Do you not know that a plurality of wives was not only sanctioned and blessed by the Almighty, but that it was practised by His commandment also; and that lying and murder are in direct contradiction to His law? Did not Abraham take Hagar to wife, after which the Lord met with him often, called him His friend, and established with him an everlasting covenant, (Genesis, 16th and 17th chapters,) and did not the angels administer to, and bless Hagar, promising that she should become the mother of a "great nation;" after which, did not Abraham marry Keturah, by whom he begat many sons? (Genesis, 25th:1.) Did not the Lord bless Jacob with His own voice, promising that in his seed all of the nations of the earth should be blessed — leading him by inspiration to Laban, his kinsman, where he married the two sisters, Leah and Rachel, who with their handmaids, Belhi and Zilpha, became mothers to the twelve Patriarchs or of the twelve Tribes of Israel? And to show distinctly that God approbated this polygamy in Jacob's family, do we not read that Leah, after having for a time ceased to bear children, gave to Jacob Zilpha, her handmaid, which so much pleased the Lord that He blessed her with a fifth son as an especial reward? (Genesis, 30th:18,) and through this lineage of polygamy were not all the Holy Prophets and wise men born who wrote the Revelations, Prophesies and wisdom which God gave unto them and thereby entailed unto us the Holy Scriptures for the rule of our faith and practice? And did not even Jesus, our Saviour and Great High Priest, choose through the same lineage to be born into the world? And was not the polygamist, Moses, who no doubt had many wives, called to lead Israel and to stand between them and the anger of the Almighty, and to converse with Him face to face, until for the glory of God that rested upon him a veil became necessary to cover his person that Israel might look upon him? (Exodus, 34th : 29-35.) And when Miriam, his sister, would have despised him on account of the Ethiopian woman that became his wife, after his marriage to the daughter of the Priest of Midian, was she not smitten of the Lord with leprosy that she would have died had not Moses plead with Him that her life be spared ? (Numbers, 12th:15.) And in the law which God gave through Moses, to govern Israel, was it not made obligatory upon the living to take to wife the widow of a deceased brother and raise up to him children, that his name might not be blotted out from the families of Israel? and this, too, without any regard to the number of wives that he might previously have taken ; which should he fail to do, was not the widow to spit in "his face" and he to become disgraced in Israel? (Deuteronomy, 25th:4-10,) with provisions made in the same law to govern the interests of the different wives and children belonging to the same husband, (Deuteronomy, 21st:15) and does not the numerical account rendered by Moses of the numbers in Israel before they entered Canaan, show to the calculating "Reader" that out of near fifty who were born in the wilderness, only one was a first born showing conclusively that those who were heads of families must have married many wives, which was no doubt rendered more practicable from multitudes of the male children having been destroyed by Pharaoh, King of Egypt; and to provide for its continuance, was not Israel commanded to spare alive the Midianite virgins for themselves (Numbers, 31st:18,) with those also of many other nations, while every male was put to the sword? (Deuteronomy, 20th; 13-14.) And was not Gideon the mighty man, who had seventy sons born in his own house, besides, no doubt, many daughters, called of God through the ministration of angels to deliver Israel, being a great and a good man? (Judges, 8th:30.) Was not David, after marrying seven wives, called a man "after God's own heart" and exalted to the throne of Israel? and after the transgression and death of Saul, who had many wives, does not the Prophet Nathan declare that God had given them also into the bosom of David the King, and that if all of his wives, with the kingdom which he had received, had been "too little," that the Lord would have added unto him still more, had he not become guilty? (2 Samuel, 12:8) and was not Solomon blessed with all of his wives until, contrary to the Commandments of God, he took wives from the idolatrous nations, for which he was cursed by the voice of the Lord unto himself, foretelling the destruction and almost entire overthrow of his kingdom, which occurred in the reign of his son? (1 Kings, 11th.) And did not Jehoida, the Lord's High Priest, take two wives for Joash, the King of Judah, who was a righteous man and redeemed Israel from idolatry, destroying the temples of Baal and repairing the house of the Lord? (2 Chronicles, 24:3.) And was not the beginning of the word of the Lord unto the Prophet Hosea, that he should take to himself a wife, after which he was commanded to take a second? (Hosea, 1--2: 3-1.)

Now, Mr. "Reader," do not all of these evidences, with the scores of others which you cannot but recollect, if you are familiar with that most common of all "Mormon Books," the "Holy Bible," show conclusively that God not only sanctioned and blessed this institution, but that it was by His direct commandment also; and although you would feign set forth to the credulous that polygamy was sinful and adulterous, yet you can not but know (if you are a "reader,") that under the Patriarchal and Mosaic statutes, there was no greater crime known than that of prostitution and adultery, which was atoned for alone through the death of the guilty, and was not this law given and imposed in Israel, while Moses, who received it from the Almighty, with many others in Israel, had many wives? Was not death the fate of near the whole city by whom Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, was defiled? (Genesis, 24th chapter.) And was not the camp of Israel preserved from the fierce anger of the Almighty through the speedy putting to death of all those who had committed adultery in the camp? (Numbers, 25th.) And was not almost the whole tribe of Benjamin at one time put to the sword for their adulterous and illicit practices? (Judges, 19--20 : 21st chapter.) And in the Law which God gave to Israel did He not provide this penalty for those who were found in adultery, by their being stoned to death without the gates of the city? And was not such the strictness of that law, that even the young bride, should she fail to produce the evidence of her virginity, was doomed to the same sad death and suffered its penalty? (Deuteronomy, 22 : 21.)

And, now Mr. "Reader," in view of all of these and many other positive evidences that the plurality of wives was an order not only instituted and blessed by the Almighty, but that a violation of such marriage covenants was punished by death, how could you unblushingly declare that such a practice like "lying and murder" were "in violation of a positive command," and that lying and murder are as Scriptural acts as polygamy.

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Then if the Gospel of Christ was preached in the days of Moses and Abraham, without which there was no salvation, and God is unchangeable in His ways, how then can it be it be said that the Gospel does not admit of polygamy? Who is so ignorant as to suppose that "plurality of wives" pertained only to the law of Moses — was it not established under the Melchisedec and eternal priesthood, while Adam was yet upon the earth (Genesis, 4th,) hundreds of years before the Mosaic dispensation? Does it not therefore appear evident that a knowledge of the Gospel was cotemporary with polygamy, and that its practice must have existed under the organization of the Christian Churches? If not, why did Paul instruct Timothy to choose men for Bishops and Deacons who had married but one wife, if a plurality was not allowed in the church — why not simply caution him to beware of adulterers? Does he not tell Timothy that one wife is necessary to prove a man capable of governing his own house, without which ability he would be unfit for the office of Bishop; and have we not good reason to suppose that such selections were made that those who were called to fill the various offices of the church might not be trammeled with the cares of a numerous family — and if a plurality was not to be tolerated in the Christian dispensation, why did Isaiah, whose whole writings are filled with predictions in relation to the latter days when Jerusalem should be redeemed and Zion established, to become the great cities of refuge for the meek of the earth, where they should enjoy a communion with God and be safe from the universal calamities which are to render the earth desolate prior to the reign of universal Peace? "Why does he, speaking of that day, declare that seven women should lay hold upon one man and say — "we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach" — (Isaiah, 4th chapter,) declaring that all who were then left in Zion and Jerusalem should be holy, and that the Lord would create upon all their dwelling places a shadow by day and a shining by night, and are not those women such as are to be spared alive, while men reject the law of God and fall by sword, famine, pestilence, hail and fire, the account of which is so plainly portrayed by the Prophets and also by Christ and His Apostles?

And were we called upon, we should feel abundantly able to show, not only that our Saviour honored this doctrine of polygamy, by being born into the world through such a lineage, but that He adopted and practised it himself in a marriage with Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene, which is not only shown by the predictions of the Prophets, but by His general demeanor and intercourse with them, whose affections for Him were in every way demonstrated by kindness, solicitude and attention; and such being His love for Mary and Martha that He sympathized in the death of their brother, and wept with them over his tomb, manifesting such especial regard for the sister of Martha that she became known as "the Mary whom Jesus loved;" His marriage to whom, no doubt, occurred at Canaan of Galilee, where His mother, who officiated, called upon Him to furnish wine for the guests which was so miraculously produced by the changing of water into wine — His wives following Him whithersoever He went — being the last at the Cross and the first at the Sepulchre — unto whom he also first appeared after His resurrection from the dead.

Whosoever should doubt that our Saviour was to marry, let them turn to the 45th Psalm, where David, speaking of a personage whom he calls God, says that "kings' daughters shall be among his honorable women," which if properly rendered from the original, would read "honorable wives," while the "queen of Heaven should stand upon his right hand clothed with gold of Ophir," who is comforted with the assurance that the King shall greatly desire her beauty — bidding her, as he is lord, to worship him; and to show that this was to be literal, Paul quotes the sixth and seventh verses of the 45th Psalm in Hebrews, 1:8-9, showing distinctly that this personage who was called God — who was to have a queen in Heaven, with kings' daughters for his honorable wives, was no other than the Son of God himself.

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How unhappy then must be the prospects of the many thousands who perhaps may never for once receive the offer of marriage from a virtuous man, and who were designed by nature to honor the sacred name of wife and mother, and cheer the pathway of man by those happy smiles and joyous words which eminate alone from woman's heart while filling that high and holy sphere "for which by Nature's God she was designed."

But what does the true picture and reality unfold to our view? Look at the hundreds of nunneries throughout Christendom, in contradiction to the first great command, through disappointed expectations closing the visions of virtue and loveliness forever from the sight of a priest-ridden world. Look at the factories throughout Europe and America, thronged with multitudes of the softer sex toiling to amass wealth for the sordid capitalists, and to the thousands of close and sultry sewing establishments throughout the largest cities, crowded with pale and sickly women— doomed, through want of man's protection, in poverty to draw with feeble hand the careful stitch to gratify the fastidious fashions of folly, cruelty and wealth, until death, their almost only friend, closes for them the sad and toilsome scene;— such is the yearly fate of tens of thousands as the "reader" of "statistics" may discover.

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There the bright star of Deseret is rising fast— over the snowcrest tops of the "everlasting hills," where is perched the Eagle of Liberty, Freedom and Equal Rights, watching the sinking institutions of mortal man, and for that happy period when, with the unfurled banner of universal liberty, she can sore aloft and spread her golden wings on all the broad expanse of earth.

Such is the future to peaceful Utah — where a house of prostitution will never be known — and where the seducer of female chastity dare not ,raise his cursed head — where the law of God is known and kept inviolate — where wives are honored, and between offspring there is no distinction, and children are a desirable "heritage" — there the name of God is not profaned, and drunkenness is not beheld in the streets — and the Sabbath is holy— and there is Brigham Young, the "sensualist," the "adulturer" and "seducer," — the Prophet and chosen of God and the beloved of all his Saints.