170 years ago today - Mar 9, 1844

General Relief-Society president Emma Smith preaches to the Relief Society:"it was high time for Mothers to watch over their Daughters & exhort them to keep the path of Virtue" She then asks "by vote, who would be willing to receive the principles of Virtue, keep the commandments of God." In a second meeting the same day she asks"all to take heed to their ways; and follow the teachings of Brother Joseph; and when he Preaches against Vice to take heed to it; and said, he meant what he said." Within a week the Relief Society meetings are discontinued as it is felt that Emma is preaching coded messages against her husband's secret practice of plural marriage. John Taylor later explained: "the meetings were discontinued" because "Emma Smith the Pres[ident] taught the sisters that the principle of plural marriage . . . was not of God."