nes persecuted--and it did seem to me that we were entitled to
the constitutional protection of the courts in the practice of our
religion."

But the courts had decided "against us." The great men of the nation
were determined to show us no mercy. Legislation was impending that
would put us "in the power of the wicked." Brother George Q. Cannon,
Brother John T. Caine, and the other brethren who had been in
Washington, had found that the situation of the Church was critical.
Brother Franklin S. Richards had advised him that our last legal defense
had fallen. "In broken and contrite spirit" he had sought the will of
the Lord, and the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that it was necessary
for the Church to relinquish the practice of that principle for which
the brethren had been willing to lay down their lives.

A sort of ghastly stillness accepted what he said as a confirmation
of the worst fears of the men who had evidently come there with some
knowledge of what they were to hear. I glanced at the faces of those
opposite me. A set and staring pallor held them motionless. I was
conscious of a chill of heart that seemed communicated to me from them.
My brother Abraham was sitting beside me; I knew his deep affection for
his family; I knew with what a clutch of misery this edict of separation
was crushing his hope; I felt myself growing as pale and tense as he.

The silence was broken by President Woodruff asking one of the brethren
to read the manifesto. When it was concluded, he said: "The matter is
now before you. I want you to speak as the Spirit moves you."

There was no reply, except a sort of general gasp of low-voiced
interjections and a little buzz of whisperings that sounded like emotion
taking its breath. He called on my father to speak. The First Councillor
rose to make a statesmanlike review of the crisis; and I understood that
with his usual diplomacy he was putting aside from him the authority of
leadership until he could see whether an opposition was to develop that
should make it necessary for him to front it.

That opposition made a rustle of stirring in the pause that followed. I
saw it in the changed expressions of some of the faces. Several of the
men--including my brother Abraham, and Joseph F. Smith--asked whether
the manifesto meant a cessation of plural marriages: whether no more
such marriages were to be allowed.

President Woodruff answered that it did; that the Lord had taken back
the princi