It has always been said among the Saints that Brigham’s girls, and the daughters of Daniel H. Wells, were the boldest and least retiring maidens to be found in Salt Lake City, and that they presumed greatly upon their imaginary high position; which position nobody but themselves cared anything about. It is well known that the very people upon whom they look down are those who rightly should receive their warmest gratitude and respect, on account of the more than liberal support which they have given to their father, even to the detriment of their own children.
When first I heard that my husband had set his affections upon one of these girls, I felt convinced that he could not have made a very wise choice; and I could not help dreading that the mere fact of my husband having selected a daughter of the Prophet as his future wife would bring trouble upon us all. What shape that trouble would take I could form no conjecture, but I felt sure that a change of some sort was fast approaching. My faith was almost gone; I felt the degrading position in which the “Celestial” system placed me and my children, and it seemed to me that I could no longer endure it. My children I could not, and would not leave, but it was impossible for me to continue to live as I had been living; nor would I think of bringing up my children any longer to believe and live a religion which had so cruelly blighted my own life. It was for them that I feared now; I felt that for their sake I must break away from this horrible system.
My own life, I thought, was not worth caring for, but the idea of my little girls growing up and following in my footsteps and enduring as I had endured, was more than I could bear. Something must be done to save them from such a fate.
About this time I procured a copy of the “Revelation on Celestial Marriage,” and read it through carefully and calmly, from beginning to end. The reader may, perhaps, remember that when a copy of it was first given to me, in Switzerland, years before, I was so angry and indignant that when I had got only partly through it I cast it from me in disgust as an outrage upon all that was good and true. From that time, although I had heard portions of it quoted and read, I had never perused it as a whole. On two occasions, at least, my friend Mary Burton was very near reading it through with me, and had we done so, I have not the slightest doubt that my eyes would have been opened to the absurdity and wickedness of the whole system, and years of wretchedness would have been spared me.
Such, however, was not the case. It was not until I had almost drained the cup of sorrow and degradation that, at last, I found an antidote in the deadly thing itself which had been the source of all my unhappiness. I was acting upon the homœopathic principle—“similia similibus curantur”—and using a dose of poison to cure a disease caused by that poison.
As I read, I saw plainly, from the wording of the document, that if ever it was given to Joseph Smith—no matter by whom—it was given long after he had practised Polygamy—or something as bad—and to sanction what he had already done. I had read in the Book of Mormon:
“David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was an abomination before me, saith the Lord.... Hearken to the Word of the Lord: for there shall not any man among you have, save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.” [Book of Mormon, p. 118.]
In the Book of the Covenants, given through Joseph Smith, and held sacred by every Saint, I had read:
“Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and cleave unto her and none else.” [Book of Covenants, p. 124.]
And yet when I turned to the “Revelation” I found in the very first clause: