This was sweet language for a Prophet and a Saint to utter, and yet it is not half so coarse or improper as some whole sermons that I have listened to from the lips of Brother Brigham and the other leaders of the Church.
The Apostle Orson Pratt is the only one who has dared, in the presence of Brigham, to say that education was a proper thing, and that there were many books which would be of good service to the Saints, if they obtained and studied them. On one occasion, Brigham arose in ire, and said,—
“The professor has told you that there are many books in the world, and I tell you that there are many people there. He says there is something in all these books; I say each of those persons has got a name. It would do you just as much good to learn those somebodies’ names as it would to read those books. Five minutes’ revelation would teach me more truth than all this pack of nonsense that I should have packed away in my unlucky brains from books.”
But the Prophet has changed with the times, and there are now in Utah very good schools, both Mormon and Gentile, but none of them are free-schools. Bishop Taylor once said in a public lecture that they were “destructive to the best interests of the community;” and the bishop’s “lord” in the Lion-House is exactly of the same opinion, for he has repeatedly declared that “there shall be no ‘free-schools’ within his Saintly ‘Kingdom’ on earth.” Nevertheless, Brother Brigham and his “Infallible Priesthood” are at last beginning to discover that although the night of ignorance and superstition may hate the clear daylight of truth and knowledge, when the great Ruler of all commands the light to come forth it is not in the power of man, with all his boasting, to forbid the sun to shine upon the dark places of the earth.
Balls, parties, and the theatre provided amusement for the people in Salt Lake City itself; but in the Settlements there was little else in the shape of recreation than idle gossip or the harangues of the Tabernacle.
At the time when we went to Utah, Mormon society was slowly recovering from that terrible marrying mania which had set in during the “Reformation,” and a season of divorce was the result.
The authorities at that time, as I have already observed, had urged every person, without distinction, into Polygamy. Men and women had been forced to marry one another without any respect to affection or fitness, and the result was that hundreds of marriages were entered into which made those who contracted them miserable for life, but the consequences of which they could not avoid. At the same time not a few were divorced almost immediately after they were married, and these things were a matter of daily occurrence. Brigham Young, with his eye perpetually on the dollar, finding that his marrying scheme, like many other of his “divine” plans, was a failure, saw at once that quite a nice little sum might be realized by charging a fee for divorces. Nothing was charged for marrying; but if the people insisted on having divorces, why, the best, and certainly the most profitable thing, was to make them pay for them. When we first went to Utah, the Prophet was doing quite a flourishing business in that line. Any one could get a divorce for ten dollars; and Brigham publicly in the Tabernacle jested about it, and said that the money thus obtained came in very conveniently as pin-money for his wives, though I doubt if they ever received a dollar of it. He added, that so far as “eternity” was concerned, these divorces were not worth the paper they were written on; the people had married for eternity, and in eternity they would have to live together, whether they liked it or not. He says the same to-day; but still he sells his divorces, and gathers in the ten dollars.
As I have written so much of the troubles of the sisters, perhaps it will be as well to give the reader an idea of the trials and difficulties which the brethren had to contend with when they first attempted the introduction of Polygamy. To do this, I shall give the correspondence of Miss Martha Brotherton, formerly of Manchester, England, relating to a very interesting courtship between herself and Brigham Young. I would have the reader remark that this correspondence distinctly proves that Polygamy was taught by the heads of the church before the Prophet received the professed revelation.
This account was published just a year, lacking one day, before the revelation on Polygamy was given to Joseph Smith. It was published in Boston, in book form, in 1842. The revelation was given at Nauvoo, on the 12th of July 1843.