I wanted to have everyone read this from the I Percieve blog, a poster by the name "Me" said exactly what I think.
It is found HERE:
"How can a religious ceremony be called abuse? An FLDS marriage (or any marriage for that matter) is no more abuse than a baptism at 8 years old. Texas (or any other state) has no business governing people’s marriages. They are religious ceremony’s and held sacred to those entering them. In short, they are a commitment to God if done right.
With the government getting involved in marriage, it is nothing more than a business proposition now days. People get married to pay less taxes, or so they can have something to fall back on in a court of law to keep the children or earthly possessions if something should go wrong with their spouse or their marriage. Natural love or affection is becoming a thing of the past. It is all “what’s in it for me? ” rather than a man and a wife committing to live a life of sacrifice for each other, and stay together forever.
Government needs to step out of marriage, which is a religious institution, and concentrate on real crime. Even crime is being redefined by religious persecution. Now there doesn’t even have to be a call for help, or a victim to be considered a crime. Crime now is “you broke our laws! how dare you! so what if we passed them against your religion, you broke our laws! You are abusers!”
"Me" Then said:
"...the real lawbreakers are those who pass laws against the constitution, and thus the freedoms of the American people. I hope Americans are getting good and sick about all the corruption in our government and choose to go back to the good old days of 1776 when America was young and free."
And finally:
"Why is motherhood looked so down upon in America, as if motherhood in itself is abuse? “Oh, that’s terrible to be a mother at such a young age. Much better to spend your life in school to be a doctor or lawyer. Or if you choose to drop out of school be a rock star, or movie star. Motherhood is too much work, how terrible to want to be a mother. How fun it is to fool your life away, then settle down when you are too old to have children.”
"Without mothers, there would be no world. We are headed into depopulation with the current trend of gay marriages, and the outlawing of normal marriages, starting with polygamy, which was normal when the world began, and is still normal in 2/3 of the world.
"We Americans are so smart to depopulate ourselves. Can you not see at the current trend there will be NO Americans because of our laws? Wake up and be grateful for your mothers.
"Motherhood is the most glorious and sacred right a woman can have, but it is being trampled upon by this generation of Americans for so called “equal rights”. If God looked upon equal rights as we do, why did he ordain that only women could have children?
"The Lord made our bodies precisely as they should be, to create children at a young age while they are healthy and strong. Do we know better than Him?
"Is there any question that our government is pushing for depopulation? Why will government pay for abortions, but not for fertility? Why are they pushing for gay marriages, but trying to destroy the traditional family by taking their children away? Why is having many children looked down upon, as though a woman is brainwashed to believe in bearing children?
"We are in trouble America. Wake up for your own sakes. You are fighting against your own existence!"
This is exactly the truth, thanks to Me! :)
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Universal Faith
There is a belief system that permeates all mankind, one that every citizen of the United States believes in, no matter whether they are at the bottom of faith in a higher power or at the top.
Everyone has faith in this belief system to one degree or another, no matter what other religion you ascribe to, the necessity of gaining faith in this doctrine is important to all functioning societies. I am talking about MONEY. Money is a reality based on imagination, faith, trust, and belief. The value of money is the collective faith that people have in it.
The US government this week is deciding on an emergency bailout of the banking industry, in reality this is the largest banking and money crisis since the depression. They just don’t have any faith, or money, without the government going further into debt. In other words, don't count on it fixing anything.
I have always disliked money, and I am sure that most do, or at least we say we do. Over the last three years I have been reading and learning what the stuff is that I get up and go to work for every day. I mean really, who thinks about what this green stuff really is that you spend an overwhelming amount of time trying to get?
Most people do not even realize what money is, or where it comes from. They just want it because they can buy stuff with it. But what is money? Well even the “experts” like to keep everyone confused, or are confused themselves. Money today is not a receipt for gold or silver as it once was, money today is a receipt for debt, and nothing else. The US money is the (privately owned) Federal Reserve Bank dollar, printed and exchanged for government debt, or faith in the government to pay it back with interest. Here are a few words the bankers use that all mean the same thing, debt: securities, bonds, paper, bills, mortgage, credit, etc. Whenever you hear or read theses terms in the news, they all are fancy words for “debt” Money is also debt, and yet there is this strange idea that money can pay off debt. The problem is that there is way more debt than there is money; at least ten times more. This may be surprising perhaps, and perhaps you think I am speaking some “conspiracy theory” That is what the bankers want you to think, the mystery gives power to your belief in the value to money.
“Above all, money is a function of faith. It required an implicit and universal social consent that is indeed mysterious. To create money and use it, each one must believe, and everyone must believe. Only then did worthless pieces of paper take on value. When a society loses faith in money, it was implicitly losing faith in itself…. The money process, nonetheless, still required a deep, unacknowledged act of faith, so mysterious that it could easily be confused with divine powers”
– William Greider, “Secrets of the Temple, How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” pg 53
Everyone has faith in this belief system to one degree or another, no matter what other religion you ascribe to, the necessity of gaining faith in this doctrine is important to all functioning societies. I am talking about MONEY. Money is a reality based on imagination, faith, trust, and belief. The value of money is the collective faith that people have in it.
The US government this week is deciding on an emergency bailout of the banking industry, in reality this is the largest banking and money crisis since the depression. They just don’t have any faith, or money, without the government going further into debt. In other words, don't count on it fixing anything.
I have always disliked money, and I am sure that most do, or at least we say we do. Over the last three years I have been reading and learning what the stuff is that I get up and go to work for every day. I mean really, who thinks about what this green stuff really is that you spend an overwhelming amount of time trying to get?
Most people do not even realize what money is, or where it comes from. They just want it because they can buy stuff with it. But what is money? Well even the “experts” like to keep everyone confused, or are confused themselves. Money today is not a receipt for gold or silver as it once was, money today is a receipt for debt, and nothing else. The US money is the (privately owned) Federal Reserve Bank dollar, printed and exchanged for government debt, or faith in the government to pay it back with interest. Here are a few words the bankers use that all mean the same thing, debt: securities, bonds, paper, bills, mortgage, credit, etc. Whenever you hear or read theses terms in the news, they all are fancy words for “debt” Money is also debt, and yet there is this strange idea that money can pay off debt. The problem is that there is way more debt than there is money; at least ten times more. This may be surprising perhaps, and perhaps you think I am speaking some “conspiracy theory” That is what the bankers want you to think, the mystery gives power to your belief in the value to money.
“Above all, money is a function of faith. It required an implicit and universal social consent that is indeed mysterious. To create money and use it, each one must believe, and everyone must believe. Only then did worthless pieces of paper take on value. When a society loses faith in money, it was implicitly losing faith in itself…. The money process, nonetheless, still required a deep, unacknowledged act of faith, so mysterious that it could easily be confused with divine powers”
– William Greider, “Secrets of the Temple, How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” pg 53
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
A Letter to my sister over a year ago
[Many private letters have become spectacles of the masses, and so I figured I didn't want to be left out, this is a letter to one of my youngest sisters]
Dear C-,
I write this letter to my sweet, beautiful sister C-. This is a letter of stories of some of my experiences with our Prophet, dear Uncle Warren that you asked for. I want to start by telling you my testimony of him.
I know that Our Heavenly Father lives, and that He hears and answers every prayer we breathe. He, our Father in heaven, loves us more than we can even understand. Go outside and look up into the sky, He is up there watching me and watching you, and He can see everything all at the same time. He sees what we do, He sees what we say, and He sees what we think! He is our Father, and He made for us this whole earth, just to give us the opportunity to become like He and our Heavenly Mothers are. How do we do that? through obedience to His teachings to us. Obedience is the most important thing in our lives. Not just little obedience, not just outward obedience, but the obedience to our Heavenly Father that makes His Spirit come to us. Obedience to HIM!
Well, my dear sister, if we really knew how much our Heavenly Father wants to bless us eternally, how much he wants us to have greater blessings that we could even imagine, we would never even hesitate in our obedience. If we could even imagine how much He loves us, we would start to see how much He wants us to obey. Well, what does He want us to do? What is the first and most important thing in our lives? Prayer. You will find in all the studies of all the wonderful men and women in this world’s history that they were the ones who prayed the most; they were the ones who loved to pray the most, they were the ones who did everything they did through prayer.
The most important thing in our lives is to get to know our loving Father in heaven through humble prayer. Prayer is the way we get Heavenly Fathers Spirit, there is no other way. Prayer is the number one thing Heavenly Father told our oldest parents in the Garden of Eden to do, and to pray is the very last thing we should be doing at the end of our lives. We can never pray too much! We think all the time, we must be praying. When you think of the words Keep Sweet, it means to pray always, and love to obey. All the good things that we want to become comes through prayer, and obedience. Prayer is a two way contract. Here is what our Prophet said:
“…be a person from this moment on that never disturbs the spirit of God. It will take an exertion of prayer to always keep sweet. A lazy mind can easily become a disturbed mind. And a lazy mind is a mind that doesn't pray. Our Heavenly Father created us through birth, his own nature was born in us. And he made us so that he could read our minds. We have to just think and he can hear us. Every time you pray and ask for his spirit you're also making a promise with him that you will obey him. You must do your part because every prayer is a contract with Heavenly Father, an agreement, a covenant. Do your part, he will for sure will do his part. If you suddenly find yourself disturbed in your feelings, you haven't done your part. You have rejected the spirit of God by holding on to thoughts, feelings or desires opposite to that sweet spirit.” (WSJ 1/28/2003)
So in reality, PRAYER IS OBEDIENCE. ALL good things that we can do come through Obedient Prayer. Love, Repentance, Humility, Faith, Hope, Charity, and everything else will become automatic through Obedient Prayer. Think through prayer, read through prayer, talk through prayer, work through prayer, and make our Heavenly Father the most important one in our whole lives, and then we will see how to love our Prophet, our Fathers, our Mothers, and anyone they ask us to obey. We will love Heavenly Father SOOOO much that there is no job too big, no job too small, and no one we do not love.
I have been called upon by my Heavenly Father, through His Prophet, to literally have the opportunity to do what very few others in history have been required to do, but in some way we will all be willing to do if we truly love Heavenly Father most. And that is to actually sacrifice ALL THINGS out of obedience to Him. At one point everything was taken from me. All I had in this whole world was the clothes on my back. WHAT an OPPORTUNITY! Every day that we live is a blessing, I am very ashamed of all the opportunity’s that I have wasted, and I never want to waste another. How very helpless and useless we are without the help of Him we pray to! Our side of the bargain is easy, His is where the real love comes in.
So to finish this little sermon from one who has no right to preach, I say: The true thing that our Prophet wants from each of us, is to love and obey our Father in heaven as much as he does. For in all my dealings ever with that great man, he has told me, he has shown me, he has done everything he possibly could for me; that I may understand what KEEP SWEET really means.
I first met Uncle Warren in 1985 when A- and I were starting the seventh grade. It was a few short months after the first and only time I ever shook Uncle Roy’s hand. (I also felt the top of his head because he was growing new hair).
Uncle Warren is very tall and very thin. The first thing I remember about him is the spirit he carried, it was almost like a glow. It was exactly like the one around Uncle Roy. I remember sitting with Father and A- as he explained to us the rules of the school. He was very humble, and very earnest at the same time. I still remember his handshake, very soft and very clean, almost fragile. I remember the first morning class that I went to. Sitting at Cafeteria tables in the big meeting hall in Uncle Rulon’s home and the first thing Uncle Warren said was about kneeling down to pray. He at first wanted the whole school to kneel down, but he realized there was not enough room for everyone to kneel. That is the only thing about that day that I remember with him.
I remember seventh grade very well, and that I was not a very good student. At the end of the previous year in public school I was on the honor roll second highest in the school, but in seventh grade I got an F. I don’t remember what was said, but I know that A- and I went to him to be corrected at least once. Needless to say, I would rather forget. But I do remember our class party at the end of the school year, we had a contest between the boys and the girls of filling a bucket with water we had to carry across the lawn with little yogurt cups carried on our backs. The loser had to lay down on the lawn while Uncle Warren hosed them down. Sure glad it was the girls who lost! A water fight broke out from that and the girls really wanted to douse Uncle Warren, but he had a suit on so only a couple of girls were brave enough to try. He ran into the building. Uncle Roy passed away near the end of 1986, and in 1987 at the very first Conference under Uncle Rulon’s administration Uncle Warren sang the solo part to “The Seer” with the choir.
Uncle Warren is probably the smartest person I have ever met. I cannot think of one time that he could not answer a question asked him. No math problem, no history question, no science question did he ever not answer, but he would always say that if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t guess, he would tell us he didn’t know. I don’t remember that ever happening! He would always know something about it, if not quite a bit. He also could remember everyone who he had as a student. He almost never forgot your name. Even all of the first graders, when they went to shake his hand, he would call each of them by name, and there were dozens of them. I know that he really wanted each of his students to succeed.
I well remember my first class with him as my teacher, ninth grade Algebra. The first thing he did was to write a “3” on the chalk board. Then he pointed to it and asked us what it was. It didn’t matter what we said, he would say, “Is it? Are you sure?” For many minutes did he make us think hard, never saying “Right” or “Wrong”, just “Is it? Are you sure?” No one was sure of anything. He really enjoyed teaching and there is no better teacher ever. The next thing he did was write the motto of Algebra on the chalkboard. “THINK SIMPLE” He sure loved to teach. He was always happiest when he was teaching young people. Later in the year in that class, he was teaching about geometry and he explained what a hexagon, pentagon, and finally what a polygon was. He said “poly means many” A- quickly raised his hand and asked “So what’s a Pollyanna?” I well remember Uncle Warren almost hitting his head on the desk in front of him as he bent over laughing. After a minute he said “A-, be grateful for the ones you don’t get.”
One of the most memorable events in my life with Uncle Warren was in Ancient Priesthood History class. I remember it like it was yesterday. He was teaching of the words of Abraham from the Pearl of Great Price, about the noble and great ones of the earth. Read it! (Abraham 3vs19-26). These were to be the prophets and great ones. In that song of Uncle Fred that our Prophet sings, this is what he is talking about. I knew from the first time Uncle Warren said it that I was in the presence of one of them. I knew Uncle Warren was one of the noble and great ones before this world was made. I have never thought differently since that day.
Of course I really enjoyed Chorus class, how Uncle Warren wanted us to learn how to entertain in the home. We really enjoyed the unpracticed skits he would have us do. He would stand up in front of the whole class and say “OK Al and A you two are moving men, and R- (his sister) is the housewife who can’t make up her mind where she wants to put the couch, so you move it” Once he said “Al, you are prince charming, B- Fischer, you are Cinderella, and you three girls in the front here are the ugly step sisters, OK come up here.” Sometimes he would just say “You four boys I’ll give you five minutes to think up a skit and come up here and perform it for us.”
Once in a while Uncle Warren would do one himself, I remember the one where he was the father of a rebellious daughter (his wife) who had to go to the principal (one of the students) to get corrected and she was mouthy and he slapped her mouth, and she slapped his back on stage. It was hilarious! Once he was teaching his wife how to drive a stick shift. He really wanted us to learn how to entertain our own families at home, so we wouldn’t need the entertainment from the world. How wonderful are the memories!
I remember one time just before we were to go tubing down the hill across the road, he asked all the girls if there were any who had never had their faces rubbed into the snow. B-[my sister] was the only one to raise her hand. Uncle Warren looked at A-[my brother] and said “A- is that true? You have never washed her face in the snow?” To which B- yelled out “If you ever do, I will shave your head bald in the middle of the night!” A- shrugged and said “See, now you know why” Uncle Warren and everyone laughed really hard at that.
Once A- was wearing some pants that had a whole bunch of pockets and one of the teachers stopped him in the hall and rebuked him for wearing them. Uncle Warren walked up after that and A- asked him if his pants were O.K. and Uncle Warren said “Yea, those are really neat, you could put your guns in these pockets, and your ammo in this one and grenades here, and all your pens and pencils and extra stuff in here.” Needless to say, A- stopped wearing them! One day Uncle Warren was walking down the hall of the little high school building and saw three girls walk out of the bathroom at the same time. He called out “Three girls at the same time?” Then he said, “Come on boys lets see if you can do better than that.” All of the boys crammed into a bathroom about 4 feet by 4 feet square. There was over forty of us crammed in there. Uncle Warren counted us as we came out.
Uncle Warren was very talented at everything he did. And yet he was so humble about it. I remember the time that he came to the gym in Draper and played basketball with the high school boys after school. He was very good at basketball too, he was the best one there. I remember at the school outing at the end of the year he and I were standing together watching some others play basketball, he smiled “They’re pretty good aren’t they?” I smiled “You and me could take ‘em” He laughed. I really enjoyed making Uncle Warren laugh. Once in history class he was explaining the story of Cain visiting the apostle David W Patton and I asked if Cain was Bigfoot. He laughed at that for a long time.
Uncle Warren was my school teacher for every class I had my senior year except two. He taught Devotional, Accounting, History, Chemistry, Algebra 2, and Chorus. I was so spoiled!
One day morning class started late because so many students were late. Uncle Warren had all of the people who drove to school to meet with him after morning class, as he excused us he said aloud “I have only one thing to say to Al and A- Holm, Don’t be late for the Celestial Kingdom!”
I have had many experiences with him since high school, I had the wonderful opportunity to go back and teach the very last year of Alta Academy. M- was in third grade. K- was in fourth, H- was in sixth and C- and C- were graduating. In the middle of the year Uncle Parley passed away, and our Prophet Uncle Rulon ordained Uncle Warren to be his first councilor in the Presidency of Priesthood. I am so very, very blessed to have been given a testimony of the calling and mission of Uncle Warren, he means so much to us. He will have a people, I know this. We will all be held accountable for the blessings that we are given. We must be as light as a feather to be lifted up. There will be a people who love and obey in every thought, word, and action. Anything that we let tie us down to this earth will keep us from being lifted up. We can be a part of the promises to Ephriam. All of the family of Israel will be blessed by those who KEEP SWEET no matter what. No matter what happens to me, our work is each our own. Follow Uncle Warren, he is like Enoch who prepared a city for God to dwell in. Obedience, Prayer, and a Joy that Heavenly Father is alive and well and loves us all makes us happy. If we do this no matter what, NO MATTER WHAT, then we can be a part of the people who will see heavenly Father when he comes again to this land. If you want to see grandfather Carl, Uncle Rulon, Uncle Roy, John Y Barlow, and Joseph Smith and all the prophets, they will be there. O pray for me! and I will pray for you. Smile all the while!
Your unworthy brother,
Al
Dear C-,
I write this letter to my sweet, beautiful sister C-. This is a letter of stories of some of my experiences with our Prophet, dear Uncle Warren that you asked for. I want to start by telling you my testimony of him.
I know that Our Heavenly Father lives, and that He hears and answers every prayer we breathe. He, our Father in heaven, loves us more than we can even understand. Go outside and look up into the sky, He is up there watching me and watching you, and He can see everything all at the same time. He sees what we do, He sees what we say, and He sees what we think! He is our Father, and He made for us this whole earth, just to give us the opportunity to become like He and our Heavenly Mothers are. How do we do that? through obedience to His teachings to us. Obedience is the most important thing in our lives. Not just little obedience, not just outward obedience, but the obedience to our Heavenly Father that makes His Spirit come to us. Obedience to HIM!
Well, my dear sister, if we really knew how much our Heavenly Father wants to bless us eternally, how much he wants us to have greater blessings that we could even imagine, we would never even hesitate in our obedience. If we could even imagine how much He loves us, we would start to see how much He wants us to obey. Well, what does He want us to do? What is the first and most important thing in our lives? Prayer. You will find in all the studies of all the wonderful men and women in this world’s history that they were the ones who prayed the most; they were the ones who loved to pray the most, they were the ones who did everything they did through prayer.
The most important thing in our lives is to get to know our loving Father in heaven through humble prayer. Prayer is the way we get Heavenly Fathers Spirit, there is no other way. Prayer is the number one thing Heavenly Father told our oldest parents in the Garden of Eden to do, and to pray is the very last thing we should be doing at the end of our lives. We can never pray too much! We think all the time, we must be praying. When you think of the words Keep Sweet, it means to pray always, and love to obey. All the good things that we want to become comes through prayer, and obedience. Prayer is a two way contract. Here is what our Prophet said:
“…be a person from this moment on that never disturbs the spirit of God. It will take an exertion of prayer to always keep sweet. A lazy mind can easily become a disturbed mind. And a lazy mind is a mind that doesn't pray. Our Heavenly Father created us through birth, his own nature was born in us. And he made us so that he could read our minds. We have to just think and he can hear us. Every time you pray and ask for his spirit you're also making a promise with him that you will obey him. You must do your part because every prayer is a contract with Heavenly Father, an agreement, a covenant. Do your part, he will for sure will do his part. If you suddenly find yourself disturbed in your feelings, you haven't done your part. You have rejected the spirit of God by holding on to thoughts, feelings or desires opposite to that sweet spirit.” (WSJ 1/28/2003)
So in reality, PRAYER IS OBEDIENCE. ALL good things that we can do come through Obedient Prayer. Love, Repentance, Humility, Faith, Hope, Charity, and everything else will become automatic through Obedient Prayer. Think through prayer, read through prayer, talk through prayer, work through prayer, and make our Heavenly Father the most important one in our whole lives, and then we will see how to love our Prophet, our Fathers, our Mothers, and anyone they ask us to obey. We will love Heavenly Father SOOOO much that there is no job too big, no job too small, and no one we do not love.
I have been called upon by my Heavenly Father, through His Prophet, to literally have the opportunity to do what very few others in history have been required to do, but in some way we will all be willing to do if we truly love Heavenly Father most. And that is to actually sacrifice ALL THINGS out of obedience to Him. At one point everything was taken from me. All I had in this whole world was the clothes on my back. WHAT an OPPORTUNITY! Every day that we live is a blessing, I am very ashamed of all the opportunity’s that I have wasted, and I never want to waste another. How very helpless and useless we are without the help of Him we pray to! Our side of the bargain is easy, His is where the real love comes in.
So to finish this little sermon from one who has no right to preach, I say: The true thing that our Prophet wants from each of us, is to love and obey our Father in heaven as much as he does. For in all my dealings ever with that great man, he has told me, he has shown me, he has done everything he possibly could for me; that I may understand what KEEP SWEET really means.
I first met Uncle Warren in 1985 when A- and I were starting the seventh grade. It was a few short months after the first and only time I ever shook Uncle Roy’s hand. (I also felt the top of his head because he was growing new hair).
Uncle Warren is very tall and very thin. The first thing I remember about him is the spirit he carried, it was almost like a glow. It was exactly like the one around Uncle Roy. I remember sitting with Father and A- as he explained to us the rules of the school. He was very humble, and very earnest at the same time. I still remember his handshake, very soft and very clean, almost fragile. I remember the first morning class that I went to. Sitting at Cafeteria tables in the big meeting hall in Uncle Rulon’s home and the first thing Uncle Warren said was about kneeling down to pray. He at first wanted the whole school to kneel down, but he realized there was not enough room for everyone to kneel. That is the only thing about that day that I remember with him.
I remember seventh grade very well, and that I was not a very good student. At the end of the previous year in public school I was on the honor roll second highest in the school, but in seventh grade I got an F. I don’t remember what was said, but I know that A- and I went to him to be corrected at least once. Needless to say, I would rather forget. But I do remember our class party at the end of the school year, we had a contest between the boys and the girls of filling a bucket with water we had to carry across the lawn with little yogurt cups carried on our backs. The loser had to lay down on the lawn while Uncle Warren hosed them down. Sure glad it was the girls who lost! A water fight broke out from that and the girls really wanted to douse Uncle Warren, but he had a suit on so only a couple of girls were brave enough to try. He ran into the building. Uncle Roy passed away near the end of 1986, and in 1987 at the very first Conference under Uncle Rulon’s administration Uncle Warren sang the solo part to “The Seer” with the choir.
Uncle Warren is probably the smartest person I have ever met. I cannot think of one time that he could not answer a question asked him. No math problem, no history question, no science question did he ever not answer, but he would always say that if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t guess, he would tell us he didn’t know. I don’t remember that ever happening! He would always know something about it, if not quite a bit. He also could remember everyone who he had as a student. He almost never forgot your name. Even all of the first graders, when they went to shake his hand, he would call each of them by name, and there were dozens of them. I know that he really wanted each of his students to succeed.
I well remember my first class with him as my teacher, ninth grade Algebra. The first thing he did was to write a “3” on the chalk board. Then he pointed to it and asked us what it was. It didn’t matter what we said, he would say, “Is it? Are you sure?” For many minutes did he make us think hard, never saying “Right” or “Wrong”, just “Is it? Are you sure?” No one was sure of anything. He really enjoyed teaching and there is no better teacher ever. The next thing he did was write the motto of Algebra on the chalkboard. “THINK SIMPLE” He sure loved to teach. He was always happiest when he was teaching young people. Later in the year in that class, he was teaching about geometry and he explained what a hexagon, pentagon, and finally what a polygon was. He said “poly means many” A- quickly raised his hand and asked “So what’s a Pollyanna?” I well remember Uncle Warren almost hitting his head on the desk in front of him as he bent over laughing. After a minute he said “A-, be grateful for the ones you don’t get.”
One of the most memorable events in my life with Uncle Warren was in Ancient Priesthood History class. I remember it like it was yesterday. He was teaching of the words of Abraham from the Pearl of Great Price, about the noble and great ones of the earth. Read it! (Abraham 3vs19-26). These were to be the prophets and great ones. In that song of Uncle Fred that our Prophet sings, this is what he is talking about. I knew from the first time Uncle Warren said it that I was in the presence of one of them. I knew Uncle Warren was one of the noble and great ones before this world was made. I have never thought differently since that day.
Of course I really enjoyed Chorus class, how Uncle Warren wanted us to learn how to entertain in the home. We really enjoyed the unpracticed skits he would have us do. He would stand up in front of the whole class and say “OK Al and A you two are moving men, and R- (his sister) is the housewife who can’t make up her mind where she wants to put the couch, so you move it” Once he said “Al, you are prince charming, B- Fischer, you are Cinderella, and you three girls in the front here are the ugly step sisters, OK come up here.” Sometimes he would just say “You four boys I’ll give you five minutes to think up a skit and come up here and perform it for us.”
Once in a while Uncle Warren would do one himself, I remember the one where he was the father of a rebellious daughter (his wife) who had to go to the principal (one of the students) to get corrected and she was mouthy and he slapped her mouth, and she slapped his back on stage. It was hilarious! Once he was teaching his wife how to drive a stick shift. He really wanted us to learn how to entertain our own families at home, so we wouldn’t need the entertainment from the world. How wonderful are the memories!
I remember one time just before we were to go tubing down the hill across the road, he asked all the girls if there were any who had never had their faces rubbed into the snow. B-[my sister] was the only one to raise her hand. Uncle Warren looked at A-[my brother] and said “A- is that true? You have never washed her face in the snow?” To which B- yelled out “If you ever do, I will shave your head bald in the middle of the night!” A- shrugged and said “See, now you know why” Uncle Warren and everyone laughed really hard at that.
Once A- was wearing some pants that had a whole bunch of pockets and one of the teachers stopped him in the hall and rebuked him for wearing them. Uncle Warren walked up after that and A- asked him if his pants were O.K. and Uncle Warren said “Yea, those are really neat, you could put your guns in these pockets, and your ammo in this one and grenades here, and all your pens and pencils and extra stuff in here.” Needless to say, A- stopped wearing them! One day Uncle Warren was walking down the hall of the little high school building and saw three girls walk out of the bathroom at the same time. He called out “Three girls at the same time?” Then he said, “Come on boys lets see if you can do better than that.” All of the boys crammed into a bathroom about 4 feet by 4 feet square. There was over forty of us crammed in there. Uncle Warren counted us as we came out.
Uncle Warren was very talented at everything he did. And yet he was so humble about it. I remember the time that he came to the gym in Draper and played basketball with the high school boys after school. He was very good at basketball too, he was the best one there. I remember at the school outing at the end of the year he and I were standing together watching some others play basketball, he smiled “They’re pretty good aren’t they?” I smiled “You and me could take ‘em” He laughed. I really enjoyed making Uncle Warren laugh. Once in history class he was explaining the story of Cain visiting the apostle David W Patton and I asked if Cain was Bigfoot. He laughed at that for a long time.
Uncle Warren was my school teacher for every class I had my senior year except two. He taught Devotional, Accounting, History, Chemistry, Algebra 2, and Chorus. I was so spoiled!
One day morning class started late because so many students were late. Uncle Warren had all of the people who drove to school to meet with him after morning class, as he excused us he said aloud “I have only one thing to say to Al and A- Holm, Don’t be late for the Celestial Kingdom!”
I have had many experiences with him since high school, I had the wonderful opportunity to go back and teach the very last year of Alta Academy. M- was in third grade. K- was in fourth, H- was in sixth and C- and C- were graduating. In the middle of the year Uncle Parley passed away, and our Prophet Uncle Rulon ordained Uncle Warren to be his first councilor in the Presidency of Priesthood. I am so very, very blessed to have been given a testimony of the calling and mission of Uncle Warren, he means so much to us. He will have a people, I know this. We will all be held accountable for the blessings that we are given. We must be as light as a feather to be lifted up. There will be a people who love and obey in every thought, word, and action. Anything that we let tie us down to this earth will keep us from being lifted up. We can be a part of the promises to Ephriam. All of the family of Israel will be blessed by those who KEEP SWEET no matter what. No matter what happens to me, our work is each our own. Follow Uncle Warren, he is like Enoch who prepared a city for God to dwell in. Obedience, Prayer, and a Joy that Heavenly Father is alive and well and loves us all makes us happy. If we do this no matter what, NO MATTER WHAT, then we can be a part of the people who will see heavenly Father when he comes again to this land. If you want to see grandfather Carl, Uncle Rulon, Uncle Roy, John Y Barlow, and Joseph Smith and all the prophets, they will be there. O pray for me! and I will pray for you. Smile all the while!
Your unworthy brother,
Al
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Revelation, Faith, and Infallibility
(The disclaimer here is this is my view, and is not from the
If everything comes from God, every truth is a "revelation", even the truth of the things we see with our own eyes are "revealing" truth. Revelation comes from light, the light of the sun, or the light of the mind, or the light of the spirit. In reading about the teachings of Jesus and the words of the prophets in the scriptures, you can see the "good" in them. That is revelation from God. So anything that makes you become enlightened spiritually is "revelation from God" Actually ALL increase in intelligence, whether spiritually or mentally is revelation from God. Whether your eyes and ears give it to you, or education gives it to you, or scripture gives it to you, or even your experiences give it to you, it all comes from the same source if it is good, and that is God. If it is not good it comes from the devil, and even what he commands is allowed by God to test us. Prayer, and obedience to God and righteous living is the path to higher spiritual revelation and intelligence.
People are all on different planes of spirituality, or quantity of the Holy Spirit and those who are on a lower plane, or have less of that peaceful spirit, cannot really understand those who are on a higher. They must either raise themselves up, which takes much prayer effort, or not. And often many fight them because they don’t want them to exist, out of envy or hatred. Freedom is the decision to choose. Some peoples "common sense" is different than other peoples "common sense", and which is right? Well, it comes from prayer and PERSONAL revelation; which IS true common sense. The devil has his version as well. All of us are somewhere between his version and God’s.
A prophet is a Father to ALL of the people, the highest authority in the FLDS Priesthood. In the FLDS church the men seek God through scripture, prayer, and those with Higher Priesthood for council in their lives, and call that council "Revelation". Higher Priesthood and the authority to guide comes from the higher plane, or the greater Spiritual Power. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of God, and without the Spirit of God, there is NO Priesthood. So in the FLDS you can tell when your leader has the authority to tell you what you should do if YOU have the Spirit of God, and that Spirit is making sense of the things you are being told. It is a matter of FAITH.
What is Faith? It is belief in something not seen, and the reason we do everything we do. EVERYONE is faith full. Everyone believes many things that they do not KNOW to exist.
9. From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen, and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.
10. If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thought and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action in them; that without it both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.
11. Were this class to go back and reflect upon the history of their lives, from the period of their first recollection, and ask themselves what principle excited them to action, or what gave them energy and activity in all their lawful avocations, callings, and pursuits, what would be the answer? Would it not be that it was the assurance which they had of the existence of things which they had not seen as yet? Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and exertion in order to obtain them? Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence, unless you did believe that you could obtain them? Would you have ever sown, if you had not believed that you would reap? Should you have ever planted, if you had not believed that you would gather? Would you have ever asked, unless you had believed that you would receive? Would you have ever sought, unless you had believed that you would have found? Or, would you have ever knocked, unless you had believed that it would have been opened unto you? In a word, is there anything that you would have done, either physical or mental, if you had not previously believed? Are not all your exertions of every kind, dependent on your faith? Or, may we not ask, what have you, or what do you possess, which you have not obtained by reason of your faith? Your food, your raiment, your lodgings, are they not all by reason of your faith? Reflect, and ask yourselves if these things are not so. Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves; and, if the moving cause in you, is it not in all other intelligent beings?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense
'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.
"Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge, and adults should not act like children).
"His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Marriage being criminalized while adultery was celebrated; reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
"Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted have an abortion.
"Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
"Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
"Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
"Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.'"
(sent to me from Val Jessop a while back)
"Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge, and adults should not act like children).
"His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Marriage being criminalized while adultery was celebrated; reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
"Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted have an abortion.
"Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
"Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
"Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
"Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.'"
(sent to me from Val Jessop a while back)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A day in the life
O Father, how can I repay?
I have no way, no way!
Through all my shame, and all my foibles, all my stumbling around, O how gratitude is filling the heart and chest so full it seems almost to burst!!
I am not worthy, no, dear Lord, why me?
I must tell about the experience that my Father in heaven gives to me, for I did not ask, He did all the work!
I left Phoenix with the most difficult task of any driver in the trucking industry. I was to deliver the things of a man who I did not know well, but who I had seen a few times around the office in Phoenix. His name was “Butch” Pierce. Three weeks ago he had a tie down on his trailer come undone, and so he pulled over to fix it on the side of the interstate. He was hit by a car and killed instantly.
Delivering all of his things to his widow was not easy, but to me, it was an honor and a privilege. For I know that this life is not the end, no, not at all, it is much closer to the beginning than the end of our existence. But to take these things to his widow was a very wonderful and spiritual experience for me, and made my testimony all the more strong. Because I was not able to go to Val Jessops funeral, or to any other funeral for several years, I always would remember “Funerals are for the living, not for the dead” And they who I knew and loved who pass on I shall see again.
But there is something else when you load boxes of someone’s personal belongings into his widow’s vehicle, and give her a long and great big hug with a lot of tears, that is something deep and spiritual to me. And I have never seen her before in my life. I also met “Butch’s” mother, 81 years young, and held her hand for a few moments. That will be something I will never forget.
But that was nothing, I delivered in San Antonio TX yesterday, and I had a special delivery from Uncle Bill to the FLDS folks. It was late before I was empty and I did not know if my boss was going to send me out again. So I did not contact the ranch about it yesterday. Yet today I knelt before my Father and asked him if he wanted me to give these today in this way, open up the way! O BOY DID HE!!
Sorry Uncle Bill, and Maayan, and Regina, meeting you all was wonderful, and I will forever be indebted for your friendship, but meeting Maggie, and Dan, and a few other GREAT folks to me has been wonderful beyond compare! Pinch me, is it a dream?
And yes, I will tell the world, My last breath is worth less to me than my Testimony of my best friend, Warren Steed Jeffs.
I have no way, no way!
Through all my shame, and all my foibles, all my stumbling around, O how gratitude is filling the heart and chest so full it seems almost to burst!!
I am not worthy, no, dear Lord, why me?
I must tell about the experience that my Father in heaven gives to me, for I did not ask, He did all the work!
I left Phoenix with the most difficult task of any driver in the trucking industry. I was to deliver the things of a man who I did not know well, but who I had seen a few times around the office in Phoenix. His name was “Butch” Pierce. Three weeks ago he had a tie down on his trailer come undone, and so he pulled over to fix it on the side of the interstate. He was hit by a car and killed instantly.
Delivering all of his things to his widow was not easy, but to me, it was an honor and a privilege. For I know that this life is not the end, no, not at all, it is much closer to the beginning than the end of our existence. But to take these things to his widow was a very wonderful and spiritual experience for me, and made my testimony all the more strong. Because I was not able to go to Val Jessops funeral, or to any other funeral for several years, I always would remember “Funerals are for the living, not for the dead” And they who I knew and loved who pass on I shall see again.
But there is something else when you load boxes of someone’s personal belongings into his widow’s vehicle, and give her a long and great big hug with a lot of tears, that is something deep and spiritual to me. And I have never seen her before in my life. I also met “Butch’s” mother, 81 years young, and held her hand for a few moments. That will be something I will never forget.
But that was nothing, I delivered in San Antonio TX yesterday, and I had a special delivery from Uncle Bill to the FLDS folks. It was late before I was empty and I did not know if my boss was going to send me out again. So I did not contact the ranch about it yesterday. Yet today I knelt before my Father and asked him if he wanted me to give these today in this way, open up the way! O BOY DID HE!!
Sorry Uncle Bill, and Maayan, and Regina, meeting you all was wonderful, and I will forever be indebted for your friendship, but meeting Maggie, and Dan, and a few other GREAT folks to me has been wonderful beyond compare! Pinch me, is it a dream?
And yes, I will tell the world, My last breath is worth less to me than my Testimony of my best friend, Warren Steed Jeffs.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
JUDGEMENT
"There was an old man in a village, very poor, but even kings were jealous of him because he had a beautiful white horse. Kings offered fabulous prices for the horse, but the man would say, "This horse is not a horse to me, he is a person. And how can you sell a person, a friend?" The man was poor, but he never sold the horse.
"One morning, he found that the horse was not in the stable. The whole village gathered and they said, "You foolish old man! We knew that someday the horse would be stolen. It would have been better to sell it. What a misfortune!"
"The old man said, "Don't go so far as to say that. Simply say that the horse is not in the stable. This is the fact: everything else is a judgment. Whether it is a misfortune or a blessing I don't know, because this is just a fragment. Who knows what is going to follow it?"
"People laughed at the old man. They had always known that he was a little crazy. But after fifteen days, suddenly one night the horse returned. He had not been stolen; he had escaped into the world. And not only that, he brought a dozen wild horses with him.
"Again the people gathered and they said, "Old man, you were right. This was not a misfortune, it has indeed proved to be a blessing."
"The old man said, "Again you are going too far. Just say that the horse is back, who knows whether it is a blessing or not? It is only a fragment. You read a single word in a sentence - how can you judge the whole book?"
"This time the people could not say much, but inside they knew that he was wrong. Twelve beautiful horses had come.
"The old man had an only son who started to train the wild horses. Just a week later he fell from a horse and his legs were broken. The people gathered again and again they judged. They said, "Again you proved right! It was misfortune. Your only son has lost the use of his legs, and in your old age he was your only support. Now you are poorer than ever."
"The old man said, "You are obsessed with judgment. Don't go that far. Say only my son has broken his legs. Nobody knows whether this is a misfortune or a blessing. Life comes in fragments and more is never given to you."
"It happened that after a few weeks the country went to war and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken for military. Only the old man's son was left, because he was crippled. The whole town was crying and weeping, because it was a losing fight and they knew most of the young people would never come back. They came to the old man and they said, "You were right, old man - this has proved a blessing. Maybe your son is crippled, but he is still with you. Our sons are gone forever."
"The old man said again, "You go on and on judging. Nobody knows! Only say this that your sons have been forced to enter into the army and my son has not been forced. But only God, the total, knows whether it is a blessing or a misfortune."
"Judge ye not, otherwise you will never become one with the total. With fragments you will jump to conclusions. Once you judge you have stopped growing. Judgment means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgment, because to be in process is always hazardous and uncomfortable. In fact, the journey seems to never end. One path ends, another begins: one door closes, another opens. You reach a peak; a higher peak is there. But God is not an endless journey. Only those who are so courageous that they keep their eye on the goal and are content with the journey, content to live the moment and grow into it, only those are able to walk with the total. Only those will find God."
(Sent to me by my grandfather)
"One morning, he found that the horse was not in the stable. The whole village gathered and they said, "You foolish old man! We knew that someday the horse would be stolen. It would have been better to sell it. What a misfortune!"
"The old man said, "Don't go so far as to say that. Simply say that the horse is not in the stable. This is the fact: everything else is a judgment. Whether it is a misfortune or a blessing I don't know, because this is just a fragment. Who knows what is going to follow it?"
"People laughed at the old man. They had always known that he was a little crazy. But after fifteen days, suddenly one night the horse returned. He had not been stolen; he had escaped into the world. And not only that, he brought a dozen wild horses with him.
"Again the people gathered and they said, "Old man, you were right. This was not a misfortune, it has indeed proved to be a blessing."
"The old man said, "Again you are going too far. Just say that the horse is back, who knows whether it is a blessing or not? It is only a fragment. You read a single word in a sentence - how can you judge the whole book?"
"This time the people could not say much, but inside they knew that he was wrong. Twelve beautiful horses had come.
"The old man had an only son who started to train the wild horses. Just a week later he fell from a horse and his legs were broken. The people gathered again and again they judged. They said, "Again you proved right! It was misfortune. Your only son has lost the use of his legs, and in your old age he was your only support. Now you are poorer than ever."
"The old man said, "You are obsessed with judgment. Don't go that far. Say only my son has broken his legs. Nobody knows whether this is a misfortune or a blessing. Life comes in fragments and more is never given to you."
"It happened that after a few weeks the country went to war and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken for military. Only the old man's son was left, because he was crippled. The whole town was crying and weeping, because it was a losing fight and they knew most of the young people would never come back. They came to the old man and they said, "You were right, old man - this has proved a blessing. Maybe your son is crippled, but he is still with you. Our sons are gone forever."
"The old man said again, "You go on and on judging. Nobody knows! Only say this that your sons have been forced to enter into the army and my son has not been forced. But only God, the total, knows whether it is a blessing or a misfortune."
"Judge ye not, otherwise you will never become one with the total. With fragments you will jump to conclusions. Once you judge you have stopped growing. Judgment means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgment, because to be in process is always hazardous and uncomfortable. In fact, the journey seems to never end. One path ends, another begins: one door closes, another opens. You reach a peak; a higher peak is there. But God is not an endless journey. Only those who are so courageous that they keep their eye on the goal and are content with the journey, content to live the moment and grow into it, only those are able to walk with the total. Only those will find God."
(Sent to me by my grandfather)
Friday, September 12, 2008
Truth Will Prevail
There are many good articles in the TWP newsletter.
My father is Richard Holm's eldest brother, and I know personally of a transaction where he bilked my father out of tens of thousands of dollars, and a home. But my father would never tell you about it, and he has forgiven Richard a long time ago. Jethro Barlow was actually behind BOTH sides of the CCUSD public school government raid fiasco.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=135
Education is VERY important to the FLDS, but for much different reasons than the general public. I would stack a group of FLDS 17 year old girls against a group of new college students any day of the week.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=133
And you NEED to read Melinda's open letter to her dad.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=132
My father is Richard Holm's eldest brother, and I know personally of a transaction where he bilked my father out of tens of thousands of dollars, and a home. But my father would never tell you about it, and he has forgiven Richard a long time ago. Jethro Barlow was actually behind BOTH sides of the CCUSD public school government raid fiasco.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=135
Education is VERY important to the FLDS, but for much different reasons than the general public. I would stack a group of FLDS 17 year old girls against a group of new college students any day of the week.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=133
And you NEED to read Melinda's open letter to her dad.
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=132
Thursday, September 11, 2008
In Defense of Polygyny
Belinda Marden Pratt
Millennial Star, July 29th, 1854
DEAR SISTER,
- Your letter of Oct. 2 was received on yesterday. My joy on its reception was more than I can express. I had waited so long for your answer to our last, that I had almost concluded my friends were offended, and would write to me no more. Judge, then, of my joy when I read the sentiments of friendship and of sisterly affection expressed in your letter.
We are all well here, and are prosperous and happy in our family circle. My children, four in number, are healthy and cheerful, and fast expanding their physical and intellectual faculties. Health, peace, and prosperity have attended us all the day long.
It seems, my dear sister, that we are no nearer together in our religious views than formerly. Why is this? Are we not bound to leave this world, with all we possess therein, and reap the reward of our doings here in a never-ending hereafter? If so, do we not desire to be un-deceived, and to know and to do the truth? Do we not all wish in our very hearts to be sincere with ourselves, and to be honest and frank with each other?
If so, you will bear with me patiently, while I give a few of my reasons for embracing, and holding sacred, that particular point in the doctrine of the Church of the Saints to which you, my dear sister, together with a large majority of Christendom, so decidedly object. I mean, a "plurality of wives."
I have a Bible, which I have been taught from my infancy to hold sacred. In this Bible, I read of a holy man named Abraham, who is represented as the friend of God, a faithful man in all things, a man who kept the commandments of God, and who is called, in the New Testament, "the father of the faithful." See James 2:23; Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:8,9,16,29.
I find this man had a plurality of wives, some of which were called concubines. See Book of Genesis; and for his concubines, see 25:6.
I also find his grandson Jacob possessed of four wives, twelve sons, and a daughter. These wives are spoken very highly of, by the sacred writers, as honourable and virtuous women. "These," say the Scriptures, "did build the house of Israel."
Jacob himself was also a man of God, and the Lord blessed him and his house, and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply. See Gen. 30 to 35 and particularly 35:10,11.
I find also that the twelve sons of Jacob, by these four wives, became princes, heads of tribes, patriarchs, whose names are had in everlasting remembrance to all generations.
Now God talked with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob frequently; and His angels also visited and talked with them, and blessed them and their wives and children. He also reproved the sins of some of the sons of Jacob, for hating and selling their brother, and for adultery. But in all His communications with them, He never condemned their family organisation; but, on the contrary, always approved of it, and blessed them in this respect. He even told Abraham that He would make him the father of many nations, and that in him and his seed all the nations and kindreds of the earth should be blessed. See Genesis 18:17-19; also 12:1-3. In later years I find the plurality of wives perpetuated, sanctioned, and provided for in the law of Moses.
David the Psalmist not only had a plurality of wives, but the Lord Himself spoke by the mouth of Nathan the Prophet, and told David that He (the Lord) had given his master's wives into his bosom; but because he had committed adultery with the wife of Uriah, and had caused his murder, He would take his wives and give them to a neighbour of his, &c. See 2 Samuel 12:7-11.
Here, then, we have the word of the Lord, not only sanctioning polygamy, but actually giving to king David the wives of his master (Saul), and afterward taking the wives of David from him, and giving them to another man. Here we have a sample of severe reproof and punishment for adultery and murder, while polygamy is authorised and approved of God.
But to come to the New Testament. I find Jesus Christ speaks very highly of Abraham and his family. He says, "Many shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God." Luke 13:28,29.
Again he said, "If ye were Abraham's seed, ye would do the works of Abraham."
Paul the Apostle wrote to the saints of his day, and informed them as follows: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
He also sets forth Abraham and Sarah as patterns of faith and good works, and as the father and mother of faithful Christians, who should, by faith and good works, aspire to be counted the sons of Abraham and daughters of Sarah.
Now let us look at some of the works of Sarah, for which she is so highly commended by the Apostles, and by them held up as a pattern for Christian ladies to imitate. "Now Sarah, Abram's wife, bare him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee go in unto my maid: it may be that I may obtain children of her. And Abram harkened unto the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife." See Genesis 16:1-3.
According to Jesus Christ and the Apostles, then, the only way to be saved is to be adopted into the great family of polygamists, by the Gospel, and then strictly follow their examples.
Again, John the Revelator describes the Holy City of the heavenly Jerusalem, with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob inscribed on the gates. Revelation 21:12.
To sum up the whole, then, I find that polygamists were the friends of God; that the family and lineage of a polygamist were selected, in which all nations should be blessed; that a polygamist is named in the New Testament as the father of the faithful Christians of after ages, and cited as a pattern for all generations; that the wife of a polygamist, who encouraged her husband in the practice of the same, and even urged him into it, and officiated in giving him another wife, is named as an honourable and virtuous woman, a pattern for Christian ladies, and the very mother of all holy women in the Christian Church, whose aspiration it should be to be called her daughters; that Jesus Christ has declared that the great fathers of the polygamic family stand at the head in the kingdom of God; in short, that all the saved of after generations should be saved by becoming members of a polygamic family; that all those who do not become members of it are strangers and aliens to the covenant of promise, the commonwealth of Israel, and not heirs according to the promise made to Abraham; that all people from the east, west, north, or south, who enter into the kingdom, enter into the society of polygamists, and under the patriarchal rule and government; indeed, no one can even approach the gates of heaven without beholding the names of twelve polygamists (the sons of four different women by one man) engraven in everlasting glory upon the pearly gates.
My dear sister, with the Scriptures before me, I could never find it in my heart to reject the heavenly vision which has restored to man the fullness of the Gospel, or the Latter Day Prophets and Apostles, merely because in this restoration is included the ancient law of matrimony and of family organisation and government, preparatory to the restoration of all Israel.
But, leaving all Scripture, history, or precedent out of the question, let us come to nature's law. What, then, appears the great object of the marriage relations? I answer, the multiplying of our species, the rearing and training of children.
To accomplish this object, natural law would dictate that a husband should remain apart from his wife at certain seasons, which, in the very constitution of the female, are untimely; or, in other words, indulgence should be not merely for pleasure or wanton desires, but mainly for the purpose of procreation.
The mortality of nature would teach a mother, that, during nature's process in the formation and growth of embryo man, her heart should be pure, her thoughts and affections chaste, her mind calm, her passions without excitement, while her body should be invigorated with very exercise conducive to health and vigour, but by no means subjected to anything calculated to disturb, irritate, weary, or exhaust any of its functions.
And while a kind husband should nourish, sustain, and comfort the wife of his bosom by every kindness and attention consistent with her situation, and with his most tender affection; still he should refrain from all those untimely associations which are forbidden in the great constitutional laws of female nature; which laws we see carried out in almost the entire animal economy, human animals excepted.
Polygamy, then, as practised under the Patriarchal law of God, tends directly to the chastity of women, and to sound health and morals in the constitutions of their offspring.
You can read, in the law of God, in your Bible, the times and circumstances under which a woman should remain apart from her husband, during which times she is considered unclean; and should her husband come to her bed under such circumstances, he would commit a gross sin both against the laws of nature and the wise provisions of God's law, as revealed in His word; in short, he would commit an abomination; he would sin both against his own body, against the body of his wife, and against the laws of procreation, in which the health and morals of the offspring are directly concerned.
The polygamic law of God opens all vigorous, healthy, and virtuous females a door by which they may become honourable wives of virtuous men, and mothers of faithful, virtuous, healthy, and vigorous children.
And here let me ask you, my dear sister, what female in all New Hampshire would marry a drunkard, a man of hereditary disease, a debauchee, an idler, or a spendthrift; or what woman would become a prostitute, or, on the other hand, live and die single, or without forming those inexpressibly dear relationships of wife and mother, if the Abrahamic covenant, or Patriarchal laws of God, were extended over your state, and held sacred and honourable by all?
Dear sister, in your thoughtlessness, you inquire, "Why not a plurality of husbands as well as a plurality of wives?" To which I reply: 1st, God has never commanded or sanctioned a plurality of husbands; 2nd, "Man is the head of the woman," and no woman can serve two lords; 3rd, Such an order of things would work death and not life, or, in plain language, it would multiply disease instead of children. In fact, the experiment of a plurality of husbands, or rather of one woman for many men, is in active operation, and has been, for centuries, in all the principle towns and cities of "Christendom!" It is the genius of "Christian institutions," falsely so called. It is the result of "Mystery Babylon, the great whore of all the earth." Or in other words, it is the result of making void the holy ordinances of God in relation to matrimony, and inducing the laws of Rome, in which the clergy and nuns are forbidden to marry, and other members only permitted to have one wife. This law leaves females exposed to a life of single "blessedness," without husband, child, or friend to provide for or comfort them; or to a life of poverty and loneliness, exposed to temptation, to perverted affections, to unlawful means to gratify them, or to the necessity of selling themselves for lucre. While the man who has abundance of means is tempted to spend it on a mistress in secret, and in a lawless way, the law of God would have given her to him as an honourable wife. These circumstances give rise to murder, infanticide, suicide, disease, remorse, despair, wretchedness, poverty, untimely death, with all the attendant train of jealousies, heart rending miseries, want of confidence in families, contaminating disease, &c; and finally, to the horrible licence system, in which governments called Christian, licence their fair daughters, I will not say to play the beast, but to a degradation far beneath them; for every species of animal creation, except man, refrain from such abominable excess, and observe in a great measure the laws of nature in procreation.
I again repeat, that nature has constituted the female differently from the male; and for a different purpose. The strength of the female constitution is designed to flow in a stream of life, to nourish and sustain the embryo, to bring it forth, and to nurse it on her bosom. When nature is not in operation within her in these particulars, and for these heavenly ends, it has wisely provided relief at regular periods, in order that her system may be kept pure and healthy, without exhausting the fountain of life on the one hand, or drying up its river of life on the other; till mature age, and an approaching change of worlds, render it necessary for her to cease to be fruitful, and give her to rest awhile, and enjoy a tranquil life in the midst of that family circle, endeared to her by so many ties, and which may be supposed, at this period of her life, to be approaching the vigour of manhood, and therefore able to comfort and sustain her.
Not so with man. He has no such drawback upon his strength. It is his to move in a wider sphere. If God shall count him worthy of an hundred fold, in this life, of wives and children, and houses, and lands, and kindreds, he may even aspire to Patriarchal sovereignty, to empire; to be the prince or head of a tribe, or tribes; and like Abraham of old, be able to send forth, for the defence of his country, hundreds and thousands of his own warriors, born in his own house.
A noble man of God, who is full of the Spirit of the Most High, and is counted worthy to converse with Jehovah, or with the Son of God; and to associate with angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect; one who will teach his children, and bring them up in the light of unadulterated and eternal truth; is more worthy of hundred wives and children, than the ignorant slave of passion, or for vice and folly, is to have one wife and one child. Indeed the God of Abraham is so much better pleased with one than with the other, that he would even take away the one talent, which is habitually abused, neglected, or put to an improper use, and give it to him who has ten talents.
In the Patriarchal order of family government, the wife is bound by the law of her husband. She honours, "calls him lord," even as Sarah obeyed and honoured Abraham. She lives for him, and to increase his glory, his greatness, his kingdom, or family. Her affections are centred in her God, her husband, and her children.
The children are also under his government, worlds without end. "While life or thought, or being lasts, or immortality endures," they are bound to obey him as their father and king.
He also has a head, to whom he is responsible. He must keep the commandments of God, and observe His laws. He must not take a wife unless she is given to him by the law and authority of God. He must not commit adultery, not take liberties with any woman except his own, who are secured to him by the holy ordinance of matrimony.
Hence a nation organised under the law of the Gospel, or in other words, the law of Abraham and the Patriarchs, would have no institutions tending to licentiousness; no adulteries, fornications, &c., would be tolerated. No houses or institutions would exist for traffic in shame, or in the life-blood of our fair daughters. Wealthy men would have no inducement to keep a mistress in secret, or unlawfully. Females would have no grounds for temptation in any such lawless life. Neither money nor pleasure could tempt them, nor poverty drive them to any such excess; because the door would be open for every virtuous female to form the honourable and endearing relationships of wife and mother, in some virtuous family, where love, and peace, and plenty would crown her days, and truth and the practice of virtue qualify her to be transplanted with her family circle in that eternal soil, where they might multiply their children, without pain, or sorrow, or death; and go on increasing in numbers, in wealth, in greatness, in glory, might, majesty, power, and dominion, in worlds without end.
O my dear sister! could the dark veil of tradition be rent from your mind! could you gaze for a moment on the resurrection of the just! could you behold Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives and children, clad in the bosom, freshness, and beauty of immortal flesh and bones; clothed in robes of fine white linen, bedecked with precious stones and gold; and surrounded with an offspring of immortals as countless as the stars of the firmament, or as the grains of sand upon the sea shore; over which they reign as kings and queens for ever and ever! you would then know something of the weight of those words of the sacred writer which are recorded in relation to the four wives of Jacob, the mothers of the twelve Patriarchs, namely: "These did build the house of Israel."
O that my dear kindred could but realise that they have need to repent of the sins, ignorance, and traditions of those perverted systems which are misnamed "Christianity," and be baptized - buried in the water, in the likeness of the death and burial of Jesus Christ, and rise to newness of life in the likeness of his resurrection; receive his Spirit by the laying on of hands of an Apostle, according to promise, and forsake the world and the pride thereof. They would be adopted into the family of Abraham, become his sons and daughters, see and enjoy for themselves the visions of the Spirit of eternal truth, which bear witness of the family order of heaven, and the beauties and glories of eternal kindred ties; for my pen can never describe them.
Dear, dear kindred: remember, according to the New Testament and the testimony of an ancient Apostle, if you are ever saved in the kingdom of God, it must be by being adopted into the family of polygamists - the family of the great Patriarch Abraham: for in his seed, or family, and not out of it, "shall all the nations and kindreds of the earth be blessed."
You say you believe polygamy is "licentiousness;" that it is "abominable," "beastly," &c; "the practice of only the most barbarous nations, or of dark ages, or of some great or good men who were left to commit gross sins." Yet you are anxious for me to be converted to your faith; and that we may see each other in this life, and be associated in one great family in that life which has no end.
Now in order to comply with your wishes, I must renounce the Old and New Testaments; must count Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their families, as licentious, wicked, beastly, abominable characters; Moses, Nathan, David, and the Prophets, no better. I must look upon the God of Israel as partaker in all these abominations, by holding them in fellowship; and even as a minister of such iniquity, by king Saul's wives into king David's bosom; and afterwards by taking David's wives from him, and giving them to his neighbour. I must consider Jesus Christ, and Paul, and John, as either living in a age, as full of the darkness and ignorance of barbarous climes, or else wilfully abominable and wicked, in fellowshipping polygamists, and representing them as fathers of the faithful, and rulers in heaven. I must doom them all to hell, with adulterers, ignorant persons, who, knowing little, were beaten with few stripes. While, by analogy, I must learn to consider the Roman Popes, clergy, and nuns, who do not marry at all, as foremost in the ranks of glory; and those Catholics and Protestants who have but one wife, as next in order of salvation, glory, immortality, and eternal life.
Now, my dear friends, much as I long to see you, and dear as you are to me, I can never come to these terms. I feel as though the Gospel had introduced me into the right family, into the right lineage, and into good company. And besides all these considerations, should I ever become so beclouded with unbelief of the Scriptures and heavenly institutions, as to agree with my kindred in New Hampshire, in theory, still my practical circumstances are different, and would I fear continue to separate us by a wide and almost impassable gulf.
For instance, I have (as you see, in all good conscience, founded on the word of God) formed a family and kindred ties, which are inexpressibly dear to me, and which I can never bring my feelings to consent to dissolve. I have a good and virtuous husband whom I love. We have four little children which are mutually and inexpressibly dear to us. And besides this my husband has seven other living wives, and one who has departed to a better world. He has in all upwards of twenty-five children. All these mothers and children are endeared to me by kindred ties, by mutual affection, by acquaintance and association; and mothers in particular, by mutual and long-continued exercises of toil, patience, long-suffering, and sisterly kindness. We all have our imperfections in this life; but I know that these are good and worthy women, and that my husband is a good and worthy man; one who keeps the commandments of Jesus Christ, and presides in his family like an Abraham. He seeks to provide for them with all diligence; he loves them all, and seeks to comfort them and make them happy. He teaches them the commandments of Jesus Christ, and gathers them about him in the family circle to call upon his God, both morning and evening. He and his family have the confidence, esteem, good-will, and fellowship of this entire territory, and of a wide circle of acquaintances in Europe and America. He is a practical teacher of morals and religion, a promoter of general education, and at present occupies an honourable seat in the Legislative Council of this territory.
Now, as to visiting my kindred in New Hampshire, I would be pleased to do so, were it the will of God. But first, the laws of that state must be so modified by enlightened legislation, and the customs and consciences of its inhabitants, and of my kindred, so altered, that my husband can accompany me with all his wives and children, and be as much respected and honoured in his family organisation, and in his holy calling, as he is at home; or in the same manner as the Patriarch Jacob is in the ascendency; the house of Israel is about to be restored: while "Mystery Babylon," with all her institutions, awaits her own overthrow. Till this is the case in New Hampshire, my kindred will be under the necessity of coming here to see us, or, on the other hand, we will be mutually compelled to forgo the pleasure of each other's company.
You mention, in your letter, that Paul, the Apostle, recommended that Bishops be the husband of one wife. Why this was the case, I do not know, unless it was, as he says, that while he was among the Romans he did as the Romans did. Rome, at that time, governed the world, as it were; and although gross idolaters, they held to the one wife system. Under these circumstances, no doubt, the Apostle Paul, seeing a great many polygamists in the Church, recommended that they had better choose for this particular temporal office, men of small families, who would not be in disrepute with the government. This is precisely our course in those countries where Roman institutions still bear sway. Our Elders there have but one wife, in order to conform to the laws of men.
You inquire why Elder W., when at your house, denied that the Church of this age held to the doctrine of plurality. I answer, that he might have been ignorant of the fact, as our belief on this point was not published till 1852. And had he known it, he had no right to reveal the same until the full time had arrived. God kindly withheld this doctrine for a time, because of the ignorance and prejudice of the nations of mystic Babylon, that peradventure he might save some of them.
Now, dear sister, I must close. I wish all my kindred and old acquaintances to see this letter, or a copy thereof; and that they will consider it as if written to themselves. I love them dearly, and greatly desire and pray for their salvation, and that we may all meet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God.
Dear sister, do not let your prejudices and traditions keep you from believing the Bible; nor pride, shame, or love of the world keep you from your seat in the kingdom of heaven, among the royal family of polygamists. Write often and freely.
With sentiments of deepest affection and kindred feeling, I remain, dear sister, your affectionate sister.
Belinda Marden Pratt
Millennial Star, July 29th, 1854
DEAR SISTER,
- Your letter of Oct. 2 was received on yesterday. My joy on its reception was more than I can express. I had waited so long for your answer to our last, that I had almost concluded my friends were offended, and would write to me no more. Judge, then, of my joy when I read the sentiments of friendship and of sisterly affection expressed in your letter.
We are all well here, and are prosperous and happy in our family circle. My children, four in number, are healthy and cheerful, and fast expanding their physical and intellectual faculties. Health, peace, and prosperity have attended us all the day long.
It seems, my dear sister, that we are no nearer together in our religious views than formerly. Why is this? Are we not bound to leave this world, with all we possess therein, and reap the reward of our doings here in a never-ending hereafter? If so, do we not desire to be un-deceived, and to know and to do the truth? Do we not all wish in our very hearts to be sincere with ourselves, and to be honest and frank with each other?
If so, you will bear with me patiently, while I give a few of my reasons for embracing, and holding sacred, that particular point in the doctrine of the Church of the Saints to which you, my dear sister, together with a large majority of Christendom, so decidedly object. I mean, a "plurality of wives."
I have a Bible, which I have been taught from my infancy to hold sacred. In this Bible, I read of a holy man named Abraham, who is represented as the friend of God, a faithful man in all things, a man who kept the commandments of God, and who is called, in the New Testament, "the father of the faithful." See James 2:23; Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:8,9,16,29.
I find this man had a plurality of wives, some of which were called concubines. See Book of Genesis; and for his concubines, see 25:6.
I also find his grandson Jacob possessed of four wives, twelve sons, and a daughter. These wives are spoken very highly of, by the sacred writers, as honourable and virtuous women. "These," say the Scriptures, "did build the house of Israel."
Jacob himself was also a man of God, and the Lord blessed him and his house, and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply. See Gen. 30 to 35 and particularly 35:10,11.
I find also that the twelve sons of Jacob, by these four wives, became princes, heads of tribes, patriarchs, whose names are had in everlasting remembrance to all generations.
Now God talked with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob frequently; and His angels also visited and talked with them, and blessed them and their wives and children. He also reproved the sins of some of the sons of Jacob, for hating and selling their brother, and for adultery. But in all His communications with them, He never condemned their family organisation; but, on the contrary, always approved of it, and blessed them in this respect. He even told Abraham that He would make him the father of many nations, and that in him and his seed all the nations and kindreds of the earth should be blessed. See Genesis 18:17-19; also 12:1-3. In later years I find the plurality of wives perpetuated, sanctioned, and provided for in the law of Moses.
David the Psalmist not only had a plurality of wives, but the Lord Himself spoke by the mouth of Nathan the Prophet, and told David that He (the Lord) had given his master's wives into his bosom; but because he had committed adultery with the wife of Uriah, and had caused his murder, He would take his wives and give them to a neighbour of his, &c. See 2 Samuel 12:7-11.
Here, then, we have the word of the Lord, not only sanctioning polygamy, but actually giving to king David the wives of his master (Saul), and afterward taking the wives of David from him, and giving them to another man. Here we have a sample of severe reproof and punishment for adultery and murder, while polygamy is authorised and approved of God.
But to come to the New Testament. I find Jesus Christ speaks very highly of Abraham and his family. He says, "Many shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God." Luke 13:28,29.
Again he said, "If ye were Abraham's seed, ye would do the works of Abraham."
Paul the Apostle wrote to the saints of his day, and informed them as follows: "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
He also sets forth Abraham and Sarah as patterns of faith and good works, and as the father and mother of faithful Christians, who should, by faith and good works, aspire to be counted the sons of Abraham and daughters of Sarah.
Now let us look at some of the works of Sarah, for which she is so highly commended by the Apostles, and by them held up as a pattern for Christian ladies to imitate. "Now Sarah, Abram's wife, bare him no children; and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee go in unto my maid: it may be that I may obtain children of her. And Abram harkened unto the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife." See Genesis 16:1-3.
According to Jesus Christ and the Apostles, then, the only way to be saved is to be adopted into the great family of polygamists, by the Gospel, and then strictly follow their examples.
Again, John the Revelator describes the Holy City of the heavenly Jerusalem, with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob inscribed on the gates. Revelation 21:12.
To sum up the whole, then, I find that polygamists were the friends of God; that the family and lineage of a polygamist were selected, in which all nations should be blessed; that a polygamist is named in the New Testament as the father of the faithful Christians of after ages, and cited as a pattern for all generations; that the wife of a polygamist, who encouraged her husband in the practice of the same, and even urged him into it, and officiated in giving him another wife, is named as an honourable and virtuous woman, a pattern for Christian ladies, and the very mother of all holy women in the Christian Church, whose aspiration it should be to be called her daughters; that Jesus Christ has declared that the great fathers of the polygamic family stand at the head in the kingdom of God; in short, that all the saved of after generations should be saved by becoming members of a polygamic family; that all those who do not become members of it are strangers and aliens to the covenant of promise, the commonwealth of Israel, and not heirs according to the promise made to Abraham; that all people from the east, west, north, or south, who enter into the kingdom, enter into the society of polygamists, and under the patriarchal rule and government; indeed, no one can even approach the gates of heaven without beholding the names of twelve polygamists (the sons of four different women by one man) engraven in everlasting glory upon the pearly gates.
My dear sister, with the Scriptures before me, I could never find it in my heart to reject the heavenly vision which has restored to man the fullness of the Gospel, or the Latter Day Prophets and Apostles, merely because in this restoration is included the ancient law of matrimony and of family organisation and government, preparatory to the restoration of all Israel.
But, leaving all Scripture, history, or precedent out of the question, let us come to nature's law. What, then, appears the great object of the marriage relations? I answer, the multiplying of our species, the rearing and training of children.
To accomplish this object, natural law would dictate that a husband should remain apart from his wife at certain seasons, which, in the very constitution of the female, are untimely; or, in other words, indulgence should be not merely for pleasure or wanton desires, but mainly for the purpose of procreation.
The mortality of nature would teach a mother, that, during nature's process in the formation and growth of embryo man, her heart should be pure, her thoughts and affections chaste, her mind calm, her passions without excitement, while her body should be invigorated with very exercise conducive to health and vigour, but by no means subjected to anything calculated to disturb, irritate, weary, or exhaust any of its functions.
And while a kind husband should nourish, sustain, and comfort the wife of his bosom by every kindness and attention consistent with her situation, and with his most tender affection; still he should refrain from all those untimely associations which are forbidden in the great constitutional laws of female nature; which laws we see carried out in almost the entire animal economy, human animals excepted.
Polygamy, then, as practised under the Patriarchal law of God, tends directly to the chastity of women, and to sound health and morals in the constitutions of their offspring.
You can read, in the law of God, in your Bible, the times and circumstances under which a woman should remain apart from her husband, during which times she is considered unclean; and should her husband come to her bed under such circumstances, he would commit a gross sin both against the laws of nature and the wise provisions of God's law, as revealed in His word; in short, he would commit an abomination; he would sin both against his own body, against the body of his wife, and against the laws of procreation, in which the health and morals of the offspring are directly concerned.
The polygamic law of God opens all vigorous, healthy, and virtuous females a door by which they may become honourable wives of virtuous men, and mothers of faithful, virtuous, healthy, and vigorous children.
And here let me ask you, my dear sister, what female in all New Hampshire would marry a drunkard, a man of hereditary disease, a debauchee, an idler, or a spendthrift; or what woman would become a prostitute, or, on the other hand, live and die single, or without forming those inexpressibly dear relationships of wife and mother, if the Abrahamic covenant, or Patriarchal laws of God, were extended over your state, and held sacred and honourable by all?
Dear sister, in your thoughtlessness, you inquire, "Why not a plurality of husbands as well as a plurality of wives?" To which I reply: 1st, God has never commanded or sanctioned a plurality of husbands; 2nd, "Man is the head of the woman," and no woman can serve two lords; 3rd, Such an order of things would work death and not life, or, in plain language, it would multiply disease instead of children. In fact, the experiment of a plurality of husbands, or rather of one woman for many men, is in active operation, and has been, for centuries, in all the principle towns and cities of "Christendom!" It is the genius of "Christian institutions," falsely so called. It is the result of "Mystery Babylon, the great whore of all the earth." Or in other words, it is the result of making void the holy ordinances of God in relation to matrimony, and inducing the laws of Rome, in which the clergy and nuns are forbidden to marry, and other members only permitted to have one wife. This law leaves females exposed to a life of single "blessedness," without husband, child, or friend to provide for or comfort them; or to a life of poverty and loneliness, exposed to temptation, to perverted affections, to unlawful means to gratify them, or to the necessity of selling themselves for lucre. While the man who has abundance of means is tempted to spend it on a mistress in secret, and in a lawless way, the law of God would have given her to him as an honourable wife. These circumstances give rise to murder, infanticide, suicide, disease, remorse, despair, wretchedness, poverty, untimely death, with all the attendant train of jealousies, heart rending miseries, want of confidence in families, contaminating disease, &c; and finally, to the horrible licence system, in which governments called Christian, licence their fair daughters, I will not say to play the beast, but to a degradation far beneath them; for every species of animal creation, except man, refrain from such abominable excess, and observe in a great measure the laws of nature in procreation.
I again repeat, that nature has constituted the female differently from the male; and for a different purpose. The strength of the female constitution is designed to flow in a stream of life, to nourish and sustain the embryo, to bring it forth, and to nurse it on her bosom. When nature is not in operation within her in these particulars, and for these heavenly ends, it has wisely provided relief at regular periods, in order that her system may be kept pure and healthy, without exhausting the fountain of life on the one hand, or drying up its river of life on the other; till mature age, and an approaching change of worlds, render it necessary for her to cease to be fruitful, and give her to rest awhile, and enjoy a tranquil life in the midst of that family circle, endeared to her by so many ties, and which may be supposed, at this period of her life, to be approaching the vigour of manhood, and therefore able to comfort and sustain her.
Not so with man. He has no such drawback upon his strength. It is his to move in a wider sphere. If God shall count him worthy of an hundred fold, in this life, of wives and children, and houses, and lands, and kindreds, he may even aspire to Patriarchal sovereignty, to empire; to be the prince or head of a tribe, or tribes; and like Abraham of old, be able to send forth, for the defence of his country, hundreds and thousands of his own warriors, born in his own house.
A noble man of God, who is full of the Spirit of the Most High, and is counted worthy to converse with Jehovah, or with the Son of God; and to associate with angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect; one who will teach his children, and bring them up in the light of unadulterated and eternal truth; is more worthy of hundred wives and children, than the ignorant slave of passion, or for vice and folly, is to have one wife and one child. Indeed the God of Abraham is so much better pleased with one than with the other, that he would even take away the one talent, which is habitually abused, neglected, or put to an improper use, and give it to him who has ten talents.
In the Patriarchal order of family government, the wife is bound by the law of her husband. She honours, "calls him lord," even as Sarah obeyed and honoured Abraham. She lives for him, and to increase his glory, his greatness, his kingdom, or family. Her affections are centred in her God, her husband, and her children.
The children are also under his government, worlds without end. "While life or thought, or being lasts, or immortality endures," they are bound to obey him as their father and king.
He also has a head, to whom he is responsible. He must keep the commandments of God, and observe His laws. He must not take a wife unless she is given to him by the law and authority of God. He must not commit adultery, not take liberties with any woman except his own, who are secured to him by the holy ordinance of matrimony.
Hence a nation organised under the law of the Gospel, or in other words, the law of Abraham and the Patriarchs, would have no institutions tending to licentiousness; no adulteries, fornications, &c., would be tolerated. No houses or institutions would exist for traffic in shame, or in the life-blood of our fair daughters. Wealthy men would have no inducement to keep a mistress in secret, or unlawfully. Females would have no grounds for temptation in any such lawless life. Neither money nor pleasure could tempt them, nor poverty drive them to any such excess; because the door would be open for every virtuous female to form the honourable and endearing relationships of wife and mother, in some virtuous family, where love, and peace, and plenty would crown her days, and truth and the practice of virtue qualify her to be transplanted with her family circle in that eternal soil, where they might multiply their children, without pain, or sorrow, or death; and go on increasing in numbers, in wealth, in greatness, in glory, might, majesty, power, and dominion, in worlds without end.
O my dear sister! could the dark veil of tradition be rent from your mind! could you gaze for a moment on the resurrection of the just! could you behold Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives and children, clad in the bosom, freshness, and beauty of immortal flesh and bones; clothed in robes of fine white linen, bedecked with precious stones and gold; and surrounded with an offspring of immortals as countless as the stars of the firmament, or as the grains of sand upon the sea shore; over which they reign as kings and queens for ever and ever! you would then know something of the weight of those words of the sacred writer which are recorded in relation to the four wives of Jacob, the mothers of the twelve Patriarchs, namely: "These did build the house of Israel."
O that my dear kindred could but realise that they have need to repent of the sins, ignorance, and traditions of those perverted systems which are misnamed "Christianity," and be baptized - buried in the water, in the likeness of the death and burial of Jesus Christ, and rise to newness of life in the likeness of his resurrection; receive his Spirit by the laying on of hands of an Apostle, according to promise, and forsake the world and the pride thereof. They would be adopted into the family of Abraham, become his sons and daughters, see and enjoy for themselves the visions of the Spirit of eternal truth, which bear witness of the family order of heaven, and the beauties and glories of eternal kindred ties; for my pen can never describe them.
Dear, dear kindred: remember, according to the New Testament and the testimony of an ancient Apostle, if you are ever saved in the kingdom of God, it must be by being adopted into the family of polygamists - the family of the great Patriarch Abraham: for in his seed, or family, and not out of it, "shall all the nations and kindreds of the earth be blessed."
You say you believe polygamy is "licentiousness;" that it is "abominable," "beastly," &c; "the practice of only the most barbarous nations, or of dark ages, or of some great or good men who were left to commit gross sins." Yet you are anxious for me to be converted to your faith; and that we may see each other in this life, and be associated in one great family in that life which has no end.
Now in order to comply with your wishes, I must renounce the Old and New Testaments; must count Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their families, as licentious, wicked, beastly, abominable characters; Moses, Nathan, David, and the Prophets, no better. I must look upon the God of Israel as partaker in all these abominations, by holding them in fellowship; and even as a minister of such iniquity, by king Saul's wives into king David's bosom; and afterwards by taking David's wives from him, and giving them to his neighbour. I must consider Jesus Christ, and Paul, and John, as either living in a age, as full of the darkness and ignorance of barbarous climes, or else wilfully abominable and wicked, in fellowshipping polygamists, and representing them as fathers of the faithful, and rulers in heaven. I must doom them all to hell, with adulterers, ignorant persons, who, knowing little, were beaten with few stripes. While, by analogy, I must learn to consider the Roman Popes, clergy, and nuns, who do not marry at all, as foremost in the ranks of glory; and those Catholics and Protestants who have but one wife, as next in order of salvation, glory, immortality, and eternal life.
Now, my dear friends, much as I long to see you, and dear as you are to me, I can never come to these terms. I feel as though the Gospel had introduced me into the right family, into the right lineage, and into good company. And besides all these considerations, should I ever become so beclouded with unbelief of the Scriptures and heavenly institutions, as to agree with my kindred in New Hampshire, in theory, still my practical circumstances are different, and would I fear continue to separate us by a wide and almost impassable gulf.
For instance, I have (as you see, in all good conscience, founded on the word of God) formed a family and kindred ties, which are inexpressibly dear to me, and which I can never bring my feelings to consent to dissolve. I have a good and virtuous husband whom I love. We have four little children which are mutually and inexpressibly dear to us. And besides this my husband has seven other living wives, and one who has departed to a better world. He has in all upwards of twenty-five children. All these mothers and children are endeared to me by kindred ties, by mutual affection, by acquaintance and association; and mothers in particular, by mutual and long-continued exercises of toil, patience, long-suffering, and sisterly kindness. We all have our imperfections in this life; but I know that these are good and worthy women, and that my husband is a good and worthy man; one who keeps the commandments of Jesus Christ, and presides in his family like an Abraham. He seeks to provide for them with all diligence; he loves them all, and seeks to comfort them and make them happy. He teaches them the commandments of Jesus Christ, and gathers them about him in the family circle to call upon his God, both morning and evening. He and his family have the confidence, esteem, good-will, and fellowship of this entire territory, and of a wide circle of acquaintances in Europe and America. He is a practical teacher of morals and religion, a promoter of general education, and at present occupies an honourable seat in the Legislative Council of this territory.
Now, as to visiting my kindred in New Hampshire, I would be pleased to do so, were it the will of God. But first, the laws of that state must be so modified by enlightened legislation, and the customs and consciences of its inhabitants, and of my kindred, so altered, that my husband can accompany me with all his wives and children, and be as much respected and honoured in his family organisation, and in his holy calling, as he is at home; or in the same manner as the Patriarch Jacob is in the ascendency; the house of Israel is about to be restored: while "Mystery Babylon," with all her institutions, awaits her own overthrow. Till this is the case in New Hampshire, my kindred will be under the necessity of coming here to see us, or, on the other hand, we will be mutually compelled to forgo the pleasure of each other's company.
You mention, in your letter, that Paul, the Apostle, recommended that Bishops be the husband of one wife. Why this was the case, I do not know, unless it was, as he says, that while he was among the Romans he did as the Romans did. Rome, at that time, governed the world, as it were; and although gross idolaters, they held to the one wife system. Under these circumstances, no doubt, the Apostle Paul, seeing a great many polygamists in the Church, recommended that they had better choose for this particular temporal office, men of small families, who would not be in disrepute with the government. This is precisely our course in those countries where Roman institutions still bear sway. Our Elders there have but one wife, in order to conform to the laws of men.
You inquire why Elder W., when at your house, denied that the Church of this age held to the doctrine of plurality. I answer, that he might have been ignorant of the fact, as our belief on this point was not published till 1852. And had he known it, he had no right to reveal the same until the full time had arrived. God kindly withheld this doctrine for a time, because of the ignorance and prejudice of the nations of mystic Babylon, that peradventure he might save some of them.
Now, dear sister, I must close. I wish all my kindred and old acquaintances to see this letter, or a copy thereof; and that they will consider it as if written to themselves. I love them dearly, and greatly desire and pray for their salvation, and that we may all meet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God.
Dear sister, do not let your prejudices and traditions keep you from believing the Bible; nor pride, shame, or love of the world keep you from your seat in the kingdom of heaven, among the royal family of polygamists. Write often and freely.
With sentiments of deepest affection and kindred feeling, I remain, dear sister, your affectionate sister.
Belinda Marden Pratt
Monday, September 8, 2008
Analogy
Twin brothers walk up to an ice cream stand. The attendant says, "Here is a free sample of our newest flavor of ice cream. I will give it to you, and all you have to do is write down the name you would call it and give a brief description of what it is like. For now we call it FLavor D-S."
"Cool" one boy says, "Ugh" the other one says, but they both take the treat and write their comments.
What will they say?
Of course they didn’t notice the giant billboard on the way to the stand that says “WORLDS NASTIEST ICE CREAM- says former taster" But a large group of other boys sure did, and they yell at the two “That is gross!” before marching off to find the former taster to get more info on how bad it really is. The two boys looked up at the group as they marched away, and one continued writing, but the other erased a bunch and re wrote his.
Now what do they say?
Someone then runs out of the plant the ice cream is made, “Poison! Poison I tell you!!” Running right past the boys, to write another billboard.
The leaders of the plant fire some of the workers for putting sawdust in the batch and the rest of the workers eat and work as if nothing happened. Then the FEDS come and arrest all the workers for firing the former employees, and making a bad batch of Ice cream.
You are one of the twins now, which one?
"Cool" one boy says, "Ugh" the other one says, but they both take the treat and write their comments.
What will they say?
Of course they didn’t notice the giant billboard on the way to the stand that says “WORLDS NASTIEST ICE CREAM- says former taster" But a large group of other boys sure did, and they yell at the two “That is gross!” before marching off to find the former taster to get more info on how bad it really is. The two boys looked up at the group as they marched away, and one continued writing, but the other erased a bunch and re wrote his.
Now what do they say?
Someone then runs out of the plant the ice cream is made, “Poison! Poison I tell you!!” Running right past the boys, to write another billboard.
The leaders of the plant fire some of the workers for putting sawdust in the batch and the rest of the workers eat and work as if nothing happened. Then the FEDS come and arrest all the workers for firing the former employees, and making a bad batch of Ice cream.
You are one of the twins now, which one?
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Pliggy Dictionary Pop Quiz
I was going to write the definitions to several words here, but rather than that I would like YOU to write the definitions to these words. I won't publish any until next weekend, but I would like you to write how you THINK the FLDS define these words, and then how you PERSONALLY define these words. (All or some, its up to you)
If you are FLDS, then the reverse, how you define them, and then how you think OUTSIDERS define them.
Virtue
Marriage
Free will
Prophet
Revelation
Fasting
Atonement
Fundamentalist
Criminal bigamy
Racism
Welfare fraud
Underage
If you are FLDS, then the reverse, how you define them, and then how you think OUTSIDERS define them.
Virtue
Marriage
Free will
Prophet
Revelation
Fasting
Atonement
Fundamentalist
Criminal bigamy
Racism
Welfare fraud
Underage
Friday, September 5, 2008
Britton's Story
http://www.truthwillprevail.org/index.php?parentid=1&index=131
"I never want to go back to the shelter"
"I never want to go back to the shelter"
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