I shall be told, however, that the "Mormons" believe in and some of them practise a plurality of wives, and therefore they must be a bad people. But not so fast. Before such a conclusion is drawn it will be necessary to prove that a plurality of wives as practised by the Mormons is in and of itself evil. That principle is as much a part of the religious faith of the women as of the men, and is practised by and with the consent of all parties concerned. It is practised because the people believe that God has commanded it by revelation direct to the Church, for the accomplishment of His own wise purposes--the rearing of a purer and better race of people. Their faith in that revelation is considerably strengthened by reading in the Holy Scriptures how God favored and blessed with His approval that form of marriage among the worthy patriarchs of old; nay, how even God Himself gave to David, according to His own Word (2 Sam. xii., 7, 8), a plurality of wives; thus becoming a party to the evil, if evil it was. But that which God sanctions and approbates can never be said to be evil. And that God did sanction the plural wife system of marriage and approve it is evident from the lives of nearly all the patriarchs and prophets spoken of in the Bible. I know it is said by Christians that this was in very ancient times, when people lived under the Mosaic Law, and that the law of carnal commandments was superceded by the new dispensation under Christ. Very well, then, shifting the controversy to what is known as the Christian dispensation, we challenge {183} the whole world to produce a single passage from the New Testament directly condemning the plural marriage system of the old patriarchs, or a passage which, by fair interpretation, even by implication condemns it. Such a passage cannot be found. And yet the writers of the New Testament did not hesitate to condemn in the most direct and positive manner every species of sin;--strange, is it not, that they failed to condemn plural marriage, if it was by them or their Master considered sinful? The fact becomes more strange when it is understood that they lived in a country and among a people who practised it. Furthermore, Abraham, Jacob, and the prophets were frequently the theme of conversation and discourse with the writers of the New Testament, and if the plural wife system practised by them was sinful, is it not singular that no condemnation of it should creep into the pages of the New Testament somewhere?