Thank you Mercury!

[_Yoda]

It's interesting how the crickets tend to chirp in Bob's direction when he is proven wrong.

;)

[_Jason Bourne]

I own Mormon Polygamy. On page 53, it reads:

There is evidence to suggest that on at least one other occasion Smith convinced one of his would-be young wives to accept polygamy by persuading her that it was a “spiritual order and not a temporal one.” Helen Mar Kimball, fifteen year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball, reported that Smith told her: “If you will take this step, it will insure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.” “This promise was so great,” Helen felt, “that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward” (Whitney, “Retrospection”). “I thought through this life my time will be my own,” she wrote in a letter to be opened after her death, “the step I now am taking’s for eternity alone.” (ibid). But she reportedly had misinterpreted Smith’s intent. She confided to a close friend in Nauvoo: “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I know it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.” (Lewis, 1848, 19).

My edition was printed in 1989. What year was your edition printed, Bob?


Now one can debate whether or not Lewis was a reliable source. However, the only factor that changes is whether or not Helen would, knowing what she knew later, agree to the marriage. By her own words she verifies that she married Smith thinking that it would be for eternity ONLY, and "offered herself" as a "purchase" for so glorious a reward.

Here is Helen's poem, also reproduced in Compton. If a fuller version of the poem exists, I am not aware of it.

I thought through this life my time will be my own
The step I now am taking’s for eternity alone,
No one need be the wiser, through time I shall be free,
And as the past hath been the future still will be.
To my guileless heart all free from worldly care
And full of blissful hopes and youthful visions rare
The world seamed bright the thret’ning clouds were kept
From sight and all looked fair...

...but pitying angels wept.
They saw my youthful friends grow shy and cold.
And poisonous darts from sland’rous tongues were hurled,
Untutor’d heart in thy gen’rous sacrafise,
Thou dids’t not weigh the cost nor know the bitter price;
Thy happy dreams all o’er thou’st doom’d also to be
Bar’d out from social scenes by this thy destiny,
And o’er thy sad’nd mem’ries of sweet departed joys
Thy sicken’d heart will brood and imagine future woes,
And like a fetter’d bird with wild and longing heart,
Thou’lt dayly pine for freedom and murmor at thy lot;

But could’st thou see the future & view that glorious crown,
Awaiting you in Heaven you would not weep nor mourn.
Pure and exalted was thy father’s aim, he saw
A glory in obeying this high celestial law,
For to thousands who’ve died without the light
I will bring eternal joy & make thy crown more bright.
I’d been taught to reveire the Prophet of God
And receive every word as the word of the Lord,
But had this not come through my dear father’s mouth,
I should ne’r have received it as God’s sacred truth.

Helen Mar Kimball

http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/26-He ... imball.htm

I was going to type out the same paragraph from the book but noted that Beastie had done so. Indeed the referenced quote is found on page 53 of the book in question. My copy is 1989 as well but I bought it only a year ago off Amazon so I assume that it is the most recent addition.

So Bob is wrong on this account. The quote indeed is found in the Book Mormon Polygamy page 53. I am surprised Bob is so wrong on this.

[_Jason Bourne]

Ty.

I could write a book on Van Wagoner's excesses.

Helen wrote her own book on the subject, and never mentioned anything like this.

But, go on using the quote. It makes you look informed.

Could you please expound a bit on what you call Can Wagoner's excesses?

[_beastie]

I was going to type out the same paragraph from the book but noted that Beastie had done so. Indeed the referenced quote is found on page 53 of the book in question. My copy is 1989 as well but I bought it only a year ago off Amazon so I assume that it is the most recent addition.

So Bob is wrong on this account. The quote indeed is found in the Book Mormon Polygamy page 53. I am surprised Bob is so wrong on this.

I think we can do what bob is unwilling to do for us - give him the benefit of the doubt. He probably has an older edition of the text.

[_Mercury]

Thank you to those honest enough to reproduce the specific citations in this matter. Bob, you have no character but we knew that already.

[_Chap]

Because that's not part of the template, it doesn't fit the agenda, and it would expose Merc as the dismal poseur he actually seems to be.

Could any of you exmos possibly come up, at some point, with a criticism of the Church that can't be disposed of essentially in the manner one blows one's nose and then effortlessly drops the Kleenex into the trash?

The boredom created by the dearth of real, substantive argument here is becoming a major theme of its own in this forum.

Oh dear ....

I own Mormon Polygamy. On page 53, it reads:

There is evidence to suggest that on at least one other occasion Smith convinced one of his would-be young wives to accept polygamy by persuading her that it was a “spiritual order and not a temporal one.” Helen Mar Kimball, fifteen year-old daughter of Apostle Heber C. Kimball, reported that Smith told her: “If you will take this step, it will insure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.” “This promise was so great,” Helen felt, “that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward” (Whitney, “Retrospection”). “I thought through this life my time will be my own,” she wrote in a letter to be opened after her death, “the step I now am taking’s for eternity alone.” (ibid). But she reportedly had misinterpreted Smith’s intent. She confided to a close friend in Nauvoo: “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I know it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.” (Lewis, 1848, 19).

My edition was printed in 1989. What year was your edition printed, Bob?

Does this mean that Coggins/Droopy is going to have to change his avatar AGAIN?

Don't worry. Mr Crocket will be along in a moment, and he will explain everything. The critics will be discomfited. Truth is the church's greatest weapon against the latter-day Korihors.

[_Bond...James Bond]

It's interesting how the crickets tend to chirp in Bob's direction when he is proven wrong.

;)

I don't hear any crickets. Bob probably held them down and pulled their legs off.

[_Tori]

What I would like someone to explain to me is, when and who decided that it was time to make these wives more than "for eternity alone"? In other words, the defender's are alway proclaiming that Joseph did not have sex with these young wives (or old ones either). But suddenly after his death, it was 'have at it'? Brigham, John T., Heber and the rest could do the sex thing with their wives they were collecting. But Joseph and Hyrum......nooooo! All they did was a ceremony. No consumating. (yeah, right)

Doesn't make much sense.....does it?

[_Yoda]

What I would like someone to explain to me is, when and who decided that it was time to make these wives more than "for eternity alone"? In other words, the defender's are alway proclaiming that Joseph did not have sex with these young wives (or old ones either). But suddenly after his death, it was 'have at it'? Brigham, John T., Heber and the rest could do the sex thing with their wives they were collecting. But Joseph and Hyrum......nooooo! All they did was a ceremony. No consumating. (yeah, right)

Doesn't make much sense.....does it?

It doesn't make any sense. The purpose of plural marriage was, supposedly, to "raise righteous seed".

[_harmony]

What I would like someone to explain to me is, when and who decided that it was time to make these wives more than "for eternity alone"? In other words, the defender's are alway proclaiming that Joseph did not have sex with these young wives (or old ones either). But suddenly after his death, it was 'have at it'? Brigham, John T., Heber and the rest could do the sex thing with their wives they were collecting. But Joseph and Hyrum......nooooo! All they did was a ceremony. No consumating. (yeah, right)

Doesn't make much sense.....does it?

It doesn't make any sense. The purpose of plural marriage was, supposedly, to "raise righteous seed".

Not even God can guarantee righteous seed. Look at Satan.