There is even a sect of Mormons, called
Gladdenites, after their founder, one Gladden Bishop, who deny the
right of Young to supreme authority over the Church, and discountenance
polygamy. No computation of their number can be made, for few of them
dare avow their heresy, on account of the persecution which is the
invariable result. The leaders of this sect maintain that a majority of
the married men in Utah have but one wife each, and their assertion has
never been controverted.
One of the most monstrous results of the practice is the indifference
with which an incestuous connection is tolerated. The cohabitation, with
the same man, of a mother, and her daughter by a previous marriage, is
not unfrequent; and there are other instances even more disgusting. One
or two of them will exemplify the character of the whole. One George D.
Watt, an Englishman, residing at Salt Lake City, has for his fourth
wife his own half-sister, who had been previously divorced from Brigham
Young; and one Aaron Johnson, the Bishop of the town of Springville,
on Lake Utah, has seven wives, four of whom are sisters, and his own
nieces. Young himself has declared in print, that he looks forward to
the time when his son by one wife shall marry his daughter by another.
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