Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/425

Rh "That the three original witnesses to the 'Book of Mormon' apostatized and denied its truth." To this the Mormons add, that after a season those apostates duly repented and were rebaptized; one has died; the second, Martin Harris, is now a Saint in Kirtland, Ohio; and the third, Sidney Rigdon, to whom the faith owed so much, left the community after the Prophet's martyrdom, saying that it had chosen the wrong path, but never rejecting Mormonism nor accusing it of fraud. The witnesses to those modern tables of the law (the Golden Plates) were but eleven in toto, and formed only three families interested in the success of the scheme. The same paucity, or rather absence of any testimony which would be valid in a modern court of justice, marks the birth of every new faith, not excluding the Christian. And, finally, wickedness proved against the witnesses does not invalidate the value of their depositions. The disorders in the conduct of David and Solomon, for instance, do not affect the inspiration of the Psalms and Canticles.

"That Mormon apostles and elders, as Parley P. Pratt and John Taylor, denied the existence of polygamy, even after it was known and practiced by their community." The Mormons reply that they never attempted to evade the imputation of the true patriarchal marriage: they merely asserted their innocence of the "spiritual wifedom," the Free Loveism and the Fanny Wrightism of the Eastern States—charges brought against them by the anti-Mormons.

Having thus disposed of the principal allegations, I will more briefly allude to the minor.

"That the Mormons do not allow monogamy." This I know not to be the fact, as several of my acquaintances had and have but one wife. "That a multitude of saints, prophets, and apostles are in full chase after a woman, whom the absence of her husband releases from her vows; that the missionary on duty appoints a proxy or vicarious head to his house, and that his spouses are married pro tempore to elders and apostles at home." Mrs. Ferris has dreamed out this "abyss of abomination," and then uses it to declaim against. But is it at all credible? Would not such conduct speedily demoralize and demolish a society which even its enemies own to be peculiarly pure? "That the Mormons are 'jealous fellows'"—a curious contradiction of the preceding charges. The Saints hold to the semi-seclusion of Athens, Rome, and Syria, where "she was the best of women of whom least is said, either of good or harm," believing with the world generally that opportunity often makes the thief. "That the Mormons 'swap,' sell, exchange, and transfer their wives to Indians." Mrs. Ferris started the story, which carries its own refutation, by chronicling a report of the kind; and Mr. Ward improves upon it by supplying false instances and names. "That the utmost latitude of manners is allowed in the ballroom and the theatre," which are compared to the private réunions of Rosanna Townsend and other Aspasias. The contrary is no-