The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?

by Orson Pratt; George Q. Cannon; John Philip Newman; George Albert Smith

Dr. J. F. NEWMAN Said:

Respected Umpires, and Ladies and Gentlemen:

I had heard, prior to my coming to your city, that my distinguished opponent was eminent in mathematics, and certainly his display to-day confirms that reputation. Unfortunately, however, he is incorrect in his statements. First, he assumes that the slaying of all the male children of the Hebrews was continued through eighty years; but he has failed to produce the proof. To do this was his starting point. He assumes it; where is the proof, either in the Bible or in Josephus? And until he can prove that the destruction of the male children went on for eighty years, I say this argument has no more foundation than a vision. Then he makes another blunder: the 303,550, the number of men above twenty years of age, mentioned in this case, were men to go to war; they were not the total population of the Jewish nation, and yet my mathematical friend stands up here to-day and declares that the whole male population above twenty years of age consisted of 303,550, whereas it is a fact that this number did not include all the males.

Then again the 22,273 first-born do not represent the number of families in Israel at that time, for many of the first-born were dead. These are the blunders that the gentleman has made to-day, and I challenge him to produce the contrary and prove that he is not guilty of these numerical blunders. Then he denies the assertion made yesterday that there could not be brought forward more than one or two instances of polygamy in the history of Israel from the time the Hebrews left Egypt to the time they entered Canaan. Has he disproved that? He has attempted to prove it by a mathematical problem, which problem is based on error: his premises are wrong, therefore his conclusions are false. Why didn't he turn to King James' translation? I will help him to one polygamist, that is Caleb. Why didn't he start with old Caleb and go down and give us name after name and date after date of the polygamists recorded in the history of the Jews while they were in the wilderness? Ladies and gentlemen, he had none to give, and therefore the assertion made yesterday is true, that during the sojourn of the children of Israel in the wilderness there is but one instance of polygamy recorded.

Now we come to the law that I laid down yesterday—"Neither shalt thou take one wife to another." I reaffirm that the translation in the margin is perfect to a word. He labors to show that God does not mean what He says. That the phrase "one wife to another," may be equally rendered one woman to another, or one wife to her sister. The very same phrase is used in the other seven passages named by Dr. Dwight. For example, Exodus xxvi, 3, Ezekiel i, 9, etc. He admits the translation in these passages to be correct. If it is correct in these passages, why is it not correct in the other? His very admission knocks to pieces his argument. Why then does he labor to create the impression that the Hebrew ishau means woman, or wife? What is the object of the travail of his soul? The word ahoot, he contends, means sister; but sister itself, is a word which means a specific relation, and a generic relation. Every woman is sister to every other woman, and I challenge the gentleman to meet me on paper at any time, in the newspapers of your city or elsewhere upon the Hebrew of this text. I reaffirm it, reaffirm it in the hearing of this learned gentleman, reaffirm it in the hearing of these Hebraists, that as it is said in the margin, is the true rendering, namely, "neither shalt thou take one wife to another." But supposing that is incorrect, permit me, before I pass on, to remind you of this fact, he refers, I think, in his first speech, to the "margin;" the "margin" was correct then and there, but it is not here. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways; correct when he wants to quote from the "margin," but not when I want to do so. He quoted from the margin, and I followed his illustrious example.

And now, my friends, supposing that the text means just what he says, namely, "neither shalt thou take a wife unto her sister, to vex her;" supposing that is the rendering, and he asserts it is, and he is a Hebraist, I argued and brought the proof yesterday that this law of Moses is not kept by the Mormons; in other words there are men in your very midst who have married sisters. Where was the gentleman's solemn denunciation of the violation of God's law? Why did he not lift his voice and vindicate the Divine law? But not a solitary word of disapproval is uttered! Yesterday he pronounced a curse—"cursed is he that conforms not to the words of this law, to do them." Does not the curse rest upon him and upon his people? I gave him the liberty to choose whether this text condemned polygamy, or whether it condemned a man for marrying two sisters; he must take his choice, the horns of the dilemma are before him. For the sake of saving polygamy he stands up here, in the presence of Almighty God and His holy angels, and before this intelligent congregation he admits that in this church, and with this people, God's holy law is set at defiance. What respect, therefore, can we have for the gentleman's argument, drawn from the teachings of Moses, in support of polygamy?

He refers us to the multiplication of horses. I suppose a king may have one horse or two, there is no special rule; but there is a special rule as to the number of wives. Neither shall the king multiply wives. God, in the beginning, gave the first man one wife, and Christ and Paul sustain that law as binding upon us. And now, supposing that that is not accepted as a law, what then? Why there is no limit to the number of wives, none at all. How many shall a man have? Seven, twenty, fifty, sixty, a hundred? Why, they somewhere quote a passage that if a man forsake his wife he shall have a hundred. Well, he ought to go on forsaking; for if he will forsake a hundred he will have ten thousand; and if he forsake ten thousand he will have so many more in proportion. It is his business to go on forsaking. That is in the Professor's book called the Seer. Such a man would keep the Almighty busy creating women for him.

I regret very much that I have not time to notice all the points which have been brought forward. I desired to do so. I plead for more time; my friends plead for more time; but time was denied us, I am therefore restricted to an hour. Now, I propose to follow out the line of argument which I was pursuing yesterday when my time expired, and I propose to carry out and apply the great law brought forward yesterday—"Neither shall a man take one wife unto another;" and in doing this we call your attention to the fact that in the Bible there are only twenty-five or thirty specially recorded cases of polygamy, all told, out of thousands and millions of people. I say twenty-five or thirty specially recorded cases, which polygamists of our day claim in support of their position. I propose to take up, say half a dozen of the most prominent ones. I divide the period, before the law and after the law. I take up Abraham. It is asserted that he was a polygamist. I deny it. There is no proof that Abraham was guilty of polygamy. What are the facts? When he was called of the Almighty to be the founder of a great nation, a promise was given him that he should have a numerous posterity. At that time he was a monogamist, had but one wife—the noble Sarah. Six years passed and the promise was not fulfilled. Then Sarah, desiring to help the Lord to keep His promise, brought her Egyptian maid Hagar, and offered her as a substitute for herself to Abraham. Mind you, Abraham did not go after Hagar, but Sarah produced her as a substitute. Immediately after the act was performed Sarah discovered her sin and said, "My wrong be upon thee." "I have committed sin, but I did it for thy sake, and therefore the wrong that I have committed is upon thee." Then look at the subsequent facts: by the Divine command this Egyptian girl was sent away from the abode of Abraham by the mutual consent of the husband and the wife; by the Divine command, it is said that she was recognized as the wife of Abraham, but I say you cannot prove it from the Bible; but it is said that she was promised a numerous posterity. It was also foretold that Ishmael should be a wild man—"his hand against every man and every man's hand against him." Did that prediction justify Ishmael in being a robber and a murderer? No, certainly not; neither did the other prediction, that Hagar should have a numerous posterity, justify the action of Abraham in taking her. After she had been sent away by Divine command, God said unto Abraham—"now walk before me and be thou perfect."

These are the facts my friends. I know that some will refer you to Keturah; but this is the fact in regard to her: Abraham lived thirty-eight years after the death of Sarah; the energy miraculously given to Abraham's body for the generation of Isaac was continued after Sarah's death; but to suppose that he took Keturah during Sarah's lifetime is to do violence to his moral character. But it is said he sent away the sons of Keturah with presents during his lifetime, therefore it must have been during the life time of Sarah. He lived thirty-eight years after the death of Sarah, and he sent these sons away eight years before his death, and they were from twenty-five to thirty years old. Then this venerable Patriarch stands forth as a monogamist and not as a polygamist.

Then we come to the case of Jacob. What are the facts in regard to him? Brought up in the sanctity of monogamy, after having robbed his brother of his birth-right, after having lied to his blind old father, he then steals away and goes to Padan-aram and there falls in love with Rachel; but in his bridal bed he finds Rachel's sister Leah. He did not enter polygamy voluntarily but he was imposed upon. As he had taken advantage of the blindness of his father and thereby imposed upon him, so also was he imposed upon by Laban in the darkness of the night. But I hold this to be true that Jacob is nowhere regarded as a saintly man prior to his conversion at the brook Jabbok. After that he appears to us in a saintly character. It is a remarkable fact that Jacob lived 147 years all told, eighty-seven of which he lived before he became a polygamist. He lived twenty-two years in polygamy, he lived forty years after he had abandoned polygamy, so that out of 147 years there were only twenty-two years during which he had any connection with polygamy.

I wish my friend had referred to the case of Moses. In his sermon on celestial marriage he claims that Moses was a polygamist, and he declares that the leprosy that was sent upon Miriam was for her interference with the polygamous marriage of Moses. What are the facts? There is no record of a second marriage. Zipporah is the only name given as the wife of Moses. What, then, is the assertion made? Simply this: It is recorded: and Moses was content to dwell with Jethro. He gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter. Josephus speaks of Jethro having two daughters, and distinctly says that he gave Moses one of them. In Numbers xii and 1st, it is said:

And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

Now it is affirmed that two women are here mentioned, whereas nothing can be more untrue. Zipporah and the Ethiopian woman are one and identical; it is one and the same person called by different names. Let us see: The father of Zipporah was the priest of Midian; and according to the best authorities Midian and Ethiopia are identical terms, and apply to that portion of Arabia where Jethro lived. So the appellation Midian, Ethiopia and Arabia are applied to the Arabian peninsula. See Appleton's American Encyclopedia, volumes 6, 7 and 11. Then Moses, the Jewish law-giver, stands forth as a monogamist, having but one wife. Moses was not a polygamist. Surely the founder of a polygamist nation and the revealer of a polygamist law, as this gentleman claims, should have set an example, and should have had a dozen or a hundred wives. This son of Jochebed; he was a monogamist, and stands forth as being a reproof to polygamists in all generations.

Now we come to Gideon. And what about this man? An angel appeared to him, that is true; but if the practice of polygamy by Gideon is a law to us, then the practice of idolatry by Gideon is also a law to us. If there is silence in the Bible touching the polygamy of Gideon, there is also silence in the Bible touching his idolatry, and if one is sanctioned so also is the other.

I wish my friend had brought up the case of Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. I can prove to a demonstration that Hannah was the first wife of Elkanah; but being barren Elkanah takes another wife. But Hannah, in the anxiety of her heart, pleads to the Almighty, and God honored her motherhood by answering her prayer. It is asked "Is not this a sanction of polygamy?" Nay, a sanction of monogamy, because she was the first wife of Elkanah, and because Elkanah had been guilty of infidelity and married another wife, was that a reason why Hannah should not have her rights from High Heaven, why God Almighty should not answer her prayer? You ask me why did not she pray before. Can you tell me why Isaac did not pray twenty years sooner for his wife, Rebecca, that she might have children? I can not tell and you can not tell, all that I assert is that Hannah was the first wife of Elkanah, and God honored and blessed the beautiful Samuel.

Now we come to David. Why did not my friend bring up David, the great warrior, king and poet, the ruler of Israel? He might have mentioned him, with ten wives all told; he might also have mentioned him as the adulterer, who committed one of the most premeditated, cold-blooded murders on record, simply to cover up his crime of adultery. How often do you hear quoted the words "and I gave thy master's wives into thy bosom!"? Is this an approval of polygamy? If you will read on you will find also that God also promises to give his (David's) wives to another, and that another should lie with them in the sight of the sun. Surely if one is an approval of polygamy the other is an approval of rebellion and incest! David lived to be seventy-five years old. He was twenty-seven years old when he took his first wife Michael, the daughter of Saul. For the next forty years we find him complicated with the evils, crimes and sorrows of polygamy; and the old man, seeing its great sin, thoroughly repented of it and put it away from him, and for the last eight years of his life endeavored to atone, as best he could, for his troubled and guilty experience.

And what of Solomon? He is the greatest polygamist—the possessor of a thousand wives! Had this gentleman told me that Solomon's greatness was predicted, and therefore his polygamic birth was approved, and his polygamic marriage also approbated, I can remind him of the fact that the future greatness of Christ was foretold; but the foretelling of the future greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ was not an approval of the betrayal by Judas and the crucifixion by the Jews. Neither was the mere foretelling of the future greatness of Solomon an approval of the polygamic character of his birth.

I suppose the gentleman on this occasion would have referred to the law of bastardy and have said, if my doctrine is true, then Solomon and others were bastards. I could have wished that he had produced that point. He did quote and declare in this temple, not long since, in reference to the law touching bastardy, that a bastard should be branded with infamy to the tenth generation. But it is plain that he has misunderstood the law respecting bastards, as contained in Deuteronomy xxiii and 2nd. It is known from history that the same signification has not always been attached to this term. We say a bastard is one born out of wedlock, that is monogamous matrimony. In Athens, in the days of Pericles, five centuries before Christ, all were declared bastards by law who were not the children of native Athenians. And we here assert to-day that the gentleman can not bring forward a law from the book of Jewish laws to prove that a child born of a Jew and Jewess, whether married or not, was a bastard. The only child recognized as a bastard by Jewish law is a child born of a Jew and a Pagan woman; therefore the objection falls to the ground, and Solomon and others, who were not to blame for the character of their birth, are exonerated.

The geometrical progression of evil in this system of polygamy is seen in the first three kings, Saul, David and Solomon. Saul had a wife and a concubine—two women; David had ten women, Solomon had a thousand, and it broke the kingdom asunder. God says it was for that very cause. He had multiplied his wives to such an extent, that they had not only led him astray from God into idolatry, but the very costliness of his harem was a burden upon the people too heavy for them to bear. I said the other day that polygamy might do for kings and priests and nabobs, but could not do for poor men; it costs too much and the people are taxed too much to support the harem.

Ah! you bring forward these few cases of polygamy! Name them if you please. Lamech the murderer; Jacob, who deceived his blind old father, and robbed his brother of his birthright; David, who seduced another man's wife and murdered that man by putting him in front of the battle, and old Solomon, who turned to be an idolater. These are some polygamists! Now let me call the roll of honor: There were Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Joseph and Samuel and all the prophets and apostles. You are accustomed to hear, from this sacred place, that all the patriarchs and all the kings and all the prophets were polygamists. I assert to the contrary, and these great and eminent men whom I have just mentioned, belonging to the roll of honor, were monogamists.

Yesterday the gentleman gave me three challenges; he challenged me to show that the New Testament condemned polygamy. I now proceed to do it. I quote Paul's words, 1st Corinthians, 7th chap., 2nd and 4th verses:

Nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

Marriage is a remedy against fornication, and this is the subject of the chapter. This is the opinion of Clark, Henry, Whitby, Langley and others. One great evil prevailed at Corinth—a community of wives, which the apostle here calls fornication. St. Paul strikes at the very root of the evil and commands that every man have his own wife and that every woman have her own husband: that is, let every man have his own peculiar, proper and appropriate wife, and the wife her own proper, peculiar and appropriate husband. In this there is mutual appropriation and exclusiveness of right; and this command of Paul agrees with the law of Moses in Leviticus xviii, 18: "Neither shalt thou take one wife unto another," and the two are one statute, clear and unquestionable for monogamy and against polygamy. The apostle teaches the reciprocal duties of husband and wife, and the exclusive right of each. In verse four it is distinctly affirmed that the husband has exclusive power over the body of his wife, as the wife has exclusive power over the body of her husband. It is universally admitted that this passage proves the exclusive right of the husband to the wife, and by parity it also proves the exclusive right of the wife to the husband. These relations are mutual, and if the husband can claim a whole wife, the wife can claim a whole husband. She has just as good a right to a whole husband as he has a right to a whole wife. First Corinthians, 6th chapter, 15th, 16th and 17th verses says:

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

What! know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two (saith he) shall be one flesh.

But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

This passage is brought against the idea, but what are the facts? It is objected that if one flesh is conclusively expressive of wedlock, that St. Paul affirms that sexual commerce with a harlot is marriage. For argument's sake I accept the assertion. The passage in question is: "What! know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body?" "For two," says he, "shall be one flesh, but he which is joined to the Lord is one spirit." Now look at the facts of the position, showing the true relation of the believer to Christ. It is illustrated under the figure of marriage. The design of this figure is to show that the believer becomes one with Christ; and the apostle further explains, in reproof of the Corinthians mingling with idolaters and adulterers, that by this mingling they become assimilated and identical. He brings up an illustration that if a man is married to a harlot, not simply joined, but cohabit with or married to a harlot, he becomes identical with her; in other words, one flesh.

There is a passage which declares that "a bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife." It is asserted that he must have one wife anyhow and as many more as he pleases. It is supposed that this very caution indicates the prevalence of polygamy in that day; but no proof can be brought to bear that polygamy prevailed extensively at that time; on the contrary I am prepared to prove that polygamists were not admitted into the Christian Church, for Paul lays down the positive command: "Let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband;" so that if you say the former applies to the priest, and the latter, applies to the layman, what is good for the priest is good for the layman, and vice versa.

How often is it asserted here that monogamy has come from the Greeks and Romans. But look at the palpable contradiction in the assertion. It is asserted that monogamy came from those nations; it is also asserted that polygamy was universal at the time of Christ and his apostles. If monogamy came from the Greeks and Romans, then polygamy could not have been universally prevalent, for it is admitted that at that time the Romans held universal sway, and wherever they held sway their laws prevailed, hence the two statements cannot be reconciled.

Now we come to the words of the Savior, Matthew v, 27 and 28; and xix, 8 and 9, and Mark x, and 11 and 12. At that time, when the Savior was discoursing with the Pharisees, as recorded in Matthew xix, the Jews were divided as to the interpretation of the law of Moses touching divorce: "when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it comes to pass that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement." Upon the meaning of the word uncleanness, the Jews differed: some agreed with the school of Rabbi Hillel: that a man might dismiss his wife for the slightest offence, or for no offence at all, if he found another woman that pleased him better; but the school of Rabbi Shammai held that the term uncleanness means moral delinquency. The Pharisees came to Christ, hoping to involve him in this controversy; He declined, but took advantage of the opportunity to give them a discourse on marriage, and in doing so, he refers to the original institution, saying "have ye not read that in the beginning God made them male and female?" Thus He brings out the great law of monogamy. Grant that the allusion is incidental, nevertheless, it is all-important as falling from the lips of the Great Master.

I was challenged to show that polygamy is adultery. The gentleman challenged me, and I will now proceed to prove it. As adultery is distinguished in Scripture from whoredom and fornication, it is proper to ascertain the exact meaning of the words as used by the sacred writers. The word translated whoredom is from the Hebrew verb Zanah and the Greek pornica, and means pollution, defilement, lewdness, prostitution and, in common parlance, whoredom, the prostitution of the body for gain. The word translated fornication is from the same Hebrew verb, and in general, signifies criminal, sexual intercourse without the formalities of marriage. Adultery is from the Hebrew word Naaph and the Greek word Moicheia, and is the criminal intercourse of a married woman with another man than her husband, or of a married man with any other woman than his wife. This is indicated by the philological significance of the term adulterate, compounded of two words meaning to another, as the addition of pure and impure liquors, or of an alloy with pure metal. Adulterer is from the Hebrew Naaph and the Greek Moichos, which mean as above.

The material question to be settled is, Is the Hebrew word Naaph and the Greek word Moichos or Moicheia confined to the criminal sexual intercourse between a man, married or unmarried, with a married woman? This is the theory of the Mormon polygamists; but I join issue with them and assert that the Scriptures teach that adultery is committed by a married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman other than his wife, whether said woman is married or unmarried. It is conceded that he is an adulterer who has carnal connection with a woman married or betrothed. Thus far we agree.

Now can it be proved that the sin of adultery is committed by a married man having carnal connection with a woman neither married nor betrothed! To prove this point I argue:

First, that the Hebrew word Naaph, translated in the seventh commandment, adultery, does include all criminal sexual intercourse. It is a generic term and the whole includes the parts. It is like the word kill in the sixth commandment, which includes all those passions and emotions of the human soul which lead to murder, such as jealousy, envy, malice, hatred, revenge. So this word Naaph includes whoredom, fornication, adultery, and even salacial lust. Matthew v, 27, 29.

Second. The terms adultery and fornication are used interchangeably by our Lord, and mean the same thing. A married woman copulating with a man other than her husband is admitted to be adultery, but the highest authority we can bring forward calls the act fornication. Matthew v, 3, 2. Romans vii, 2, 3. 1st Corinthians vii, 1, 4.

Third. The carnal connection of a man with an unmarried woman is positively declared to be adultery in God's holy word. It is so recorded in Job xxiv, from the 15th to the 21st verse; and in Isaiah lvii and 3rd it is taught that the adulterer commits his sin with the whore. Therefore I conclude that the term Naaph, as used in the seventh commandment, comprehends all those modifications of that crime, down to the salacial lust that a man may feel in his soul for a woman.

But it may be asked: If this is so, why then, does the Mosiac law mention a married woman? We deny that such a distinction is made. We do admit, however, that special penalties were pronounced on such an action with a married woman, but for special reasons. What were they? To preserve the genealogy, parentage and birth of Christ from interruption and confusion, which were in imminent danger when intercourse with a married woman was had by a man other than her husband. And no such danger could arise from the intercourse with a married man with an unmarried woman. That law was temporary, and was abolished and passed away when Christ came. Under the Jewish dispensation he that cohabited with a woman other than his wife was responsible to God for the violation of the seventh commandment; the woman was also responsible to God for the violation of the seventh commandment and this special law. But here you say if this be true, then some great men in Bible times were guilty of the violation of the seventh commandment. I say they were; but they were not all polygamists: that I have demonstrated to you to-day. But take the facts: Abraham, when convinced of his sin, put away Hagar; Jacob lived several years out of the state of polygamy; David put away all his wives eight years before he died; and if there is no account that Solomon put away his, neither is there the assurance that he abandoned his idolatry.

This then, my friend, is the argument; and as a Christian minister, desiring only your good, I proclaim the fact that polygamy is adultery. I do it in all kindness, but I assert it as a doctrine taught in the Bible.

I am challenged again to prove that polygamy is no prevention of prostitution. It has been affirmed time and time again, not only in this discussion, but in the written works of these distinguished gentlemen around me, that in monogamic countries prostitution, or what is known as the social evil, is almost universally prevalent. I perceive that I have not time to follow out this in arguments; but I am prepared to prove, and I will prove it in your daily papers, that prostitution is as old as authentic history; that prostitution has been and is to-day more prevalent in polygamic countries than in monogamic countries. I can prove that the figures representing prostitution in monogamic countries are all overdrawn. They are overdrawn in regard to my native city, that the gentleman brought up, New York, and of the million and over of population he can not find six thousand recorded prostitutes. I can go, for instance, to St. Louis, where they have just taken the census of the prostitutes of that city, and with a population of three hundred thousand, there are but 650 courtesans. You may go through the length and breadth of this land, and in villages containing from one thousand to ten thousand inhabitants, you cannot find a house of prostitution. The truth is, my friends, they would not allow it for a moment. Those men who assert that our monogamous country is full of prostitutes put forth a slander upon our country.

Our distinguished friend referred to religious liberty, and claimed that he had a right under the Federal Constitution to enjoy religious liberty and to practise polygamy. I am proud as he is that we have religious liberty here. I rejoice that a man can worship God after his own heart; but I affirm that the law of limitation is no less applicable to religious liberty than it is to the revolution of the heavenly bodies. The law of limitation is as universal as creation, and religious liberty must be practised within the bounds of decency, and the wellbeing of society; and civil authority may extend or restrict this religious liberty within due bounds. Why, the Hindoo mother may come here with her Shasta—with her Bible—and she may throw her babe into your river or lake, and the civil authorities, according to your theory, could not interpose and say to that mother, "You shall not do it." That is the theory. You say it is murder, I say it is not. I say the act is stripped of the attributes of murder; it is a religious act. She turns to her bible or Shasta, and says: "I am commanded to do this by my bible." What will you do? You will turn away from the Shasta and say, "The interests of society demand that you shall not murder that child." So civil government has the right to legislate in regard to marriage, and restrict the number of wives to one, according to God's law. But I am not an advocate of stringent legislation. I agree with my friend, that the law should not incarcerate men, women and children in dungeons! No, my friends, if I can say a word to induce humane and kind legislation toward the people of Utah I shall do it, and do it most gladly. But I assert this principle, that civil government has the right to limit religious liberty within due bounds.

There was another point that I desired to touch upon, and that is as to the longevity of nations. We are told repeatedly here, in printed works, that monogamic nations are short-lived, and that polygamic nations are long-lived. I am prepared to go back to the days of Nimrod, come down to the days of Ninus Sardanapalus, and down to the days of Cyrus the Great, and all through those ancient polygamic nations, and show that they were short-lived; while on the other hand I am prepared to prove that Greece and Rome outlived the longest-lived polygamic nations of the past. Greece, from the days of Homer down to the third century of the Christian era; and Rome at from seven hundred and fifty years before the coming of Christ down to the dissolution of the old empire. But that old empire finds a resurrection in the Italians under Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi; and England, Germany and France are all proofs of the longevity of monogamic nations. Babylon is a ruin to-day, and Babylon was polygamic. Egypt, to-day, is a ruin! Her massy piles of ruin bespeak her former glory and her pristine beauty. And the last edition of the polygamic nations—Turkey—is passing away. From the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, from the Danube, and the Jordan and the Nile, the power of Mahommedanism is passing away before the advance of the monogamic nations of the old world. Our own country is just in its youth; but monogamic as it is, it is destined to live on, to outlive the hoary past, to live on in its greatness, in its benificence, in its power; to live on until it has demonstrated all those great problems committed to our trust for human rights, religion, liberty and the advancement of the race.

My friends, these are the arguments in favor of Monogamy; and when they can be overthrown, then it will be time enough for us to receive the system of Polygamy as it is taught here. But until that great law that we have quoted can be proved to be not a law: until it can be proved that there is no distinction between law and practice; until it can be proved that there is a positive command for polygamy; until it can be proved that Christ did not refer to the original marriage; until it can be proved that Paul does not demand that every man shall have his own wife and every woman her own husband; until it can be proved that polygamy is a prevention of prostitution; until it can be proved that monogamic nations are not as long-lived as polygamous nations; until it can be proved that monogamy is not in harmony with civil liberty; until all these points can be demonstrated beyond a doubt; until then, we can't give up this grand idea that God's law condemns polygamy, and that God's law commends monogamy; that the highest interests of man, that the dearest interests of the rising generation, that all that binds us to earth and points us to heaven are not subserved and promoted under the monogamic system. All these great interests demand the practice of monogamy in marriage—one man and one wife. Then indeed shall be realized the picture portrayed in Scripture of the happy family—the family where the wife is one and the husband one, and the two are equivalent; then, when father and mother, centered in the family, shall bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—when the husband provides for his family—and it is said that the man who does not is worse than an infidel—then indeed monogamy stands forth as a grand Bible doctrine.

DISCOURSE
ON
CELESTIAL MARRIAGE,

DELIVERED BY

ELDER ORSON PRATT,

IN THE

NEW TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 7th, 1869.

It was announced at the close of the forenoon meeting that I would address the congregation this afternoon upon the subject of Celestial Marriage; I do so with the greatest pleasure.

In the first place, let us enquire whether it is lawful and right, according to the Constitution of our country, to examine and practise this Bible doctrine? Our fathers, who framed the Constitution of our country, devised it so as to give freedom of religious worship of the Almighty God; so that all people under our Government should have the inalienable right—a right by virtue of the Constitution—to believe in any Bible principle which the Almighty has revealed in any age of the world to the human family. I do not think however that our forefathers, in framing that instrument, intended to embrace all the religions of the world. I mean the idolatrous and pagan religions. They say nothing about those religions in the Constitution; but they give the express privilege in that instrument to all people dwelling under this Government and under the institutions of our country, to believe in all things which the Almighty has revealed to the human family. There is no restriction or limitation, so far as Bible religion is concerned, on any principle or form of religion believed to have emanated from the Almighty; but yet they would not admit idolatrous nations to come here and practise their religion, because it is not included in the Bible; it is not the religion of the Almighty. Those people worship idols, the work of their own hands; they have instituted rights and ceremonies pertaining to those idols, in the observance of which they, no doubt, suppose they are worshipping correctly and sincerely, yet some of them are of the most revolting and barbarous character. Such, for instance, as the offering up of a widow on a funeral pile, as a burnt sacrifice, in order to follow her husband into the eternal worlds. That is no part of the religion mentioned in the Constitution of our country, it is no part of the religion of Almighty God.

But confining ourselves within the limits of the Constitution, and coming back to the religion of the Bible, we have the privilege to believe in the Patriarchal, in the Mosaic, or in the Christian order of things; for the God of the patriarchs, and the God of Moses is also the Christians' God.

It is true that many laws were given, under the Patriarchal or Mosaic dispensations, against certain crimes, the penalties for violating which, religious bodies, under our Constitution, have not the right to inflict. The Government has reserved, in its own hands, the power, so far as affixing the penalties of certain crimes is concerned.

In ancient times there was a law strictly enforcing the observance of the Sabbath day, and the man or woman who violated that law was subjected to the punishment of death. Ecclesiastical bodies have the right, under our government and Constitution, to observe the Sabbath day, or to disregard it, but they have not the right to inflict corporeal punishment for its non-observance.

The subject proposed to be investigated this afternoon is that of Celestial Marriage, as believed in by the Latter-day Saints, and which they claim is strictly a Bible doctrine and part of the revealed religion of the Almighty. It is well known by all the Latter-day Saints that we have not derived all our knowledge concerning God, heaven, angels, this life and the life to come, entirely from the books of the Bible; yet we believe that all of our religious principles and notions are in accordance with and are sustained by the Bible; consequently, though we believe in new revelation, and believe that God has revealed many things pertaining to our religion, we also believe that He has revealed none that are inconsistent with the worship of Almighty God, a sacred right guaranteed to all religious denominations by the Constitution of our country.

God created man, male and female. He is the author of our existence. He placed us on this creation. He ordained laws to govern us. He gave to man, whom he created, a help-meet—a woman, a wife to be one with him, to be a joy and a comfort to him; and also for another very great and wise purpose—namely, that the human species might be propagated on this creation, that the earth might teem with population according to the decree of God before the foundation of the world; that the intelligent spirits whom He had formed and created, before this world was rolled into existence, might have their probation, might have an existence in fleshly bodies on this planet, and be governed by laws emanating from their Great Creator. In the breast of male and female he established certain qualities and attributes that never will be eradicated—namely love towards each other. Love comes from God. The love which man possesses for the opposite sex came from God. The same God who created the two sexes implanted in the hearts of each love towards the other. What was the object of placing this passion or affection within the hearts of male and female? It was in order to carry out, so far as this world was concerned, His great and eternal purposes pertaining to the future. But He not only did establish this principle in the heart of man and woman, but gave divine laws to regulate them in relation to this passion or affection, that they might be limited and prescribed in the exercise of it towards each other. He therefore ordained the Marriage Institution. The marriage that was instituted in the first place was between two immortal beings, hence it was marriage for eternity in the very first case which we have recorded for an example. Marriage for eternity was the order God instituted on our globe; as early as the Garden of Eden, as early as the day when our first parents were placed in the garden to keep it and till it, they, as two immortal beings, were united in the bonds of the New and Everlasting Covenant. This was before man fell, before the forbidden fruit was eaten, and before the penalty of death was pronounced upon the heads of our first parents and all their posterity, hence, when God gave to Adam his wife Eve, He gave her to him as an immortal wife, and there was no end contemplated of the relation they held to each other as husband and wife.

By and bye, after this marriage had taken place, they transgressed the law of God, and by reason of that transgression the penalty of death came, not only upon them, but also upon all their posterity. Death, in its operations, tore asunder, as it were, these two beings who had hitherto been immortal, and if God had not, before the foundation of the world, provided a plan of redemption, they would perhaps have been torn asunder forever; but inasmuch as a plan of redemption had been provided, by which man could be rescued from the effects of the Fall, Adam and Eve were restored to that condition of union, in respect to immortality, from which they had been separated for a short season of time by death. The Atonement reached after them and brought forth their bodies from the dust, and restored them as husband and wife, to all the privileges that were pronounced upon them before the Fall.

That was eternal marriage; that was lawful marriage ordained by God. That was the divine institution which was revealed and practised in the early period of our globe. How has it been since that day? Mankind have strayed from that order of things, or, at least, they have done so in latter times. We hear nothing among the religious societies of the world which profess to believe in the Bible about this marriage for eternity. It is among the things which are obsolete. Now all marriages are consummated until death only; they do not believe in that great pattern and prototype established in the beginning; hence we never hear of their official characters, whether civil or religious, uniting men and women in the capacity of husband and wife as immortal beings. No, they marry as mortal beings only, and until death does them part.

What is to become of them after death? What will take place among all those nations who have been marrying for centuries for time only? Do both men and women receive a resurrection? Do they come forth with all the various affections, attributes and passions that God gave them in the beginning? Does the male come forth from the grave with all the attributes of a man? Does the female come forth from her grave with all the attributes of a woman? If so, what is their future destiny? Is there no object or purpose in this new creation save to give them life, a state of existence? or is there a more important object in view in the mind of God, in thus creating them anew? Will that principle of love which exists now, and which has existed from the beginning, exist after the resurrection? I mean this sexual love. If that existed before the Fall, and if it has existed since then, will it exist in the eternal worlds after the resurrection? This is a very important question to be decided.

We read in the revelations of God that there are various classes of beings in the eternal worlds. There are some who are kings, priests, and Gods, others that are angels; and also among them are the orders denominated celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. God, however, according to the faith of the Latter-day Saints, has ordained that the highest order and class of beings that should exist in the eternal worlds should exist in the capacity of husbands and wives, and that they alone should have the privilege of propagating their species—intelligent, immortal beings. Now it is wise, no doubt, in the Great Creator to thus limit this great and Heavenly principle to those who have arrived or come to the highest state of exaltation, excellency, wisdom, knowledge, power, glory and faithfulness, to dwell in his presence, that they by this means shall be prepared to bring up their spirit offspring in all pure and holy principles in the eternal worlds, in order that they may be made happy. Consequently he does not entrust this privilege of multiplying spirits with the terrestrial or telestial, or the lower order of beings there, nor with angels. But why not? Because they have not proved themselves worthy of this great privilege. We might reason, of the eternal worlds, as some of the enemies of polygamy reason of this state of existence, and say that there are just as many males as females there, some celestial, some terrestrial and some telestial; and why not have all these paired off, two by two? Because God administers His gifts and His blessings to those who are most faithful, giving them more bountifully to the faithful, and taking away from the unfaithful that with which they had been entrusted, and which they had not improved upon. That is the order of God in the eternal worlds, and if such an order exist there, it may in a degree exist here.

When the sons and daughters of the Most High God come forth in the morning of the resurrection, this principle of love will exist in their bosoms just as it exists here, only intensified according to the increased knowledge and understanding which they possess; hence they will be capacitated to enjoy the relationships of husband and wife, of parents and children a hundred fold degree greater than they could in mortality. We are not capable, while surrounded with the weaknesses of our flesh, to enjoy these eternal principles in the same degree that will then exist. Shall these principles of conjugal and parental love and affection be thwarted in the eternal worlds? Shall they be rooted out and overcome? No, most decidedly not. According to the religious notions of the world these principles will not exist after the resurrection; but our religion teaches the fallacy of such notions. It is true that we read in the New Testament that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. These are the words of our Savior when He was addressing himself to a very wicked class of people, the Sadducees, a portion of the Jewish nation, who rejected Jesus, and the counsel of God against their own souls. They had not attained to the blessings and privileges of their fathers, but had apostatized; and Jesus, in speaking to them, says that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels of God.

I am talking, to-day, to Latter-day Saints; I am not reasoning with unbelievers. If I were, I should appeal more fully to the Old Testament Scriptures to bring in arguments and testimonies to prove the divine authenticity of polygamic marriages. Perhaps I may touch upon this for a few moments, for the benefit of strangers, should there be any in our midst. Let me say, then, that God's people, under every dispensation since the creation of the world, have, generally, been polygamists. I say this for the benefit of strangers. According to the good old book, called the Bible, when God saw proper to call out Abraham from all the heathen nations, and made him a great man in the world, He saw proper, also, to make him a polygamist, and approbated him in taking unto himself more wives than one. Was it wrong in Abraham to do this thing? If it were, when did God reprove him for so doing? When did He ever reproach Jacob for doing the same thing? Who can find the record in the lids of the Bible of God reproving Abraham, as being a sinner, and having committed a crime, in taking to himself two living wives? No such thing is recorded. He was just as much blessed after doing this thing as before, and more so, for God promised blessings upon the issue of Abraham by his second wife the same as that of the first wife, providing he was equally faithful. This was a proviso in every case.

When we come down to Jacob, the Lord permitted him to take four wives. They are so called in holy writ. They are not denominated prostitutes, neither are they called concubines, but they are called wives, legal wives; and to show that God approved of the course of Jacob in taking these wives, He blessed them abundantly, and hearkened to the prayer of the second wife just the same as to the first. Rachel was the second wife of Jacob, and our great mother, for you know that many of the Latter-day Saints by revelation know themselves to be the descendants of Joseph, and he was the son of Rachel, the second wife of Jacob. God in a peculiar manner blessed the posterity of this second wife. Instead of condemning the old patriarch, He ordained that Joseph, the first-born of this second wife, should be considered the first-born of all the twelve tribes, and into his hands was given the double birthright, according to the laws of the ancients. And yet he was the offspring of plurality—of the second wife of Jacob. Of course, if Reuben, who was indeed, the first-born unto Jacob, had conducted himself properly, he might have retained the birthright and the greater inheritance; but he lost that through his transgression, and it was given to a polygamic child, who had the privilege of inheriting the blessing to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills; the great continent of North and South America was conferred upon him. Another proof that God did not disapprove of a man having more wives than one, is to be found in the fact that, Rachel, after she had been a long time barren, prayed to the Lord to give her seed. The Lord hearkened to her cry and granted her prayer; and when she received seed from the Lord by her polygamic husband, she exclaimed—"the Lord hath hearkened unto me and hath answered my prayer." Now do you think the Lord would have done this if He had considered polygamy a crime? Would He have hearkened to the prayer of this woman if Jacob had been living with her in adultery? and he certainly was doing so if the ideas of this generation are correct.

Again, what says the Lord in the days of Moses, under another dispensation? We have seen that in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He approved of polygamy and blessed His servants who practised it, and also their wives and children. Now, let us come down to the days of Moses. We read that, on a certain occasion, the sister of Moses, Miriam, and certain others in the great congregation of Israel, got very jealous. What were they jealous about? About the Ethiopian woman that Moses had taken to wife, in addition to the daughter of Jethro, whom he had taken before in the land of Midian. How dare the great law-giver, after having committed, according to the ideas of the present generation, a great crime, show his face on Mount Sinai when it was clothed with the glory of the God of Israel? But what did the Lord do in the case of Miriam, for finding fault with her brother Moses? Instead of saying "you are right, Miriam, he has committed a great crime, and no matter how much you speak against him," He smote her with a leprosy the very moment she began to complain, and she was considered unclean for a certain number of days. Here the Lord manifested, by the display of a signal judgment, that He disapproved of any one speaking against His servants for taking more wives than one, because it may not happen to suit their notion of things.

I make these remarks and wish to apply them to fault-finders against plural marriages in our day. Are there any Miriams in our congregation to-day, any of those who, professing to belong to the Israel of the latter-days, sometimes find fault with the man of God standing at their head, because he, not only believes in but practises this divine institution of the ancients? If there be such in our midst, I say, remember Miriam the very next time you begin to talk with your neighboring women, or any body else against this holy principle. Remember the awful curse and judgment that fell on the sister of Moses when she did the same thing, and then fear and tremble before God, lest He, in his wrath, may swear that you shall not enjoy the blessings ordained for those who inherit the highest degree of glory.

Let us pass along to another instance under the dispensation of Moses. The Lord says, on a certain occasion, if a man have married two wives, and he should happen to hate one and love the other, is he to be punished—cast out and stoned to death as an adulterer? No; instead of the Lord denouncing him as an adulterer because of having two wives, He gave a commandment regulating the matter so that this principle of hate in the mind of the man towards one of his wives should not control him in the important question of the division of his inheritance among his children, compelling him to give just as much to the son of the hated wife as to the son of the one beloved; and, if the son of the hated woman happened to be the first-born, he should actually inherit the double portion.

Consequently, the Lord approved, not only the two wives, but their posterity also. Now, if the women had not been considered wives by the Lord, their children would have been bastards, and you know that He has said that bastards shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord, until the tenth generation, hence you see there is a great distinction between those whom the Lord calls legitimate or legal, and those who were bastards—begotten in adultery and whoredom. The latter, with their posterity, were shut out of the congregation of the Lord until the tenth generation, while the former were exalted to all the privileges of legitimate birthright.

Again, under that same law and dispensation, we find that the Lord provided for another contingency among the hosts of Israel. In order that the inheritances of the families of Israel might not run into the hands of strangers, the Lord, in the book of Deuteronomy, gives a command that if a man die, leaving a wife, but no issue, his brother shall marry his widow and take possession of the inheritance; and to prevent this inheritance going out of the family a strict command was given that the widow should marry the brother or nearest living kinsman of her deceased husband. The law was in full force at the time of the introduction of Christianity—a great many centuries after it was given. The reasoning of the Sadducees on one occasion when conversing with Jesus proves that the law was then observed. Said they: "There were seven brethren who all took a certain woman, each one taking her in succession after the death of the other," and they inquired of Jesus which of the seven would have her for a wife in the resurrection. The Sadducees, no doubt, used this figure to prove, as they thought, the fallacy of the doctrine of the resurrection, but it also proves that this law, given by the Creator while Israel walked acceptably before Him, was acknowledged by their wicked descendants in the days of the Savior. I merely quote the passage to show that the law was not considered obsolete at that time. A case like this, when six of the brethren had died, leaving the widow without issue, the seventh, whether married or unmarried, must fulfill this law and take the widow to wife, or lay himself liable to a very severe penalty. What was that penalty? According to the testimony of the law of Moses he would be cursed, for Moses says—"cursed be he that doth not all things according as it is written in this book of the law, and let all the people say Amen." There can be no doubt that many men in those days were compelled to be polygamists in the fulfillment of this law, for any man who would not take the childless wife of a deceased brother and marry her, would come under tho tremendous curse recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, and all the people would be obliged to sanction the curse, because he would not obey the law of God and become a polygamist. They were not all congressmen in those days, nor Presidents, nor Presbyterians, nor Methodists, nor Roman Catholics; but they were the people of God, governed by divine law, and were commanded to be polygamists; not merely suffered to be so, but actually commanded to be.

There are some Latter-day Saints who, perhaps, have not searched these things as they ought, hence we occasionally find some who will say that God suffered these things to be. I will go further, and say that He commanded them, and He pronounced a curse, to which all the people had to say amen, if they did not fulfill the commandment.

Coming down to the days of the prophets we find that they were polygamists; also to the days of the kings of Israel, whom God appointed Himself, and approbated and blessed. This was especially the case with one of them, named David, who, the Lord said, was a man after His own heart. David was called when yet a youth, to reign over the whole twelve tribes of Israel; But Saul, the reigning king of Israel, persecuted him, and sought to take away his life. David fled from city to city throughout all the coasts of Judea in order to get beyond the reach of the relentless persecutions of Saul. While thus fleeing, the Lord was with him, hearing his prayers, answering his petitions, giving him line upon line, precept upon precept; permitting him to look into the Urim and Thummin and receive revelations, which enabled him to escape from his enemies.

In addition to all these blessing that God bestowed upon him in his youth, before he was exalted to the throne, He gave him eight wives; and after exalting him to the throne, instead of denouncing him for having many wives, and pronouncing him worthy of fourteen or twenty-one years of imprisonment, the Lord was with His servant David, and, thinking he had not wives enough, He gave to him all the wives of his master Saul, in addition to the eight He had previously given him. Was the Lord to be considered a criminal, and worthy of being tried in a court of justice and sent to prison for thus increasing the polygamic relations of David? No, certainly not; it was in accordance with his own righteous laws, and He was with His servant, David the king, and blessed him. By and by, when David transgressed, not in taking other wives, but in taking the wife of another man, the anger of the Lord was kindled against him and He chastened him and took away all the blessings He had given him. All the wives David had received from the hand of God were taken from him. Why? Because he had committed adultery. Here then is a great distinction between adultery and plurality of wives. One brings honor and blessing to those who engage in it, the other degradation and death.

After David had repented with all his heart of his crime with the wife of Uriah, he, notwithstanding the number of wives he had previously taken, took Bathsheba legally, and by that legal marriage Solomon was born; the child born of her unto David, begotten illegally, being a bastard, displeased the Lord and He struck it with death; but with Solomon, a legal issue from the same woman, the Lord was so pleased that he ordained Solomon and set him on the throne of his father David. This shows the difference between the two classes of posterity, the one begotten illegally, the other in the order of marriage. If Solomon had been a bastard, as this pious generation would have us suppose, instead of being blessed of the Lord and raised to the throne of his father, he would have been banished from the congregation of Israel and his seed after him for ten generations. But, notwithstanding that he was so highly blessed and honored of the Lord, there was room for him to transgress and fall, and in the end he did so. For a long time the Lord blessed Solomon, but eventually he violated that law which the Lord had given forbidding Israel to take wives from the idolatrous nations, and some of these wives succeeded in turning his heart from the Lord and induced him to worship the heathen gods, and the Lord was angry with him and, as it is recorded in the Book of Mormon, considered the acts of Solomon an abomination in His sight.

Let us now come to the record in the Book of Mormon, when the Lord led forth Lehi and Nephi, and Ishmael and his two sons and five daughters out of the land of Jerusalem to the land of America. The males and females were about equal in number: there were Nephi, Sam, Laman and Lemuel, the four sons of Lehi, and Zoram, brought out of Jerusalem. How many daughters of Ishmael were unmarried? Just five. Would if have been just under these circumstances, to ordain plurality among them? No. Why? Because the males and females were equal in number and they were all under the guidance of the Almighty, hence it would have been unjust, and the Lord gave a revelation—the only one on record I believe—in which a command was ever given to any branch of Israel to be confined to the monogamic system. In this case the Lord, through His servant Lehi, gave a command that they should have but one wife. The Lord had a perfect right to vary His commands in this respect according to circumstances, as He did in others, as recorded in the Bible. There we find that the domestic relations were governed according to the mind and will of God, and were varied according to circumstances, as He thought proper.

By and by, after the death of Lehi, some of his posterity began to disregard the strict law that God had given to their father, and took more wives than one, and the Lord put them in mind, through His servant Jacob, one of the sons of Lehi, of this law, and told them that they were transgressing it, and then referred to David and Solomon, as having committed abomination in his sight. The Bible also tells us that they sinned in the sight of God; not in taking wives legally but only in those they took illegally, in doing which they brought wrath and condemnation upon their heads.

But because the Lord dealt thus with the small branch of the House of Israel that came to America, under their peculiar circumstances, there are those at the present day who will appeal to this passage in the Book of Mormon as something universally applicable in regard to man's domestic relations. The same God that commanded one branch of the House of Israel in America, to take but one wife when the numbers of the two sexes were about equal, gave a different command to the hosts of Israel in Palestine. But let us see the qualifying clause given in the Book of Mormon on this subject. After having reminded the people of the commandment delivered by Lehi, in regard to monogamy, the Lord says—"For if I will raise up seed unto me I will command my people, otherwise they shall hearken unto these things;" that is, if I will raise up seed among my people of the House of Israel, according to the law that exists among the tribes of Israel, I will give them a commandment on the subject, but if I do not give this commandment they shall hearken to the law which I give unto their father Lehi. That is the meaning of the passage, and this very passage goes to prove that plurality was a principle God did approve under circumstances when it was authorized by Him.

In the early rise of this church, February, 1831, God gave a commandment to its members, recorded in the Book of Covenants, wherein He says—"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and to none else;" and then He gives a strict law against adultery. This you have, no doubt, all read; but let me ask whether the Lord had the privilege and the right to vary from this law. It was given in 1831, when the one-wife system alone prevailed among this people. I will tell you what the Prophet Joseph said in relation to this matter in 1831, also in 1832, the year in which the law commanding the members of this church to cleave to one wife only was given. Joseph was then living in Portage County, in the town of Hyrum, at the house of Father John Johnson. Joseph was very intimate with that family, and they were good people at that time, and enjoyed much of the spirit of the Lord. In the fore part of the year 1832, Joseph told individuals, then in the Church, that he, had enquired of the Lord concerning the principle of plurality of wives, and he received for answer that the principle of taking more wives than one is a true principle, but the time had not yet come for it to be practised. That was before the Church was two years old. The Lord has His own time to do all things pertaining to His purposes in the last dispensation. His own time for restoring all things that have been predicted by the ancient prophets. If they have predicted that the day would come when seven women would take hold of one man saying—"We will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach;" and that, in that day the branch of the Lord should be beautiful and glorious and the fruits of the earth should be excellent and comely, the Lord has the right to say when that time shall be.

Now, supposing the members of this Church had undertaken to vary from that law given in 1831, to love their one wife with all their hearts and to cleave to none other, they would have come under the curse and condemnation of God's holy law. Some twelve years after that time the revelation on Celestial Marriage was revealed. This is just republished at the Deseret News office, in a pamphlet entitled "Answers to Questions," by President George A. Smith, and heretofore has been published in pamphlet form and in the Millennial Star, and sent throughout the length and breadth of our country, being included in our works and published in the works of our enemies. Then came the Lord's time for this holy and ennobling principle to be practised again among His people.

We have not time to read the revelation this afternoon; suffice it to say that God revealed the principle through His servant Joseph in 1843. It was known by many individuals while the Church was yet in Illinois; and though it was not then printed, it was a familiar thing through all the streets of Nauvoo, and indeed throughout all Hancock county. Did I hear about it? I verily did. Did my brethren of the Twelve know about it? They certainly did. Were there any females who knew about it? There certainly were, for some received the revelation and entered into the practice of the principle. Some may say, "Why was it not printed, and made known to the people generally, if it was of such importance?" I reply by asking another question: Why did not the revelations in the book of Doctrine and Covenants come to us in print years before they did? Why were they shut up in Joseph's cupboard years and years without being suffered to be printed and sent broadcast throughout the land? Because the Lord had again His own time to accomplish His purposes, and He suffered the revelations to be printed just when He saw proper. He did not suffer the revelation on the great American war to be published until sometime after it was given. So in regard to the revelation on plurality, it was only a short time after Joseph's death that we published it, having a copy thereof. But what became of the original? An apostate destroyed it; you have heard her name. That same woman, in destroying the original, thought she had destroyed the revelation from the face of the earth. She was embittered against Joseph, her husband, and at times fought against him with all her heart: and then again she would break down in her feelings, and humble herself before God and call upon His holy name, and would then lead forth ladies and place their hands in the hands of Joseph, and they were married to him according to the law of God. That same woman has brought up her children to believe that no such thing as plurality of wives existed in the days of Joseph, and has instilled the bitterest principles of apostasy into their minds, to fight against the Church that has come to these mountains according to the predictions of Joseph.

In the year 1844, before his death, a large company was organized to come and search out a location, west of the Rocky Mountains. We have been fulfilling and carrying out his predictions in coming here and since our arrival. The course pursued by this woman shows what apostates can do, and how wicked they can become in their hearts. When they apostatize from the truth they can come out and swear before God and the heavens that such and such things never existed, when they know, as well as they know they exist themselves, that they are swearing falsely. Why do they do this? Because they have no fear of God before their eyes; because they have apostatized from the truth; because they have taken it upon themselves to destroy the revelations of the Most High, and to banish them from the face of the earth, and the Spirit of God withdraws from them. We have come here to these mountains, and have continued to practise the principle of Celestial Marriage from the day the revelation was given until the present time; and we are a polygamic people, and a great people, comparatively speaking, considering the difficult circumstances under which we came to this land.

Let us speak for a few moments upon another point connected with this subject—that is, the reason why God has established polygamy under the present circumstances among this people. If all the inhabitants of the earth, at the present time, were righteous before God, and both males and females were faithful in keeping His commandments, and the numbers of the sexes of a marriageable age were exactly equal, there would be no necessity for any such institution. Every righteous man could have his wife and there would be no overplus of females. But what are the facts in relation to this matter? Since old Pagan Rome and Greece—worshippers of idols—passed a law confining a man to one wife, there has been a great surplus of females, who have had no possible chance of getting married. You may think this a strange statement, but it is a fact that those nations were the founders of what is termed monogamy. All other nations, with few exceptions, had followed the scriptural plan of having more wives than one. These nations, however, were very powerful, and when Christianity came to them, especially the Roman nation, it had to bow to their mandates and customs, hence the Christians gradually adopted the monogamic system. The consequence was that a great many marriageable ladies of those days, and of all generations from that time to the present have not had the privilege of husbands, as the one-wife system has been established by law among the nations descended from the great Roman Empire—namely the nations of modern Europe and the American States. This law of monogamy, or the monogamic system, laid the foundation for prostitution and evils and diseases of the most revolting nature and character, under which modern Christendom groans, for as God has implanted, for a wise purpose, certain feelings in the breasts of females as well as males, the gratification of which is necessary to health and happiness, and which can only be accomplished legitimately in the married state, myriads of those who have been deprived of the privilege of entering that state, rather than be deprived of the gratification of those feelings altogether, have, in despair, given way to wickedness and licentiousness; hence the whoredoms and prostitution among the nations of the earth where the "Mother of Harlots" has her seat.

When the religious Reformers came out, some two or three centuries ago, they neglected to reform the marriage system—a subject demanding their urgent attention. But leaving these Reformers and their doings, let us come down to our own times and see whether, as has been often said by many, the numbers of the sexes are equal; and let us take as a basis for our investigations on this part of our subject, the censuses taken by several of the States in the American Union.

Many will tell us that the number of males and the number of females born are just about equal, and because they are so it is not reasonable to suppose that God ever intended the nations to practise plurality of wives. Let me say a few words on that. Supposing we should admit, for the sake of argument, that the sexes are born in equal numbers, does that prove that the same equality exists when they come to a marriageable age? By no means. There may be about equal numbers born, but what do the statistics of our country show in regard to the deaths? Do as many females as males die during the first year of their existence? If you go to the published statistics you will find, almost without exception, that in every State a greater number of males die the first year of their existence than females. The same holds good from one year to five years, from five years to ten, from ten to fifteen, and from fifteen to twenty. This shows that the number of females is greatly in excess of the males when they reach a marriageable age. Let us elucidate still further, in proof of the position here assumed. Let us take, for instance, the census of the State of Pennsylvania in the year 1860, and we shall find that there were 17,588 more females than males between the age of twenty and thirty years, which may strictly be termed a marriageable age. Says one, "Probably the great war made that difference." No, this was before the war. Now let us go to the statistics of the State of New York, before the war, and we find, according to the official tables of the census taken in 1860, that there were 45,104 more females than males in that one State, between the ages of twenty and thirty years—a marriageable age recollect. Now let us go to the State of Massachusetts and look at the statistics there. In the year 1865, there were 33,452 more females than males between the age of twenty and thirty. We might go on from State to State, and then to the census taken by the United States, and a vast surplus would be shown of females over males of a marriageable age. What is to be done with them? I will tell you what Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York say: they say, virtually, "We will pass a law so strict, that if these females undertake to marry a man who has another wife, both they and the men they marry shall be subject to a term of imprisonment in the penitentiary." Indeed! Then what are you going to do with these hundreds of thousands of females of a marriageable age? "We are going to make them either old maids or prostitutes, and we would a little rather have them prostitutes, then we men would have no need to marry." This is the conclusion many of these marriageable males, between twenty and thirty years of age, have come to. They will not marry because the laws of the land have a tendency to make prostitutes, and they can purchase all the animal gratification they desire without being bound to any woman; hence many of them have mistresses, by whom they raise children, and, when they get tired of them, turn both mother and children into the street, with nothing to support them, the law allowing them to do so, because the women are not wives. Thus the poor creatures are plunged into the depths of misery, wretchedness, and degradation, because at all risks they have followed the instincts implanted within them by their Creator, and not having the opportunity to do so legally have done so unlawfully. There are hundreds and thousands of females in this boasted land of liberty, through the narrow, contracted, bigoted state laws, preventing them from ever getting husbands. That is what the Lord is fighting against; we, also, are fighting against it, and for the re-establishment of the Bible religion and the Celestial or Patriarchal order of marriage.

It is no matter according to the Constitution whether we believe in the patriarchal parts of the Bible, in the Mosiac or in the Christian part; whether we believe in one-half, two-thirds, or in the whole of it; that is nobody's business. The Constitution never granted power to Congress to prescribe what part of the Bible any people should believe in or reject; it never intended any such thing.

Much more might be said, but the congregation is large, and a speaker, of course, will weary. Though my voice is tolerably good, I feel weary in making a congregation of from eight to ten thousand people hear me, I have tried to do so. May God bless you, and may He pour out His Spirit upon the rising generation among us, and upon the missionaries who are about to be sent to the United States, and elsewhere, that the great principles, political, religious and domestic, that God has ordained and established, may be made known to all people.

In this land of liberty in religious worship, let us boldly proclaim our rights, to believe in and practise any Bible precept, command or doctrine, whether in the Old or New Testament, whether relating to ceremonies, ordinances, domestic relations, or anything else, not incompatible with the rights of others, and the great revelations of Almighty God manifested in ancient and modern times. Amen.

DISCOURSE
ON
CELESTIAL MARRIAGE,

DELIVERED BY

PRESIDENT GEO. A. SMITH,

IN THE

NEW TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 8th, 1869.

It is a difficult undertaking to address this immense audience. If a man commences speaking loud, in a short time his voice gives out; whereas, if he commences rather low, he may raise his voice by degrees, and be able to sustain himself in speaking some length of time. But with children crying, a few persons whispering, and some shuffling their feet, it is indeed a difficult task to make an audience of ten thousand persons hear. I have listened with pleasure to the instructions of our brethren from the commencement of our Conference to the present time. I have rejoiced in their testimonies. I have felt that the Elders are improving in wisdom, in knowledge, in power and in understanding; and I rejoice in the privilege, which we have at the present day, of sending out to our own country, a few hundred of the Elders who have had experience—who have lived in Israel long enough to know, to feel and to realize the importance of the work in which they are engaged—to understand its principles and comprehend the way of life. They can bear testimony to a generation that has nearly grown from childhood since the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

The Lord said in relation to those who have driven the Saints that he would visit "judgment, wrath and indignation, wailing and anguish, and gnashing of teeth upon their heads unto the third and fourth generation, so long as they repent not and hate me, saith the Lord your God."

I am a native of Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York—a town somewhat famous for its literary institutions, its learning and the religion and morality of its inhabitants. I left there in my youth, with my father's family, because we had received the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as revealed through Joseph Smith; and followed with the Saints through their drivings and trials unto the present day.

I have never seen the occasion, nor let the opportunity slip, from the time when I first came to a knowledge of the truth of the work of the Lord in the last days, that I understood it was in my power to do good for the advancement of this work, but what I have used my utmost endeavors to accomplish that good. I have never failed to bear a faithful testimony to the work of God, or to carry out, to all intents and purposes, the wishes and designs of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was his kinsman; was familiar with him, though several years his junior; knew his views, his sentiments, his ways, his designs, and many of the thoughts of his heart, and I do know that the servants of God, the Twelve Apostles, upon whom He laid the authority to bear off the Kingdom of God, and fulfill the work which he had commenced, have done according to his designs, in every particular, up to the present time, and are continuing to do so. And I know, furthermore, that he rejoiced in the fact that the law of redemption and Celestial Marriage was revealed unto the Church in such a manner that it would be out of the power of earth and hell to destroy it; and that he rejoiced in the fact that the servants of God were ready prepared, having the keys, to bear off the work he had commenced. Previous to my leaving Potsdam, there was but one man that I heard of in that town who did not believe the Bible. He proclaimed himself an atheist and he drowned himself.

The Latter-day Saints believe the Bible. An agent of the American Bible Society called on me the other day and wanted to know if we would aid the Society in circulating the Bible in our Territory? I replied yes, by all means, for it was the book from which we were enabled to set forth our doctrines, and especially the doctrine of plural marriage.

There is an opinion in the breasts of many persons—who suppose that they believe the Bible—that Christ, when He came, did away with plural marriage, and that He inaugurated what is termed monogamy; and there are certain arguments and quotations used to maintain this view of the subject, one of which is found in Paul's first epistle to Timothy (iii chap. 2 vs.), where Paul says: "A Bishop should be blameless, the husband of one wife." The friends of monogamy render it in this way: "A Bishop should be blameless, the husband of but one wife." That would imply that any one but a bishop might have more. But they will say, "We mean—a bishop should be blameless, the husband of one wife only." Well, that would also admit of the construction that other people might have more than one. I understand it to mean that a bishop must be a married man.

A short time ago, the Minister from the King of Greece to the United States called on President Young. I inquired of him in relation to the religion of his country, and asked him if the clergy were allowed to marry. It is generally understood that the Roman Catholic clergy are not allowed to marry. How is it with the Greek clergy? "Well," said he, "all the clergy marry except the Bishop." I replied, "you render the saying of Paul differently from what we do. We interpret it to mean—"a bishop should be blameless, the husband of one wife at least;" and "we construe it" said he "directly the opposite."

Now this passage does not prove that a man should have but one wife. It only proves that a bishop should be a married man. The same remark is made of deacons, that they also should have wives. Another passage is brought up where the Savior speaks of divorce. He tells us that it is very wrong to divorce, and that Moses permitted it because of the hardness of their (the children of Israel) hearts. A man should leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain should be one flesh. That is the principal argument raised that a man should have but one wife.

In the New Testament, in various places, certain eminent men are referred to as patterns of faith, purity, righteousness and piety. For instance, if you read the epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, the 11th chap., you find therein selected those persons "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turning to flight the armies of the aliens;" and it is said that by faith Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph, and that he conferred upon them a blessing to the "uttermost bounds of the everlasting hills." Who was Joseph? Why, Joseph was the son of Rachel. And who was Rachel? Rachel was the second wife of Jacob, a polygamist. Jacob had four wives; and after he had taken the second, (Rachel) she, being barren, gave a third wife unto her husband that she might bear children unto him for her; and instead of being displeased with her for giving her husband another wife, God heard her prayer, blessed her, worked a miracle in her favor, by opening her womb, and she bear a son, and called his name Joseph, rejoicing in God, whom she testified would give her another son. The question now arises—were not Rachel and Jacob one flesh? Yes. Leah and Jacob were also one flesh. Jacob is selected by the Apostle Paul as a pattern of faith for Christians to follow; he blessed his twelve sons, whom he had by four wives. The law of God, as it existed in those days, and as laid down in this book, (the Bible) makes children born of adultery or of fornication bastards; and they were prohibited from entering into the congregation of the Lord unto the fourth generation.

Now, instead of God blessing Rachel and Jacob and their offspring, as we are told He did, we might have expected something entirely different, had it not been that God was pleased with and approbated and sustained a plurality of wives.

While we are considering this subject, we will enquire, did the Savior in any place that we read of, in the course of His mission on the earth, denounce a plurality of wives? He lived in a nation of Jews; the law of Moses was in force, plurality of wives was the custom, and thousands upon thousands of people, from the highest to the lowest in the land, were polygamists. The Savior denounced adultery; He denounced fornication; He denounced lust; also, divorce; but is there a single sentence asserting that plurality of wives is wrong? If so, where is it? Who can find it? Why did He not say it was wrong? "Think not," said He, "that I am come to destroy the law or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law and the Prophets, but all shall be fulfilled." Of what does the Savior speak when He refers to "the law?" Why, of the Ten Commandments, and other rules of life commanded by God and adopted by the ancients, and which Bro. Pratt referred to yesterday, showing you from the sacred book that God legislated and made laws for the protection of a plurality of wives, (Exod. 21, 10) and that He commanded men to take a plurality under some circumstances. Brother Pratt further showed that the Lord made arrangements to protect, to all intents and purposes, the interests of the first wife; and to shield and protect the children of a wife from disinheritance who might be unfortunate enough not to have the affections of her husband. (Deut., 21.15.) These things were plainly written in the law—that law of which the Savior says "not one jot or one tittle shall pass away." Continuing our inquiry, we pass on to the epistles of John the Evangelist, which we find in the book of Revelations, written to the seven churches of Asia. In them we find the Evangelist denounces adultery, fornication, and all manner of iniquities and abominations of which these churches were guilty. Anything against a plurality of wives? No; not a syllable. Yet those churches were in a country in which plurality was the custom. Hundreds of Saints had more wives than one; and if it had been wrong, what would have been the result? Why, John would have denounced the practice, the same as the children of Israel were denounced for marrying heathen wives, had it not been that the law of plurality was the commandment of God.

Again, on this point, we can refer to the Prophets of the Old Testament—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others. When God called those men he warned them that if they did not deliver the message to the people which He gave them concerning their sins and iniquities His vengeance should rest upon their heads. These are his words to Ezekiel: "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." (Ezek. iii.17.18.29.) How do we find these Prophets of the Lord fulfilling the commandments of the Almighty? We find them pouring out denunciations upon the heads of the people—against adultery, fornication and every species of wickedness. All this, too, in a country in which, from the King down to the lowest orders of the people, a plurality of wives was practised. Do they say anything against plurality of wives? Not one word. It was only in cases where men and women took improper license with each other, in violation of the holy law of marriage, that they were guilty of sin.

If plurality of wives had been a violation of the seventh commandment those prophets would have denounced it, otherwise their silence on the matter would have been dangerous to themselves, inasmuch as the blood of the people would have been required at their hands. The opposers of Celestial Marriage sometimes quote a passage in the seventh chapter of Romans, second and third verses, to show that a plurality of wives is wrong; but when we come to read the passage it shows that a plurality of husbands is wrong. You can rend the passage for yourselves. In the forcible parable used by the Savior in relation to the rich man and Lazarus, we find recorded that the poor man Lazarus was carried to Abraham's bosom—Abraham the father of the faithful. The rich man calls unto Father Abraham to send Lazarus, who is afar off. Who was Abraham? He was a man who had a plurality of wives. And yet all good Christians, even pious church deacons, expect when they die to go to Abraham's bosom. I am sorry to say, however, that thousands of them will be disappointed, from the fact that they cannot and will not go where any one has a plurality of wives; and I am convinced that Abraham will not turn out his own wives to receive such unbelievers in God's law. One peculiarity of this parable is the answer of Abraham to the application of the rich man, to send Lazarus to his five brothers "lest they come into this place of torment," which was—"they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them; and if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Moses' law provided for a plurality of wives, and the prophets observed that law, and Isaiah predicts its observance even down to the latter-days. Isaiah, in his 4th chap. and 1st and 2nd verses, says "seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent."

A reference to the Scriptures shows that the reproach of woman is to be childless, Gen. c. 30, v. 23; Luke c. 1, v. 25.

We will now refer to John the Baptist. He came as the forerunner of Christ. He was a lineal descendant of the house of Levi. His father was a priest. John the Baptist was a child born by miracle, God having revealed to his father that Elizabeth, who had been many years barren, should bear a son. John feared not the world, but went forth preaching in the wilderness of Judea, declaiming against wickedness and corruption in the boldest terms. He preached against extortion; against the cruelty exercised by the soldiers and tax gatherers. He even was so bold as to rebuke the king on his throne, to his face, for adultery. Did he say anything against a plurality of wives? No: it cannot be found. Yet thousands were believers in and practised this order of marriage, under the law of Moses that God had revealed.

In bringing this subject before you, we cannot help saying that God knew what was best for His people. Hence He commanded them as He would have them act. The law, regulating marriage previous to Moses, recognized a plurality of wives. Abraham and Jacob and others had a plurality. These are the men who are referred to in scripture as patterns of piety and purity. David had many wives. The scripture says that David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, save in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, 1 Kings, 15 chap. 5 vs. "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed hath God, according to His promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus." Acts 13 chap., 22 and 23 vs. Did David sin in taking so many wives? No. In what, then, did his sin consist? It was because he took the wife of Uriah, the Hittite—that is, violated the law of God in taking her. The Lord had given him the wives of Saul and would have given him many more; but he had no right to take one who belonged to another. When he did so the curse of adultery fell upon his head, and his wives were taken from him and given to another. We will now inquire in relation to the Savior himself. From whom did he descend? From the house of David, a polygamist; and if you will trace the names of the familles through which He descended you will find that numbers of them had a plurality of wives. How appropriate it would have been for Jesus, descending as he did from a race of polygamists, to denounce this institution of plural marriage and show its sinfulness, had it been a sin! Can we suppose, for one moment, if Patriarchal Marriage were wrong, that He would, under the circumstances have been silent concerning it or failed to denounce it in the most positive manner? Then if plural marriage be adultery and the offspring spurious, Christ Jesus is not the Christ; and we must look for another.

All good Christians are flattering themselves with the hope that they will finally enter the gates of the New Jerusalem. I presume this is the hope of all denominations—Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, and all who believe the Bible. Suppose they go there, what will they find? They will find at the twelve gates twelve angels, and "names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel." The names of the twelve sons of Jacob, the polygamist. Can a monogamist enter there? "And the walls of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the lamb;" and at the gates the names of the twelve tribes of Israel—from the twelve sons of the four wives of Jacob. Those who denounce Patriarchal Marriage will have to stay without and never walk the golden streets. And any man or woman that lifts his or her voice to proclaim against a plurality of wives under the Government of God, will have to seek an inheritance outside of that city. For "there shall in no wise enter into it, anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, for without are sorcerers, whoremongers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." Is not the man that denounces Celestial Marriage a liar? Does he not work abomination? "I, Jesus, have sent mine Angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and offspring of [the polygamist] David, the bright and the morning star."

May God enable us to keep His law, for "blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gate into the city." Amen.

DISCOURSE
ON
CELESTIAL MARRIAGE,

DELIVERED BY

ELDER GEORGE Q. CANNON,

IN THE

NEW TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY, OCTOBER 9th, 1869.

I will repeat a few verses in the tenth chapter of Mark, commencing at the twenty-eighth verse:

Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

And Jesus answered and said, verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,

But he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

In rising to address you this morning, my brethren and sisters, I rely upon your faith and prayers and the blessing of God. We have heard, during Conference, a great many precious instructions, and in none have I been more interested than in those which have been given to the Saints concerning that much mooted doctrine called Patriarchal or Celestial Marriage. I am interested in this doctrine, because I see salvation, temporal and spiritual, embodied therein. I know, pretty well, what the popular feelings concerning this doctrine are; I am familiar with the opinions of the world, having traveled and mingled with the people sufficiently to be conversant with their ideas in relation to this subject. I am also familiar with the feelings of the Latter-day Saints upon this point. I know the sacrifice of feeling which it has caused for them to adopt this principle in their faith and lives. It has required the revelation of God, our Heavenly Father, to enable His people to receive this principle and carry it out. I wish, here, to make one remark in connection with this subject—that while there is abundant proof to be found in the scriptures and elsewhere in support of this doctrine, still it is not because it was practised four thousand years ago by the servants and people of God, or because it has been practised by any people or nation in any period of the world's history, that the Latter-day Saints have adopted it and made it part of their practice, but it is because God, our Heavenly Father, has revealed it unto us. If there were no record of its practice to be found, and if the Bible, Book of Mormon and Book of Doctrine and Covenants were totally silent in respect to this doctrine, it would nevertheless be binding upon us as a people, God himself having given a revelation for us to practise it at the present time. This should be understood by us as a people. It is gratifying to know, however, that we are not the first of God's people unto whom this principle has been revealed; it is gratifying to know that we are only following in the footsteps of those who have preceded us in the work of God, and that we, to-day, are only carrying out the principle which God's people observed, in obedience to revelation received from Him, thousands of years ago. It is gratifying to know that we are suffering persecution, that we are threatened with lines and imprisonment for the practice of precisely the same principle which Abraham, the "friend of God," practised in his life and taught to his children after him.

The discourses of Brother Orson Pratt and of President George A. Smith have left but very little to be said in relation to the scriptural arguments in favor of this doctrine. I know that the general opinion among men is that the Old Testament, to some extent, sustains it; but that the New Testament—Jesus and the Apostles, were silent concerning it. It was clearly proved in our hearing yesterday, and the afternoon of the day previous, that the New Testament, though not so explicit in reference to the doctrine, is still decidedly in favor of it and sustains it. Jesus very plainly told the Jews, when boasting of being the seed of Abraham, that if they were, they would do the works of Abraham. He and the Apostles, in various places, clearly set forth that Abraham was the great exemplar of faith for them to follow, and that they must follow him if they ever expected to participate in the glory and exaltation enjoyed by Abraham and his faithful seed. Throughout the New Testament Abraham is held up to the converts to the doctrines which Jesus taught, as an example worthy of imitation, and in no place is there a word of condemnation uttered concerning him. The Apostle Paul, in speaking of him says:

"Know ye, therefore, that they which are of the faith, the same are the children of Abraham. * * * * So then they which be of the faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."

He also says that the Gentiles, through adoption, became Abraham's seed; that the blessing of Abraham, says he, might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, shewing plainly that Jesus and all the Apostles who alluded to the subject, held the deeds of Abraham to be, in every respect, worthy of imitation.

Who was this Abraham? I have heard the saying frequently advanced, that in early life, being an idolater, it was an idolatrous, heathenish principle which he adopted in taking to himself a second wife while Sarah still lived. Those who make this assertion in reference to the great patriarch, seem to be ignorant of the fact that he was well advanced in life and had served God faithfully many years, prior to making any addition to his family. He did not have a plurality of wives until years after the Lord had revealed Himself to him, commanding him to leave Ur, of the Chaldees, and go forth to a land which He would give to him and his posterity for an everlasting possession. He went forth and lived in that land many long years before the promise of God was fulfilled unto him—namely, that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed; and Abraham was still without any heir, except Eliezer, of Damascus, the steward of his house. At length, after living thus for ten years, God commanded him to take to himself another wife, who was given to him by his wife Sarah. When the offspring of this marriage was born, Abraham was eighty-six years old.

We read of no word of condemnation from the Lord for this act—something which we might naturally expect if, as this unbelieving and licentious generation affirm, the act of taking more wives than one be such a vile crime, and so abominable in the sight of God; for if it be evil in the sight of the Lord to-day it was then, for the scriptures inform us that He changes not, He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and is without variableness or the shadow of turning. But instead of condemnation, God revealed himself continually to his friend Abraham, teaching His will unto him, revealing all things concerning the future which it was necessary for him to understand, and promising him that, though he had been blessed with a son, Ishmael, yet in Isaac, a child of promise, not yet born, should his seed be called. Abraham was to have yet another son. Sarah, in her old age, because of her faithfulness, because of her willingness to comply with the requirements and revelations of God, was to have a son given unto her. Such an event was so unheard of among women at her time of life that, though the Lord promised it, she could not help laughing at the idea. But God fulfilled His promise, and in due time Isaac was born, and was greatly blessed of the Lord.

Determined to try His faithful servant Abraham to the uttermost, the Lord, some years after the birth of this son, in whom He had promised that Abraham's seed should be called, required him to offer up this boy as a burnt offering to Him; and Abraham, nothing doubting, but full of faith and integrity, and of devotion to his God, proved himself worthy of the honored title that had been conferred upon him, namely, "the Friend of God," by taking his son Isaac, in whom most of his hopes for the future centred, up the mountain, and there, having built the altar, he bound the victim and, with knife uplifted, was about to strike the fatal blow, when the angel of the Lord cried out of heaven, commanding him not to slay his son. The Lord was satisfied, having tried him to the uttermost, and found him willing even to shed the blood of his well beloved son.

The Lord was so pleased with the faithfulness of Abraham, that He gave unto him the greatest promise He could give to any human being on the face of the earth. What do you think was the nature of that promise? Did He promise to Abraham a crown of eternal glory? Did He promise to him that he should be in the presence of the Lamb, that he should tune his harp, and sing praises to God and the Lamb, throughout the endless ages of eternity? Let me quote it to you, and it would be well if all the inhabitants of the earth would reflect upon it. Said the Lord:

"In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore: and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies."

This was the promise which God gave to Abraham, in that hour of his triumph, in that hour when there was joy in heaven over the faithfulness of one of God's noblest and most devoted sons. Think of the greatness of this blessing! Can you count the stars of heaven, or even the grains of a handful of sand? No, it is beyond the power of earth's most gifted sons to do either, and yet God promised to Abraham that his seed should be as innumerable as the stars of heaven or as the sand on the sea-shore.

How similar was this promise of God to Abraham to that made by Jesus as a reward for faithfulness to those who followed Him! Said Jesus, "He that forsakes brothers or sisters, houses or lands, father or mother, wives or children, shall receive a hundred fold in this life with persecution, and eternal life in the world to come." A very similar blessing to that which God, long before, had made to Abraham, and couched in very similar terms.

It is pertinent for us to enquire, on the present occasion, how the promises made by Jesus and His Father, in ages of the world separated by a long interval the one from the other, could be realized under the system which prevails throughout Christendom at the present day? In the monogamic system, under which the possession of more than one living wife is regarded as such a crime, and as being so fearfully immoral, how could the promise of the Savior to his faithful followers, that they should have a hundredfold of wives and children, in this present life, ever be realized? There is a way which God has provided in a revelation given to this Church, in which He says:

"Strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in this world, neither do ye know me."

God revealed that strait and narrow way to Abraham, and taught him how he could enter therein. He taught him the principle of plurality of wives; Abraham practised it and bequeathed it to his children as a principle which they were to practise. Under such a system it was a comparatively easy matter for men to have a hundred fold of wives, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and everything else in proportion; and in no other way could the promises of Jesus be realized by His followers, than in the way God has provided, and which He has revealed to His Church and people in these latter-days.

I have felt led to dwell on these few passages from the sayings of Jesus, to show you that there is abundance of scriptural proofs in favor of this principle and the position this Church has assumed, in addition to those previously referred to.

It is a blessed thing to know that, in this as in every other doctrine and principle taught by us as a Church, we are sustained by the revelations God gave to His people anciently. One of the strongest supports the Elders of this Church have had in their labors among the nations was the knowledge that the Bible and New Testament sustained every principle they advanced to the people. When they preached faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, the gathering of the people from the nations, the re-building of Jerusalem, the second coming of Christ, and every other principle ever touched upon by them, it was gratifying to know that they were sustained by the scriptures, and that they could turn to chapter and verse among the sayings of Jesus and His Apostles, or among those of the ancient prophets, in confirmation of every doctrine they ever attempted to bring to the attention of those to whom they ministered. There is nothing with which the Latter-day Saints can, with more confidence, refer to the scriptures for confirmation and support, than the doctrine of plural marriage, which, at the present time, among one of the most wicked, adulterous and corrupt generations the world has ever seen, is so much hated, and for which mankind generally, are so anxious to cast out and persecute the Latter-day Saints.

If we look abroad and peruse the records of everyday life throughout the whole of Christendom, we find that crimes of every hue, and of the most appalling and revolting character are constantly committed, exciting neither surprise nor comment. Murder, robbery, adultery, seduction and every species of villany known in the voluminous catalogue of crime, in modern times, are regarded as mere matters of ordinary occurrence, and yet there is a hue and cry raised, almost as wide as Christendom, for the persecution, by fine, imprisonment, proscription, outlawry or extermination, of the people of Utah because, knowing that God, the Eternal Father, has spoken in these days and revealed his mind and will to them, they dare to carry out His behests. For years they have meekly submitted to this persecution and contumely, but they appeal now, as ever, to all rational, reflecting men, and invite comparison between the state of society here and in any portion of this or any other country, knowing that the verdict will be unanimous and overwhelming in their favor. In every civilized country on the face of the earth the seducer plies his arts to envelop his victim within his meshes, in order to accomplish her ruin most completely; and it is well known that men holding positions of trust and responsibility, looked upon as honorable and highly respectable members of society, violate their marriage vows by carrying on their secret amours and supporting mistresses; yet against the people of Utah, where such things are totally unknown, there is an eternal and rabid outcry because they practise the heaven-revealed system of a plurality of wives. It is a most astonishing thing, and no greater evidence could be given that Satan reigns in the hearts of the children of men, and that he is determined, if possible, to destroy the work of God from the face of the earth.

The Bible, the only work accepted by the nations of Christendom, as a divine revelation, sustains this doctrine, from beginning to end. The only revelation on record that can be quoted against it came through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and is contained in the Book of Mormon; and strange to say, here in Salt Lake City, a day or or two since, one of the leading men of the nation, in his eager desire and determination to cast discredit on this doctrine, unable to do so by reference to the Bible, which he no doubt, in common with all Christians, acknowledges as divine, was compelled to have recourse to the Book of Mormon, a work which on any other point, he would most unquestionably have scouted and ridiculed, as an emanation from the brain of an impostor. What consistency! A strange revolution this, that men should have recourse to our own works, whose authenticity they most emphatically deny, to prove us in the wrong. Yet this attempt, whenever made, cannot be sustained, for Brother Pratt clearly showed to you, in his remarks the other day, that instead of the Book of Mormon being opposed to this principle, it contains an express provision for the revelation of the principle to us as a people at some future time—namely that when the Lord should desire to raise up unto Himself a righteous seed, He would command His people to that effect. Plainly setting forth that a time would come when He would command His people to do so.

It is necessary that this principle should be practised under the auspices and control of the priesthood. God has placed that priesthood in the Church to govern and control all the affairs thereof, and this is a principle which, if not practised in the greatest holiness and purity, might lead men into great sin, therefore the priesthood is the more necessary to guide and control men in the practice of this principle. There might be circumstances and situations in which it would not be wisdom in the mind of God for his people to practise this principle, but so long as a people are guided by the priesthood and revelations of God there is no danger of evil arising therefrom. If we, as a people, had attempted to practise this principle without revelation, it is likely that we should have been led into grievous sins and the condemnation of God would have rested upon us; but the Church waited until the proper time came, and then the people practised it according to the mind and will of God, making a sacrifice of their own feelings in so doing. But the history of the world goes to prove that the practice of this principle even by nations ignorant of the gospel has resulted in greater good to them than the practice of monogamy or the one-wife system in the so-called Christian nations. To-day, Christendom holds itself and its institutions aloft as a pattern for all men to follow. If you travel throughout the United States and through the nations of Europe in which Christianity prevails, and talk with the people about their institutions, they will boast of them as being the most permanent, indestructible and progressive of any institutions existing upon the earth; yet it is a fact well known to historians, that the Christian nations of Europe are the youngest nations on the globe. Where are the nations which have existed from time immemorial? They are not to be found in Christian monogamic Europe, but in Asia, among the polygamic races—China, Japan, Hindostan and the various races of that vast continent. Those nations, from the most remote times, practised plural marriage handed down to them by their forefathers. Although they are looked upon by the nations of Europe as semi-civilized, you will not find among them, woman prostituted, debased and degraded as she is through Christendom. She may be treated coldly, and degraded, but among them, except where the Christian element to a large extent prevails, she is not debased and polluted as she is among the so-called Christian nations. It is a fact worthy of note that the shortest lived nations of which we have record have been monogamic. Rome, with her arts, sciences, and war-like instincts, was once the mistress of the world; but her glory faded. She was a monogamic nation, and the numerous evils attending that system early laid the foundation for that ruin which eventually overtook her. The strongest sayings of Jesus, recorded in the New Testament, were levelled against the dreadful corruptions practised in Rome and wherever the Romans held sway. The leaven of their institutions had worked its way into the Jewish nation, Jewry or Palestine being then a Roman province, and governed by Roman officers, who brought with them their wicked institutions, and Jesus denounced the practices which prevailed there.

A few years before the birth of the Savior, Julius Caesar was First Consul at Rome; he aimed at and obtained imperial power. He had four wives during his life and committed numerous adulteries. His first wife he married early; but, becoming ambitious, the alliance did not suit him, and, as the Roman law did not permit him to retain her and to marry another, he put her away. He then married the daughter of a consul, thinking to advance his interests thereby. She died, and a third was married. The third was divorced, and he married a fourth, with whom he was living at the time he was murdered. His grand-nephew, the Emperor Augustus Caesar, reigned at the time of the birth of Christ. He is alluded to in history as one of the greatest of the Caesars; he also had four wives. He divorced one after another, except the last, who out-lived him. These men were not singular in this practice; it was common in Rome; the Romans did not believe in plurality of wives, but in divorcing them; in taking wives for convenience and putting them away when they got tired of them. In our country divorces are increasing, yet Roman-like, men expect purity and chastity from their wives they do not practise themselves. You recollect, doubtless, the famous answer of Caesar when his wife was accused of an intrigue with an infamous man. Some one asked Caesar why he had put away his wife. Said he, "The wife of Caesar must not only be incorrupt but unsuspected." He could not bear to have the virtue of his wife even suspected, yet his own life was infamous in the extreme. He was a seducer, adulterer and is reported to have practised even a worse crime, yet he expected his wife to possess a virtue which, in his highest and holiest moments, was utterly beyond his conception in his own life.

This leaven was spreading itself over every country where the Roman Empire had jurisdiction. It had reached Palestine in the days of the Savior, hence by understanding the practices prevalent in those times amongst that people, you will be better able to appreciate the strong language used by Jesus against putting away, or divorcing wives. Rome continued to practise corruption until she fell beneath the weight of it, and was overwhelmed, not by another monogamic race, but by the vigorous polygamic hordes from the north, who swept away Roman imperialism, establishing in the place thereof institutions of their own. But they speedily fell into the same habit of having one wife and multitudes of courtesans, and soon, like Rome, fell beneath their own corruptions.

When courtesans were taught every accomplishment and honored with the society of the leading men of the nation, and wives were deprived of these privileges, is it any wonder that Rome should fall? or that the more pure, or barbarous nations, as they were called, overwhelmed and destroyed her?

I have had it quoted to me many times that no great nations ever practised plural marriage. They who make such an assertion are utterly ignorant of history. What nations have left the deepest impress on the history of our race? Those which have practised plurality of marriage. They have prevented the dreadful crime of prostitution by allowing men to have more wives than one. I know we are dazzled by the glory of Christendom; we are dazzled with the glory of our own age. Like every generation that has preceded it, the present generation thinks it is the wisest and best, and nearer to God than any which has preceded it. This is natural; it is a weakness of human nature. This is the case with nations as well as generations. China, to-day, calls all western nations "outside barbarians." Japan, Hindostan and all other polygamic nations do the same, and in very many respects they have as much right to say that of monogamic nations, as the latter have to say it of them.

I heard a traveller remark a few days ago, while in conversation with him, "I have travelled through Asia Minor and Turkey, and I have blushed many times when contrasting the practices and institutions of those people with those of my own country," the United States. He is a gentleman with whom I had a discussion some years ago on the principle of plural marriage. He has traveled a good deal since then, and he remarked to me: "Travel enlarges a man's head and his heart. I have learned a great many things since we had a discussion together, and I have modified my views and opinions very materially with regard to the excellence of the institutions, habits and morals which prevail in Christendom." This gentleman told me that among those nations, which we call semi-civilized, there are no drinking saloons, no brothels, nor drunkenness, and an entire absence of many other evils which exist in our own nation. I think this testimony, coming from a man who, previously, had such strong prejudices, was very valuable. He is not the only one who has borne this testimony, but all reliable travelers, who have lived in Oriental nations, vouch for the absence of those monstrous evils which flourish in and fatten and fester upon the vitals of all civilized or Christian nations.

In speaking of Utah and this peculiar practice amongst its people it is frequently said, "Look at the Turks and other Oriental nations and see how women are degraded and debased among them, and deprived of many privileges which they enjoy among us!" But if it be true that woman does not occupy her true position among those nations, is this not more attributable to their rejection of the gospel than to their practice of having a plurality of wives? Whatever her condition may be there, however, I do not therefore accept, as a necessary conclusion, that she must be degraded among us. We have received the gospel of the Lord Jesus, the principles of which elevate all who honor them, and will impart to our sisters every blessing necessary to make them noble and good in the presence of God and man.

Look at the efforts which are being made to elevate the sex among the Latter-day Saints! See the privileges that are given them, and listen to the teachings imparted to them day by day, week by week, and year by year, to encourage them to press forward in the march of improvement! The elevation of the sex must follow as a result of these instructions. The practice in the world is to select a few of the sex and to elevate them. There is no country in the world, probably, where women are idolized to the extent they are in the United States. But is the entire sex in the United States thus honored and respected? No; it is not. Any person who will travel, and observe while he is travelling, will find that thousands of women are degraded and treated as something very vile, and are terribly debased in consequence of the practices of men towards them. But the gospel of Jesus, and the revelations which God has given unto us concerning Patriarchal Marriage have a tendency to elevate the entire sex, and give all the privilege of being honored matrons and respected wives. There are no refuse among us—no class to be cast out, scorned and condemned; but every woman who chooses, can be an honored wife and move in society in the enjoyment of every right which woman should enjoy to make her the equal of man as far as she can be his equal.

This is the result of the revelations of the gospel unto us, and the effect of the preaching and practice of this principle in our midst. I know, however, that there are those who shrink from this, who feel their hearts rebel against the principle, because of the equality which it bestows on the sex. They would like to be the honored few—the aristocrats of society as it were, while their sisters might perish on every hand around them. They would not, if they could, extend their hands to save their sisters from a life of degradation. This is wrong and a thing which God is displeased at. He has revealed this principle and commanded His servants to take wives. What for? That they may obey his great command—a command by which Eternity is peopled, a command by which Abraham's seed shall become as the stars of heaven for multitude, and as the sand on the sea shore that cannot be counted. He has given to us this command, and shall we, the sterner sex, submit to all the difficulties and trials entailed in carrying it out? Shall we submit to all the afflictions and labor incident to this life to save our sisters, while many of you who are of the same sex, whose hearts ought to beat for their salvation as strongly as ours do, will not help us? I leave you all to answer. There is a day of reckoning coming when you will be held accountable as well as we. Every woman in this Church should join heart and hand in this great work, which has for its result, the redemption of the sexes, both male and female. No woman should slacken her hand or withhold her influence, but every one should seek by prayer and faith unto God for the strength and grace necessary to enable her to do so. "But," says one, "is not this a trial, and does it not inflict upon us unnecessary trials?" There are afflictions and trials connected with this principle. It is necessary there should be. Is there any law that God reveals unattended with a trial of some kind? Think of the time, you who are adults, and were born in the nations, when you joined the Church! Think of the trials connected with your espousal of the gospel. Did it not try you to go forth and be baptized? Did it not try you, when called upon to gather, to leave your homes and nearest and dearest friend, as many of you have done? Did it not try you to do a great many things you have been required to do in the gospel? Every law of the gospel has a trial connected with it, and the higher the law the greater the trial; and as we ascend nearer and nearer to the Lord our God we shall have greater trials to contend with in purifying ourselves before Him. He has helped us this far. He has helped us to conquer our selfish feelings, and when our sisters seek unto Him He helps them to overcome their feelings; He gives them strength to overcome their selfishness and jealousy. There is not a woman under the sound of my voice to-day, but can bear witness of this if she has tried it. You, sisters, whose husbands have taken other wives, can you not bear testimony that the principle has purified your hearts, made you less selfish, brought you nearer to God and given you power you never had before? There are hundreds within the sound of my voice to day, both men and women, who can testify that this has been the effect that the practice of this principle has had upon them.

I am speaking now of what are called the spiritual benefits arising from the righteous practice of this principle. I am sure that through the practice of this principle, we shall have a purer community, a community more experienced, less selfish and with a higher knowledge of human nature than any other on the face of the earth. It has already had this effect to a great extent, and its effects in these directions will increase as the practice of the principle becomes more general.

A lady visitor remarked to me not long ago, in speaking upon this subject: "Were I a man, I should feel differently probably to what I do; to your sex the institution cannot be so objectionable." This may be the case to some extent, but the practice of this principle is by no means without its trials for the males. The difficulties and perplexities connected with the care of a numerous family, to a man who has any ambition, are so great that nothing short of the revelations of God or the command of Jesus Christ, would tempt men to enter this order; the mere increase of facilities to gratify the lower passions of our natures would be no inducement to assume such an increase of grave responsibilities. These desires have been implanted in both male and female for a wise purpose, but their immoderate and illegal gratification is a source of evil equal to that system of repression prevalent in the world, to which thousands must submit or criminate themselves.

Just think, in the single State of Massachusetts, at the last census, there were 63,011 females more than males. Brother Pratt, in his remarks on this subject, truly remarked that the law of Massachusetts makes these 63,011 females either old maids or prostitutes, for that law says they shall not marry a man who has a wife. Think of this! And the same is true to a greater or less degree throughout all the older States, for the females preponderate in every one.

Thus far I have referred only to the necessity and benefit of this principle being practised in a moral point of view. I have said nothing about the physiological side of the question. This is one of if not the strongest sources of argument in its favor; but I do not propose to enter into that branch of the subject to any great extent on the present occasion. We are all, both men and women, physiologists enough to know that the procreative powers of man endure much longer than those of woman. Granting, as some assert, that an equal number of the sexes exist, what would this lead to? Man must practise that which is vile and low or submit to a system of repression; because if he be married to a woman who is physically incapable, he must either do himself violence or what is far worse, he must have recourse to the dreadful and damning practice of having illegal connection with women, or become altogether like the beasts. Do you not see that if these things were introduced among our society they would be pregnant with the worst results? The greatest conceivable evils would result therefrom! How dreadful are the consequences of this system of which I am now speaking, as witnessed at the present time throughout all the nations of Christendom! You may see them on every hand. Yet the attempt is being continually made to bring us to the same standard, and to compel us to share the same evils.

When the principle of plurality of wives was revealed I was but a boy. When reflecting on the subject of the sealing power which was then being taught, the case of Jacob, who had four wives, occurred to me, and I immediately concluded that the time would come when light connected with this practice would be revealed to us as a people. I was therefore prepared for the principle when it was revealed, and I know it is true on the principle that I know that baptism, the laying on of hands, the gathering, and everything connected with the gospel is true. If there were no books in existence, if the revelation itself were blotted out, and there was nothing written in its favor, extant among men, still I could bear testimony for myself that I know this is a principle which, if practised in purity and virtue, as it should be, will result in the exaltation and benefit of the human family; and that it will exalt woman until she is redeemed from the effects of the Fall, and from that curse pronounced upon her in the beginning. I believe the correct practice of this principle will redeem woman from the effects of that curse—namely, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." All the evils connected with jealousy have their origin in this. It is natural for woman to cleave to man; it was pronounced upon her in the beginning, seemingly as a punishment. I believe the time will come when, by the practise of the virtuous principles which God has revealed, woman will be emancipated from that punishment and that feeling. Will she cease to love man? No, it is not necessary for her to cease to love.

How is it among the nations of the earth? Why, women, in their yearning after the other sex and in their desire for maternity, will do anything to gratify that instinct of their nature, and yield to anything and be dishonored even rather than not gratify it; and in consequence of that which has been pronounced upon them, they are not held accountable to the same extent that men are. Man is strong, he is the head of woman, and God will hold him responsible for the use of the influence he exercises over the opposite sex. Hence we were told by Brother Pratt that there are degrees of glory, and that the faithful man may receive the power of God—the greatest He has ever bestowed upon man—namely, the power of procreation. It is a god-like power, but how it is abused! How men debase themselves and the other sex by its unlawful and improper exercise! We were told there is a glory to which alone that power will be accorded in the life to come. Still there will be millions of women saved in the kingdom of God, while men, through the abuse of this precious gift, will not be counted worthy of such a privilege. And this very punishment will, in the end, be woman's salvation, because she is not held accountable to the same degree that men are.

This is a subject that we should all do well to reflect upon. There are many points connected with the question physiologically, that might be dwelt upon with great advantage. I have heard it said, and seen it printed, that the children born here under this system are not so smart as others; that their eyes lack lustre and that they are dull in intellect; and many strangers, especially ladies, when arriving here, are anxious to see the children, having read accounts which have led them to expect that most of the children born here are deficient. But the testimony of Professor Park, the principal of the University of Deseret, and of other leading teachers of the young here, is that they never saw children with a greater aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge than the children raised in this Territory. There are no brighter children to be found in the world than those born in this Territory. Under the system of Patriarchal Marriage, the offspring, besides being equally as bright and brighter intellectually, are much more healthy and strong. Need I go into particulars to prove this? To you who are married there is no necessity of doing so; you know what I mean. You all know that many women are sent to the grave prematurely through the evil they have to endure from their husbands during pregnancy and lactation, and their children often sustain irremediable injury.

Another good effect of the institution here is that you may travel throughout our entire Territory, and virtue prevails. Our young live virtuously until they marry. But how is it under the monogamic system? Temptations are numerous on every hand and young men fall a prey to vice. An eminent medical professor in New York recently declared, while delivering a lecture to his class in one of the colleges there, that if he wanted a man twenty-five years of age, free from a certain disease, he would not know where to find him. What a terrible statement to make! In this community no such thing exists. Our boys grow up in purity, honoring and respecting virtue; our girls do the same, and the great mass of them are pure. There may be impurities. We are human, and it would not be consistent with our knowledge of human nature to say that we are entirely pure, but we are the most pure of any people within the confines of the Republic. We have fewer unvirtuous boys and girls in our midst than any other community within the range of my knowledge. Both sexes grow up in vigor, health and purity.

These, my brethren and sisters, are some of the results which I wanted to allude to in connection with this subject. Much more might be said. There is not a man or woman who has listened to me to-day, but he and she have thoughts, reasons and arguments to sustain this principle passing through their minds which I have not touched upon, or, if touched upon at all, in a very hasty manner.

The question arises, What is going to be done with this institution? Will it be overcome? The conclusion arrived at long ago is that it is God and the people for it. God has revealed it, He must sustain it, we can not; we cannot bear it off, He must. I know that Napoleon said Providence was on the side of the heaviest artillery, and many men think that God is on the side of the strongest party. The Midianites probably thought so when Gideon fell upon them with three hundred men. Sennacherib and the Assyrians thought so when they came down in their might to blot out Israel. But God is mighty; God will prevail; God will sustain that which he has revealed, and He will uphold and strengthen His servants and bear off His people. We need not be afflicted by a doubt; a shadow of doubt need not cross our minds as to the result. We know that God can sustain us: He has borne off His people in triumph thus far and will continue to do so.

I did intend, when I got up, to say something in relation to the effects of the priesthood; but as the time is so far gone, I feel that if I say anything it must be very brief. But in connection with the subject of plural marriage, the priesthood is intimately interwoven. It is the priesthood which produces the peace, harmony, good order, and everything which make us as a people peculiar, and for which our Territory has become remarkable. It is that principle—the priesthood, which governs the heavenly hosts. God and Jesus rule through this power, and through it we are made, so for as we have received it and rendered obedience to its mandates, like our Heavenly Father and God. He is our Father and our God. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; He is the Father of all the inhabitants of the earth, and we inherit His divinity, if we choose to seek for and cultivate it. We inherit His attributes; we can, by taking the proper course, inherit the priesthood by which He exercises control; by which the heavenly orbs in the immensity of space are governed, and by which the earth revolves in its seasons. It is the Holy Priesthood that controls all the creations of the Gods, and though men fight against it, and, if they could, would blot it out of existence, it will prevail and go on increasing in power and strength until the sceptre of Jesus is acknowledged by all, and the earth is redeemed and sanctified.

That this day may be brought about speedily, is my prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Transcriber's Note:

Some obvious typographical errors have been corrected as seemed reasonable. Throughout the source text practice is spelled as both "practice" and "practise." This inconsistency has been preserved in this electronic edition.