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President's Office
G. S. L. City Dec 15th 1864 President W. H. Miles,
Dear Brother:
We have received a letter to-day from Elder I. Milton, in which he represents your conduct as overbearing, tyrannical and calculated to break up the Branch of the Church in New York, and appealing to the First Presidency to whether he should acknowledge you as his President or not. A copy of the reply which we have sent to him we herewith enclose, that you may know how to treat the case. We wish you to demand his papers, licences, recommends, etc. from him, and to have him stop preaching entirely in Pennsylvania, New York and all other places. If he refus to stop preaching, we shall be under the necessity of publishing him. The letter which he has written here betrays a bad spirit as well as the grossest ignorance of the principles of the Gospel and the order of the priesthood. We view him as a man quite unfit to preach, having but little sense and none of the Spirit, and therefore, can do no good. He wants his living, and would like to make it out of the Saints. He manifests such blindness, and we may say, wickedness in his communication, that though he has a wife here, it would not surprise us if he were to try and get married again. It would be well for you to carefully watch that he should not take the advantage of any of the sisters by pretending to take one of them as a wife.
Elder Reese, who has signed this letter which has just been received, endorsing Milton's statements, and who we understand, presides over the New York Branch, should be released at once from that position, and you, Yourself, should take the presidency of the Branch.
If Elder Milton is stubborn and refractory, and will not submit to the requirements we have made of him, You had better cut him off from the Church, and advise the branches where he is known, of where he is likely to go, of the withdrawal of our fellowship from him and of your action upon him. Everything is very peaceable here at presnet. The weather is mild for this season of the year -- a great deal of out-door work is being done. The Legislature has just met, and has proceeded to the transaction of business.
With love, and praying the Lord to give you the wisdom and energy and the power of His Spirit necessary to enable you to Magnify your Office and calling, we remain
Your Brethren in the Lord,
Brigham Young
Heber C Kimball