Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-10-09
POLYGAMOUS INSTRUCTION.
An Earnest Appeal to EmmeIine B.
wells.
Communicated

Communicated.
"You are tie editress of the Woman
Exponent of Utah. You are the know
advocate of polygamy. You are th'
exponent, yourself, in your life, OF thi
crime against womanhood. By you
tongue, and by your pen, you have advo
Gated this institution in all parts of the
country where it has been your fortune to
be. You have claimed it to be divine
institution You said it was sent of God
through Joseph Smith, the chaste prophet.
You have lived in it. You have taught
it to your daughters; and this day
the curses that you have gen.
Grated have come home to roost.
The seeds of sorrow and crime,
that you have taught, that you have
practiced, have borne fruit this day, in
double disgrace that should cause you to
bury your head IN sack cloth and ashes,
overshadows the city, and the people, and
the country in which you live. You have
sown the wind, and reaped a whirlwind.
Your daughters, you trained to 60 into
polygamy, and they followed the example
you set them, and the instructions you
gave them. One of them stands an out
cast, by the self-confession of her husband.
Two others go weeping and lamenting this
day, and no doubt cursing their fate
and this accursed institution. Where is
your women's heart; where is your
mothers instinct? How can it be that
you, woman of intelligence, should
stoop from your womanhood to teach
such doctrine, and to furnish such ex-
amples to your own children and the
children of others who live about you?
The records of the court, the name of
John @. Cannon-the confessed adulterer
the wreck and ruin of your daughters,
polIutes the very air of religious life,
and sends horror to every thinking
soul that has breathed or felt the |
true inspiration of divine life and |
holy worship. Verify, it must be that
you have been permitted to live, in order
that by your example, by your instruc-
ton, and by the very ruin of your family, |
the people of this Territory may be |
taught to see and know how great the
crime OF polygamy is against the home
against womanhood, and motherhood,
and against all holy chastity. Is it true
that the heavens are opening-that the
wrath of God is descending, in
order that this moral cancer may
be burnt out of existence-th
the chains of religious tyranny and
the bonds OF superstition may be melted,
yea, burnt up-that the women and
children of this Territory may go free
from the damnable bondage that has held
them, and the superstition that has
blinded them? "Verily, the wrath of |
man shall praise the Lord" But,
Madam, you are to be pitied, and not to
be despised; you must be in such torture,
that the grace of God only, can relieve
your perturbed soul. Horrors upon hor-
rors may accumulate, and now this seems
to be the elimination of horror-unless
it be true, that all finer feelings that are
and mark a mothers life. have
been blunted and withered by this all
1amnable institution of polygamy which
has enslaved your life for, 10! these MANY
years. Better far that you should curse
God, and die, than that YOU should
persist IN maintaining that this institution
d poly1gamy is divine. Why not, let me
oeseech you, turn your intelligence into
your own heart; yea, into the fibers of
me hearts OF your daughters, that are
now PROSTATE and suffering in torture,
md then turn your soul and theirs to
iod. and in repentance for the rest of
lie denounce this stitution-denounce
his false and hell-born religion-if it is
lot a misnomer to call it religion
ind come out before your fellow
women, and do work meet for repentance,
md try for the rest of your life to undo
ne great wrong you have done to woman
lood, to yourself and to your own chill
lren. Do not longer deceive yourself.
Else to the voice of reason, to the cry of
outraged womanhood, to the cali Of
Almighty God in the very woes that beset
'ou, and in the days and years that may
'e lett you In this life, by tongue and pen
enounce this polygamous curse"
HYMEN.