I never said that Van Wagoner was a virulent anti-Mormon. You need to follow the thread.
I apologize for that misunderstanding, I was responding too quickly this morning and read sloppily.
The quote Van Wagoner uses from Helen is from an virulent anti-Mormon expose of the temple ceremony, Catherine Lewis' -- a fact Van Wagoner does not mention. He cites the source all right but isn't very discriminating about it. But, he is not a trained historian.
Compton writes that the marriage was dynastic. (Compton, p. 487.)
Compton cites the source Mercury uses, says it is from an an "anti-Mormon source," and says that the "extremism of this language is suspect" and "is not credible." (Compton, p. 501.) Compton points out that Lewis also suggested that Helen said that she was being pressured to marry her own father, Heber. Compton nonetheless says the passage is "worth considering." I don't see why, but I offer this for what it is worth.
I really amazed at how undiscriminating you are about your sources, how you are willing to accept the most negative thing said about Mormonism -- no matter where it is from or who says it.
Nonsense. I do not accept “the most negative thing said about Mormonism – no matter where it from or who says it.” For example, I view the works of Ed Decker as unreliable dribble. I simply don’t discriminate in the way YOU do – which is to out-right reject any statement coming from a source you label “anti-Mormon”. The problem for you is that much of what Lewis said can be verified directly from Helen Mar.
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...
The meaning of this could not be more clear. Helen Mar believed that the sealing would be “for eternity alone”. In other words, it would be as you insist – meant as a sealing for the next life, not as a “marriage” in this life. “No one need be the wiser”. Obviously she didn’t think other people would even KNOW she’d been eternally sealed to Joseph Smith. She was content to make this deal. The “thret’ning clouds were kept from sight and all looked fair.” In other words, any information that could unsettle her understanding of what this sealing meant was not yet in her possession.
..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;
Now, apparently, Helen Mar is fully aware that this marriage WILL have an impact on her in this life. At the very least, the most generous interpretation is that Joseph Smith has curtailed her social activities. (I am unconvinced, by the way, that sex actually took place before his death, but I fully believe it WOULD have as she got older) If the marriage was meant to be for the next life only, why would “sland’rous tongues hurl”? Why should they realize she made a “gen’rous sacrafise”? What was the “bitter price”?
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
Helen Mar says HERSELF she could never have “received it as God’s sacred truth” had it not come from her father, and had she not been taught to “reveire” the Prophet of God and “receive every word as the word of the Lord.”
Helen Mar’s own words substantiate some of Lewis’ claim. She clearly did NOT know it was meant to be “anything other than ceremony”. Now what we don’t know is if she really said she would never had done it, otherwise. We also don’t know if she used the word “deceived”. Certainly Lewis’ negative feelings may have resulted in the use of words like “deceived” that Helen Mar would not have used. But her poem makes clear that she did not realize what this union actually meant.
Being discriminating means to evaluate these statements carefully in the context of other information. The other information is Helen Mar’s own poem. Being discriminating does not mean throwing out any information offered by a critical source.
If this sealing were dynastic only and not meant as a real marriage, this poem would never have been written.
by the way, one can read Lewis’ depiction of the temple ceremony here:
http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/temple3.htmCrocket is delusional if he thinks that constitutes “virulent anti-mormonism”.
In regards to the Josephine affidavit, crocket said:
This thread is about Helen Whitney. I truncated nothing and I don't know what you are talking about. On the Josephine quote from which I cited, there was no more sentence beyond the period to which I quoted to establish Beastie's atrocity.
Thread referenced:
http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... &start=315
This is hilarious. I quoted a citation exactly as it was on the source, which I linked at least twice on the thread. Bob has claimed that means I “deliberately truncated” the quote for malicious purposes. Bob also used a citation quoted exactly as it was on a source (a FARMs article), but apparently is unaware that the FARMS article truncated the citation themselves. So when he does it, he simply asserts “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and considers case closed. But when I quoted a citation, exactly as it was on the website I linked, that is an “atrocity”.
Once again, I will offer bob the type of generosity he offers to no critic: he probably didn’t realize that the FARMS quote was not complete. He probably didn’t deliberately truncate the citation. But now, to insist that the omitted portion makes no difference… that’s just delusional. But it is exactly what I expected from bob, who seems constitutionally incapable of admitting his own errors.