THE MORMON POPE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1117, 3 May 1911, Page 5

THE MORMON POPE.

HOW MANY WIVES HAS HE ? By Telecraph-Press Association-Cou.vrieht New York, May 1. . Mr. Joseph Smith, head of the Mormon Church, denies that he has been guilty of loose living. He also denies a charge of polygamy made against him, and invites an investigation. The "Utah Times" shows that Mr. Smith was fined in 190G for unlawful cohabitation, and alleges tlint he confessed before a' Committee of tho United States Senate that he had live wives. MR, SMITH'S DOCTRINE. A FAMILY OF "FORTY-THREE CHILDREN. There are two Joseph Smiths connected with tho Mormon Church. One is Joseph V- Smith, president, of the Church i>l Jesus Chrisr of Latter Day Saints, and the other is Joseph Smith, head of the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who lives in Missouri, and is opposed to polygamy. It is not wholly clear to whien me message refers, though it is the practices of the Alormons oi luili which Jnivo keen the subject of much criticism of late.

In 181)0 Utah was admitted'to stalehood by the American Congress; consequent lll <-' making of a declaration by Mr. Woodruff, then head of' the .Mormon Church, that the Mormons wore not teaching or encouraging polygamy, nor periniUmg any person to enter into its practice.

Ou the strength of this declaration, L'tali was granted the privilege of statehood; but the charge, is now made, and is widely accepted as true, that the Mormons have never lived up to their agreement. "L'ven before l'JOl," says Mr. Hendrick, in "M'Clure's Magazine," "polygamous households had been re-es-tablished on a considerable scale, and with tho succession of Joseph F. Smith to the presidency of the Church the restoration of old conditions became practically open." Tho indictment proceeds: "More than any of the prophet's successors has Mr. Smith brought back to the church the spirit of Brigham Young. Ho has. not Brighain's ability or his capacity for leadership, but ho has all of Brigham's fanaticism, all his aggressiveness, all his fiery devotion to the Mormon Church.

"In his eyes only one thing really counts, and that is Mormonism. 'From my youth up to the present,' ho says, 'I have not believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet, for I have known that ho was. In other words, iny knowledge, has superseded my belief.' "In Mormonism the doctrine that is nearest President Joseph Smith's hrart is unquestionably polygamy.' Upon that subject ho is an unyielding fanatic. 'Some people have supposed,' he said in a sermon preached July 7, 1878, (hat the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity or non-essential to tho salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words some of the saints have said, and'believe, that a man with one wife, sealed to him by thn authority of the priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as groat and glorious if ho is faithful, as ho possibly could with more than one. I want hero to enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false. ... I understand the law of celestial marriage to mean that every man in this church who has the ability to obey and practise it in righteousness, and will not. shall be damned. I say I understand it to mean this and nothing less, and I testify in the name of Jesus that it does mean that. . . . The marriage of one woman fo a man for time nml eternity by tho sealing nower, according to the law of God, is a fulfilment of tho celestial law of marriage in part—and is good so far as it goes. But this is only the beginning of the law, not the whole of it.'

"3Fr. Smith hns practiced his own doctrine. His first marriage, that with liCvira A. Smith in 1P59, turneiT out'. unhappily. . . .Ho has mafl'ie'd ' five wives besides Hii< onn— two of them sisters— and un to date has had forty-three children. It is not; strange that, under the presidency of a man of (hi? t.vne, there should be a resumption of polygamy."