| 40 "TO THE SAINTS; Greeting:-
"Our eyes and ears are sometimes saluted with communications from abroad that there are persons who profess to be adherents to President J. J. Strang, who are privately teaching and some practicing what is called the 'western camp doctrine,' or, in other words, 'spiritual wifery' or polygamy. We also hear that there are some persons who do President Strang the injustice to say that he justifies the principle above stated.
"This is to say emphatically, and we mean just what we say, and if our course in the future does not prove us true in this matter then let that execration rest on us that is due to such a course of conduct, that we believe ourself to be as much ingratiated into the confidence of President Strang as any other man. (This we say without egotism, merely to discharge a moral duty.)
"We have talked hours, yea, even days with President Strang on the subject of the temporal and moral condition and character of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we find to our utmost satisfaction that he does not believe in or cherish the doctrine of polygamy in any manner, shape, or form imaginable whatever."-Zion's Reveille, Aug. 5, 1847, vol. 2, p. 83.
The same publication for August 12, 1847, contains a card from James J. Strang relating to the above, reading as follows:-
"Elder John E. Page has referred me to an article in No. 20 addressed 'To the Saints; Greeting.' In the remarks he has there made he has justly and truly represented my sentiments. I am only astonished that it should be necessary to state them at all. Within three years I have, in the work of the ministry, traveled over sixteen thousand miles, visited all the States north of the Carolinas but three, most of them several times, preached to large congregations in all the principal cities and in most of the large branches in the country. And I have uniformly and most distinctly discarded and declared heretical the so called 'spiritual wife system' and everything connected therewith. It is a well-known fact that several men of talent and influence have
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