"This heroic young man is the one now arraigned before the courts of his country, for an alleged offense against the morality of the age! Assuming that the reports pertaining to him should prove to be correct, and he really has a plural wife, what then would be the position? He from his earliest recollection, had been taught to reverence the Bible as the word of God, to revere the lives and examples of the ancient worthies whom Jehovah honored by making them His confidents, and revealing unto them the secrets of his divine purposes; he had read of one who was called 'the friend of God and the father of the faithful;' of another who was said to be a 'man after God's own heart;' of a third who in all things is said to have done the will of heaven, and so on until they could be numbered by the score; yet all these men, the friends, associates and confidents of the great Creator of heaven and earth, were men with more than one wife, some with many wives, yet they still possessed and rejoiced in the love and honor of the great judge of all the world, whose judgments are just, and whose words are all righteousness. This young man is charged with following these worthy examples; it is asserted that he has taken to wife a beautiful and virtuous young lady, belonging, like himself, to one of our most respected families, and who also believes in the Bible, and in the example set her by those holy women of old, such as Rachel, Ruth, Hannah, and others, who honored God's law, and became the mothers of prophets, priests and kings. "And as my cogitations ran, I thought what need had these two to follow such examples of a by-gone age; why not walk in the way of the world today, unite with our modern Christian civilization, and if passion guide their actions why call each other husband and wife, why hallow their associations by any sacred ceremony--was there any need of such? Why not do as tens of thousands of others do, live in the condition of illicit love? And then if any child should be feared from this unsanctified union, why not still follow our Christian exemplars, remove the foetal incumbrance, call in some copyist of Madame Restell, the abortionist, male or female that pollute our land? That would have been, _sub-rosa_, genteel, fashionable, respectable, Christian-like, as Christianity goes in this generation. "If this did not succeed, the young man might have turned his victim into the street to perish, or die of pollution as is done in tens of thousands of instances, in the most sanctified manner by the hypocrites of the day. Then in either of these cases, the young gentleman could have been received into good society, be petted and applauded; could hold a position under our government, be even a deputy marshal, registrar or what not, and still further, be able to answer all necessary questions; and be admitted as a grand juror without being brought in as a gutter snipe on an open venire, but as a respectable citizen on the regular panel.