136 PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS. 



Doctrines and Covenants ;" and they also continue to receive, as in- 

 timations of the Divine will, such communications as are now made 

 to his successor from time to time, for their guidance, not only in 

 matters of faith and doctrine, but in those also of worldly policy 

 and the concerns of every-day life. In the gift of miracles, and 

 healing of the sick by the laying on of hands by the elders of the 

 church, they are firm believers ; and I have met more than one 

 who has assured me not only that they had been eye-witnesses of 

 the miraculous cures thus performed, but had themselves been the 

 subjects of them. 



The mode of worship is, in its general arrangement, the same 

 as that adopted by most Protestant denominations who do not use 

 printed ritual ; to wit, singing, prayer, and a sermon or exhortation 

 from the pulpit. A band of music is stationed behind the choir of 

 singers, and not only aids in the devotional services, but regales 

 the audience before and after the close of the exercises. 



But it is in their private and domestic relations that this sin- 

 gular people exhibit the widest departure from the habits and prac- 

 tice of all others denominating themselves Christian. I refer to 

 what has been generally termed the "spiritual wife system," the 

 practice of which was charged against them in Illinois, and served 

 greatly to prejudice the public mind in that State. It was then, I be- 

 lieve, most strenuously denied by them that any such practice 

 prevailed, nor is it now openly avowed, either as a matter sanc- 

 tioned by their doctrine or discipline. But that polygamy does 

 actually exist among them cannot be concealed from any one of 

 the most ordinary observation, who has spent even a short time in 

 this community. I heard it proclaimed from the stand, by the 

 president of the church himself, that he had the right to take a 

 thousand wives, if he thought proper ; and he defied any one to 

 prove from the Bible that he had not. At the same time, I have 

 never known any member of the community to avow that he him- 

 self had more than one, although that such was the fact was 

 as well known and understood as any fact could be. 



If a man, once married, desires to take him a second helpmate, he 

 must first, as with us, obtain the consent of the lady intended, and 

 that of her parents or guardians, and afterward the approval of the 

 seer or president, without which the matter cannot proceed. The 

 woman is then " sealed" to him under the solemn sanction of the 

 church, and stands, in all respects, in the same relation to the man, 

 as the wife that was first married. The union thus formed is con- 



