Posted by:
jw the inquizzinator
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Date: January 30, 2011 04:31PM
http://www.archive.org/stream/mormonmonsterors00folk/mormonmonsterors00folk_djvu.txtOne (long) snippet to wet your appetite:
Dr. W. Wyl says: "It is now a well established historical fact that the origin of Mormon polygamy, or 'celestial marriage/ was nothing but the unbounded and ungoverned passion of the prophet for the other sex."
Mr. Webb, an old Mormon, who knew Smith for eleven years, told Dr. Wyl: "Joseph [Smith] and John D. Lee were the most libidinous men I ever knew."
Mrs. Sarah M. Pratt, a Mormon woman who resisted Smith's advances — about the only one who ever did — and who was slandered and persecuted for doing so, said: "Joseph was the most licentious and Brigham Young the most bloodthirsty of men." Dr. Wyl once said to Mrs. Pratt: "I have seen a statement in a book that Joseph had eighty wives at the time of his death. Is that true ?"
Mrs. Pratt smiled and said : "He had many more, my dear sir; at least he had seduced many more, and those with whom he had lived without their being sealed to him, were sealed to him after his death, to be among the number of his 'queens' in the other world. All those women were divided among his friends after his tragic death, so that they might be 'proxy-husbands' to them on earth ; while in the celestial kingdom they would, with their offspring, belong to Brother Joseph, the Christ of this dispensation."
Again Mrs. Pratt said : "Everybody knew in Nauvoo that the Partridge girls lived with Joseph a long time before he got his celebrated revelation about celestial marriage, dated July 12, 1843. The Partridge girls were very good natured. After Joseph's death one was sealed to Brigham and the other to Apostle Amasa Lyman. Joseph's taste was of very large dimensions ; he loved them old and young, pretty and homely. He sometimes seduced mothers to keep them quiet about his connection with their daughters. There was an old woman called Durfee. She knew a good deal about the prophet's amorous adventures and, to keep her quiet, he admitted her to the secret blessings of celestial bliss. I don't think that she was ever sealed to him, though it may have been the case after Joseph's death, when the temple was finished. At all events, she boasted here in Salt Lake of having been one of Joseph's wives. Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young took the lion's share at the division of Joseph's wives after his death. Joseph had a number of lady friends, sealed or not sealed, who permitted him to use their houses as a kind of assignation houses for rendezvous with other women."
Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young's right-hand man, said : "I sat once with Joseph in his office in the Mansion House. He looked out of the window and saw weeding in a garden a young married woman whom we both knew. He told me to go to her and request her to come to him, and he would have her sealed to himself this very moment. I went and told the woman to come to Brother Joseph. She ran to the house to comb her hair and 'fix up' generally, and then followed me to the prophet. I performed the sealing ceremony and retired."
...Here are some other testimonies gathered by Dr. Wyl,
showing the condition of affairs in Nauvoo at this time :
Mr. W. :
"There were many small rooms, with beds, in the temple in Nauvoo. They turned the house of the Lord into a house of prostitution. The wife of Amasa Lyman, apostle and apostate, used to say that they had many little bedrooms in the temple, and that the newly-sealed couples used to retire to these rooms with provisions for two or three days."
"Amasa Lyman, the apostle, who later became a Vile apostate,' told me that Joseph, Brigham Young, and other apostles used to dance in the Endowment House with the Lord's 'handmaids,' their spiritual wives. Those dances were performed in Adamic costume, and a fiddler was 'ordained and set apart' for the purpose. I knew this to be an absolute fact ; it has been confirmed to me by other well-informed persons."
Mrs. P. :
"You hear often that Joseph had no polygamous offspring. The reason of this is very simple. Abortion was practiced on a large scale in Nauvoo. Dr. John C. Bennett, the evil genius of Joseph, brought this abomination into a scientific system. He showed to my husband and me the instruments with which he used to 'operate for Joseph/ There was a house in Nauvoo, 'right across the flat,' about a mile and a half from the town, a kind of hospital. They sent the women there when they showed signs of celestial consequences. Abortion was practiced regularly in this house."
Mrs. H. :
''Many little bodies of new-born children floated down the Mississippi."
Mrs. Pratt : "You should bear in mind that Joseph did not think of a marriage or sealing ceremony for many years. He used to say to his intended victims, as he did tome:
'God does not care if we have a good time, if only other people do not know it.' He only introduced a marriage ceremony when he had found out that he could not get certain women without it. I think Louisa Beeman was the first case of this kind. If any woman, like me, opposed his wishes, he used to say : 'Be silent, or I shall ruin your character. My character must be sustained in the interest of the church.' "