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Show XI the Principle, and then changing it in the next week or day or hour. Grandfather was not immune to her feelings. "When I would let my mind dwell on dear Lottie's grief, I would feel that I could not possibly carry this matter any farther, and many times in my depression, I would firmly resolve that I would put an end to it all -- that I was not fit to live this great law, calling for such heartache and sacrifice." But as a good Mormon wife, Charlotte upheld Church tradition, believing her eternal welfare depended on her husband. Besides, she had been exposed to countless Mormon doctrines which expounded variously that men holding the high priesthood of the Church would be, in the words of Apostle Orson Pratt, "condemned if we do not enter into that principle." So Charlotte suppressed or reversed her objections and wept in secret or in seeming secrecy. When Grandfather, sensing her grief, faltered, then she came to him, black-bound book in hand, and read that the Lord had said, "I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant;...if ye abide not...then are ye damned." In addition to Charlotte's lapses of jealousy and suspicion, Grandfather had to deal with the ambivalence of his Church superiors. On the one hand were men who vehemently denounced polygamy, calling those who lived it "lawless" and "sinful." On the other hand were respected Church leaders who had obdurately maintained and even expanded their plural families since the Manifesto, some of whom hid out in the Allred home because they might be betrayed to the law by their closest brethren. |