Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch, married Jerusha Barden, November 2, 1826. They had six children, viz: Lovina, Mary, John, Hyrum, Jerusha and Sarah. Mary died when very young, and her mother died soon after the birth of her daughter, Sarah. Hyrum, the second son, died in Nauvoo, in 1842, aged eight years. The Patriarch married his second wife, Mary Fielding, in the year 1837, she entering upon the important duty of stepmother to five children, which task she performed, under the most trying and afflictive circumstances, with unwavering fidelity. She had two children, Joseph and Martha. Thus, you see, Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was really a polygamist many years before the revelation on celestial marriage was written, though, perhaps, about the time it was given to the Prophet Joseph Smith; but not exactly in the sense in which the word is generally used, for both his wives were not living together on the earth; still they were both alive, for the spirit never dies, and they were both his wives--the mothers of his children. Marriage is ordained of God, and when performed by the authority of His Priesthood, is an ordinance of the everlasting gospel and is not, therefore, merely a legal contract, but pertains to time and all eternity to come, therefore it is written in the Bible, "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." There are a great many men who feel very bitter against the Latter-day Saints, and especially against the doctrine of plural marriage, who have married one or more wives after the death of their first, that, had their marriages been solemnized in the manner God has prescribed and by His authority, they themselves would be polygamists, for they, as we, firmly believe in the immortality of the soul, professing to be Christians and looking forward to the time when they will meet, in the spirit world, their _wives_ and the loved ones that are dead. We can imagine the awkward situation of a man, not believing in polygamy, meeting two or more wives, with their children, in the spirit world, each of them claiming him as husband and father. "But," says one, "how will it be with a woman who marries another husband after the death of her first?" She will be the wife of the one to whom she was married for time and eternity. But if God did not "join them together," and they were only married by mutual consent until death parted them, their contract, or partnership ends with death, and there remains but one way for those who died without the knowledge of the gospel to be united together for eternity. That is, for their living relatives or friends to attend to the ordinances of the gospel for them. "For, in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage;" therefore marriage ordinances must be attended to here in the flesh. Hyrum Smith, however, was a polygamist before his death, he having had several women sealed to him by his brother, Joseph, some of whom are now living. At the death of the Patriarch, June 27th, 1844, the care of the family fell upon his widow, Mary Smith. Besides the children there were two old ladies named respectively, Hannah Grinnels, who had been in the family many years, and Margaret Brysen. There was also a younger one, named Jane Wilson, who was troubled with fits and otherwise afflicted, and was, therefore, very dependent, and an old man, named George Mills, who had also been in the family eleven...