The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-10-02 00:00:00

ILLUSTRATION OF THE SPIRITUAL WIFE SYSTEM.

There was a man in the company named Peter Short,
who, to excessive boorishness or manner, united a most
repulsive countenance and forbidding disposition. He was
extremely ignorant, having not even mastered the first
rudiments of education. But, as might he expected, he
was a great devotee, a firm believer in all the visions and
miracles of the Prophet, and the firm adherent of all his
doctrines. Peter, though already possessing a wife and
ten children, seemed to have beer. already struck with the
pensive grace and beauty of Ellen. He seemed never to
weary of gazing at her, or talking to her, though it was
equally perceptible that she loathed and hated him. She
rarely looked towards him, answered his questions only by
monosyllables, and otherwise manifested every symptom of
dislike to him and his society. I had frequent opportuni-
ties for observing this, and it seemed to me, from the first,
that some difficulty would grow opt of it. I was walking a
little apart from the others, when Ellen came to me, pale as
death, and trembling with agitatica.
" Oh, Mrs. Ward !" she said, " I have come to you as the
only person on earth in whom I can confide. What shall
Ido P Can't you save me from this dreadful fate P"
" What is it, Ellen ?" I said soothingly ; " what new
trouble has happened to you P"
" Oh, that horrible Peter Short! They certainly wish
to kill me, or they would save me from him."
"My near," said I, " compose yourself, and let me
know the whole affair. _ _ _

" And the whole affair can to summed up in a few
words. Peter Short has asked me )f Smith for his spiritual
wife. Smith has consented, and now commands me to
accept him as my husband in the fdth—him I loathe, and
hate, and despise, as I never hated man before."
"But your mother—cannot sle save you from this
fate ?"
"My mother is blinded and bigoted. She says that I
must obey the commands of the Prophet, and that nothing
that he orders can be wrong. But, it cannot be so. Has
he not connived at murder, and deception, and all kinds
of vice ? Has he not ruined me already, soul and body?
Has he not made me a thing to be pitied and abhorred by
the pure? But this has overflovn the cup. I might
have borne the rest ; I might have hidden my shame and
sorrow, and obtained peace and coltentment at last. But
to be transferred from one villait to another, is awful—
horrible !"
" What do they mean by spiritual wife?"
" You know Smith teaches that women can only be
saved through their husbands; and that unmarried females
must be ever debarred from the ?leasures of the blest.
Consequently every woman must be provided with a
spiritual husband. In that capacity, myself, Mrs. Cook,
Mrs. Clarke, and Irene, have been the wives of Smith.
Now he has tired of me. He will soon tire of them. Oh,
misery !" .

Greatly as I pitied the poor girl, it was impossible,
under the circumstances, to give her advice; and so
assuring her of my sympathy and friendship, and recom-
mending her to put off the evil day as long as possible, and
that probably something might happen to prevent it
altogether, I left her.
The next morning Ellen was musing; and when search
was made, her body was found in the cool depth of a pool
that lay a short distance from the ercampment. They laid
her out on the smooth green sward, and one after another
came to look on the pale, sweet face, and touch the pallid
hand. Smith came among the rest, and so did Peter
Short. Yet the wan lips uttered no cry of vengeance
against them ! the dim eyes no longer turned from their
presence. She slept to wake no more.
The spiritual wife doctrine was one of the
charges brought against the Mormon iniquity
from an early stage of its existence, and it was
strenuously denied at first ; it is described,
although not credited, by Dr. Charles Mackay, in

his history of the " Mormons." " Higbee," one
of the early leaders in this monstrous faith, de-
scribed his own ideas of the " spiritual wife "
system. He said that "some of the elders had
ten or twelve spiritual wives a-piece ; that they
entered the names of the women in a large book
_ _

which was kept sealed at Hyrum Smith's ; and
that when an elder or other Mormon wanted to
seduce a woman, he led her to see this book
opened, where, if her name was found entered,
she was told it.was the will of Heaven that she
should submit, and she submitted accordingly."
From the villanous system thus treacherously
introduced much and fearful individual misery is
frequently experienced, while crimes, if possible,
blacker in the stain of their iniquity than that
already quoted arise out of it. Unsuspecting
female emigrants are trapped in their passage
across the continent to Oregon, and having been
made victims of one species of villany, are ulti-
mately sacrificed by another. Take as an example
the following