OBITUARY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1281, 9 November 1911, Page 5

OBITUARY.

THE MORMON PRESIDENT. By Tclecrapu—Press Asgociation-Copyrißh' (Reo. November 8, 9.55 p.m.) Now Hork, November 8. Joseph F. Smith, head of the Mormons at Salt Lako City, is dead. AN ADVOCATE OF POLYGAMY. MOURNED BY FIVE WIVES AND FORTY-THREE CHILDREN. Josoph Fielding Smith, president of the Church .of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was born in Missouri Ti years ago. Ho was a nephew of Josoph Smith, tho Mormon prophet, and has been a prominent figure in Salt Lako City for many years. He was ordained an apostle in 1800, and has been president ot tho Church since 1901. Tho late president was an open advocate of polygamy. "Even before 1U01," says Mr. Burton Hendrick," in "M'Clure's Magazine, "polygamous households had been reestablished, on a considerable, scale, and with the succession of Joseph F. Smiia to tho presidency of the Church the restoration of old conditions became practically open." Mr. Hendrick proceeds: "More than any of tho prophet's successors has Mr. Smith brought back to tho Church the spirit of Drigham louug. Ho has not Bvigham's ability or his capacity for leadership but ho has all of Brigham's fanaticism, all his aggressiveness, all his fiery devotion to the Mormon Church. "In his eyes only ono thing really counts, ami that is Mormonism. iron) my youth up to the present,' he says, I have not believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet, for I have known that he was. In other words, my knowledge has superseded my belief.' , "In Mormonism the doctrine that is nearest President Joseph Smith's heart is unquestionably polygamy. Upon that subject he is an unyielding fanatic. 'Some people have supposed,' ho said in a sermon preached' July 7. IS7B, that tho doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity or non-essential to tho salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words, some of the saints have gnid, and believe, that a man with one wifo sealed to him by the authority of tho priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as great and glorious if ho is faithful, as he possibly could with more than one, I want hero to enter my solemn protest against this idea, foT Tknow it is false. ... I understand the law of celestial marriage to mean that every man in tin's Church who has the ability to obey and practice it in righteousness, and will not, shall bo damned. I say I understand it to mean this and nothing less, and I testify in the name of Jesus that it does mean that. . . . The marriage of one woman to a man for time nml eternity by the sealinc power, according to tho low of God, is a fulfilment of the celestial law of marriage in part—ant! is good so far ns it goes. But this is only tho beginning of the law. not the whole of it.' "Mr. Smith practised his own doctrine. His first marriage that with Lcvira A. Smith in 1859, turned out unhappily. . . . He has married fivo wives besides this one—two of them sisters—and up to dato has had forty-threo children. It is nnt strange that, under the presidency of a man of this tvpe, there should be a resumption of polygamy."