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Show ready for trial, why not go on?But the judge said the case is off for six months longer. I returned to Morgan two hours after dark. When the train pulled up to the depot I looked out of the window and saw four of my little black-eyed boys on the platform. 1 heard them say, There's pa.' I took them a few steps away from the crowd and asked them why they had come out so late at night. They said, 'Pa, we fasted and prayed all day and we knew you would come back.' They said they had prayed each time 1 went to court and they knew the Lord had heard their prayers and He would not allow them to lock me up in prison. ... And sure enough before the six months were ended the Manifesto was issued, and I did not go to jail at all.67 Living the law of plural marriage was not always easy, but the Lord did help those who called on him for assurance. In a letter written to her grandson many years after the event, Annie Maria Hall Whitear told him of her feelings when her husband, Bishop Eli Whitear, took a second wife. 'Your grandfather was put in Bishop of the Milton Ward and the offices [sic] of those days were expected to set an example to the people, so your GrFather believed that he was doing right by taking my sister to Wife and I felt that I wanted to do right with him. Well after they came back from Salt Lake Your GrFather said to me, Now Annie, Ellen is as much my Wife as you are, how do you feel: I did not say but felt bad and unhappy, and when I went to my room alone thought I would not sleep a wink, but a thought came you must control your feelings better than that, so I fell down on my knees by the side of my bed and said, Oh Lord if Polygamy is true let me have a good night rest tonight. Well Hyrum, I got on the bed and did not know anything more until the next morning, when your GrFather came in my room and said will you get up Anne as breakfast is ready and as I opened my eyes the sun shone full on my face, and I felt well and so refreshed that I then felt Polygamy was true and I would live it and do my duty and that we all tried to do."68 Sometime between May 1 and July 2, President Smith was called to Salt Lake City to a meeting of the leading brethren in the Church to consider a state constitution. In speaking to the brethren present at the July stake priesthood meeting, he said that the leaders in the Church felt that statehood would be a step toward deliverance. Then he exhorted the brethren at the meeting to come to an awakening of a sense of their duties in regard to the coming campaign. At the close of the meeting, he "suggested that the presiding officers take steps to instill into the minds of the young people that marriages solemnized outside the House of the Lord were of not much accord."69 On 25 July 1887, President John Taylor passed away. At the August meeting of the stake priesthood, President Smith "spoke of the loss sustained by the Church through the death of President John Taylor, said that the Lord was as able as ever to raise up another president—referred to the |