We come to biography, and to my mind it is a sublime fact, and one for which I thank God, that the inspired writers were impartial in recording biographical history. They recorded the virtues and the vices of men; they did not disguise the faults even of their eminent friends, nor did they always stop to pronounce condemnation upon such; but they recorded one and the other, just as they came along the stream of time. It is this book, therefore, that is my standard in this discussion, and it is composed of the Old and New Testament. The New Testament holds the relation to the Old Testament of a commentary, in a prominent sense. Christ comes along and gives an exposition of the law of Moses; comes and gives an exposition of some of those grand principles which underlie Christianity: and then his references to the law of Moses simply prove this--that what Moses has said is true. Take his exposition of the Ten Commandments, as they were given amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, and you find that he has written a commentary on the Decalogue, bringing out its hidden meaning, showing to us that the man is an adulterer who not only marries more women than one, but who looks on a woman with salacial lust. Such is the commentary on the law, by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now does this book, the Old Testament and the New? Not what revelation has been made to the Latter-day Saints; that is not to be brought into this controversy; that is not the question in dispute. Whether Joseph Smith or any other member of the Church of Latter-day Saints has had a revelation from God; whether the holy canon was closed by the apocalyptic revelations to John on the Isle of Patmos--even that question is not to be dragged into this controversy. Neither the Mormon Bible, nor the Book of Covenants, nor the revelations of yesterday or to-day, or any other day; but the grand question is, Does that old book--read in old England, read in Wales, read in Ireland, read in Norway and Sweden, and read in this land of liberty--does that book sanction polygamy? We now come to another important word--namely, does the Bible sanction? Sanction! By the term sanction we mean command, consequently the authority of positive, written, divine law, or whatever may be reasonably held as equivalent to such law. It follows, therefore, that toleration is not sanction. Sufferance is not sanction. Municipal legislation is not sanction. An historical statement of prevailing customs is not sanction. A faithful narrative of the life and example of eminent men is not sanction. The remission of penalty is not sanction. A providential blessing, bestowed upon general principles, for an ulterior purpose, is not sanction. The only adequate idea of sanction is the divine and positive approbation, plainly expressed, either in definite statute or by such forms of conformation as constitute a full and clear equivalent. It is in this sense that we take the term sanction in the question before us.