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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to " my servant Joseph," and confers upon him " the keys and power 

 of the priesthood : And verily, verily I say unto you, that whatsoever 

 you seal on earth, shall he sealed in heaven." Upon " mine hand- 

 maid, Emma Smith, your wife," on the other hand, obedience and 

 submission are inculcated in the strongest terms. She is required to 

 " receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph 

 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave 

 unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide 

 this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord." The 

 revelation contains twenty-five short paragraphs only ; it is some- 

 what apologetic in general tone, and is full of scriptural quotations 

 and precedents. A considerate stipulation is made for the consent of 

 the first bride, when another is to be espoused : " As pertaining to 

 the law of the priesthood : If any man espouse a virgin, and desire 

 to espouse another, and the first give her consent ; and if he espouse 

 the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, 

 then is he justified." A marriage contracted under the new covenant, 

 and sealed by the appointed authority, is valid to all eternity, whereas 

 in the case of ordinary married persons death terminates the con- 

 tract, and for them in heaven there will be neither marrying nor giv- 



ing m marriage. 



Such are the terms of Joseph Smith's "Revelation of Celestial Mar- 

 riage," which reminds one of the convenient doctrines from time to 

 time revealed to Mohammed upon analogous subjects. One more reve- 

 lation and prophecy remains to be noticed ; it is said to have appeared 

 in the " Pearl of Great Price," published at Liverpool in 1851, and to 

 have been " given by the prophet, seer, and revelator, Joseph Smith," 

 on Christmas-day, 1832. The date of publication is the point requir- 

 ing verification, and a genuine copy of the pamphlet above named 

 would be invaluable, as the language of the alleged prophecy has no 

 prophetic ambiguity, and the fulfillment has been complete. In a few 

 terse words are described the rebellion of South Carolina, and the 

 consequent civil war, the appeal of the Southern States to Great 

 Britain for aid, the arming of the slaves against their masters, and 

 the outbreak of hostilities with the Indians. If there is any accuracy 

 'in the dates as stated, Joseph Smith must have been a man of rare 

 political sagacity and foresight. 



At the present day most of our religious creeds and systems re- 

 semble the great ecclesiastical edifices of the middle ages ; relics of 

 days when faith was stronger and zeal was warmer. These magnifi- 

 cent relics may indeed be renovated by modern hands, and upon a 

 humble scale they can be reproduced, but the power of originating 

 such buildings has passed away, and ecclesiastical architecture is 110 

 longer a living art. So is it with the chief accepted systems of re- 

 ligion ; they have come down to us in their existing form from periods 

 with which we have nothing else in common ; they are not in harmony 



