The Genteel Gentile, Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857 - 1858

Genteel Gentile, page 097

abiam salvatmn except through the agency of men) Thrs lady talked most eloquently to me about the "holy mystery of bang sealed m marriage" &r &c7 "Do not call us a &' she sad ,n answer to somethmg I sad "The behefs of the rest of the world are secianan, (ar cut off) 02 behef 1s pure truth- not held through ages, not qured by txne & trad~tmn, but every truly "endowed" Mormon may rece,ve any & every day a reveiatmn dreci from the Almghty hunself" &c &c "Moses, Jesus & Joseph have taught us & truth-but though they have passed away from us, God reveals hmself constantly to us Sill1 " I ia,d to a fmt wife, who pmscd polygamy, "If a woman loves her husband, how can she help suffering when her hus- band takes another wife?" " She does suffer but her suffering is only for t& world-our own position & that of our hus- bands, in another world, becomes so much the more elevated, accordimz to the number of wives taken. We lose t&world, but gam another & a bciter by our self abnrgatmn" `The one wfe of one husband, may watch for h,s commg step, may hasten to meet hm, io embrace him-but ,f a wife knows three or four other arms, beadei her own, my be around hm when she thus hastens, I should thmk her desm io meei & embrace hm would be somewhat confused, shaken, weak- ened" "Oh, WC Mormoni do not b&eve in any such doings They belong only to My love-& had better be qutc lad asrde, as useless & child&" &c A lady wrote io mc the other day, asking me io do xxne- thins for her. She gave me a definition of Mormonism, thus- "I answer hardily-Mormomsm E the most nwxorable nega- 97