In the preceding pages I have endeavoured to present to the reader the story of my life’s experience in Mormonism and Polygamy, and to place before him a truthful picture of the doctrines and practices of the Saints.

Two objects influenced my mind when I first proposed to write this volume. In the first place, I earnestly desired to stir up my Mormon sisters to a just sense of their own position. I longed to make them feel, as I do, the cruel degradation, the humiliating tyranny, which Polygamy inflicts. I wanted to arouse them to a sense of their own womanhood, and a just appreciation of those rights and duties which, as women, God has conferred upon them. I was anxious that they should understand and know the inconsistency and folly of that superstitious faith by which they have been so egregiously deluded; that they might learn to hate and loathe the falsely-named “Celestial” system of marriage; and rising in honest indignation and disgust against the tyranny of the oppressor, break asunder the yoke of bondage, cast from them for ever the moral, religious, and social fetters wherewith they are bound, and, walking in the light of truth, assert their perfect equality with their sons, their husbands, their fathers, and their brethren, and henceforth claim and occupy that position which God assigned them, and which by right is theirs!

In the second place, I was anxious to enlist for them the sympathy of the Gentile world. Most strenuous efforts have been made, large sums of money have been spent, and secret intrigues, as well as open and honourable negotiations, have been carried on for the purpose of obtaining admission for Utah into the Union, under the title of The State of Deseret. The name “Deseret” itself is taken from the Book of Mormon, and is said to signify in the celestial tongue a honey-bee; wherefore it is that the escutcheon of Utah Territory is a bee-hive; and to grant that name “Deseret” alone would be a concession to Mormon superstition. Out here in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake we are perfectly well aware that, with Utah once admitted as a State, it would be almost impossible for Gentiles to live peaceably and safely among the Mormons; and of this fact their leading men and their official organs have repeatedly boasted. With Utah as a State, the enslavement of the people to the Priesthood would be complete, and the cruel bondage of Polygamy would be rivetted a thousand times more firmly upon the unfortunate women. I was anxious, therefore, to attract the attention of Congress and the nation at large to these facts; that thus, when Mormon bills and Mormon petitions, replete with falsified statistics, and perverted, and—in many instances—utterly untrue, statements are presented to the National Legislature, neither the representatives of the nation nor the nation itself might be deceived thereby. These were the two objects which I had proposed to myself in writing my own experience as a wife and mother among the Mormons, and I trust to some extent at least I have realized them.

I send forth this little book with many earnest prayers and many heartfelt aspirations that my Mormon sisters may be benefited thereby. Out of the evil which man originates, God alone can produce good; and I trust that my feeble attempt to portray the cruel wrong which Polygamy inflicts upon the women of Utah may excite the sympathy of every man and woman whose influence may avail to hasten that time when this relic of ancient barbarism may be utterly rooted out before the advancing civilization of the age.

The night—the gloomy night of superstition—cannot last for ever. Already there are signs of the coming dawn. The time, I trust and pray, will not long be delayed when the veil shall be removed from the eyes of the enslaved men and women of our modern Zion, and they shall cast aside for ever the yoke of the Priesthood. I trust that I shall yet live to see the day when the Mormon wives and mothers shall awake to a sense of their position and responsibilities, shall understand that God never required that their womanhood should be degraded, their love crushed out, and the holiest instincts of their nature perverted; I trust to see them assert their inalienable rights—their womanly prerogatives—their very birthright itself; I trust to see them shake off the slavery of that cruel superstition which has so long held them captive; I trust to see them take their places side by side with Gentile matrons—the honoured wives and mothers of the men of Utah; I trust to see that dark shadow banished from their features, banished from their hearts, banished from their lives; I trust to see them Free!

Full of love for them—my sisters, my friends, the companions of my life hitherto, whose religion was once my own, whose hopes and joys I have shared, whose sorrows and trials have been also mine—with hopeful prayer I lay down my pen and present my labours to the world. And if my humble efforts shall have conduced, even in the smallest degree, to keep one sister from entering into this sinful “Order”; if they shall have aroused the women of Utah to investigate the foundations of their faith, to calmly and impartially consider the iniquities of the system of Polygamy, to renounce the man-made slavery of the “Celestial Order”; if I shall be found to have awakened in the minds of thinking men and women a hatred for the licentious doctrine which enslaves the wives and daughters of the Saints; if I have to any extent enlisted active, practical sympathy in their behalf, I shall feel that my endeavours have been abundantly rewarded, and that my labours have not been bestowed in vain.