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Show CELESTIAL MAEEIAGE. 263 will not, under our present form of government (I mean the government of the United States), try us for treason for believing and practising our religious notions and ideas. I think, if I am not mistaken, that the Constitution gives the privilege to all'the inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then, if it can be proven to a demonstration, that the latter-day saints have actually embraced, as a portion of their religion, the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. And should there ever be laws enacted by this government to restrict them from the free exercise of this part of their religion, such laws must be unconstitutional. But, says the objector, we cannot see how this doctrine can be embraced as a matter of religion and faith; we can hardly conceive how it can be embraced only as a kind of domestic concern, something that pertains to domestic pleasures, in no way connected with religion. In reply, we will show you that it is incorporated as a part of our religion, and necessary for our exaltation to the fullness of the Lord's glory in the eternal world. Would you like to know the reasons ? Before we get through, we will endeavor to tell you why we consider it an essential doctrine to glory and exaltation, to our fullness of happiness in the world to come. We will first make a few preliminary remarks in regard to the existence of man, to his first existence in his first estate; and then say something in relation to his present state, and the bearing which it has upon his next or future state. The " Mormons " have a peculiar doctrine in regarc. to our pre-existence, different from the views of the |