| 633 The audiences were large, quite as large as the room would hold, many standing, the first and second evenings. On the third, a lecture in the Fourth Ward, on the Book of Mormon, by Elder Edward Stephenson, previously announced, perhaps took some; but the house was comfortably full, and excellent attention was paid. In fact the attention was good throughout; and we were courteously treated. Elder Stewart, a member of the High Council, as I was told, and several others took seats on the stand the first evening, including Elder Steves, of the M. E. Church, Bishops Smith, Lewis, and others. Mr. Stewart stood by us each evening, courteously and kindly. On the second evening I discussed the marriage question, affirming our position respecting its institution, and giving reasons for not accepting plurality. I tried to avoid the use of any language that could justly be taken as abusive, or calculated to stir up anger-I think no offense was taken.
Apostle Moses Thatcher, at my general request for some of the brethren to fill the seats on the stand came and sat with us. I was pleased to meet him and make his acquaintance. . . . Towards the close of my discourse he interrupted me several times, by remarks; but thinking better of it, when I told him I had no objection, he apologized and let me finish. He told me, however, in correction of my statement that the revelation on plural marriage had never received the vote of the people sustaining, or accepting it as a tenet of the faith, that he was himself present when some nine thousand assembled at General Conference, had accepted it by vote. I asked him when it was. He did not remember exactly, but admitted, when I asked him, that it was sometime after 1876. He also stated, in an interruption, when I was reading the notice of April, 1844, about Hiram Brown, that they "did not believe in polygamy, and never did." Of course I accepted both statements, especially the first, and thanked him for it. The second I held to be but a change of name for the same thing, the having more than one wife at the same time; which was the thing under discussion, whatever name it might be called by.-The Saints' Herald, vol. 36, p. 679.
October 3 Elder F. M. Sheehy entered into a debate with Mr. Roys, of the Freewill Baptist persuasion, at Dixfield Center, Maine. The subject discussed was the laying on of hands. Arrangements were made for other discussions to follow.
The Herald for October 5 contained an extensive article from the pen of President Joseph Smith entitled, "Ways that are Doubtful," being a reply to an article furnished by Franklin D. Richards, historian of the Utah church, for a work entitled, "What the World Believes; the False and the True." President Smith met the oft
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