| Show THOUGHTS OF A MISSOURI WOMAN ON ANTI ANY AMY legislation ROCKPORT atchison co mo april 5 1886 editor deseret news lam I 1 am an unlearned old woman the most of whose hf life e has been spent in the state of missouri I 1 have read your va valuable ua le paper aper t this is w winter uter and see by t the e performance er armance of the two contending n in powers 0 ers that the crisis has nearly co come e when en we must come out on one side or the other 1 I realize that when the great seal of the united states went down on that law known as the edmunds law as a government of the people and by the people we telephoned to the lord of hosts and said we the people of the united states pronounce the acts of your servants and inspired prophets who kept the sacred record we call the bib bible e to be a crime worthy of imprisonment six months in the penitentiary and a line fine of with these things impressed strongly upon me I 1 have ventured for the first time in my life to write a short article for a paper in st louis and one in washington city the national review lie view and to two papers in our own county bordering on what seemed to me would place us in awkward position with our heavenly father but none seemed to wish to print anything of the sort one was returned with an apology the reason assigned for not publishing it being that it might provoke provoke controversy and I 1 now sen send it to you to do with as you see fit it will be all right with me yours LYDIA LEWIS POLYGAMY there is nothing new under the sun so the mormon plural wife doctrine is not new when I 1 speak of this doe doc trine do not understand me as saying anything whatever of any of its counterfeits ter feits or substitutes wherever they may be found the jews in their pal days while under the commands and inspiration of god and while keeping their sacred record believed in that order of marriage as well as the one wife system both nourished flourished side by side never dreaming that either was a crime they worshipped wor shipped the god of abraham isaac and jacob a god of revelation of inspiration of knowledge in fine as perfected iu in all science in religion in ilk law in everything pertaining to this life or the life to come the mormons cormons Mor mons worship this same god As the gentiles have never to knowledge my kept a sacred record I 1 cannot refer you to any of theirs but if there is no law preventing I 1 should like to refer you to a few passages from the jews record not far f from born four thousand years ago the lord said to AbrahamS Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy fathers house bouse unto a land that I 1 will show thee and aua I 1 will make of thee a great nation and I 1 will bless thee sad and make thy name great be blessing and I 1 w will V 1 1 bless them that t bless less thee aud and curee him that oseth thee W 4 in thee shall all the families of the earth be blest so abraham departed as the lord had spoken and took sarai his wife with him and the lord prospered him After this with the consent of of the parties concerned he took to himself another wife and the lord blessed and prospered him and said in blessing I 1 will bless and in multiplying I 1 will multiply thee and in inthy thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blest he said of abraham he was a most obedient and just man who heard his voice and kept his laws and statutes and commandments mand ments if abraham committed a crime in his marital relations how could he be considered ri righteous oteous in the eyes of god who cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance athe anthe lord blessed abraham in all things not exen excepting his marriage relations and also his son isaac for his fathers sake renewing upon his head all the blessings after this his grandson jacob stepped upon the stage to act his part in the great pro gramme of life and with the consent of the parties concerned took unto himself four wives while still wor shipping the same bod god his forefathers had done and keeping his commandments the same blessings were rei dewed to him that had been bestowed upon his fathers the lord talked with him and said thou shall no more be called jacob but israel for as a prince has thou power with god and with men and hast prevailed believing sievi ng in god and showing his faith by his 8 w works arks jacob lived one hundred and forty seven years and then called his twelve sons to him and blessed them and told them what should be fal them in after years his twelve sons with their children were called tile the twelve tribes of israel moses afterwards stepped upon the stage of action and was ins inspired i r e d from the beginning he had mr three e e wives a and nd walked and talked with go god d and saw him face to face he was 40 days and 40 nights in the mount listening to and talking with the very highest scale of intelligent beings and the glory ot of the lord rested upon him to such an extent that he was able to look back 2000 years and write the history of the creation and the fall of man and lead the children of israel out of bondage through the strength and power of god goa he was also the lords lawgiver law giver and gave a law regulating plural marriage do we be believe this part of the sacred record was inspired if so wh why do not the gentiles receive it y if it is not inspired what part of the sacred record is W wa find that two thousand years afterwards the jews had departed from the true god and lost the spirit of in inspiration and were worshipping wor shipping everything in general and nothing in particular in line flue whatever seemed right in their own eyes and were praying in the streets and market places but that they had never lost sight of their good fathers and their beloved prophet moses we have no account of their casting any reflections upon the marriage relations of those ancient wor thies that was left tor for the gentiles to do and they have done it with a vengeance they have taught it to their children until it is interwoven in all our natures and they now pro propose ose to wind up the practice of plural marriage by force we find in the new testament that with pride the jews traced the blood of those old polygamists through the whole succession and did not miss david and Solo monto the ou our r lord and savior we have been taught t it was pure enough to cleanse a world from sin it if we would apply it to our use christ the very foundation of the christian religion is indebted to polygamous marriages for his being shall we strike the foundation from under the christian religion and let it come down with a crash and with it all our ohr hopes of f future lite life arid and all go over to ingersoll and reflect on the tee mistakes of moses by saying that those old servants were criminals criminal in the very foundation of good society and that our father and god fingered around in crime and inspired aspired them with folly consequently that our savior is of doubtful origin or at least not from a very pure fountain or shall we take hold of the other horn of the altar ard walk up to it like men and women worthy of being the children of god the father of all mankind and say let god be god and let his word be the truth if it compels us to say the christian world have inherited lies and senator edmunds in the bargain after all that has been said the gentiles are not so very pure as they think they are I 1 think it if tae savior wag to say let those that are without fault cast the first stone the jews would be as likely to as the gentiles what of the millions of harlots among all the nations of the gentiles ifor toe the last two thousand years are they a production d of the gentiles they certainly do not belong to the jews nor to the latter day saints will they be annihilated or will they come forth from tile the dead sticking to the very people that produced them like a tick to a dogs neck and is it possible that this great magnanimous government resting upon an inspired constitution with religious liberty and free speech as its chief corner stones in congress assembled with the bible on the table professedly believing the sacred record and offering up almost the identical prayers r 11 ayers of david and solomon and using as much of the law of moses as seems good in their eyes Is it pos sible elble that they have passed a law and ilgner eipel our oar seal to it atthe the pot reat sem seal of 0 the united states in the sight and hearing of god prohibiting any of his old servants or their children remaining in peace on this continent surely those old prophets and patriarchs who practiced polygamy are not in very good standing among tile the gentiles Is there any danger of the savior coming to reign on the earth and bringing his polygamous relatives with him if he should take such a notion in his head could he stop in some of the desert places of the earth without being hunted down like wild beasts and their children robbed of their food and clothing and if moses is the lords lawgiver law giver will he like to open our books and see how much of his laws we have copied for our profit and le learning arnina As I 1 have already extended this article to much greater length than I 1 anticipated I 1 will close kind reader my only object in writing this article was to let you know that men and even wo women men have religiously and conscientiously believed in plural marriage in its own time and place before the mormons cormons Mor mons and had reasons for their belief which the latter perfectly understand der stand LYDIA LEWIS |
