Catherine Lewis, who, after passing two years with the Mormons, escaped from Nauvoo, after taking the preliminary degrees of the endowment, says: "The Twelve took Joseph's wives after his death. Kimball and Young took most of them; the daughter of Kimball was one of Joseph's wives. I heard her say to her mother: 'I will never be sealed to my father [meaning as a wife], and I would never have been sealed [married] to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.' The Apostles said they only took Joseph's wives to raise up children, carry them through to the next world, and there deliver them up to him; by so doing they would gain his approbation."--"Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons." Smith's versatility as a fabricator seems to give him a leading place in that respect in the record of mankind. Snow says that he asked the prophet to set him right if he should see him indulging in any practice that might lead him astray, and the prophet assured him that he would never be guilty of any serious error. "It was one of Snow's peculiarities," observes his sister, "to do nothing by halves"; and he exemplified this in this instance by having two wives "sealed" to him at the same time in 1845, adding two more very soon afterward, and another in 1848. "It was distinctly understood," says his sister, "and agreed between them, that their marriage relations should not, for the time being, be divulged to the world." The testimony of John D. Lee in regard to the practice of polygamy in Illinois is very circumstantial, and Lee was a conscientious polygamist to the day of his death. He says* that he was directed in this matter by principle and not by passion, and goes on to explain:-- * "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 200 "In those days I did not always make due allowance for the failings of the weaker vessels. I then expected perfection in all women. I know now that I was foolish in looking for that in anything human. I have, for slight offences, turned away good-meaning young women that had been sealed to me, and refused to hear their excuses, but sent them away brokenhearted. In this I did wrong. I have regretted the same in sorrow for many years .... Should my history ever fall into the hands of Emeline Woolsey or Polly Ann Workman, I wish them to know that, with my last breath, I asked God to pardon me the wrong I did them, when I drove them from me, poor young girls as they were" Lee says that in the winter of 1843-1844 Smith set one Sidney Hay Jacobs to writing a pamphlet giving selections from the Scriptures bearing on the practice of polygamy and advocating that doctrine. The appearance of this pamphlet created so much unfavorable comment (even Hyrum Smith denouncing it "as from beneath") that Joseph deemed it best to condemn it in the Wasp, although men in his confidence were busy advocating its teachings.