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Show PRACTICAL POLYGAMY. 141 their minds a lively sense of their subordination, and at the same time save their husband and father numerous little millinery and dress- making bills, servants' wages, etc. With the families of most other church officials it is dif ferent. The wives of the second President, Mr. Kimball, are publicly known as dress- makers, milliners, etc., and the elder of them openly speak of having been no expense to their husbands since they left Nauvoo. That the wives of the apostles labor for what they can earn I have evidence in a pair of gloves one of them made for me, and she seemed very glad to accept the patronage of a Gentile, though the President is decidedly opposed to reciprocating such business transactions, and cautions his people against trading with Gentiles. The majority of polygamists furnish their wives with certain necessary articles, such as rations of flour and meat > with wood, house- room and shoes, and they are expected to purchase with their own earnings all additional articles. They spin and weave their own cloth. A laboring man will, if possible, have a Danish woman as one of his wives,, as they are usually good weavers, and can assist the others in making their cloth, etc. So it may be inferred that polygamy, under the Brigham Young regime is not necessarily an expensive institution Indeed if a man has three or four thrifty women to work for him he may find them pecuniarily profitable. Very many of the women who marry polygamists accept their state from the beginning as a necessary trial, and enter it with a very commendable Christian fortitude, determined to bear their afflictions for the glory that is to follow. Mr. Bowles, in his work " Across the Continent," remarks that he met a sweet, gentle, amiable woman, with whom he conversed about her life as one of the wives of a polygam-ist, when she remarked, " That the Lord Jesus has laid a great trial on me, but I mean to bear it for His sake, and for the glory He will give me in His kingdom." What beautiful Christian sentiment is contained in the remark of this poor, misguided, but sincere woman. More highly |