Bro. Joseph here is a letter from / Miss Snow if you wish to coppy ['sic] / but send this back to Daniel Munns / Good Intent Kansas /

Salt Lake City /

May 30th 1877. /

Yours of the 9th ult. was / duly rec.d -- Absence from home / has prevented in earlier response. /

You refer to the "origin" of / Polygamy, (more properly Plural / Marriage --polygamy includes / plural husbands as well as plural / wives) to' which I answer. Its / origin is divine; but no one can / accept this testimony without / admitting present revelation. /

Concerning the introduction / and practice of Plural Marriage / in this Dispensation, I trust that / my word may be sufficient. / I was married to Joseph Smith, / [page 2] the Prophet, more than two years / previous to his death -- not by a / civil magistrate ,-- not by a hireling / Priest with usurped autho-rity, / but by a man of God who has been /legally authorized to preform [sic] the sacred ordinance of marriage, / An ordinance which unites for / time and for eternity. /

You ask (referring to Pres. Smith) / "Did he authorize or practice / spiritual wifery? Were you a / spiritual wife? I certainly shall / not acknowledge myself to have / been a carnal one. /

It would be rather difficult to / measure or weigh the amount / of spirituality, I was in possession / of , so as to make an estimate / I candidly confess "spiritual wifery" / I know nothing of only as the term / was used as an epithet with which / [page 3] to stigmatize those of us who / valiantly moved forward in / obedience to the commands of God, in establishing the practice / of plurality. I am personally and / intimately acquainted with several / ladies now living in Utah who / accepted the pure and sacred doctrine / of Plural marriage, and were the / bona fide wives of Pres. Joseph Smith -- / noble and intelligent woman, [sic] who live / to honor him, and who revere his / memory and anticipate holding the / same endearing relationship with him / in eternity -- having been connected to him / by the same power and authority which / Christ conferred on the Apostle Peter, by which / "whatsoever he bound on earth should / be bound in heaven" &c. The key of this / power is as necessary in this day as it / was in that -- no church ever was, is, or ever / will be either accepted or acknowledged / of God, that is destitute of it, and no man / [page 4] can legally officiate in the marriage / ceremony or in any other ordinance of the / House of God, unless he has been "called as / was Aaron" ie. by diect revelation. As / consistently might a justice of the Peace./ claim authority from a license or com- / mission given to a magistrate / centuries ago, as for men to presume to / act on the commission given to the / ancient apostles. As to the counterfeiting of the Revelation / on polygamy -- it is all nonsense -- / we have the veritable one which the / Lord gave through His prophet Joseph Smith. /

Yours &c. /

Eliza R. Snow. /