Wife No. 19 - The Autobiography of a Mormon Woman Caught in the Snare of Polygamy

TO
THE MORMON WIVES OF UTAH

 


I Dedicate this
Book to you, as I consecrate my life to your cause. As long as God gives me life
I shall pray and plead for your deliverance from the worse than Egyptian bondage
in which you are held. Despised, maligned, and wronged; kept in gross ignorance
of the great world, its pure creeds, its high aims, its generous motives, you have
been made to believe that the noblest nation of the earth was truly represented
by the horde of miscreants who drove you from State to State, in early years, murdering
your sons and assassinating your leaders.


Hence, you shrink
from those whom God will soon lead to your deliverance, from those to whom I daily
present your claims to a hearing and liberation, and who listen with responsive
and sympathetic hearts.


But He will
not long permit you to be so wickedly deceived; nor will the People permit you to
be so cruelly enslaved.


Hope and pray!
Come out of the house of bondage! Kind hearts beat for you! Open hands will welcome
you! Do not fear that while God lives you shall suffer uncared for in the wilderness!
This Christian realm is not 'Babylon,' but The Promised Land!


Courage! The
night of oppression is nearly ended, and the sun of liberty is rising in the heavens
for you.

ANN-ELIZA YOUNG