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To Whom It May Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy
I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:
I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.
The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.
Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.
Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. |
~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President
D&C 49:18-19 versus D&C 89:12-13
17, The day and hour of Christs coming will remain unknown until He comes; 814, Men must repent, believe the gospel, and obey the ordinances to gain salvation; 1516, Marriage is ordained of God; 1721, The eating of meat is approved; 2228, Zion will flourish and the Lamanites blossom as the rose before the Second Coming.
1 Hearken unto my word, my servants Sidney, and Parley, and Leman; for behold, verily I say unto you, that I give unto you a commandment that you shall go and apreach my gospel which ye have received, even as ye have received it, unto the Shakers.
2 Behold, I say unto you, that they desire to know the truth in part, but not all, for they are not aright before me and must needs repent.
3 Wherefore, I send you, my servants Sidney and Parley, to preach the gospel unto them.
4 And my servant Leman shall be ordained unto this work, that he may reason with them, not according to that which he has received of them, but according to that which shall be ataught him by you my servants; and by so doing I will bless him, otherwise he shall not prosper.
5 Thus saith the Lord; for I am God, and have asent mine bOnly Begotten Son into the world for the credemption of the world, and have decreed that he that receiveth him shall be saved, and he that receiveth him not shall be ddamned
6 And they have done unto the aSon of Man even as they listed; and he has taken his power on the bright hand of his cglory, and now reigneth in the heavens, and will reign till he descends on the earth to put all enemies dunder his feet, which time is nigh at hand
7 I, the Lord God, have spoken it; but the hour and the aday no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they know until he comes.
8 Wherefore, I will that all men shall repent, for all are under asin, except those which I have breserved unto myself, choly men that ye know not of.
9 Wherefore, I say unto you that I have sent unto you mine everlasting acovenant, even that which was from the beginning.
10 And that which I have promised I have so fulfilled, and the anations of the earth shall bbow to it; and, if not of themselves, they shall come down, for that which is now exalted of itself shall be laid clow of power.
11 Wherefore, I give unto you a commandment that ye ago among this people, and say unto them, like unto mine apostle of old, whose name was bPeter:
12 aBelieve on the name of the Lord Jesus, who was on the earth, and is to come, the beginning and the end;
13 aRepent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, according to the holy commandment, for the remission of sins;
14 And whoso doeth this shall receive the agift of the Holy Ghost, by the laying on of the bhands of the elders of the church.
15 And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso aforbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for bmarriage is ordained of God unto man.
16 Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one awife, and they twain shall be bone flesh, and all this that the cearth might answer the end of its creation;
17 And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his acreation bbefore the world was made.
18 And whoso aforbiddeth to babstain from cmeats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God;
19 For, behold, the abeasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is bordained for the use of man for food and for craiment, and that he might have in abundance.
20 But it is not given that one man should apossess that which is above another, wherefore the bworld lieth in csin.
21 And wo be unto man that asheddeth blood or that bwasteth cflesh and hath no need.
22 And again, verily I say unto you, that the Son of Man acometh not in the form of a woman, neither of a man traveling on the earth.
23 Wherefore, be not adeceived, but continue in steadfastness, blooking forth for the heavens to be cshaken, and the earth to tremble and to reel to and fro as a drunken man, and for the dvalleys to be exalted, and for the emountains to be made low, and for the rough places to become smoothand all this when the angel shall sound his ftrumpet.
24 But before the great day of the Lord shall come, aJacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall bblossom as the rose.
25 Zion shall aflourish upon the bhills and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be assembled together unto the place which I have appointed.
26 Behold, I say unto you, go forth as I have commanded you; repent of all your sins; aask and ye shall receive; knock and it shall be opened unto you.
27 Behold, I will go before you and be your arearward; and I will be in your bmidst, and you shall not be cconfounded.
28 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, and I come aquickly. Even so. Amen.
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