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Show 126 DOCTRINE OF THE Day Saints, living on China Creek, in Hancock County, greeting : " Whereas, Brother Richard Hewitt has called on me to day, to know my views concerning some doctrines that are preached in your place, and states to me that some of your Elders say that a man having a certain priesthood may have as many wives as he pleases, and that that doctrine is taught here j I say unto you that man preaches false doctrine, for there is no such doctrine taught here, neither is there any such thing practiced here ; and any man that is found teach ing privately or publicly any such doctrine, is culpable, and will stand a chance of being brought before the High Coun cil, and lose his license and membership also : therefore he had better beware what he is about. " HYRAM SMITH."* John Taylor, one of the apostles ( who now, by the way, is the husband of six wives), in 1850, only two years before Brigham announced the doctrine, when he admitted that it had been in his possession for some time, and known to such as should know it, declares when on a mission to France very positively against polygamy, as a doctrine not taught or recognized by the church. Mr. Hyde, in his work on the Mormons, says that u Taylor had four wives wrang ling and quarrelling at Utah, and was paying attentions to a girl at Jersey, Channel Islands, at the very moment he uttered these wilful, intentional falsehoods ! " In England, the rumor of polygamy being taught in America, endangered the success of the cause in that country, as elsewhere in Europe, when Parley Pratt, to whom I have before referred as being murdered for running off with the wife of another man, thus publicly denounces it in a General Conference of all the European Churches in 1846: " Such a doctrine is not held, known, or prac ticed as a principle of the Latter Day Saints. It is but an- * Times and Seasons, vol. 5, p. 477* |