to look for: since, by a "revelation" of the Church we were ordered
to give obedience to the government of the nation, and since we had
exhausted all our legal defenses, it was hoped that the Prophet, Seer,
and Revelator of the Church would find a way, under the guidance of God,
to bring our people into conformity with the law.

As he accepted this calmly, I added: "To be very plain with you,
President Woodruff, our friends expect, and the country will insist,
that the Church shall yield the practice of plural marriage."

His eyelids quivered a little, but he showed no other sign of flinching.
I saw that the counsels of his advisers and the comfort that he had
derived from his prayers had prepared him for an immolation that was
more serious to him than any personal sacrifice that he could make. He
said sadly: "I had hoped we wouldn't have to meet this trouble this way.
You know what it means to our people. I had hoped that the Lord might
open the minds of the people of this nation to the truth, so that
they might be converted to the everlasting covenant. Our prophets have
suffered like those of old, and I thought that the persecutions of Zion
were enough--that they would bring some other reward than this." If I
had been the bearer of a new edict of proscription, I think he could not
have been more profoundly oppressed by the sense of his responsibility.
"Did your father tell you," he asked, "that I had been seeking the mind
of the Lord?"

I replied that he had.

He reflected silently. "I shall talk with you again about it," he said,
at last. "I hope the Lord will make the way plain for his people."

I do not wish to idealize the polygamous relation--but in monogamy a man
is not persecuted for his marriage, and sometimes he does not appreciate
the tie. In polygamy, the men and women alike had been compelled to
suffer on its account by the grim trials of the life itself and by the
hatred of all civilization arrayed against it. They had grown to value
their marriage system by what it had cost them. They had been driven by
the contempt of the world to argue for its sanctity, to live up to their
declarations, and to raise it in their esteem to what it professed to
be, the celestial order that prevailed in the Heavens! I knew, as well
as President Woodruff did, the wrench it would give their hearts to have
to abandon, at last, what they had so long suffered for.

In the days of anxious waiting that followed, I saw Josep