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Show MORMON CHURCH. POLYGAMY. 125 mists, point triumphantly to an official publication in the Mor mon Journal at Nauvoo, dated February I, 1844 ( the year in which Smith was killed). It reads as follows: " NOTICE : " As we have already been credibly informed that an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by the name of Hiram Brown, has been preaching polyg amy, and other false and corrupt doctrines, in the Coumy of Lapier and State of Michigan : " This is to notify him, and the church in general, that he has been cut off from the church for his iniquity, and he is further notified to appear at the Special Conference on the 6th of April next to answer to these charges. " JOSEPH SMITH, " HYRAM SMITH, " Presidents of the Church."* Reasoning upon the presumption that Smith was an hon est and truthful man ( if it is admissible to suppose such a case in the face of the light of history, which makes him a base impostor), Brigham Young must have been deceived, or is himself a deceiver, in attributing to Smith what he hail pronounced false and corrupt. Or take the other horn of the dilemma, and believe Brigham Young, then Smith, his great prototype, must have been a base hypocrite and deceiver, and certainly not one who would be ordained of Heaven a establish a kingdom of righteousness upon the earth. On the same subject, a few months later, in the same year, a bull from Hyram, the second President, seems to have been published for the benefit of a certain community in which this " false and corrupt doctrine " had been taught. This reads as follows : " NAUVOO, 111., March 15, 1844 " To the Brethren of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter * Times and Seasons, vol. 5, p. 423, |