“A revelation indeed! though, as we have seen, the record was closed in the time of the Apostle John, and a fearful curse pronounced on any who should add to it. A revelation opposed to all the teachings of God’s word on that subject. It came from the father of lies, for God never contradicts himself; all the teachings of every part of his word are consistent with each other, which is one of the proofs of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures.
“From Genesis to Revelation the teaching, both direct and implied, is that God made of twain one flesh, and a man may have but one wife. Adam had but one, and in the book of Revelation John tells us the angel said to him, ‘Come hither, and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife,’—not wives, you will observe; there was but one.”
“You shake my faith in Mormonism,” she said, with a startled, troubled look.
“I rejoice to hear it,” he responded; “would that I could shake it to its utter destruction.
“Popery has been well called ‘Satan’s masterpiece,’ and Mormonism is another by the same hand; the points of resemblance are sufficient to prove that to my mind.”
“Points of resemblance?” she repeated inquiringly, “I have never thought there were any, and I have a heart hatred to Popery, as you may well suppose, coming, as I do, from a land where she slew, in former ages, so many of God’s saints. But surely in one thing the two are very different—the one forbidding to marry, the other encouraging men to take many wives.”
“The difference in regard to that is not so great as may appear at first sight,” he returned; “both pander to men’s lusts—for what are nunneries but ‘priests’ prisons for women,’ as one who left the ranks of the Popish priesthood has called them?
“Both teach children to forsake their parents; both teach lying and murder, when by such crimes they are expected to advance the cause of their church.”
“Oh, sir, so bad as that?” she exclaimed, with a shudder.
“It is computed that Popery has slain fifty millions of those she calls heretics, and oftentimes she has secured her victims by the basest treachery. All that in past ages, to be sure, but she claims infallibility and denies that she has ever done wrong; besides, to this day she shows the same persecuting spirit, and actually kills, too, wherever she has the power.