Lorenzo a Bachelor.--The Prophet instructs him.--He changes tactics.--Marries.--Wives and Endowments.--In the Temple.--Wrath of our Enemies.--Expulsion of the Saints.--Cross the Mississippi River.--Intensely cold.--Snow storm.--Outfit.--Camp organized.--Moves forward.--Song No. 1.--Song No. 2. Up to this time my brother lived a bachelor. The great work in which he was engaged as a missionary of the Gospel of salvation to the nations of the earth, had so engrossed his mind and engaged the energies of his soul, that virtually he had ignored the first commandment to "multiply and replenish the earth." To devote his time, his talents, his all to the ministry was his all-absorbing desire; and in consonance with this desire, he had cherished the idea that domestic responsibility would lessen his usefulness; and, until the law of Celestial Marriage was fully explained to him by the Prophet Joseph Smith, in a prolonged interview while the two were seated alone on the bank of the Mississippi river, as before related, he had not conceived the idea that marriage was one of the _duties_ of the great mission of mortal life. With him, this, as well as every other practical doctrine, was only to be understood to be obeyed. It is one of his peculiarities to do nothing by halves; and when convinced of the duty of marriage, and that it was a privilege accorded him in connection with his ministerial calling, he entered into it on an enlarged scale, by having two wives sealed to him in the holy bonds of matrimony, for time and eternity, at the same time; and not long after, another was added to the number, and then another. Thus, all at once, as it were, from the lone bachelor he was transformed into a husband invested with many domestic responsibilities. Probably a realizing sense of the fact that he had arrived at the mature age of thirty-one years in celibacy, suggested to him the propriety of making up for lost time by more than ordinary effort, and out of the old beaten track. Previous to the administration of those sacred sealing ordinances, he explained to each of the chosen ones the law, obligations and object of Celestial Marriage, and that he might be expected to take others--that the ceremony being precisely the same for each, they would all occupy the same equal position, no one having a higher claim than another. It was distinctly understood and agreed between them that their marriage relations should not, for the time being, be divulged to the world; but if circumstances should be such that he would wish to acknowledge as wife, before the world, either one of them, he should be permitted to do so.