ACTIONS IN RELATION TO JOHN C. BENNETT ET AL.—THE PROPHET'S INSTRUCTIONS TO THE RELIEF SOCIETY—TREATISE ON THE "HOLY GHOST"—WILLIAM LAW'S DEFENSE OF THE SAINTS—THE PROPHET'S ADDRESS TO THE CHURCH.
Monday, May 23, 1842.—I called a special session of the city council, at which Dimick B. Huntington was elected coroner of the city of Nauvoo.
The Fall of Chauncey L. Higbee.
Tuesday, 24.—Chauncey L. Higbee was cut off from the Church by the High Council, for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct towards certain females, and for teaching it was right, if kept secret, &c. He was also put under $200 bonds to keep the peace, on my complaint against him for slander, before Ebenezer Robinson, justice of the peace.
Wednesday, 25.—I spent the day in counseling the Bishops, and assisting them to expose iniquity.
Notice was this day given to John C. Bennett, that the First Presidency, Twelve, and Bishops had withdrawn fellowship from him, and were about to publish him in the paper, but on his humbling himself, and begging we would spare him from the paper, for his mother's sake, the notice was withdrawn from the paper.
Confessions of John C. Bennett.
Thursday, 26.—This forenoon I attended a meeting of nearly a hundred of the brethren in the Lodge Room, to whom John C. Bennett acknowledged his wicked and licentious conduct toward certain females in Nauvoo, and that he was worthy of the severest chastisements, and cried like a child, and begged that he might be spared, in any possible way; so deep was his apparent sense of his guilt and unfitness for respectable society; so deeply did he feign, or really feel contrition for the moment, that he was forgiven still. I plead for mercy for him.
The Prophet's Political Attitude.
At one p. m. I attended a large and respectable meeting of the citizens of Nauvoo, near the Temple, and addressed them on the principles of government, at considerable length, showing that I did not intend to vote the Whig or Democratic ticket as such, but would go for those who would support good order, &c.