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Show 136 PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS. Doctrines and Covenants;" and they also continue to receive, as intimations of the Divine will, such communications as are now made to his successor from time to time, for their guidance, not only in matters of faith and doctrine, but in those ako of worldly policy and the concerns of every- day life. In the gift of miracles, and healing of the sick by the laying on of hands by the elders of the church, they are firm believers; and I have met more than one who has assured me not only that they had been eye- witnesses of the miraculous cures thus performed, but had themselves been the subjects of them. The mode of worship is, in its general arrangement, the same as that adopted by most Protestant denominations who do not use printed ritual; to wit, singing, prayer, and a sermon or exhortation from the pulpit. A band of music is stationed behind the choir of singers, and not only aids in the devotional services, but regales the audience before and after the close of the exercises. But it is in their private and domestic relations that this singular people exhibit the widest departure from the habits and practice of all others denominating themselves Christian. I refer to what has been generally termed the " spiritual wife system," the practice of which was charged against them in Illinois, and served greatly to prejudice the public mind in that State. It was then, I believe,* most strenuously denied by them that any such practice prevailed, nor is it now openly avowed, either as a matter sanctioned by their doctrine or discipline. But that polygamy does actually exist among them cannot be concealed from any one of the most ordinary observation, who has spent even a short time in this community. I heard it proclaimed from the stand, by the president of the church himself, that he had the right to take a thousand wives, if he thought proper; and he defied any one to prove from the Bible that he had not. At the same time, I have never known any member of the community to avow that he himself had more than one, although that such was the fact was as well known and understood as any fact could be. If a man, once married, desires to take him a second helpmate, he must first, as with us, obtain the consent of the lady intended, and that of her parents or guardians, and afterward the approval of the seer or president, without which the matter cannot proceed. The woman is then « sealed' 1 to him under the solemn sanction of the church, and stands, in all respects, in the same relation to the man, as the wife that was first married. The union thus formed is con- |