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

COmmunlCateu.
"You are tie edtress of the Womdn'S
Exponent OF Utah You are the known
advocate OF polygamy. You are the
exponent, yourself, in your life, OF this
crime against womanhood BY your
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
practced, have borne fruit this day, in
the lives of your daughters, and now the
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 go 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-confesson of her husband.
Two others 90 weeping and lamenting this
day, and no doubt cursing their fate
and this accursed institution. Where is
your woman'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 Q. Cannon-the confessed adulterer
the wreck and ruin Of your daughters,
pollutes 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 exstence-that
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-uness
it be true, that all finer feelings that are
womanly and mark a mothers life, have
been blunted and withered by this all
damnable 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
OF polygamy is divine. Why not, let me
beseech you, turn your intelligence into
your own heart; yea, into the fibers OF
the hearts Of your daughters, that are
now prostrate and suffering in torture
| and then turn your soul and theirs to
God, and in repentance for the rest of
life denounce this NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
this false and hell-born religion-if it is
not a msnomer to call it religion
and come out before your fellow
women, and do work meet for repentance,
and try for the rest OF your life to undo
the great wrong you have done to woman
hood, to yourself and to your own chill
dren. DO not longer deceive yourself
Rise to the voice of reason, to the cry of
outraged womanhood, to the cali Of
Almighty God in the very woes that beset
you, and in the days and years that may
be left you in this life, by tongue and pen
denounce this polyGamous curse"
HYMEN.