Show DISCOURSE nes ner l BY I 1 7 1 edeh edew POISON 0 RS an ark prk PRATT tr t ft TW f at tiia ilic te somi seini semiannual annual conference of the church of jesus christ of latter day aina saints jh itu ift the mcw mcm tabernacle salt sait ia lake ke alty aliv wednesday october ath 1874 BY david david DAVJD W bvans nare narn been requested this afternoon to freach preach upon the subject ot of marriage it a a subject which has been often laid before tho the latter day saints and it Is ia certainly taini r one of great importance to te the saints as weli weil as vy the Inh inhabitants abItantA 1 of the earth for I 1 presume that no person who believes in divine revelation will pretend to say that Is not a divine ansti gutlon and if this be the case it Is one which human rain fain family ll I 1 will select a passage of scripture in relation to this divine institution as ag it existed ed in tho the days of moses in selecting unselecting however this passage I 1 d do 0 not wish the congregation to suppose that we are under the law of moses particularly there are many great principles inculcated in that law which the lord never did intend to come to an endor endon end or bo done away eternal principles moral principles then there are others that were done away at the coming of our savior he having fulfilled the law Because we aina find certain declarations cla contained in the law given to moses that docs does not prove that the lat ter day saints sainte are under that law that barno samo god that gave the law of moses the being that we worship la is just as capable of giving laws in our day as in moke seil i day and if fhe the he sees proper to alter the t ode ode odo given to moses and to give something varying from it we have no right to say that ahat he shall not dobe dose do so therefore in selecting the passage which I 1 am about to read it it is merely to show what god d did id in anc ancient lerit times and that he may do so methIn 11 similar liar ilar in modem times ita in the tho chapter of exodus speak ing of a man who already had one wife moses mosca says bays if he take him another wife her food her har raiment and her duty of f marriage shall shall he not diminish it will be recollected that this law lav was given to a lc le nation when I 1 speak of a lc le nation I 1 mean a nation that practised practiced both plural and single marriage and believed one form to be just as sacred an its theother the other othen their editors arances or ances anees tora were polygamists and they were considered patterns for all future generations their piety holiness purity ot at heart their great faith in god their communion with him the great blessings to which they attained the visions that were made manifest to them the conversation that god himself as well as fis his bis angels had with them entitled them to be called the friends of god not only in their day but they were considered by all future generations to be his friends they were not only examples to the jewish nation but in their beed seed the seed of these poly gam ram gallats lats all the nations and kingdoms of the earth were to be blessed I 1 hope that pious christians in this congregation gre gation will not find fluit this afternoon with their bible and with the prophets and inspired men mea who wrote it I 1 hope that they will not find fault with god for gelestin to be his hia friends I 1 hope that lat they will not find fault with jesus because he be said some two thousand years or upwards after the days of these that they were in the king dom domm oford and were not mot m not ot condemned because of polygamy jebus jesus says speaking of abraham isaac and jacob il many shall come from the east and from ahe the west treat from the north and from the south and shall sit down with abraham isaac and jacobia jacob ja the kingdom of god do not nind find fault with jeso you christians because he has hag these poly gamilis gam isis in his kin hin kingdom dog dom and add because he has said that the gentiles will be ba blessed through the seed of these polygamists neither find fault with him because he be has taken these polygamists into his king kingdom dom and that many will come from the four quarters of the earth and have the privilege of down with them therein jacob married four wives and aud may be considered the founder of that great nation of polygamists lie ile set the example before them llis liis twelve dons bons who were t the a progenitors ro editors of t the a twelve w ve tribes r of israel me were e the children childr of 01 the four wives of the a prophet or patriarch pat arch jacob so 9 acrea acred did the lord 0 hold these irs ids that he be said many hundred years atter after their death sal sai 1 I am the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob and this shall bhail be my memorial unto all generations now christians do not find fault if god chose these poly gambits and at the same time wished to make them a sample sampie a memorial coall generations christians as well as je jews w S several hundred years atter after god raised up P these his hla friende friends and founded or began U to found the twelve tribes of israel isme he ha saw baw proper to raise up a mighty man an called moses to deliver the children of israel from the bondage in which they had been oppressed and afflicted by the egyptian nation so great had this affliction become that the king lung of egypt issued a decree commanding the tho IsmelI tIsh midwives to put all the male children bom born among the israelites this murderous law was carried out this was about eighty yeam years before moses was sent cent down from the land of midian to deliver the children ol of israel from this cruel bondage how ion lon long iong ve this 1 gi eat cat affliction afflic tion tiou of putting to death tte maie mawe children existed is its no not given in the bible but it seems to have waxed worse and sud woe worse during the following el eighty ht yem yen aften after which moses was gent sent so deliver them we may rea a 0 aabey s suppose a that the oppressive hand of pharaoh was not altogether eased up but continued on lor for scores of years yearb deg des many of the malo maio children making a greats urlus of females in that nation agrest A great multitude of females famales oyer oter and above that of males malis will account for the peculiar pasiano of scripture to which I 1 will now refer re fer for you it will be found in the third chapter of numbers I 1 have not loot time to turn to it and read it but I 1 will quote you the substance sub Bub stance thereof moses and aaron were commanded to number all the males maies in israel from a month old and upward that were called the firstborn first born horn among the various tribes now Nov ithe the ahe n of in elan clan the old oid oldest est eat male malec hild child of the first wife for sometimes the first no children but it means the first bom son bon that Is born to the father whether by the first wife or second or third or any number of wives wires that he be may have the toe term firstborn first born pertains to the first mlle mam child that Is born bom to the father so it was accounted to jacobs family of twelve son gon a reuben only was called the of israel until he be lost his birthright through on which we wc age aee lold loid in the ath chapter r 1 0 of I 1 first was taken from him and given to one of the soils sons sous of joseph rut fiat so BO far as age gr or birth was concerned reuben was the firstborn first born and had bad it not been for his transgression selon he be would hate have inherited a double rouble portion coition of his fathers substance for that was the law in ancient times now how many of the firstborn first born could be found la in the midst of israeli ismail we ire are told that there were twenty two thousand two hundred and seventy three firstborn first born males among the eleven tribes the tribe of lorl lori was not reckoned at that time but all nil the male members of the tribe of levi leti from irom a month old and upwards mas mab twenty two thousand souls now if the tribe of leti levi numbered in proportion to the other eleven number of first born males in all the twelve tribes would probably amount to between twenty four and twenty flye fite thousand soul souls it could nat have run over that there might have been some of the firstborn first born who were dead which would make a few more families then there might have been other fan families alies ailes who never had my eny male children which would increase the families still more supposing then in order to give all the advantage possible and to make as many families as we possibly can consistently that we say instead of twe twenty nive five thousand firstborn first born in the midst of alt art israel that there were thirty thousand that Is allowing for all these contingencies I 1 have named where families had no males male and those families that had bad male children under a month old which were not reckoned and those 14 milles which might have had firstborn first born male children who leho died and the tue number might possibly be increase 1 to fout foun or flye five thousand more in making king the total number of families tt about thirty th u bisand sand thus we eee see that the number of first born males from a month old or upwards gives us a clue to the number of families we may not be able to determine the number exactly but these data will enable us to approximate very closely it is goner generally admitted that israel at that ume time numbered twenty five hundred thousand souls there might have been a variation from this of a few thousand souls bouls but according to the scriptural and all other evidences that can be gleaned the number above referred to is about the number of souls that existed in israel at that time among that twenty five hundred thousand souls then there were thirty thousand families how many were there lna ina in a family all that you have to do to tell how many there were in a family is to divide twenty five hundred thousand by thirty thousand and you will find that the quotient is eighty three showing that number of souls on an average in each family now if these families famines were all ali how many children must have been born to each wife eighty one this argument is founded on Scrip scripture tur tut and it shows chows plainly even if you yon should 1 double doable ahe n umber number of families famili he ei A or of the firstborn first born that they could not be all mon man owamie families for if we suppose there were sixty thousand families it would make every danied woman the mothe forty odd children and if an cli a supposition could be entertained it would go to show that women in those days were more fruitful than they are arc now these declarations are given in your bible which Is also my bible that is in mug klag james translation we ali ail belicic belie belic rc asto to be bible bel bei believers leTers leyers or Chilst lanb ians do not be startled startle duly my hearers at these dc declara clarl clara tiona tlona ol at your bible no wonder then that t this his passage which I 1 have taken for my t text ext was given to that people because t they hey were a people who needed to be guided 1 in a relation to their duty 1 if I a mantakes man take another wife that thit is after he has got one if he take another one her food I 1 whose food the food of the first wife hen her raiment that is the raiment of the first wire wife her duty of marriage he shall not diminish now this is piaia plair pointed and positive language in regard to polygamy as it existed among the houfe house ofis of ismel israel in ancient times why did not the lord say eay if polygamy were a crime or a sin tin 1111 if a man take another wife let all the congregation take him without the camp and stone him and put him to death or if that was too severe let them incarcerate him in a prison or dungeon for several years if it be a crime why did ho he not say so EO it is J just a st as easy to say that as to give directions as to what course a man shall pursue with regard to his first wife if he take another one this is bible doctrine as it existed la in those days I 1 know that it has been argued that the first woman here spoken of was merely a betrothed woman and not married but if this be so eow gow what bats hats a curious saying this in our oan text that her duty of marriage shall ho he not dImI diml diminish nish if he take another wife this and other expressions preb pres show clearly that they were both wives and that thero there was a certain duty to be attended to by the hus bus husband band besides provi qing dlug them with foed food and raiment it wab wius was argued here in this tabernacle before bome come eight or ten teli thousand peo pleon a cc certain r tain lain occasion th that atthe the hebrew word translated duty ditty cf of marriage 11 ought to have been trauB translated isted dwelling her food her raiment and her he shall not diminish I 1 recollect asking the learned gentleman ret rev dr newman ew moan roan why he translated it dwelling laah of tran translating slating it as all ali othen other hebraists have bave done I 1 asked him to produce one passage in nil the bible where that word translated duty c of marriage meant a dwelling 11 but he could not do it the gme hebrew word wora for 1 dwelling 11 and the hebrew word for duty of marriage 11 are two entirely distinct words I 1 referred him to the learned professors in lege igge and nd to many others who have translated this thia hebrew word duty duty duly of mar these rhese professors and fiher other learned translators haye hate referred tz to this special passage and have translated it in two way wayt og one is duty of marti marri mal ge 1 11 and the other is cohabitation now if this latter be correct her food her raiment and her cohabitation shall shail not te tc diminished I 1 asked him why he varied in his translation of 0 the hebrew from all these translators and aud lexicographers his only answer wab was that he found a certain jew in washington who told him 0 ax it meant dwelling or rather that its original root refer nefer referred rud to a dwelling 11 I 1 was a very poor against all the translators of the Chilst christian lan world who arc are mostly monogamists dat but we will pabs pass on I 1 donot do not intend to dwell dell too long on these subjects so far as the law ol of moses Is concerned to prota that the muse house of israel kept up I 1 their polygamous institution from generation to generation let me refer you to another law to show chow that they tiley wescom to do this or else to come out in open rebellion against the law of moses in the chapter of deuteronomy we read something like this when brethren dwell together aud and one of them die the living brother shall take the widow of the dec deceased eased essed brother and it shall come to pass that the firstborn first born that Is raised up shall succeed in the name of his broth br othir brother tr 11 this was a positive command given to all israel now was this command confined to young men who were unmarried or was it an unlimited command so far as living brothers were in ear existence stence this Is a question to be decided there is nothing in all the scriptures that makes any distinction between a married brother who survives and an unmarried brother the law wab was just as binding upon a living brother if bo be had already a wife alrin living as it was upon a living brother it he ed had kad no wife it being a universal giai fial law jaw with no ao limits in its application so far as the house honse ot at israel was wab concerned this law tuen luen compelled the children of israel to be polygamists for in many instances the living brother might be i a mard married ed man ninn and in many instances there might be two or three brothers who would take wives and |