| 349 did know of the revelation suppose it is not now in existence.
"The revelation will be read to you. The principle spoken upon by Brother Pratt, this morning, we believe in. And I tell you-for I know it-it will sail over and ride triumphantly above all the prejudice and priestcraft of the day; it will be fostered and believed in by the more intelligent portions of the world, as one of the best doctrines ever proclaimed to any people. Your hearts need not beat; you need not think that a mob is coming here to tread upon the sacred liberty which the Constitution of our country guarantees unto us, for it will not be. The world have known, long ago, even in Brother Joseph's days, that he had more wives than one. One of the senators in Congress knew it very well. Did he oppose it? No! but he has been our friend all the day long, especially upon that subject. He said pointedly to his friends, 'if the United States do not adopt that very method-let them continue as they now are-pursue the precise course they are now pursuing, and it will come to this-that their generations will not live until they are thirty years old; they are going to destruction; disease is spreading so fast among the inhabitants of the United States, that they are born rotten with it, and in a few years they are gone.' Said he, 'Joseph has introduced the best plan for restoring and establishing strength and long life among men, of any man on the earth; and the Mormons are a very good and virtuous people.'
"Many others are of the same mind; they are not ignorant of what we are doing in our social capacity. They have cried out, 'proclaim it;' but it would not do, a few years ago; everything must come in its time, as there is a time to all things. I am now ready to proclaim it.
"This revelation has been in my possession many years; and who has known it? None but those who should know it. I keep a patent lock on my desk, and there does not anything leak out that should not."-Supplement to Millennial Star, vol. 15, p. 31.
There is a conflict in the testimony. In the Temple Lot Suit Mr. Joseph C. Kingsbury affirmed that it was he that
(page 349) |
