A MORMON WIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 254, 29 October 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

A MORMON WIFE.

The Pitiful Story of Her Wrongs.

Rev. Edward A. Lawrence, in the New York" Independent," says:

"I wish I" could toll the story which a Mormon woman told me, with her passionate gestures, her indignant words, and her heart in every dramatic movement. "The husband had died a week before, and she was, perhaps, freer to epeak of it now that he through whom she nad been wronged and whom she had screened was £one. To me its greatest force lay in the fact that it could not have been a unique experience. • "The missionary Mormon elder, when he gathered a company about him in England, had won their hearts by promises of the rich, sweet life across the waters, in the land of the saints. Met by a rumour which had startled them, that polygamy was practised in that fair land, he indignantly denied the charge and allayed their suspicions. "So many years ago, she left her God-fear-ing father and mother and came with a large number to the promised land. "Only too soon the dreadful truth stole like a wolf to the door, then entered in and devoured her. From Brigham Young— 'and,' said she, with flashing eyes, 'I believe never was there a greater Emperor than Brigham Young' —came the order that she should become a Mormon's second " She indignantly refused. The first wife, quite old and fond of her husband, added her treaty to Young's command. At last the woman's will broke down. She yielded. She came to respect, almost to love the man. The first wife diet}, leaving niessages of tenderness. She was left alone.

" An efficient business woman, her name would be recognised by many visitors of SaltJUkeiM should give it. She helped her husband to gain a fortune. It was taken from them by Brigham Young, who forced the man to sell his property tohim at a small fraction of what had just been offered for it by a Geutile. ; , \,, , , " They stariied again with another establishment which Young had induced the husband—Who, she said r was a (sincere and just man—to purchase of him. W hen they bkd made full payment and fancied their second fortune secure, they learned that it had never belonged to Young, but to an estate of which he was guardian. They were' suM for ths value of the property. , Struggling'along for a time, they failed i<> make their payments. The second fortune ■Was lost. ~ „ ' _~.., ~: f •' Then came "the laslblow. The husband was ordered to take a third wife. 'If you do that I will live with you no longer.' " The rebel was ordered to the President. 'Takea bill ol divorce and come arid live in my family.' Her indignant refusal! was fdllowed by a renewed command to the husband, who at length yielded. She took no bill, but left him. Yet she continued to love him in some etti'ange woman's way. And when, in these latter days,' it became dangerouß for a man to be known as having more than one wife, she said to her husband : < Live at a distance with this other ■woman, and do not come* to see me,_ lest they find you out and arrest you.. 'I.will send word to you,' he promised, ' if I should become very sick.1 But although he ordered it, tyord was never sent, and he died with the third wife before the second oiie could reach him. . ■ \ "' So you see, sir, how my life has been blighted. My husband forced on me, two fortunes seized, then my husband stolen from me and my heart broken.' ■ - #. • " Y«t-she will not deny that ene is a Mbi'mdtt." . - . . •„' --~ !i-;