I was once a Mormon woman, and for over twenty years I have lived among Mormons. Their faith was once mine as truly as any words can express; their thoughts were the same as mine; their hopes were my hopes; their religious opinions were in sympathy with my own. But that was in the time past. It seems long past, and yet it was, as I may say, only a little while ago—a few months, which I might almost count upon my fingers. Yet now all this is changed, and I have learned to see matters in another light....

On visiting my birthplace, in the summer of 1849,¹ I went to the house of my brother-in-law, who was an “apostate” Mormon. During my stay in his house, he spoke to me about the Mormons in not very flattering terms. At the same time, he told me that my father, mother, and, in fact, all my family, had adopted that faith. As I knew my parents, particularly my mother, to be sincere and devoted Christians, I began to think that Mormonism must be something different from what he represented it to be, or they never would have accepted it. I...

I had been married about four months when my husband was called to go on a mission to Italy. What terrible news this was to me, for I was to be left behind! In my grief I exclaimed, “Ah! why could they not have selected some one else?” Then I remembered how that, in my first joy and gratitude after being baptized into the church, I had said that I would do any thing that the Lord required of me; and now I felt that He was going to put me to the test. Thus it was that, when asked...

After about a year’s absence, Mr. S. returned to England, and we were invited to attend a conference of the Saints, which was to be held in London, in June, 1851. During this conference, the “Apostle” Snow expressed his great indignation at the manner in which I had been neglected, and said that I should no longer remain in connection with the Southampton Conference. It was decided that my husband should go on a mission to Switzerland; that I should go with him, and that we should begin our missionary labours in Geneva.¹ One great incentive to this resolution was,...

Mr. S. returned from England, and, after a while, began in conversation to introduce—gently and enigmatically, I thought—the subject of Polygamy, at the same time telling me that he “did not know” that it was true, but that he had heard that there had been a revelation given about it. He dreaded to tell me the truth; but I had heard enough, and determined not to accept the doctrine. Still, at times, I tried to hide my feelings from him; for I hoped that, after all, the intelligence might even now not prove true. Vain hope! for very...

We returned to England in November, 1854, with the intention of leaving for Utah in the following spring. Until the period of emigration arrived, we went to reside in the house of the President of the London Conference,¹ and it was at that time that I first began seriously to doubt the truth of Mormonism. I gradually became convinced, though I could scarcely explain how, that there was something wrong, something that I did not understand, underlying the whole system. I began to realize that there was more of frail humanity about it than of the pure and holy religion...

Mr. M., the Mormon President in London, was constantly in receipt of letters from Salt Lake during the time of our residence in his house; and I observed that he acted in a very mysterious manner with them. He would read them to my husband when he thought that they were alone, and conceal them when I came into the room. This made me resolve to see these letters, if possible. I mentioned this to Mrs. M., and she volunteered to get them for me. What I discovered I have no right to reveal now, just as I had then...

About the middle of November, 1855, we sailed from Liverpool, with several hundred Mormons, for New York, where we landed on the last day of the year.¹

Before we left England, Mr. Stenhouse concluded that ten years’ constant missionary service, without fee or reward, and living in the dependent condition that I have related, was all that the church had any right to expect of him, especially as his family was growing up, and would soon demand more than daily bread. It was his purpose to seek in the New World any occupation for which he might be fitted.

He...

I was now in the chief city of “Zion”—the dwelling-place of the Prophet and the principal Saints, which every good Mormon longed so earnestly to see. I had suffered very much, as I anticipated the time when we should arrive in Utah, and my fears of the future had long banished all peace from my mind. Now I had an opportunity of learning whether the evils which I dreaded really existed, or whether I had too credulously listened to scandalous reports, and the promptings of my own womanly apprehensions.

I had the daily and hourly cares of a young...

The practice of Polygamy in some instances results in alliances which among all civilized peoples would be considered equally unnatural, immoral, and opposed to the dictates of religion.

It is quite a common thing in Utah for a man to marry two, and even three sisters. I was very well acquainted with one man who married his half-sister; and I know of several who have married mother and daughter. I know also another man who married a widow with several children; and when one of the girls had grown into her teens, he insisted on marrying her, having first by...

Soon after my arrival in Salt Lake City, I visited a family where there were five wives, three of whom I met on my first visit. They were all three intelligent women; but it pained me very much to see the sorrow depicted on the face of the first wife. She appeared to me to be suffering intensely while I was there; for the last wife, who seemed to be a thoughtless, lively girl, was jesting with her husband, toying with his hair, and fussing with him in general, in a manner which I felt at the time was quite...

One day my husband came home, apparently very much pleased about something, and said to me, “What do you think?—we have the privilege of receiving our ‘Endowments’* next Saturday.” This, he added, was really a great favor, as many had been there a much longer time and had not received them. I made no answer, and finally he asked—“Are you not pleased with the invitation?”

I answered—“No, I do not want to have my Endowments.”

“And why not?” he enquired.

“Because,” I said, “I have heard so much about it, that I have not only no desire,...

Upon our arrival in Utah, I longed to see the converts who had preceded us from Switzerland. But it was some time before I had the mingled pleasure and pain that that meeting afforded me.

One day a countryman called to see us. It was Mr. ——. I was surprised at the difference in the appearance of this gentleman. I hardly knew him. He was changed from the fine-looking, well-to-do bourgeois to a hard-working, labouring man, poorly clad, sun-burnt, wrinkled, and old. I could have wept over him when I saw the change; and when I inquired about his family,...

I was now expecting soon to be called upon to undergo the most fearful ordeal that any woman can possibly be required to pass through—that of giving my husband another wife. The thought of doing this was even worse than death. It would have been fearful to have followed my husband to his grave; but to live and see him the husband of another woman seemed to me like exacting more than human nature was capable of enduring. With all my faith in Mormonism, doubts would arise, and in my bitterest moments of anguish I would exclaim, “This is...

Mr. Stenhouse has been a member of the church since 1845. He had, to the very best of his ability, lectured, preached, written, and published in Great Britain, and various parts of the Continent, as well as in the United States, in support of the Mormon faith. He was a most earnest advocate of Mormonism, laying aside his own interests, and those of his family, all the time.

Personally, he was devotedly attached to Brigham Young for many years. While the members of the church have unshaken confidence in the faith of the new revelation, they very naturally acquire a...

I have watched the whole system of Polygamy closely, and have tried earnestly to discover wherein it was productive of any good; but in not one single instance could I find, after the most diligent observation, any but the very worst results. On the contrary, it was the same story again and again repeated—evil—evil—evil!

That some men have practised Polygamy with honest intentions and a desire to “keep the commandments of God,” I know well to be true. I respect such men even while they do so. They err in blindness, and I believe they suffer while...

As I have written so much of the troubles of the sisters, perhaps it will be as well to give the reader an idea of the trials and difficulties which the brethren had to contend with when they first attempted the introduction of Polygamy. To do this, I shall give the correspondence of Miss Martha Brotherton,¹ relating a very interesting courtship between herself and Brigham Young. I would have the reader remark that this correspondence distinctly proves that Polygamy was taught by the heads of the Church before the Prophet received the professed revelation.

This account was published just a...

The dominant principle of Mormonism is marriage, and the theory that men and women are not perfect without each other. The man is not perfect without the woman, nor is the woman without the man, in the Lord.

Every man and every woman must be married some time or other. They cannot otherwise attain to glory, and would be “angels,” or servants to the Celestial Saints. The woman ought to be married but once; the man may be married as often as he pleases, if he can provide for his wives and their families. There is no particular age specified...

In every conversation upon Polygamy in Utah, the first question usually asked is, “How are the women managed? do they all live together—or how?”

There is no fixed principle regulating men in the management of their families. Every one is at liberty to do as he thinks best; and, with the greatest diversity of judgment and circumstances, there are scarcely two families alike. Where the husband is wealthy, separate homes are generally provided for the wives. Still, some wealthy men have all their families together under the same roof. When this is the case, if the wives number half...

For many years there were very few Gentiles in Utah. Most of these were merchants and their clerks, and teamsters. There were also two or three Federal officials. Although they were but few, their influence was always dreaded by the Mormon leaders; and the Tabernacle and Meeting-Houses resounded with something disparaging to the Gentiles. Some of them doubtless commanded very little respect. But it mattered not how much others might be respected elsewhere, how pure and blameless their lives, it was enough that they were Gentiles, and a worse thing still to be a gentlemanly or educated Gentile. The pleasant...