| 248 CHAPTER 15.
1879.
IN the Saints' Herald for January 1, 1879, there appeared an article from the pen of Elder William B. Smith, brother of Joseph Smith the Martyr, from which we quote. After speaking of the people in Utah denying the divinity of Christ and substituting the Adam-god theory, he states:
Joseph Smith, to my personal knowledge, never taught any such doctrine. While reading over a few lines of that forged revelation on the wife doctrine, I thought it singularly strange that your father could have given utterance to such ideas of blood and murder, when in all his lifetime, his example and teachings were so contrary, or reversed to such teachings. No man, from my personal knowledge, was more devoted to his wife and children than Joseph Smith; nor could he for one single moment have penned a law, or given utterance to a rule that would, under any circumstances whatever, have deprived them of life. Nor did Joseph Smith ever predict that the time would come, that it would be lawful to murder apostates; or to destroy rebellious women, because they refused to become polygamous wives, or to submit to such rules of barbarism. Any one acquainted with the real character of Joseph Smith, on the subject of family relation, would know, at the first glance, that that monster revelation was a forgery and a fraud of the blackest dye, palmed off upon the name and character of the prophet. Twice in my history I journeyed with my brother Joseph to Missouri as his life guard; once in
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