ore it
assassinated, and strives to do by chicane what it aforetime did
by shedding blood. And all to defend itself in the practice of
polygamy!

One would ask why the Mormons set such extravagant store by that
doctrine of many wives. This is the great reason: It serves to
mark the Church members and separate and set them apart from
Gentile influences. Mormonism is the sort of religion that
children would renounce, and converts, when their heat had
cooled, abandon. The women would leave it on grounds of jealousy
and sentiment; the men would quit in a spirit of independence and
a want of superstitious belief in the Prophet's "revelations."
Polygamy prevents this. It shuts the door of Gentile sympathy
against the Mormon. The Mormon women are beings disgraced among
the Gentiles; they must defend their good repute. The children of
polygamous marriages must defend polygamy to defend their own
legitimacy. The practice, which doubtless had its beginning
solely to produce as rapidly as might be a Church strength, now
acts as a bar to the member's escape; wherefore the President,
his two counselors, the twelve apostles and others at the head of
Mormon affairs, insist upon it as a best, if not an only, Church
protection. Without polygamy the Mormon membership would dwindle
until Mormonism had utterly died out. The Mormon heads think so,
and preserve polygamy as a means of preserving the Church.

What the Mormon leaders think and feel and say on this keynote
question of polygamy, however much they may seek to hide their
sentiments behind a mask of lies, may be found in former
utterances from the Church pulpit, made before the shadow of the
law had fallen across it.

President Heber C. Kimball, in a discourse delivered in the
Tabernacle, November 9, 1856 (Deseret News, volume 6, page 291),
said: "I have no wife or child that has any right to rebel
against me. If they violate my laws and rebel against me, they
will get into trouble just as quickly as though they transgressed
the counsels and teachings of Brother Brigham. Does it give a
woman a right to sin against me because she is my wife? No; but
it is her duty to do my will as I do the will of my Father and my
God. It is the duty of a woman to be obedient to her husband, and
unless she is I would not give a damn for all her queenly right
and authority, nor for her either, if she will quarrel and lie
about the work of God and the principles of plurality. A
disregard of plai