to make answer to these charges.

"(Signed) Joseph Smith, and Hyrum Smith,

"Presidents of said Church."

A little more than three months before his death, Hyrum published the following letter:

Nauvoo, March 8, 1844.

"To the brethren of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, living on China Creek, in Hancock county, Greeting: Whereas Brother. Richard Hewett has called on me to-day to know my views concerning some doctrines that are preached in your place, and states to me that some of your elders say, that a man having a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he pleases, and that doctrine is taught here, I say unto you, that that man teaches false doctrine, for there is no such doctrine taught here, neither is there any such thing practiced here."^[5]

Five months after the death of the Prophet and Patriarch, there was published, in the Times and Seasons, a letter from "an Old Man in Israel," in which the following paragraph occurs:

———"The laws of the land and the rules of the Church do not allow any man to have any more than one wife alive at once; but if any man's wife die, he has a right to marry another, and to be sealed to both for eternity—to the living and the dead! There is no law of God or man against it. This is all the spiritual-wife system that ever was tolerated in the Church, and they know it."

There was no parade of this polygamic revelation to the Church in Joseph's lifetime, but its purport was conveyed to a few valiant men and some excellent women, who were deemed worthy to be entrusted with the secret, and though it might be unjust to charge Joseph with seeing thus far and so planning, it was the most certain way of securing the introduction of polygamy among the people. It did a better work for "the cause" in secret than it would have done by public proclamation; especially as bigamy was punishable by statute in Illinois; and there is such a luxury in secretly defying the laws of men when the believers are persuaded that they do so by the commandment of God.

The favoured few could not do less than honour "the Lord" by a return of the confidence which he had been pleased to show them. Thus, with the bewildering credulity of a secret revelation, and the defiance of all earthly power, the intimate friends of Joseph Smith were "sealed up unto eternal life," and became peers with Abraham and all the patriarchs.

To doubt a revelation through Joseph was to entertain the suspicion that he was a "fallen prophet;" and an immediate issue between the teacher and the taught was inevitable. Some bolder spirits dared to think and question his revelations, but few indeed among them have had the courage to openly oppose them. Joseph was "the servant of the Lord;" he was accountable to no one on earth. When his teaching was inharmonious with the age, that was nothing—the world was wrapt in midnight darkness: when it came in contact with his own preceding revelations, the ready answer was—"to babes is given milk, to men and women strong meats." The transition, therefore, from monogamy to polygamy in the Mormon Church was only a question as to the submission and credulity of the disciples.

Had this revelation been presented to the Mormons with the "first principles" taught by the elders, not one in ten thousand among them would have accepted it as an emanation from Jesus Christ. But educated by their priesthood to regard all questioning of a revelation through the Prophet as the subtile working of Satanic influence to darken the mind and to mislead the disciple into rebellion, and with the terrible consequences of "apostacy" pictured to them and ever present in their thoughts, the Mormons could do no other than try to believe the doctrine of polygamy. But even under these favourable predispositions, the great majority of both men and women have fought against it, and its acceptance at all has been a terrible trial of faith and a hazardous chancing of the future.

When it was first published, the British mission was in the highest prosperity; the elders were travelling all over that island, meeting with great success; calls for preaching were everywhere heard, and large numbers were being baptized into the new faith. The Utah elders then in England, and a few only of the native elders, knew some little time before, as one of them rather coarsely expressed it in a council of the Priesthood in London, that "the cat was soon to be let out of the bag." The Millennial Star, the organ of the Church, had been for some months preparing the way for its début by the weekly publication of extracts from a work on "Marriage among the Jews;" but almost the entire mass of the European elders, and the "Saints" there, had no knowledge of this revelation, and were constantly defending the cause in public against the charge of polygamy in Utah.

On the 1st of January, 1853, it was published in the Star. It fell like a thunderbolt upon the Saints, and fearfully shattered the mission. The British elders, who in their ignorance had been denying polygamy, and stigmatizing their opponents as calumniators, up to the very day of its publication, were confounded and paralyzed, and from that time to the present the avenues of preaching have closed, one after another, and the mission that was once the glory of the Mormon Church has withered and shrivelled into comparative insignificance.

The outside world misjudges the Mormon people when it imagines that polygamy was ever a favourite doctrine. Doubtless to some few it was a pleasant revelation; but it was not so to the mass of the people, for they resisted it until they were compelled to yield their opposition, or else abandon the Church in which they had faith.

The statistical reports of the mission in the British Islands—June 30th, 1853—show that the enormous number of seventeen hundred and seventy-six persons were excommunicated there during the first six months of the preaching of polygamy.

The entire Church then numbered, men, women, and children over eight years of age, 30,690. There were forty "seventies," and eight "high-priests," from Utah, in Britain at that time, carrying with them a powerful personal influence to help the Saints to tide over the introduction of this doctrine. These Utah missionaries were aided by a native priesthood of 2,578 elders, 1,854 priests, 1,416 teachers, 834 deacons; and yet no less than 1,776 recusants were excommunicated. That tells its own tale.

That all these persons withdrew from the fellowship of the Mormon Church on account of polygamy would be an unfair inference. Still, doubtless, polygamy was the great contributing cause of apostacy then, and more persons have left the Mormon communion on account of polygamy and Brigham's favourite deity—Adam (which he first preached in October of the same year), than all else put together.

Few of the Mormon women have ever accepted polygamy from the assent of their judgments. They have first been led by their teachers to consider the doctrine true, and afterwards have been afraid to question it. Their fears have counselled submission. Many of them have never been able to give it a careful and deliberate reading. Some have probably never read it at all. When first placed in their hands it was, as can readily be conceived, received under the excitement and irritation of unlooked-for and unwelcome news, and hurriedly read to see what it did contain, then cast aside, in a burst of grief, and seldom if ever taken up again.

It is to be regretted that the Mormon women (and their husbands, too) have not read it more; for the more frequently it is perused, and the horrors it threatens are faced, the more satisfied must they become that the charge of its authorship to Jesus Christ is an atrocious libel upon His name, or else the record of His life has been greatly misunderstood by the world.

From a common-sense standpoint the "revelation" is suggestive a thousand times more of Moses than of Christ. Had it been addressed by the former to the Israelites in their Egyptian bondage, in the wilderness where they, as children, were terrified and alarmed by the thunders of Mount Sinai, there might be some consistency in the oft-repeated announcement of authoritative teaching. In that one revelation—

• There are ten times—"Saith the Lord;"
• Eight times—"I am the Lord thy God;"
• Six times—" Saith the Lord your God;"
• Once each—"Jesus Christ, I am He;" "I, the Lord thy God;" "I, the Lord, am thy God;"
• And, finally concluding with—"I am Alpha and Omega."

It is astonishing what amount of submission and credulity can be developed when the mind is properly worked up with devotional feeling and is awe-stricken by threats of damnation. Not inaptly or without logical force has Joseph Smith been designated the Mohammed of America. Between the prophet of Arabia and the prophet of Nauvoo (each claiming divine, prophetic powers) there is a strong family resemblance and a more than singular coincidence of experience.

1. Brigham is peculiarly unctuous in confessing other men's sins to the public, but his own are never mentioned. It would have been equally proper for him on this occasion to have explained why he, for nearly a quarter of a century, had preserved that falsehood in the "Book of Covenants," notwithstanding the opportunities he had of removing it in the several editions of the book that have been published under his Presidency.
2. "Public Discussion," p. 8.
3. The evidence is so overwhelming that Joseph Smith introduced polygamy into the Mormon Church, that the addition of more testimony seems superfluous; but if more were necessary, the distinct mention of polygamy in Governor Ford's "History of Illinois" [pp. 322 and 327], written only a few years after the assassination, clearly demonstrates that polygamy did not originate, as it is asserted, with Brigham Young after he left Illinois.
   It is very probable that before long "the Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints," over which Joseph Smith, junior, presides, will drop the discussion of polygamy, and tacitly, if not explicitly, admit that the elder Joseph went astray in affairs of love. Wm. Marks, counsellor to Joseph Smith, the son, knows full well that Joseph Smith, the father, was a polygamist. It is said that Joseph confessed to Marks, only a few days before his death, that polygamy was an error, authorized him to preach against it, and intimated that he himself would make confession of the error, and forbid its further practice. This he probably would have done had he lived.
4. Times and Seasons, Vol. V., p. 423.
5. Ibid., p. 474.