X. THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES…

X. THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES

In his accounts to his neighbors of the revelation to him of the golden plates on which the "record" was written, Smith always declared that no person but him could look on those plates and live. But when the printed book came out, it, like all subsequent editions to this day, was preceded by the following "testimonies":--

"THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES

"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shewn unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes, nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honour be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

"OLIVER COWDERY, DAVID WHITMER, MARTIN HARRIS.

"AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF THE EIGHT WITNESSES

"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

"CHRISTIAN WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JACOB WHITMER, JOSEPH SMITH, SEN., PETER WHITMER, JUN., HYRUM SMITH, JOHN WHITMER, SAMUEL H. SMITH."

In judging of the value of this testimony, we may first inquire, what the prophet has to say about it, and may then look into the character and qualification of the witnesses.

We find a sufficiently full explanation of Testimony No. 1 in Smith's autobiography and in his "revelations." Nothing could be more natural than that such men as the prophet was dealing with should demand a sight of any plates from which he might be translating. Others besides Harris made such a demand, and Smith repeated the warning that to look on them was death. This might satisfy members of his own family, but it did not quiet his scribes, and he tells us that Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Harris "teased me so much" (these are his own words) that he gave out a "revelation" in March, 1829 (Sec. 5, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which the Lord was represented as saying that the prophet had no power over the plates except as He granted it, but that to his testimony would be added "the testimony of three of my servants, whom I shall call and ordain, unto whom I will show these things, "adding," and to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." The Lord was distrustful of Harris, and commanded him not to be talkative on the subject, but to say nothing about it except, "I have seen them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God."

Smith's own account of the showing of the plates to these three witnesses is so luminous that it may be quoted. After going out into the woods, they had to stand Harris off by himself because of his evil influence. Then:--

"We knelt down again, and had not been many minutes engaged in prayer when presently we beheld a light above us in the air of exceeding brightness; and behold an angel stood before us. In his hands he held the plates which we had been praying for these to have a view of; he turned over the leaves one by one, so that we could see them and discover the engravings thereon distinctly. He then addressed himself to David Whitmer and said, 'David, blessed is the Lord and he that keeps his commandments'; when immediately afterward we heard a voice from out of the bright light above us saying, 'These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.'

"I now left David and Oliver, and went into pursuit of Martin Harris, whom I found at a considerable distance, fervently engaged in prayer. He soon told me, however, that he had not yet prevailed with the Lord, and earnestly requested me to join him in prayer, that he might also realize the same blessings which we had just received. We accordingly joined in prayer, and immediately obtained our desires; for before we had yet finished, the same vision was opened to our view, AT LEAST IT WAS AGAIN TO ME [Joe thus refuses to vouch for Harris's declaration on the subject]; and I once more beheld and heard the same things; whilst, at the same moment, Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstasy of joy, 'Tis enough, mine eyes hath beheld,' and, jumping up, he shouted 'Hosannah,' blessing God, and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly."*

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 19.

If this story taxes the credulity of the reader, his doubts about the value of this "testimony" will increase when he traces the history of the three witnesses. Surely, if any three men in the church should remain steadfast, mighty pillars of support for the prophet in his future troubles, it should be these chosen witnesses to the actual existence of the golden plates. Yet every one of them became an apostate, and every one of them was loaded with all the opprobrium that the church could pile upon him.

Cowdery's reputation was locally bad at the time. "I was personally acquainted with Oliver Cowdery," said Danforth Booth, an old resident of Palmyra, in 1880. "He was a pettifogger; their (the Smiths') cat-paw to do their dirty work."* Smith's trouble with him, which began during the work of translating, continued, and Smith found it necessary to say openly in a "revelation" given out in Ohio in 1831 (Sec. 69), when preparations were making for a trip of some of the brethren to Missouri, "It is not wisdom in me that he should be intrusted with the commandments and the monies which he shall carry unto the land of Zion, except one go with him who will be true and faithful."

* Among affidavits on file in the county clerk's office at Canandaigua, New York.

By the time Smith took his final departure to Missouri, Cowdery and David and John Whitmer had lost caste entirely, and in June, 1838, they fled to escape the Danites at Far West. The letter of warning addressed to them and signed by more than eighty Mormons, giving them three days in which to depart, contained the following accusations:--

"After Oliver Cowdery had been taken by a state warrant for stealing, and the stolen property found in the house of William W. Phelps; in which nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver Cowdery stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer, and John Whitmer to William W. Phelps; and then the officers of law found it. While in the hands of an officer, and under an arrest for this vile transaction, and, if possible, to hide your shame from the world like criminals (which, indeed, you were), you appealed to our beloved brethren, President Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, men whose characters you had endeavored to destroy by every artifice you could invent, not even the basest lying excepted....

"The Saints in Kirtland having elected Oliver Cowdery to a justice of the peace, he used the power of that office to take their most sacred rights from them, and that contrary to law. He supported a parcel of blacklegs, and in disturbing the worship of the Saints; and when the men whom the church had chosen to preside over their meetings endeavored to put the house to order, he helped (and by the authority of his justice's office too) these wretches to continue their confusion; and threatened the church with a prosecution for trying to put them out of the house; and issued writs against the Saints for endeavoring to sustain their rights; and bound themselves under heavy bonds to appear before his honor; and required bonds which were both inhuman and unlawful; and one of these was the venerable father, who had been appointed by the church to preside--a man of upwards of seventy years of age, and notorious for his peaceable habits.

"Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive, cheat and defraud the Saints out of their property, by every art and stratagem which wickedness could invent; using the influence of the vilest persecutions to bring vexatious lawsuits, villainous prosecutions, and even stealing not excepted.... During the full career of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer's bogus money business, it got abroad into the world that they were engaged in it, and several gentlemen were preparing to commence a prosecution against Cowdery; he finding it out, took with him Lyman E. Johnson, and fled to Far West with their families; Cowdery stealing property and bringing it with him, which has been, within a few weeks past, obtained by the owner by means of a search warrant, and he was saved from the penitentiary by the influence of two influential men of the place. He also brought notes with him upon which he had received pay, and made an attempt to sell them to Mr. Arthur of Clay County."*

* "Documents in Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons," Missouri Legislature (1841), p. 103.

Rigdon, who was the author of this arraignment, realizing that the enemies of the church would not fail to make use of this aspersion of the character of the witnesses, attempted to "hedge" by saying, in the same document, "We wish to remind you that Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were among the principal of those who were the means of gathering us to this place by their testimony which they gave concerning the plates of the Book of Mormon, that they were shown to them by an angel; which testimony we believe now as much as before you had so scandalously disgraced it." Could affrontery go to greater lengths?

Cowdery and David Whitmer fled to Richmond, Missouri, where Whitmer lived until his death in January, 1888. Cowdery went to Tiffin, Ohio, where, after failing to obtain a position as an editor because of his Mormon reputation, he practised law. While living there he renounced his Mormon views, joined the Methodist church, and became superintendent of a Sunday-school. Later he moved to Wisconsin, but, after being defeated for the legislature there, he recanted his Methodist belief, and rejoined the Saints while they were at Council Bluffs, in October, 1848, after the main body had left for Salt Lake Valley. He addressed a meeting there by invitation, testifying to the truth of the Book of Mormon, and the mission of Smith as a prophet, and saying that he wanted to be rebaptized into the church, not as a leader, but simply as a member.* He did not, however, go to Utah with the Saints, but returned to his old friend Whitmer in Missouri, and died there in 1850. It has been stated that he offered to give a full renunciation of the Mormon faith when he united with the Methodists at Tiffin, if required, but asked to be excused from doing so on the ground that it would invite criticism and bring him into contempt.** One of his Tiffin acquaintances afterward testified that Cowdery confessed to him that, when he signed the "testimony," he "was not one of the best men in the world," using his own expression.*** The Mormons were always grateful to him for his silence under their persecutions, and the Millennial Star, in a notice of his death, expressed satisfaction that in the days of his apostasy "he never, in a single instance, cast the least doubt on his former testimony," adding, "May he rest in peace, to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection into eternal life, is the earnest desire of all Saints."

* Millennial Star, Vol. XI, p.14.

** "Naked Truths about Mormonism," A. B. Demming, Oakland, California, 1888.

*** "Gregg's History of Hancock County, Illinois," p. 257.

The Whitmers were a Dutch family, known among their neighbors as believers in witches and in the miraculous generally, as has been shown in Mother Smith's account of their sending for Joseph. A "revelation" to the three witnesses which first promised them a view of the plates (Sec. 17) told them, "It is BY YOUR FAITH you shall obtain a view of them," and directed them to testify concerning the plates, "that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., may not be destroyed." One of the converts who joined the Mormons at Kirtland, Ohio, testified in later years that David Whitmer confessed to her that he never actually saw the plates, explaining his testimony thus: "Suppose that you had a friend whose character was such that you knew it impossible that he could lie; then, if he described a city to you which you had never seen, could you not, by the eye of faith, see the city just as he described it?"*

* Mrs. Dickenson's "New Light on Mormonism."

The Mormons have found consolation in the fact that Whitmer continued to affirm his belief in the authenticity of the Mormon Bible to the day of his death. He declared, however, that Smith and Young had led the flock astray, and, after the open announcement of polygamy in Utah, he announced a church of his own, called "The Church of Christ," refusing to affiliate even with the Reorganized Church because of the latter's adherence to Smith. In his "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon," a pamphlet issued in his eighty-second year, he said, "Now, in 1849 the Lord saw fit to manifest unto John Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and myself nearly all the remaining errors of doctrine into which we had been led by the heads of the church." The reader from all this can form an estimate of the trustworthiness of the second witness on such a subject.

We have already learned a great deal about Martin Harris's mental equipment. A lawyer of standing in Palmyra told Dr. Clark that, after Harris had signed the "testimony," he pressed him with the question: "Did you see the plates with your natural eyes, just as you see this pencil case in my hand? Now say yes or no." Harris replied (in corroboration of Joe's misgiving at the time): "Why, I did not see them as I do that pencil case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith. I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me--though at the time they were covered over with a cloth."*

* "Gleanings by the Way."

Harris followed Smith to Ohio and then to Missouri, but was ever a trouble to him, although Smith always found his money useful. In 1831, in Missouri, it required a "revelation" (Sec. 58) to spur him to "lay his monies before the Bishop." As his money grew scarcer, he received less and less recognition from the Mormon leaders, and was finally expelled from the church. Smith thus referred to him in the Elders' Journal, July, 1837, one of his publications in Ohio: "There are negroes who wear white skins as well as black ones, granny Parish, and others who acted as lackeys, such as Martin Harris."

Harris did not appear on the scene during the stay of the Mormons in Illinois, having joined the Shakers and lived with them a year or two. When Strang claimed the leadership of the church after Smith's death, Harris gave him his support, and was sent by him with others to England in 1846 to do missionary work. His arrival there was made the occasion of an attack on him by the Millennial Star, which, among other things, said:--

"We do not feel to warn the Saints against him, for his own unbridled tongue will soon show out specimens of folly enough to give any person a true index to the character of the man; but if the Saints wish to know what the Lord hath said of him, they may turn to the 178th page of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the person there called a WICKED MAN is no other than Martin Harris, and he owned to it then, but probably might not now. It is not the first time the Lord chose a wicked man as a witness. Also on page 193, read the whole revelation given to him, and ask yourselves if the Lord ever talked in that way to a good man. Every one can see that he must have been a wicked man."*

*Vol. VIII, p. 123.

Harris visited Palmyra in 1858. He then said that his property was all gone, that he had declined a restoration to the Mormon church, but that he continued to believe in Mormonism. He thought better of his declination, however, and sought a reunion with the church in Utah in 1870. His backslidings had carried him so far that the church authorities told him it would be necessary for him to be rebaptized. This he consented to with some reluctance, after, as he said, "he had seen his father seeking his aid. He saw his father at the foot of a ladder, striving to get up to him, and he went down to him, taking him by the hand, and helped him up."* He settled in Cache County, Utah, where he died on July 10, 1875, in his ninety-third year. "He bore his testimony to the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon a short time before he departed," wrote his son to an inquirer, "and the last words he uttered, when he could not speak the sentence, were 'Book,' 'Book,' 'Book.'"

* For an account of Harris's Utah experience, see Millennial Star, Vol. XLVIII, pp.357-389.

The precarious character of Smith's original partners in the Bible business is further illustrated by his statement that, in the summer of 1830, Cowdery sent him word that he had discovered an error in one of Smith's "revelations,"* and that the Whitmer family agreed with him on the subject. Smith was as determined in opposing this questioning of his divine authority as he always was in stemming any opposition to his leadership, and he made them all acknowledge their error. Again, when Smith returned to Fayette from Harmony, in August, 1830 (more than a year after the plates were shown to the witnesses), he found that "Satan had been lying in wait," and that Hiram Page, of the second list of witnesses, had been obtaining revelations through a "peek-stone" of his own, and that, what was more serious, Cowdery and the Whitmer family believed in them. The result of this was an immediate "revelation" (Sec. 28) directing Cowdery to go and preach the Gospel to the Lamanites (Indians) on the western border, and to take along with him Hiram Page, and tell him that the things he had written by means of the "peek-stone" were not of the Lord.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 36.

Neither Smith's autobiography nor the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" contains any explanation of the second "testimony." The list of persons who signed it, however, leaves little doubt that the prophet yielded to their "teasing" as he did to that of the original three. The first four signers were members of the Whitmer family. Hiram Page was a root-doctor by calling, and a son-in-law of Peter Whitmer, Sr. The three Smiths were the prophet's father and two of his brothers.*

* Christian Whitmer died in Clay County, Missouri, November 27, 1835; Jacob died in Richmond County, April 21, 1866; Peter died in Clay County, September 22, 1836; Hiram Page died on a farm in Ray County, August 12, 1852.

The favorite Mormon reply to any question as to the value of these "testimonies" is the challenge, "Is there a person on the earth who can prove that these eleven witnesses did not see the plates?" Curiously, the prophet himself can be cited to prove this, in the words of the revelation granting a sight of the plates to the first three, which said, "And to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." A footnote to this declaration in the "Doctrine and Covenants" offers, as an explanation of Testimony No. 2; the statement that others "may receive a knowledge by other manifestations." This is well meant but transparent.

Mother Smith in later years added herself to these witnesses. She said to the Rev. Henry Caswall, in Nauvoo, in 1842, "I have myself seen and handled the golden plates." Mr. Caswall adds:--

"While the old woman was thus delivering herself, I fixed my eyes steadily upon her. She faltered and seemed unwilling to meet my glances, but gradually recovered her self-possession. The melancholy thought entered my mind that this poor old creature was not simply a dupe of her son's knavery, but that she had taken an active part in the deception."

Two matters have been cited by Mormon authorities to show that there was nothing so very unusual in the discovery of buried plates containing engraved letters. Announcement was made in 1843 of the discovery near Kinderhook, Illinois, of six plates similar to those described by Smith. The story, as published in the Times and Seasons, with a certificate signed by nine local residents, set forth that a merchant of the place, named Robert Wiley, while digging in a mound, after finding ashes and human bones, came to "a bundle that consisted of six plates of brass, of a bell shape, each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them all"; and that, when cleared of rust, they were found to be "completely covered with characters that none as yet have been able to read." Hyde, accepting this story, printed a facsimile of one of these plates on the cover of his book, and seems to rest on Wiley's statement his belief that "Smith did have plates of some kind." Stenhouse,* who believed that Smith and his witnesses did not perpetrate in the new Bible an intentional fraud, but thought they had visions and "revelations," referring to the Kinderhook plates, says that they were "actually and unquestionably discovered by one Mr. R. Wiley." Smith himself, after no one else could read the writing on them, declared that he had translated them, and found them to be a history of a descendant of Ham.**

* T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Scotchman, was converted to the Mormon belief in 1846, performed diligent missionary work in Europe, and was for three years president of the Swiss and Italian missions. Joining the brethren in Utah with his wife, he was persuaded to take a second wife. Not long afterward he joined in the protest against Young's dictatorial course which was known as the "New Movement," and was expelled from the church. His "Rocky Mountain Saints" (1873) contains so much valuable information connected with the history of the church that it has been largely drawn on by E. W. Tullidge in his "History of Salt Lake City and Its Founders," which is accepted by the church.

**Millennial Star, January 15, 1859, where cuts of the plates (here produced) are given.

But the true story of the Kinderhook plates was disclosed by an affidavit made by W. Fulgate of Mound Station, Brown County, Illinois, before Jay Brown, Justice of the Peace, on June 30, 1879. In this he stated that the plates were "a humbug, gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and myself. Whitton (who was a blacksmith) cut the plates out of some pieces of copper Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid, and putting it on the plates. When they were finished, we put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with the rust." He describes the burial of the plates and their digging up, among the spectators of the latter being two Mormon elders, Marsh and Sharp. Sharp declared that the Lord had directed them to witness the digging. The plates were borrowed and shown to Smith, and were finally given to one "Professor" McDowell of St. Louis, for his museum.*

* Wyl's "Mormon Portraits," p. 207. The secretary of the Missouri Historical Society writes me that McDowell's museum disappeared some years ago, most of its contents being lost or stolen, and the fate of the Kinderhook plates cannot be ascertained.

In attacking Professor Anthon's statement concerning the alleged hieroglyphics shown to him by Harris, Orson Pratt, in his "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thought that he found substantial support for Smith's hieroglyphics in the fact that "Two years after the Book of Mormon appeared in print, Professor Rafinesque, in his Atlantic journal for 1832, gave to the public a facsimile of American glyphs,* found in Mexico. They are arranged in columns.... By an inspection of the facsimile of these forty-six elementary glyphs, we find all the particulars which Professor Anthon ascribes to the characters which he says 'a plain-looking countryman' presented to him. "These" elementary glyphs of Rafinesque are some of the characters found on the famous "Tablet of the Cross" in the ruins of Palenque, Mexico, since so fully described by Stevens. A facsimile of the entire Tablet may be found on page 355, Vol. IV, Bancroft's "Native Races of the Pacific States." Rafinesque selected these characters from the Tablet, and arranged them in columns alongside of other ancient writings, in order to sustain his argument that they resembled an old Libyan alphabet. Rafinesque was a voluminous writer both on archaeological and botanical subjects, but wholly untrustworthy. Of his Atlantic Journal (of which only eight numbers appeared) his biographer, R. E. Call, says that it had "absolutely no scientific value." Professor Asa Gray, in a review of his botanical writings in Silliman's Journal, Vol. XL, No. 2, 1841, said, "He assumes thirty to one hundred years as the average time required for the production of a new species, and five hundred to one thousand for a new genus." Professor Gray refers to a paper which Rafinesque sent to the editor of a scientific journal describing twelve new species of thunder and lightning. He was very fond of inventing names, and his designation of Palenque as Otolum was only an illustration of this. So much for the 'elementary glyphs.'"

* "Glyph: A pictograph or word carved in a compact distinct figure."--Standard Dictionary.

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XI. THE MORMON BIBLE

The Mormon Bible,* both in a literary and a theological sense, is just such a production as would be expected to result from handing over to Smith and his fellow-"translators" a mass of Spaulding's material and new doctrinal matter for collation and copying. Not one of these men possessed any literary skill or accurate acquaintance with the Scriptures. David Whitmer, in an interview in Missouri in his later years, said, "So illiterate was Joseph at that time that he didn't know that Jerusalem was a walled city, and he was utterly unable to pronounce many of the names that the magic power of the Urim and Thummim revealed." Chronology, grammar, geography, and Bible history were alike ignored in the work. An effort was made to correct some of these errors in the early days of the church, and Smith speaks of doing some of this work himself at Nauvoo. An edition issued there in 1842 contains on the title-page the words, "Carefully revised by the translator." Such corrections have continued to the present day, and a comparison of the latest Salt Lake edition with the first has shown more than three thousand changes.

* The title of this Bible is "The Book of Mormon"; but as one of its subdivisions is a Book of Mormon, I use the title "Mormon Bible," both to avoid confusion and for convenience.

The person who for any reason undertakes the reading of this book sets before himself a tedious task. Even the orthodox Mormons have found this to be true, and their Bible has played a very much less considerable part in the church worship than Smith's "revelations" and the discourses of their preachers. Referring to Orson Pratt's* labored writings on this Bible, Stenhouse says, "Of the hundreds of thousands of witnesses to whom God has revealed the truth of the 'Book of Mormon,' Pratt knows full well that comparatively few indeed have ever read that book, know little or nothing intelligently of its contents, and take little interest in it."** An examination of its contents is useful, therefore, rather as a means of proving the fraudulent character of its pretension to divine revelation than as a means of ascertaining what the members of the Mormon church are taught.

* Orson Pratt was a clerk in a store in Hiram, Ohio, when he was converted to Mormonism. He seems to have been a natural student, and he rose to prominence in the church, being one of the first to expound and defend the Mormon Bible and doctrines, holding a professorship in Nauvoo University, publishing works on the higher mathematics, and becoming one of the Twelve Apostles.

** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 553.

The following page (omitted in this etext) presents a facsimile of the title-page of the first edition of this Bible. The editions of to-day substitute "Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.," for "By Joseph Smith, junior, author and proprietor."

The first edition contains 588 duodecimo pages, and is divided into 15 books which are named as follows: "First Book of Nephi, his reign and ministry," 7 chapters; "Second Book of Nephi," 15 chapters; "Book of Jacob, the Brother of Nephi," 5 chapters; "Book of Enos," 1 chapter; "Book of Jarom," 1 chapter; "Book of Omni," 1 chapter; "Words of Mormon," 1 chapter; "Book of Mosiah," 13 chapters; "Book of Alma, a Son of Alma," 30 chapters; "Book of Helaman," 5 chapters; "Third Book of Nephi, the Son of Nephi, which was the son of Helaman," 14 chapters; "Fourth Book of Nephi, which is the Son of Nephi, one of the Disciples of Jesus Christ," 1 chapter; "Book of Mormon," 4 chapters; "Book of Ether," 6 chapters; "Book of Moroni," 10 chapters. The chapters in the first edition were not divided into verses, that work, with the preparation of the very complete footnote references in the later editions, having been performed by Orson Pratt.

The historical narrative that runs through the book is so disjointedly arranged, mixed up with doctrinal parts, and repeated, that it is not easy to unravel it. The following summary of it is contained in a letter to Colonel John Wentworth of Chicago, signed by Joseph Smith, Jr., which was printed in Wentworth's Chicago newspaper and also in the Mormon Times and Seasons of March 1, 1842:--

"The history of America is unfolded from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages, to the beginning of the 5th century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about 600 years before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inhabitance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle toward the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country."

This history purports to have been handed down, on metallic plates, from one historian to another, beginning with Nephi, from the time of the departure from Jerusalem. Finally (4 Nephi i. 48, 49*), the people being wicked, Ammaron, by direction of the Holy Ghost, hid these sacred records "that they might come again unto the remnant of the house of Jacob."

* All references to the Mormon Bible by chapter and verse refer to Salt Lake City edition of 1888.

To bring the story down to a comparatively recent date, and account for the finding of the plates by Smith, the Book of Mormon was written by the "author." This subdivision is an abridgment of the previous records. It relates that Mormon, a descendant of Nephi, when ten years old, was told by Ammaron that, when about twenty-four years old, he should go to the place where the records were hidden, take only the plates of Nephi, and engrave on them all the things he had observed concerning the people. The next year Mormon was taken by his father, whose name also was Mormon, to the land of Zarahemla, which had become covered with buildings and very populous, but the people were warlike and wicked. Mormon in time, "seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land," took the records from their hiding place. He himself accepted the command of the armies of the Nephites, but they were defeated with great slaughter, the Lamanites laying waste their cities and driving them northward.

Finally Mormon sent a letter to the king of the Lamanites, asking that the Nephites might gather their people "unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we would give them battle." There, in the year 384 A.D., Mormon "made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which have been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were those few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni."* This hill, according to the Mormon teaching, is the hill near Palmyra, New York, where Smith found the plates, just as Mormon had deposited them.

* Hyde gives a list of twenty-four additional plates mentioned in this Bible which must still await digging up in the hill near Palmyra.

In the battle which took place there the Nephites were practically annihilated, and all the fugitives were killed except Moroni, the son of Mormon, who undertook the completion of the "record." Moroni excuses the briefness of his narrative by explaining that he had not room in the plates, "and ore have I none" (to make others). What he adds is in the nature of a defence of the revealed character of the Mormon Bible and of Smith's character as a prophet. Those, for instance, who say that there are no longer "revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues," are told that they know not the Gospel of Christ and do not understand the Scriptures. An effort is made to forestall criticism of the "mistakes" that are conceded in the title-page dedication by saying, "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him" (Book of Mormon ix. 31).

Evidently foreseeing that it would be asked why these "records," written by Jews and their descendants, were not in Hebrew, Mormon adds (chap. ix. 32, 33):--

"And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

"And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record."

Few parts of this mythical Bible approached nearer to the burlesque than this excuse for having descendants of the Jews write in "reformed Egyptian."

The secular story of the ancient races running through this Bible is so confused by the introduction of new matter by the "author"* and by repetitions that it is puzzling to pick it out. The Book of Ether was somewhat puzzling even to the early Mormons, and we find Parley P. Pratt, in his analysis of it, printed in London in 1854, saying, "Ether SEEMS to have been a lineal descendant of Jared."

*Professor Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, in his article on Mormonism in "The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, and Gazetteer" (New York, 1891), divides the Mormon Bible into three sections, viz.: the first thirteen books, presented as the works of Mormon; the Book of Ether, with which Mormon had no connection; and the fifteenth book, which was sent forth by the editor under the name of Moroni. He thus explains his view of the "editing" that was done in the preparation of the work for publication:--

"The editor undertook to rewrite and recast the whole of the abridgment (of Nephi's previous history), but his industry failed him at the close of the Book of Omni. The first six books that he had rewritten were given the names of the small plates.... The book called the 'Words of Mormon' in the original work stood at the beginning, as a sort of preface to the entire abridgment of Mormon; but when the editor had rewritten the first six books, he felt that these were properly his own performance, and the 'Words of Mormon' were assigned a position just in front of the Book of Mosiah, when the abstract of Mormon took its real commencement....

"The question may now be raised as to who was the editor of the Book of Mormon.... In its theological positions and coloring the Book of Mormon is a volume of Disciple theology (this does not include the later polygamous doctrine and other gross Mormon errors). This conclusion is capable of demonstration beyond any reasonable question. Let notice also be taken of the fact that the Book of Mormon bears traces of two several redactions. It contains, in the first redaction, that type of doctrine which the Disciples held and proclaimed prior to November 18, 1827, when they had not yet formally embraced what is commonly considered to be the tenet of baptismal remission. It also contains the type of doctrine which the Disciples have been defending since November 18, 1827, under the name of the ancient Gospel, of which the tenet of socalled baptismal remission is a leading feature. All authorities agree that Mr. Smith obtained possession of the work on September 22, 1827, a period of nearly two months before the Disciples concluded to embrace this tenet. The editor felt that the Book of Mormon would be sadly incomplete if this notion were not included. Accordingly, he found means to communicate with Mr. Smith, and, regaining possession of certain portions of the manuscript, to insert the new item.... Rigdon was the only Disciple minister who vigorously and continuously demanded that his brethren should adopt the additional points that have been indicated."

Very concisely, this Bible story of the most ancient race that came to America, the Jaredites, may be thus stated:--

This race, being righteous, were not punished by the Lord at Babel, but were led to the ocean, where they constructed a vessel by direction of the Lord, in which they sailed to North America. According to the Book of Ether, there were eight of these vessels, and that they were remarkable craft needs only the description given of them to show: "They were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish" (Book of Ether ii. 17). This description certainly establishes the general resemblance of these barges to some kind of a dish, but the rather careless comparison of their length simply to that of a "tree" leaves this detail of construction uncertain.

Just before they embarked in these vessels, a brother of Jared went up on Mount Shelem, where the Lord touched sixteen small stones that he had taken up with him, two of which were the Urim and Thummim, by means of which Smith translated the plates. These stones lighted up the vessels on their trip across the ocean. Jared's brother was told by the spirit on the mount, "Behold, I am Jesus Christ." A footnote in the modern edition of this Bible kindly explains that Jared's brother "saw the preexistent spirit of Jesus."

When they landed (somewhere on the Isthmus of Darien), the Lord commanded Nephi to make "plates of ore," on which should be engraved the record of the people. This was the origin of Smith's plates. In time this people divided themselves, under the leadership of two of Lehi's sons--Nephi and Laman--into Nephites and Lamanites (with subdivisions). The Lamanites, in the course of two hundred years, had become dark in color and "wild and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people; full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents and wandering about in the wilderness, with a short skin girdle about their loins, and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow and the cimeter and the ax" (Enos i, 20). The Nephites, on the other hand, tilled the land and raised flocks. Between the two tribes wars waged, the Nephites became wicked, and in the course of 320 years the worst of them were destroyed (Book of Alma).

Then the Lord commanded those who would hearken to his voice to depart with him to the wilderness, and they journeyed until they came to the land of Zarahemla, which a footnote to the modern edition explains "is supposed to have been north of the head waters of the river Magdalena, its northern boundary being a few days' journey south of the Isthmus" (of Darien). There they found the people of Zarahemla, who had left Jerusalem when Zedekiah was carried captive into Babylon. New teachers arose who taught the people righteousness, and one of them, named Alma, led a company to a place which was called Mormon, "where was a fountain of pure water, and there Alma baptized the people." The Book of Alma, the longest in this Bible, is largely an account of the secular affairs of the inhabitants, with stories of great battles, a prediction of the coming of Christ, and an account of a great migration northward, and the building of ships that sailed in the same direction.

Nephi describes the appearance of Christ to the people of the western continent, preceded by a star, earthquakes, etc. On the day of His appearance they heard "a small voice" out of heaven, saying, "Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name; hear ye him." Then Christ appeared and spoke to them, generally in the language of the New Testament (repeating, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount*), and afterward ascended into heaven in a cloud. The expulsion of the Nephites northward, and their final destruction, in what is now New York State, followed in the course of the next 384 years.

* In the Mormon version of this sermon the words, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee," and "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee," are lacking. The Deseret Evening News of February 21, 1900, in explaining this omission, says that the report by Mormon of the "discourse delivered by Jesus Christ to the Nephites on this continent after his resurrection from the dead... may not be full and complete."

There is throughout the book an imitation of the style of the Holy Scriptures. Verse after verse begins with the words "and it came to pass," as Spaulding's Ohio neighbors recalled that his story did. The following extract, from 1 Nephi, chap. viii, will give an illustration of the literary style of a large part of the work:--

"1.. And it came to pass that we had gathered together all manner of seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every kind.

"2. And it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness, he spake unto us, saying, Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or in other words, I have seen a vision.

"3. And behold, because of the thing which I have seen, I have reason to rejoice in the Lord, because of Nephi and also of Sam; for I have reason to suppose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved.

"4. But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you; for behold, methought I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness.

"5. And it came to pass that I saw a man, and he was dressed in a white robe; and he came and stood before me.

"6. And it came to pass that he spake unto me, and bade me follow him.

"7. And it came to pass that as I followed him, I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste.

"8. And after I had travelled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies.

"9. And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord, I beheld a large and spacious field.

"10. And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.

"11. And it came to pass that I did go forth, and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen."

Whole chapters of the Scriptures are incorporated word for word. In the first edition some of these were appropriated without any credit; in the Utah editions they are credited. Beside these, Hyde counted 298 direct quotations from the New Testament, verses or sentences, between pages 2 to 428, covering the years from 600 B.C. to Christ's birth. Thus, Nephi relates that his father, more than two thousand years before the King James edition of the Bible was translated, in announcing the coming of John the Baptist, used these words, "Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (1 Nephi x. 8). In Mosiah v. 8, King Benjamin is represented as saying, 124 years before Christ was born, "I would that you should take upon you the name of Christ as there is no other name given whereby salvation cometh."

The first Nephi represents John as baptizing in Bethabara (the spelling is Beathabry in the Utah edition), and Alma announces (vii. 10) that "the Son of God shall be born of Mary AT JERUSALEM." Shakespeare is proved a plagiarist by comparing his words with those of the second Nephi, who, speaking twenty-two hundred years before Shakespeare was born, said (2 Nephi i. 14), "Hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveller can return."

The chapters of the Scriptures appropriated bodily, and the places where they may be found, are as follows:--

First Edition Utah Edition

Among the many anachronisms to be found in the book may be mentioned the giving to Laban of a sword with a blade "of the most precious steel" (1 Nephi iv. 9), centuries before the use of steel is elsewhere recorded. and the possession of a compass by the Jaredites when they sailed across the ocean (Alma xxxvii. 38), long before the invention of such an instrument. The ease with which such an error could be explained is shown in the anecdote related of a Utah Mormon who, when told that the compass was not known in Bible times, responded by quoting Acts xxviii. 13, where Paul says, "And from thence we fetched a compass." When Nephi and his family landed in Central America "there were beasts in the forest of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse" (ix Nephi xviii. 25). If Nephi does not prevaricate, there must have been a fatal plague among these animals in later years, for horses, cows, and asses were unknown in America until after its discovery by Europeans. Moroni, in the Book of Ether (ix. 18, 19), is still more generous, adding to the possessions of the Jaredites sheep and swine* and elephants and "cureloms and cumoms." Neither sheep nor swine are indigenous to America; but the prophet is safe as regards the "cureloms and cumoms," which are animals of his own creation.

* "And," it is added, "many other kinds of animals which were useful for the use of man," thus ignoring the Hebrew antipathy to pork.

The book is full of incidental proofs of the fraudulent profession that it is an original translation. For instance, in incorporating 1 Corinthians iii. 4, in the Book of Moroni, the phrase "is not easily provoked" is retained, as in the King James edition. But the word "easily" is not found in any Greek manuscript of this verse, and it is dropped in the Revised Version of 1881.

Stenhouse calls attention to many phrases in this Bible which were peculiar to the revival preachers of those days, like Rigdon, such as "Have ye spiritually been born of God?" "If ye have experienced a change of heart."

The first edition was full of grammatical errors and amusing phrases. Thus we are told, in Ether xv. 31, that when Coriantumr smote off the head of Shiz, the latter "raised upon his hands and fell." Among other examples from the first edition may be quoted: "and I sayeth"; "all things which are good cometh of God"; "neither doth his angels"; and "hath miracles ceased." We find in Helaman ix. 6, "He being stabbed by his brother by a garb of secrecy." This remains uncorrected.

Alexander Campbell, noting the mixture of doctrines in the book, says, "He [the author] decides all the great controversies discussed in New York in the last ten years, infant baptism, the Trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the questions of Freemasonry, republican government and the rights of man."*

* "Delusions: an Analysis of the Book of Mormon" (1832). An exhaustive examination of this Bible will be found in the "Braden and Kelley Public Discussion."

Such is the book which is accepted to this day as an inspired work by the thousands of persons who constitute the Mormon church. This acceptance has always been rightfully recognized as fundamentally necessary to the Mormon faith. Orson Pratt declared, "The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such that, if true, none can be saved who reject it, and, if false, none can be saved who receive it." Brigham Young told the Conference at Nauvoo in October, 1844, that "Every spirit that confesses that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he lived and died a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God, and every spirit that does not is of Anti-Christ." There is no modification of this view in the Mormon church of to-day.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XII. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH

The director of the steps taken to announce to the world a new Bible and a new church realized, of course, that there must be priests, under some name, to receive members and to dispense its blessing. No person openly connected with Smith in the work of translation had been a clergyman. Accordingly, on May 15, 1829 (still following the prophet's own account), while Smith and Cowdery were yet busy with the work of translation, they went into the woods to ask the Lord for fuller information about the baptism mentioned in the plates. There a messenger from heaven, who, it was learned, was John the Baptist, appeared to them in a cloud of light, "and having laid his hands on us, he ordained us, saying unto us, 'Upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering angels, and of the Gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins.'" The messenger also informed them that "the power of laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost" would be conferred on them later, through Peter, James, and John, "who held the keys of the priesthood of Melchisedec"; but he directed Smith to baptize Cowdery, and Cowdery then to perform the same office for Smith. This they did at once, and as soon as Cowdery came out of the water he "stood up and prophesied many things" (which the prophet prudently omitted to record). The divine authority thus conferred, according to Orson Pratt, exceeds that of the bishops of the Roman church, because it came direct from heaven, and not through a succession of popes and bishops.*

* Orson Pratt, in his "Questions and Answers on Doctrine" in his Washington newspaper, the Seer (p. 205), thus defined the Mormon view of the Roman Catholic church:--

Q."Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church of Christ?" A."No, for she has no inspired priesthood or officers."

Q."After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven what was left?" A."A set of wicked apostates, murderers and idolaters," etc.

Q."Who founded the Roman Catholic Church?" A."The devil, through the medium of the apostates, who subverted the whole order of God by denying immediate revelation, and substituting in place thereof tradition and ancient revelations as a sufficient rule of faith and practice."

Smith and Cowdery at once began telling of the power conferred upon them, and giving their relatives and friends an opportunity to become members of the new church. Smith's brother Samuel was the first convert won over, Cowdery baptizing him. His brother Hyrum came next,* and then one J. Knight, Sr., of Colesville, New York.** Each new convert was made the subject of a "revelation," each of which began, "A great and marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men." Hyrum Smith, and David and Peter Whitmer, Jr., were baptized in Seneca Lake in June, and "from this time forth," says Smith, "many became believers and were baptized, while we continued to instruct and persuade as many as applied for information."

* Hyrum wanted to start in to preach at once, and a "revelation" was necessary to inform him: "You need not suppose you are called to preach until you are called.... Keep my commandments; hold your peace" (Sec.11).

** Colesville is the township in Broome County of which Harpursville is the voting place. Smith organized his converts there about two miles north of Harpursville.

By April 6, 1830, branches of the new church had been established at Fayette, Manchester, and Colesville, New York, with some seventy members in all, it has been stated. Section 20 of the "Doctrine and Covenants" names April 6, 1830, as the date on which the church was "regularly organized and established, agreeable to the laws of our country." This date has been incorrectly given as that on which the first step was taken to form a church organization. What was done then was to organize in a form which, they hoped, would give the church a standing as a legal body.* The meeting was held at the house of Peter Whitmer. Smith, who, it was revealed, should be the first elder, ordained Cowdery, and Cowdery subsequently ordained Smith. The sacrament was then administered, and the new elders laid their hands on the others present.

* Whitmer's "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."

"The revelation" (Sec. 20) on the form of church government is dated April, 1830, at least six months before Rigdon's name was first associated with the scheme by the visit of Cowdery and his companions to Ohio. If the date is correct, it shows that Rigdon had forwarded this "revelation" to Smith for promulgation, for Rigdon was unquestionably the originator of the system of church government. David Whitmer has explained, "Rigdon would expound the Old Testament Scriptures of the Bible and Book of Mormon, in his way, to Joseph, concerning the priesthood, high priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to inquire of the Lord about this doctrine and about that doctrine, and of course a revelation would always come just as they desired it."*

* Whitmer's "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."

The "revelation" now announced defined the duty of elders, priests, teachers, deacons, and members of the Church of Christ. An apostle was an elder, and it was his calling to baptize, ordain, administer the sacrament, confirm, preach, and take the lead in all meetings. A priest's duty was to preach, baptize, administer the sacrament, and visit members at their houses. Teachers and deacons could not baptize, administer the sacrament, or lay on hands, but were to preach and invite all to join the church. The elders were directed to meet in conference once in three months, and there was to be a High Council, or general conference of the church, by which should be ordained every President of the high priesthood, bishop, high counsellor, and high priest.

Smith's leadership had, before this, begun to manifest itself. He had, in a generous mood, originally intended to share with others the honor of receiving "revelations," the first of these in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," saying, "I the Lord also gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these things to the world." In the original publication of these "revelations," under the title "Book of Commandments," we find such headings as, "A revelation given to Oliver," "A revelation given to Hyrum," etc. These headings are all changed in the modern edition to read, "Given through Joseph the Seer," etc.

Cowdery was the first of his associates to seek an open share in the divine work. Smith was so pleased with his new scribe when they first met at Harmony, Pennsylvania, that he at once received a "revelation" which incited Cowdery to ask for a division of power. Cowdery was told (Sec. 6), "And behold, I grant unto you a gift, if you desire of me, to translate even as my servant Joseph." Cowdery's desire manifested itself immediately, and Joseph almost as quickly became conscious that he had committed himself too soon. Accordingly, in another "revelation," dated the same month of April, 1829 (Sec. 8), he attempted to cajole Oliver by telling him about a "gift of Aaron" which he possessed, and which was a remarkable gift in itself, adding, "Do not ask for that which you ought not." But Cowdery naturally clung to his promised gift, and kept on asking, and he had to be told right away in still another "revelation" (Sec. 9), that he had not understood, but that he must not murmur, since his work was to write for Joseph. If he was in doubt about a subject, he was advised to "study it out in your mind"; and if it was right, the Lord promised, "I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you"; but if it was not right, "you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong." To assist him until he became accustomed to discriminate between this burning feeling and this stupor, the Lord told him very plainly, "It is not expedient that you should translate now." That all this rankled in Cowdery's heart was shown by his attempt to revise one of Smith's "revelations," and the support he gave to Hiram Page's "gazing."

Cowdery continued to annoy the prophet, and Smith decided to get rid of him. Accordingly in July, 1830, came a "revelation," originally announced as given direct to Joseph's wife Emma, instructing her to act as her husband's scribe, "that I may send my servant Oliver Cowdery whithersoever I will." This occurred on a trip the Smiths had made to Harmony. On their return to Fayette, Smith found Cowdery still persistent, and he accordingly gave out a "revelation" to him, telling him again that he must not "write by way of commandment," inasmuch as Smith was at the head of the church, and directing him to "go unto the Lamanites (Indians) and preach my Gospel unto them." This was the first mention of the westward movement of the church which shaped all its later history.

A "revelation" in June, 1829 (Sec. 18), had directed the appointment of the twelve apostles, whom Cowdery and David Whitmer were to select. The organized members now began to inquire who was their leader, and Smith, in a "revelation" dated April 6, 1830 (Sec. 21), addressed to himself, announced: "Behold there shall be a record kept among you, and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ"; and the church was directed in these words, "For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith." Thus was established an authority which Smith defended until the day of his death, and before which all who questioned it went down.

Some of the few persons who at this time expressed a willingness to join the new church showed a repugnance to being baptized at his hands, and pleaded previous baptism as an excuse for evading it. But Smith's tyrannical power manifested itself at once, and he straightway announced a "revelation" (Sec. 22), in which the Lord declared, "All old covenants have I caused to be done away in this thing, and this is a new and everlasting covenant, even that which was from the beginning."

Five days after the formal organization, the first sermon to the Mormon church was preached in the Whitmer house by Oliver Cowdery, Smith probably concluding that it would be wiser to confine himself to the receipt of "revelations" rather than to essay pulpit oratory too soon. Six additional persons were then baptized. Soon after this the first Mormon miracle was performed--the casting out of a devil from a young man named, Newel Knight.

The first conference of the organized church was held at Fayette, New York, in June, 1830, with about thirty members present. In recent "revelations" the prophet had informed his father and his brothers Hyrum and Samuel that their calling was "to exhortation and to strengthen the church," so that they were provided for in the new fold.

The region in New York State where the Smiths had lived and were well known was not favorable ground for their labors as church officers, conducting baptisms and administering the sacrament. When they dammed a small stream in order to secure a pool for an announced baptism, the dam was destroyed during the night. A Presbyterian sister-in-law of Knight, from whom a devil had been cast, announced her conversion to Smith's church, and, when she would not listen to the persuasions of her pastor, the latter obtained legal authority from her parents and carried her away by force. She succeeded, however, in securing the wished-for baptism. All this stirred up public feeling against Smith, and he was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.

At the trial testimony was offered to show that he had obtained a horse and a yoke of oxen from his dupes, on the statement that a "revelation" had informed him that he was to have them, and that he had behaved improperly toward the daughters of one of these men. But the parties interested all testified in his favor, and the prosecution failed. He was immediately rearrested on a warrant and removed to Colesville, amid the jeers of the people in attendance. Knight was subpoenaed to tell about the miracle performed on him, and Smith's old character of a money-digger was ventilated; but the court found nothing on which to hold him. Mormon writers have dilated on these "persecutions", but the outcome of the hearings indicated fair treatment of the accused by the arbiters of the law, and the indignation shown toward him and his associates by their neighbors was not greater than the conduct of such men in assuming priestly rights might evoke in any similar community.

Smith returned to his home in Pennsylvania after this, and endeavored to secure the cooperation of his father-in-law in his church plans, but without avail. It was four years later that Mr. Hale put on record his opinion of his son-in-law already quoted. Failing to find other support in Harmony, and perceiving much public feeling against him, Smith prepared for his return to New York by receiving a "revelation" (Sec.20) which directed him to return to the churches organized in that state after he had sold his crops. "They shall support thee", declared the "revelation"; "but if they receive thee not I shall send upon them a cursing instead of a blessing". For Smith's protection the Lord further declared: "Whosoever shall lay their hand upon you by violence ye shall command to be smitten in my name, and behold, I will smite them according to your words, IN MINE OWN DUE TIME. And whosoever shall go to law with thee shall be cursed by the law." This threat, it will be noted, was safeguarded by not requiring immediate fulfillment.

Smith returned to Fayette in September, and continued church work thereabouts in company with his brothers and John and David Whitmer.

Meanwhile Parley P. Pratt had made his visit to Palmyra and returned to Ohio, and in the early winter Rigdon set out to make his first open visit to Smith, arriving in December. Martin Harris, on the ground that Rigdon was a regularly authorized clergyman, tried to obtain the use of one of the churches of the town for him, but had to content himself with the third-story hall of the Young Men's Association. There Rigdon preached a sermon to a small audience, principally of non-Mormons, announcing himself as a "messenger of God". The audience regarded the sermon as blasphemous, and no further attempt was made to secure this room for Mormon meetings. Rigdon, however, while in conference with Smith, preached and baptized the neighborhood, and Smith and Harris tried their powers as preachers in barns and under a tree in the open air.

A well-authenticated story of the manner in which one of the Palmyra Mormons received his call to preach is told by Tucker* and verified by the principal actor. Among the first baptized in New York State were Calvin Stoddard and his wife (Smith's sister) of Macedon. Stoddard told his neighbors of wonderful things he had seen in the sky, and about his duty to preach. One night, Steven S. Harding, a young man who was visiting the place, went with a companion to Stoddard's house, and awakening him with knocks on the door, proclaimed in measured tones that the angel of the Lord commanded him to "go forth among the people and preach the Gospel of Nephi." Then they ran home and went to bed. Stoddard took the call in all earnestness, and went about the next day repeating to his neighbors the words of the "celestial messenger," describing the roaring thunder and the musical sounds of the angel's wings that accompanied the words. Young Harding, who participated in this joke, became Governor of Utah in 1862, and incurred the bitter enmity of Brigham Young and the church by denouncing polygamy, and asserting his own civil authority.**

* "Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 80, 285

**Stoddard and Smith had a quarrel over a lot in Kirtland in 1835, and Smith knocked down his brother-in-law and was indicted for assault and battery, but was acquitted on the ground of self-defence.

AS a result of Smith's and Rigdon's conferences came a "revelation" to them both (Sec. 35), delivered as in the name of Jesus Christ, defining somewhat Rigdon's position. How nearly it met his demands cannot be learned, but it certainly granted him no more authority than Smith was willing to concede. It told him that he should do great things, conferring the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, as did the apostles of old, and promising to show miracles, signs, and wonders unto all believers. He was told that Joseph had received the "keys of the mysteries of those things that have been sealed," and was directed to "watch over him that his faith fail not." This "revelation" ordered the retranslation of the Scriptures.

The most important result of Rigdon's visit to Smith was a decision to move the church to Ohio. This decision was promulgated in the form of "revelations" dated December, 1830, and January, 1831, which set forth (Secs. 37, 38):--

"And that ye might escape the power of the enemy, and be gathered unto me a righteous people, without spot and blameless:

"Wherefore, for this cause I give unto you the commandment that ye should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high; and from thence whomsoever I will shall go forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what they shall do; for I have a great work laid up in store, for Israel shall be saved.... And they that have farms that cannot be sold, let them be left or rented as seemeth them good."

A sufficient reason for the removal was the failure to secure converts where Smith was known, and the ready acceptance of the new belief among Rigdon's Ohio people. The Rev. Dr. Clark says, "You might as well go down in the crater of Vesuvius and attempt to build an icehouse amid its molten and boiling lava, as to convince any inhabitant in either of these towns [Palmyra or Manchester] that Joe Smith's pretensions are not the most gross and egregious falsehood."*

* "Gleanings by the Way."

The Rev. Jesse Townsend of Palmyra, in a reply to a letter of inquiry about the Mormons, dated December 24, 1833 (quoted in full by Tucker), says: "All the Mormons have left this part of the state, and so palpable is their imposture that nothing is here said or thought of the subject, except when inquiries from abroad are occasionally made concerning them. I know of no one now living in this section of the country that ever gave them credence."

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XIII. THE MORMONS' BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES--CHURCH GOVERNMENT

The Mormons teach that, for fourteen hundred years to the time of Smith's "revelations," there had been "a general and awful apostasy from the religion of the New Testament, so that all the known world have been left for centuries without the Church of Christ among them; without a priesthood authorized of God to administer ordinances; that every one of the churches has perverted the Gospel."* As illustrations of this perversion are cited the doing away of immersion for the remission of sins by most churches, of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and of the miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Spirit. The new church presented a modern prophet, who was in direct communication with God and possessed power to work miracles, and who taught from a Golden Bible which says that whoever asserts that there are no longer "revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues and the interpretation of tongues,... knoweth not the Gospel of Christ" (Book of Mormon ix. 7, 8).

* Orson Pratt's "Remarkable Visions," No. 6.

It is impossible to decide whether the name "Mormon" was used by Spaulding in his "Manuscript Found," or was introduced by Rigdon. It is first encountered in the Mormon Bible in the Book of Mosiah xviii. 4, as the name of a place where there was a fountain in which Alma baptized those whom his admonition led to repentance. Next it occurs in 3 Nephi v. 20: "I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi." This Mormon was selected by the "author" of the Bible to stand sponsor for the condensation of the "records" of his ancestors which Smith unearthed. It was discovered very soon after the organization of the Mormon church was announced that the word was of Greek derivation, meaning bugbear, hobgoblin. In the form of "mormo" it is Anglicized with the same meaning, and is used by Jeremy Collier and Warburton.* The word "Mormon" in zoology is the generic name of certain animals, including the mandril baboon. The discovery of the Greek origin and meaning of the word was not pleasing to the early Mormon leaders, and they printed in the Times and Seasons a letter over Smith's signature, in which he solemnly declared that "there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of God, translated the Book of Mormon," and gave the following explanation of the derivation of the word:

* See "Century Dictionary."

"Before I give a definition to the word, let me say that the Bible, in its widest sense, means good; for the Saviour says, according to the Gospel of St. John, 'I am the Good Shepherd'; and it will not be beyond the common use of terms to say that good is amongst the most important in use, and, though known by various names in different languages, still its meaning is the same, and is ever in opposition to bad. We say from the Saxon, good; the Dane, god; the Goth, gods; the German, gut; the Dutch, goed; the Latin, bonus; the Greek, kalos; the Hebrew, tob; the Egyptian, mo. Hence, with the addition of more, or the contraction mor, we have the word Mormon, which means literally more good."

This lucid explanation was doubtless entirely satisfactory to the persons to whom it was addressed.

In the early "revelations" collected in the "Book of Commandments" the new church was not styled anything more definite than "My Church," and the title-page of that book, as printed in 1833, says that these instructions are "for the government of the Church of Christ." The name "Mormons" was not acceptable to the early followers of Smith, who looked on it as a term of reproach, claiming the designation "Saints." This objection to the title continues to the present day. It was not until May 4, 1834, that a council of the church, on motion of Sidney Rigdon, decided on its present official title, "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."

The belief in the speedy ending of the world, on which the title "Latter-Day Saints" was founded, has played so unimportant a part in modern Mormon belief that its prominence as an early tenet of the church is generally overlooked. At no time was there more widespread interest in the speedy second coming of Christ and the Day of Judgment than during the years when the organization of the Mormon church was taking place. We have seen how much attention was given to a speedy millennium by the Disciples preachers. It was in 1833 that William Miller began his sermons in which he fixed on the year 1843 as the end of the world, and his views not only found acceptance among his personal followers, but attracted the liveliest interest in other sects.

The Mormon leaders made this belief a part of their early doctrine. Thus, in one of the first "revelations" given out by Smith, dated Fayette, New York, September, 1830, Christ is represented as saying that "the hour is nigh" when He would reveal Himself, and "dwell in righteousness with men on earth a thousand years." In the November following, another "revelation" declared that "the time is soon at hand that I shall come in a cloud, with power and great glory." Soon after Smith arrived in Kirtland a "revelation," dated February, 1831, announced that "the great day of the Lord is nigh at hand." In January, 1833, Smith predicted that "there are those now living upon the earth whose eyes shall not be closed in death until they shall see all these things of which I have spoken" (the sweeping of the wicked from the United States, and the return of the lost tribes to it). Smith declared in 1843 that the Lord had promised that he should see the Son of Man if he lived to be eighty-five (Sec. 130).* When Ferris was Secretary of Utah Territory, in 1852-1853, he found that the Mormons were still expecting the speedy coming of Christ, but had moved the date forward to 1870. All through Smith's autobiography and the Millennial Star will be found mention of every portent that might be construed as an indication of the coming disruption of this world. As late as December 6, 1856, an editorial in the Millennial Star said, "The signs of the times clearly indicate to every observing mind that the great day of the second advent of Messiah is at hand."

* Speaking of W. W. Phelps's last years in Utah, Stenhouse says: "Often did the old man, in public and in private, regale the Saints with the assurance that he had the promise by revelation that he should not taste of death until Jesus came." Phelps died on March 7, 1872.

As the devout Mohammedan* passes from earth to a heaven of material bliss, so the Mormons are taught that the Saints, the sole survivors of the day of judgment, will, with resurrected bodies, possess the purified earth. The lengths to which Mormon preachers have dared to go in illustrating this view find a good illustration in a sermon by arson Pratt, printed in the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, of August 21, 1852. Having promised that "farmers will have great farms upon the earth when it is so changed," and foreseeing that some one might suggest a difficulty in providing land enough to go round, he met that in this way:--

* The similarity between Smith's early life and visions and Mohammed's has been mentioned by more than one writer. Stenhouse observes that Smith's mother "was to him what Cadijah was to Mohammed," and that "a Mohammedan writer, in a series of essays recently published in London, treats of the prophecies concerning the Arabian Prophet, to be found in the Old and New Testaments, precisely as Orson Pratt applied them to the American Prophet."

"But don't be so fast, says one; don't you know that there are only about 197,000,000 of square miles, or about 126,000,000,000 of acres upon the surface of the globe? Will these accommodate all the inhabitants after the resurrection? Yes; for if the earth should stand 8000 years, or 80 centuries, and the population should be a thousand millions in every century, that would be 80,000,000,000 of inhabitants, and we know that many centuries have passed that would not give the tenth part of this; but supposing this to be the number, there would then be over an acre and a half for each person upon the surface of the globe."

By eliminating the wicked, so that only one out of a hundred would share this real estate, he calculated that every Saint "would receive over 150 acres, which would be quite enough to raise manna, flax to make robes of, and to have beautiful orchards of fruit trees."

The Mormon belief is stated by the church leaders to rest on the Holy Bible, the Mormon Bible, and the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," together with the teachings of the Mormon instructors from Smith's time to the present day. Although the Holy Bible is named first in this list, it has, as we have seen, played a secondary part in the church ritual, its principal use by the Mormon preachers having been to furnish quotations on which to rest their claims for the inspiration of their own Bible and for their peculiar teachings. Mormon sermons (usually styled discourses) rarely, if ever, begin with a text. The "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" "containing," as the title-page declares, "the revelations given to Joseph Smith, Jr., for the building up of the Kingdom of God in the last days," was the directing authority in the church during Smith's life, and still occupies a large place in the church history. An examination of the origin and character of this work will therefore shed much light on the claims of the church to special direction from on high.

There is little doubt that this system of "revelation" was an idea of Rigdon. Smith was not, at that time, an inventor; his forte was making use of ideas conveyed to him. Thus, he did not originate the idea of using a "peek-stone," but used one freely as soon as he heard of it. He did not conceive the idea of receiving a Bible from an angel, but readily transformed the Spaniard-with-his-throat-cut to an angel when the perfected scheme was presented to him. We can imagine how attractive "revelations" would have been to him, and how soon he would concentrate in himself the power to receive them, and would adapt them to his personal use.

David Whitmer says, "The revelations, or the Book of Commandments, up to June, 1829, were given through the stone through which the Book of Mormon was translated"; but that after that time "they came through Joseph as a mouthpiece; that is, he would inquire of the Lord, pray and ask concerning a matter, and speak out the revelation, which he thought to be a revelation from the Lord; but sometimes he was mistaken about its being from the Lord."* Who drew the line between truth and error has never been explained, but Smith would certainly have resented any such scepticism.

* "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."

Parley P. Pratt thus describes Smith's manner of receiving "revelations" in Ohio, "Each sentence was uttered slowly and very distinctly, and with a pause between each sufficiently long for it to be recorded by an ordinary writer in long hand."*

* Pratt's "Autobiography," p. 65.

These "revelations" made the greatest impression on Smith's followers, and no other of his pretensions seems to have so convinced them of his divine credentials. The story of Vienna Jaques well illustrates this. A Yankee descendant of John Rodgers, living in Boston, she was convinced by a Mormon elder, and joined the church members while they were in Kirtland, taking with her her entire possession, $1500 in cash. This money, like that of many other devoted members, found its way into Smith's hands--and stayed there. But he had taken her into his family, and her support became burdensome to him. So, when the Saints were "gathering" in Missouri, he announced a "revelation" in these words (Sec. 90):--

"And again, verily, I [the Lord] say unto you, it is my will that my handmaid, Vienna Jaques, should receive money to bear her expenses, and go up unto the land of Zion; and the residue of the money may be consecrated unto me, and she be rewarded in mine own due time. Verily, I say unto you, that it is meet in mine eyes that she should go up unto the land of Zion, and receive an inheritance from the hand of the Bishop, that she may settle down in peace, inasmuch as she is faithful, and not to be idle in her days from thenceforth."

The confiding woman obeyed without a murmur this thinly concealed scheme to get rid of her, migrated with the church from Missouri to Illinois and to Utah, and was in Salt Lake City in 1833, supporting herself as a nurse, and "doubly proud that she has been made the subject of a revelation from heaven."*

* "Utah and the Mormons," p. 182.

These "revelations" have been published under two titles. The first edition was printed in Jackson, Missouri, in 1833, in the Mormon printing establishment, under the title, "Book of Commandments for the Government of the Church of Christ, organized according to Law on the 6th of April, 1830." This edition contained nothing but "revelations," divided into sixty-five "chapters," and ending with the one dated Kirtland, September, 1831, which forms Section 64 of the Utah edition of "Doctrine and Covenants." David Whitmer says that when, in the spring of 1832, it was proposed by Smith, Rigdon, and others to publish these revelations, they were earnestly advised by other members of the church not to do so, as it would be dangerous to let the world get hold of them; and so it proved. But Smith declared that any objector should "have his part taken out of the Tree of Life."*

* It has been stated that the "Book of Commandments" was never really published, the mob destroying the sheets before it got out. But David Whitmer is a very positive witness to the contrary, saying, "I say it was printed complete (and copyrighted) and many copies distributed among the members of the church before the printing press was destroyed."

Two years later, while the church was still in Kirtland, the "revelations" were again prepared for publication, this time under the title, "Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, carefully selected from the revelations of God, and compiled by Joseph Smith, Jr.; Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, F. G. Williams, proprietors." On August 17, 1835, a general assembly of the church held in the Kirtland Temple voted to accept his book as the doctrine and covenants of their faith. Ebenezer Robinson, who attended the meeting, says that the majority of those so voting "had neither time nor opportunity to examine the book for themselves; they had no means of knowing whether any alterations had been made in any of the revelations or not."* In fact, many important alterations were so made, as will be pointed out in the course of this story. One method of attempting to account for these changes has been by making the plea that parts were omitted in the Missouri editions. On this point, however, Whitmer is very positive, as quoted.

* In his reminiscences in The Return.

At the very start Smith's revelations failed to "come true." An amusing instance of this occurred before the Mormon Bible was published. While the "copy" was in the hands of the printer, Grandin, Joe's brother Hyrum and others who had become interested in the enterprise became impatient over Harris's delay in raising the money required for bringing out the book. Hyrum finally proposed that some of them attempt to sell the copyright in Canada, and he urged Joe to ask the Lord about doing so. Joe complied, and announced that the mission to Canada would be a success. Accordingly, Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page made a trip to Toronto to secure a publisher, but their mission failed absolutely. This was a critical test of the faith of Joe's followers. "We were all in great trouble," says David Whitmer,* "and we asked Joseph how it was that he received a 'revelation' from the Lord for some brethren to go to Toronto and sell the copyright, and the brethren had utterly failed in their undertaking. Joseph did not know how it was, so he inquired of the Lord about it, and behold, the following 'revelation' came; through the stone: 'Some revelations are from God, some revelations are of man, and some revelations are of the Devil.'" No rule for distinguishing and separating these revelations was given; but Whitmer, whose faith in Smith's divine mission never cooled, thus disposes of the matter, "So we see that the revelation to go to Toronto and sell the copyright was not of God." Of course, a prophet whose followers would accept such an excuse was certain of his hold upon them. This incident well illustrates the kind of material which formed the nucleus of the church.

* "Address to All Believers in Christ," p. 30.

Smith never let the previously revealed word of the Lord protect any of his flock who afterward came in conflict with his own plans. For example: On March 8, 1831, he announced a "revelation" (Sec. 47), saying, "Behold, it is expedient in me that my servant John [Whitmer] should write and keep a regular history" of the church. John fell into disfavor in later years, and, when he refused to give up his records, Smith and Rigdon addressed a letter to him,* in connection with his dismissal, which said that his notes required correction by them before publication, "knowing your incompetency as a historian, that writings coming from your pen could not be put to press without our correcting them, or else the church must suffer reproach. Indeed, sir, we never supposed you capable of writing a history." Why the Lord did not consult Smith and Rigdon before making this appointment is one of the unexplained mysteries.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 133.

These "revelations," which increased in number from 16 in 1829 to 19 in 1830, numbered 35 in 1831, and then decreased to 16 in 1832, 13 in 1833, 5 in 1834, 2 in 1835, 3 in 1836, 1 in 1837, 8 in 1838 (in the trying times in Missouri), 1 in 1839, none in 1840, 3 in 1841, none in 1842, and 2, including the one on polygamy, in 1843. We shall see that in his latter days, in Nauvoo, Smith was allowed to issue revelations only after they had been censored by a council. He himself testified to the reckless use which he made of them, and which perhaps brought about this action. The following is a quotation from his diary:--

"May 19, 1842.--While the election [of Smith as mayor by the city council] was going forward, I received and wrote the following revelation: 'I Verily thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, by the voice of the Spirit, Hiram Kimball has been insinuating evil and forming evil opinions against you with others; and if he continue in them, he and they shall be accursed, for I am the Lord thy God, and will stand by thee and bless thee.' Which I threw across the room to Hiram Kimball, one of the counsellors."

Thus it seems that there was some limit to the extent of Joe's effrontery which could be submitted to.

We shall see that Brigham Young in Utah successfully resisted constant pressure that was put upon him by his flock to continue the reception of "revelations." While he was prudent enough to avoid the pitfalls that would have surrounded him as a revealer, he was crafty enough not to belittle his own authority in so doing. In his discourse on the occasion of the open announcement of polygamy, he said, "If an apostle magnifies his calling, his words are the words of eternal life and salvation to those who hearken to them, just as much so as any written revelations contained in these books" (the two Bibles and the "Doctrine and Covenants").

Hiram Page was not the only person who tried to imitate Smith's "revelations." A boy named Isaac Russell gave out such messages at Kirtland; Gladdin Bishop caused much trouble in the same way at Nauvoo; the High Council withdrew the hand of fellowship from Oliver Olney for setting himself up as a prophet; and in the same year the Times and Seasons announced a pamphlet by J. C. Brewster, purporting to be one of the lost books of Esdras, "written by the power of God."

In the Times and Seasons (p. 309) will be found a report of a conference held in New York City on December 4, 1840, at which Elder Sydney Roberts was arraigned, charged with "having a revelation that a certain brother must give him a suit of clothes and a gold watch, the best that could be had; also saluting the sisters with what he calls a holy kiss." He was told that he could retain his membership if he would confess, but he declared that "he knew the revelations which he had spoken were from God." So he was thereupon "cut off."

The other source of Mormon belief--the teachings of their leading men--has been no more consistent nor infallible than Smith's "revelations." Mormon preachers have been generally uneducated men, most of them ambitious of power, and ready to use the pulpit to strengthen their own positions. Many an individual elder, firm in his faith, has travelled and toiled as faithfully as any Christian missionary; but these men, while they have added to the church membership, have not made its beliefs.

Smith probably originated very little of the church polity, except the doctrine of polygamy, and what is published over his name is generally the production of some of his counsellors. Section 130 of the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," headed "Important Items of Instruction, given by Joseph the Prophet, April 2, 1843," contains the following:--

"When the Saviour shall appear, we shall see him as he is. We shall see that he is a man like ourselves....

"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us."

An article in the Millennial Star, Vol. VI, for which the prophet vouched, contains the following:--

"The weakest child of God which now exists upon the earth will possess more dominion, more property, more subjects, and more power in glory than is possessed by Jesus Christ or by his Father; while, at the same time, Jesus Christ and his Father will have their dominion, kingdom and subjects increased in proportion."

One more illustration of Smith's doctrinal views will suffice. In a funeral sermon preached in Nauvoo, March 20, 1842, he said: "As concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all men will come from the grave as they lie down, whether old or young; there will not be 'added unto their stature one cubit,' neither taken from it. All will be raised by the power of God, having spirit in their bodies but not blood."*

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIX, p. 213.

In "The Latter-Day Saints' Catechism or Child's Ladder," by Elder David Moffat, Genesis v. 1, and Exodus xxxiii. 22, 23, and xxiv. 10 are cited to prove that God has the form and parts of a man.

The greatest vagaries of doctrinal teachings are found during Brigham Young's reign in Utah. In the way of a curiosity the following diagram and its explanation, by Orson Hyde, may be reproduced from the Millennial Star, Vol. IX, p. 23:--

"The above diagram (not included in this etext) shows the order and unity of the Kingdom of God. The eternal Father sits at the head, crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Wherever the other lines meet there sits a king and priest under God, bearing rule, authority and dominion under the Father. He is one with the Father because his Kingdom is joined to his Father's and becomes part of it.... It will be seen by the above diagram that there are kingdoms of all sizes, an infinite variety to suit all grades of merit and ability. The chosen vessels of God are the kings and priests that are placed at the heads of their kingdoms. They have received their washings and anointings in the Temple of God on earth."

Young's ambition was not to be satisfied until his name was connected with some doctrine peculiarly his own. Accordingly, in a long sermon preached in the Tabernacle on April 9, 1852, he made this announcement (the italics and capitals follow the official report):--

"Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner. When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a CELESTIAL BODY, and brought Eve, ONE OF HIS WIVES, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the ARCHANGEL, the ANCIENT OF DAYS, about whom holy men have written and spoken.* HE is our FATHER and our GOD, AND THE ONLY GOD WITH WHOM 'WE' HAVE TO DO... Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it and WILL KNOW IT SOONER OR LATER.... I could tell you much more about this; but were I to tell you the whole truth, blasphemy would be nothing to it, in the estimation of the superstitious and over righteous of mankind.... Jesus, our Elder Brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and who is our Father in heaven."**

* Young, in a public discourse on October 23, 1853, declared that he rejected the story of Adam's creation as "baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child." But the Mormon Bible (2 Nephi ii. 18-22) tells the story of Adam's fall.

** Journal of Discourses, VOL I, pp. 50, 51.

This doctrine was made a leading point of difference between the Utah church and the Reorganized Church, when the latter was organized, but it is no longer defended even in Utah. The Deseret Evening News of March 21, 1900, said on this point, "That which President Young set forth in the discourse referred to is not preached either to the Latter-Day Saints or to the world as a part of the creed of the church."

Young never hesitated to rebuke an associate whose preaching did not suit him. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, on March 8, 1857, he rebuked Orson Pratt, one of the ablest of the church writers, declaring that Pratt did not "know enough to keep his foot out of it, but drowns himself in his philosophy." He ridiculed his doctrine that "the devils in hell are composed of and filled with the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, and possess all the knowledge, wisdom, and power of the gods," and said, "When I read some of the writings of such philosophers they make me think, 'O dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got.'"*

* Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 297.

The Mormon church still holds that an existing head of that organization can always interpret the divine will regarding any question. This was never more strikingly illustrated than when Woodruff, by a mere dictum, did away with the obligatory character of polygamy.

When the Mormons were under a cloud in Illinois, in 1842, John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, applied to Smith for a statement of their belief, and received in reply a list of 13 "Articles of Faith" over Smith's signature. This statement was intended to win for them sympathy as martyrs to a simple religious belief, and it has been cited in Congress as proof of their soul purity. But as illustrating the polity of the church it is quite valueless.

The doctrine of polygamy and the ceremonies of the Endowment House will be considered in their proper place. One distinctive doctrine of the church must be explained before this subject is dismissed, namely, that which calls for "baptism for the dead." This doctrine is founded on an interpretation of Corinthians xv. 29: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?"

An explanation of this doctrine in the Times and Seasons of May 1, 1841, says:--"This text teaches us the important and cheering truth that the departed spirit is in a probationary state, and capable of being affected by the proclamation of the Gospel.... Christ offers pardon, peace, holiness, and eternal life to the quick and the dead, the living, on condition of faith and baptism for remission of sins; the departed, on the same condition of faith in person and baptism by a living kinsman in his behalf. It may be asked, will this baptism by proxy necessarily save the dead? We answer, no; neither will the same necessarily save the living."

This doctrine was first taught to the church in Ohio. In later years, in Nauvoo, Smith seemed willing to accept its paternity, and in an article in the Times and Seasons of April 15, x 842, signed "Ed.," when he was its editor, he said that he was the first to point it out. The article shows, however, that it was doubtless written by Rigdon, as it indicates a knowledge of the practice of such baptism by the Marcionites in the second century, and of Chrysostom's explanation of it. A note on Corinthians xv. 29, in "The New Testament Commentary for English Readers," edited by Lord Bishop Ellicott of Gloucester and Bristol (London, 1878), gives the following historical sketch of the practice:--

"There have been numerous and ingenious conjectures as to the meaning of this passage. The only tenable interpretation is that there existed amongst some of the Christians at Corinth a practice of baptizing a living person in the stead of some convert who had died before that sacrament had been administered to him. Such a practice existed amongst the Marcionites in the second century, and still earlier amongst a sect called the Cerinthians. The idea evidently was that, whatever benefit flowed from baptism, might be thus vicariously secured for the deceased Christian. St. Chrysostom gives the following description of it:--

"After a catechumen (one prepared for baptism but not actually baptized) was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then, coming to the bed of the dead man, they spoke to him, and asked whether he would receive baptism; and, he making no answer, the other replied in his stead, and so they baptized the living for the dead: Does St. Paul then, by what he here says, sanction the superstitious practice? Certainly not. He carefully separated himself and the Corinthians, to whom he immediately addresses himself, from those who adopted this custom .... Those who do that, and disbelieve a resurrection, refute themselves. This custom possibly sprang up among the Jewish converts, who had been accustomed to something similar in their faith. If a Jew died without having been purified from some ceremonial uncleanness, some living person had the necessary ablution performed on him, and the dead were so accounted clean."

Other commentators have found means to explain this text without giving it reference to a baptism for dead persons, as, for instance, that it means, "with an interest in the resurrection of the dead."* Another explanation is that by "the dead" is meant the dead Christ, as referred to in Romans vi. 3, "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"

* "Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church."

This doctrine was a very taking one with the uneducated Mormon converts who crowded into Nauvoo, and the church officers saw in it a means to hasten the work on the Temple. At first families would meet on the bank of the Mississippi River, and some one, of the order of the Melchisedec Priesthood, would baptize them wholesale for all their dead relatives whose names they could remember, each sex for relatives of the same. But as soon as the font in the Temple was ready for use, these baptisms were restricted to that edifice, and it was required that all the baptized should have paid their tithings. At a conference at Nauvoo in October, 1841, Smith said that those who neglected the baptism of their dead "did it at the peril of their own salvation."*

* Times and Seasons, Vol. II, p. 578.

The form of church government, as worked out in the early days, is set forth in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants." The first officers provided for were the twelve apostles,* and the next the elders, priests, teachers, and deacons, Edward Partridge being announced as the first bishop in 1831. The church was loosely governed for the first years after its establishment at Kirtland. A guiding power was provided for in a revelation of March 8, 1833 (Sec. 90), when Smith was told by the Lord that Rigdon and F. G. Williams were accounted as equal with him "in holding the keys of this last kingdom." These three first held the famous office of the First Presidency, representing the Trinity.

* (Sec. 18, June, 1829.)

On February 17, 1834 (Sec. 102), a General High Council of twenty-four High Priests assembled at Smith's house in Kirtland and organized the High Council of the church, consisting of Twelve High Priests, with one or three Presidents, as the case might require. The office of High Priest, and the organization of a High Council were apparently an afterthought, and were added to the "revelation" after its publication in the "Book of Commandments." Other forms of organization that were from time to time decided on were announced in a revelation dated March 28, 1835 (Sec. 107), which defined the two priesthoods, Melchisedec and Aaronic, and their powers. There were to be three Presiding High Priests to form a Quorum of the Presidency of the church; a Seventy, called to preach the Gospel, who would form a Quorum equal in authority to the Quorum of the Twelve, and be presided over by seven of their number. Smith soon organized two of these Quorums of Seventies. At the time of the dedications of the Temple at Nauvoo, in 1844, there were fifteen of them, and to-day they number more than 120.

Each separate church organization, as formed, was called a Stake, and each Stake had over it a Presidency, High Priests, and Council of Twelve. We find the meaning of the word "Stake" in some of Smith's earlier "revelations." Thus, in the one dated June 4, 1833, regarding the organization of the church at Kirtland, it was said, "It is expedient in me that this Stake that I have set for the strength of Zion be made strong." Again, in one dated December 16, 1839, on the gathering of the Saints, it is stated, "I have other places which I will appoint unto them, and they shall be called Stakes for the curtains, or the strength of Zion." In Utah, to-day, the Stakes form groups of settlements, and are generally organized on county lines.

The prophet made a substantial provision for his father, founding for him the office of Patriarch, in accordance with an unpublished "revelation." The principal business of the Patriarch was to dispense "blessings," which were regarded by the faithful as a sort of charm, to ward off misfortune. Joseph, Sr., awarded these blessings without charge when he began dispensing them at Kirtland, but a High Council held there in 1835 allowed him $10 a week while blessing the church. After his formal anointing in 1836 he was known as Father Smith, and the next year his salary was made $1.50 a day.* Hyrum became Patriarch when his father died in 1840, his brother William succeeded him, his Uncle John came next, and his Uncle Joseph after John. Patriarchal blessings were advertised in the Mormon newspaper in Nauvoo like other merchandise. They could be obtained in writing, and contained promises of almost anything that a man could wish, such as freedom from poverty and disease, life prolonged until the coming of Christ, etc.** In 1875 the price of a blessing in Utah had risen to $2. The office of Patriarch is still continued, with one chief Patriarch, known as Patriarch of the Church, and subordinate Patriarchs in the different Stakes. The position of Patriarch of the church has always been regarded as a hereditary one, and bestowed on some member of the Smith family, as it is to-day.

* The departure of the Patriarch from Ohio was somewhat dramatic. As his wife tells the story in her book, the old man was taken by a constable before a justice of the peace on a charge of performing the marriage service without any authority, and was fined $3000, and sentenced to the penitentiary in default of payment. Through the connivance of the constable, who had been a Mormon, the prisoner was allowed to leap out of a window, and he remained in hiding at New Portage until his family were ready to start for Missouri. The revelation of January 19, 1841, announced that he was then sitting "with Abraham at his right hand."

* Ferris's "Utah and the Mormons," p. 314, and "Wife No. 19," p. 581.

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I. THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND

The four missionaries who had been sent to Ohio under Cowdery's leadership arrived there in October, 1830. Rigdon left Kirtland on his visit to Smith in New York State in the December following, and in January, 1831, he returned to Ohio, taking Smith with him.

The party who set out for Ohio, ostensibly to preach to the Lamanites, consisted of Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson, the latter one of Smith's original converts, who, it may be noted, was deprived of his land and made to work for others a year later in Missouri, because of offences against the church authorities. These men preached as they journeyed, making a brief stop at Buffalo to instruct the Indians there. On reaching Ohio, Pratt's acquaintance with Rigdon's Disciples gave him an opportunity to bring the new Bible to the attention of many people. The character of the Smiths was quite unknown to the pioneer settlers, and the story of the miraculously delivered Bible filled many of them with wonder rather than with unbelief.

The missionaries began the work of organizing a church at once. Some members of Rigdon's congregation had already formed a "common stock society," and were believers in a speedy millennium, and to these the word brought by the new-comers was especially welcome. Cowdery baptized seventeen persons into the new church. Rigdon at the start denied his right to do this, and, in a debate between him and the missionaries which followed at Rigdon's house, Rigdon quoted Scripture to prove that, even if they had seen an angel, as they declared, it might have been Satan transformed. Cowdery asked if he thought that, in response to a prayer that God would show him an angel, the Heavenly Father would suffer Satan to deceive him. Rigdon replied that if Cowdery made such a request of the Heavenly Father "when He has never promised you such a thing, if the devil never had an opportunity of deceiving you before, you give him one now."* But after a brief study of the new book, Rigdon announced that he, too, had had a "revelation," declaring to him that Mormonism was to be believed. He saw in a vision all the orders of professing Christians pass before him, and all were "as corrupt as corruption itself," while the heart of the man who brought him the book was "as pure as an angel."

* "It seemed to be a part of Rigdon's plan to make such a fight that, when he did surrender, the triumph of the cause that had defeated him would be all the more complete."--Kennedy, "Early Days of Mormonism."

The announcement of Rigdon's conversation gave Mormonism an advertisement and a support that had a wide effect, and it alarmed the orthodox of that part of the country as they had never been alarmed before. Referring to it, Hayden says, "The force of this shock was like an earthquake when Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth, and many others submitted to the 'New Dispensation.'" Largely through his influence, the Mormon church at Kirtland soon numbered more than one hundred members.

During all that autumn and early winter crowds went to Kirtland to learn about the new religion. On Sundays the roads would be thronged with people, some in whatever vehicles they owned, some on horseback, and some on foot, all pressing forward to hear the expounders of the new Gospel and to learn the particulars of the new Bible. Pioneers in a country where there was little to give variety to their lives, they were easily influenced by any religious excitement, and the announcement of a new Bible and prophet was certain to arouse their liveliest interest. They had, indeed, inherited a tendency to religious enthusiasm, so recently had their parents gone through the excitements of the early days of Methodism, or of the great revivals of the new West at the beginning of the century, when (to quote one of the descriptions given by Henry Howe) more than twenty thousand persons assembled in one vast encampment, "hundreds of immortal beings moving to and fro, some preaching, some praying for mercy, others praising God. Such was the eagerness of the people to attend, that entire neighborhoods were forsaken, and the roads literally crowded by those pressing forward on their way to the groves."* Any new religious leader could then make his influence felt on the Western border: Dylkes, the "Leatherwood God," had found it necessary only to announce himself as the real Messiah at an Ohio campmeeting, in 1828, to build up a sect on that assumption. Freewill Baptists, Winebrennerians, Disciples, Shakers, and Universalists were urging their doctrines and confusing the minds of even the thoughtful with their conflicting views. We have seen to what beliefs the preaching of the Disciples' evangelists had led the people of the Western Reserve, and it did not really require a much broader exercise of faith (or credulity) to accept the appearance of a new prophet with a new Bible.

* "Historical Collections of the Great West."

While the main body of converts was made up of persons easily susceptible to religious excitement, and accustomed to have their opinions on such subjects formed for them, men of education and more or less training in theology were found among the early adherents to the new belief. It is interesting to see how the minds of such men were influenced, and this we are enabled to do from personal experiences related by some of them.

One of these, John Corrill, a man of intelligence, who stayed with the church until it was driven out of Missouri, then became a member of the Missouri Legislature, and wrote a brief history of the church to the year 1839, in this pamphlet answered very clearly the question often asked by his friends, "How did you come to join the Mormons?" A copy of the new Bible was given to him by Cowdery when the missionaries, on their Western trip, passed through Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he lived. A brief reading convinced him that it was a mere money-making scheme, and when he learned that they had stopped at Kirtland, he did not entertain a doubt, that, under Rigdon's criticism, the pretensions of the missionaries would be at once laid bare. When, on the contrary, word came that Rigdon and the majority of his society had accepted the new faith, Corrill asked himself: "What does this mean? Are Elder Rigdon and these men such fools as to be duped by these impostors?" After talking the matter over with a neighbor, he decided to visit Kirtland, hoping to bring Rigdon home with him, with the idea that he might be saved from the imposition if he could be taken from the influence of the impostors. But before he reached Kirtland, Corrill heard of Rigdon's baptism into the new church. Finding Kirtland in a state of great religious excitement, he sought discussions with the leaders of the new movement, but not always successfully.

Corrill started home with a "heart full of serious reflections." Were not the people of Berea nobler than the people of Thessalonica because "they searched the Scriptures daily; whether these things were so?" Might he not be fighting against God in his disbelief? He spent two or three weeks reading the Mormon Bible; investigated the bad reports of the new sect that reached him and found them without foundation; went back to Kirtland, and there convinced himself that the laying on of hands and "speaking with tongues" were inspired by some supernatural agency; admitted to himself that, accepting the words of Peter (Acts ii. 17-20), it was "just as consistent to look for prophets in this age as in any other." Smith seemed to have been a bad man, but was not Moses a fugitive from justice, as the murderer of a man whose body he had hidden in the sand, when God called him as a prophet? The story of the long hiding and final delivery of the golden plates to Smith taxed his credulity; but on rereading the Scriptures he found that books are referred to therein which they do not contain--Book of Nathan the Prophet, Book of Gad the Seer, Book of Shemaiah the Prophet, and Book of Iddo the Seer (1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29 and xii. 15). This convinced him that the Scriptures were not complete. Daniel and John were commanded to seal the Book. David declared (Psalms xxxv.) "that truth shall spring out of the earth," and from the earth Smith took the plates; and Ezekiel (xxxvii. 15-21) foretold the existence of two records, by means of which there shall be a gathering together of the children of Israel. It finally seemed to Corrill that the Mormon Bible corresponded with the record of Joseph referred to by Ezekiel, the Holy Bible being the record of Judah.

Not fully satisfied, he finally decided, however, to join the new church, with a mental reservation that he would leave it if he ever found it to be a deception. Explaining his reasons for leaving it when he did, he says, "I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, and plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event till too late."

The two other most prominent converts to the new church in Ohio were the Rev. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of more than ordinary culture, of Mantua, and Symonds Ryder, a native of Vermont, whom Alexander Campbell had converted to the Disciples' belief in 1828, and who occupied the pulpit at Hiram when called on. Booth visited Smith in 1831, with some members of his own congregation, and was so impressed by the miraculous curing of the lame arm of a woman of his party by Smith, that he soon gave in his allegiance. Ryder had always found one thing lacking in the Disciples' theology--he looked for some actual "gift of the Holy Spirit" in the way of "signs" that were to follow them that believed. He was eventually induced to announce his conversion to the new church after "he read in a newspaper, an account of the destruction of Pekin in China, and remembered that, six weeks before, a young Mormon girl had predicted the destruction of that city." This statement was made in the sermon preached at his funeral. Both of these men confessed their mistake four months later, after Booth had returned from a trip to Missouri with Smith.

Among the ignorant, even the most extravagant of the claims of the Mormon leaders had influence. One man, when he heard an elder in the midst of a sermon "speak with tongues," in a language he had never heard before, "felt a sudden thrill from the back of his head down his backbone," and was converted on the spot. John D. Lee, of Catholic education, was convinced by an elder that the end of the world was near, and sold his property in Illinois for what it would bring, and moved to Far West, in order to be in the right place when the last day dawned. Lorenzo Snow, the recent President of the church, says that he was "thoroughly convinced that obedience to those [the Mormon] prophets would impart miraculous powers, manifestations, and revelations," the first manifestation of which occurred some weeks later, when he heard a sound over his head "like the rustling of silken robes, and the spirit of God descended upon me."*

* Biography of Snow, by his sister Eliza.

The arguments that control men's religious opinions are too varied even for classification. In a case like Mormonism they range from the really conscientious study of a Corrill to the whim of the Paumotuan, of whom Stevenson heard in the South Seas, who turned Mormon when his wife died, after being a pillar of the Catholic church for fifteen years, on the ground that "that must be a poor religion that could not save a man his wife." Any person who will examine those early defences of the Mormon faith, Parley P. Pratt's "A Voice of Warning," and Orson Pratt's "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," will find what use can be made of an insistence on the literal acceptance of the Scriptures in defending such a sect as theirs, especially with persons whose knowledge of the Scriptures is much less than their reverence for them.

Professor J. B. Turner,* writing in 1842, when the early teachings of Mormonism had just had their effect in what is now styled the middle West, observed that these teachings had made more infidels than Mormon converts. This is accounted for by the fact that persons who attempted to follow the Mormon argument by studying the Scriptures, found their previous interpretation of parts of the Holy Bible overturned, and the whole book placed under a cloud. W. J. Stillman mentions a similar effect in the case of Ruskin. When they were in Switzerland, Ruskin would do no painting on Sunday, while Stillman regarded the sanctity of the first day of the week as a "theological fiction." In a discussion of the subject between them, Stillman established to Ruskin's satisfaction that there was no Scriptural authority for transferring the day of rest from the seventh to the first day of the week. "The creed had so bound him to the letter," says Stillman, "that the least enlargement of the stricture broke it, and he rejected, not only the tradition of the Sunday Sabbath, but the whole of the ecclesiastical interpretation of the texts. He said, 'If they have deceived me in this, they have probably deceived me in all.'" The Mormons soon learned that it was more profitable for them to seek converts among those who would accept without reasoning.

* "Mormonism in all Ages."

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II. WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS

The scenes at Kirtland during the first winter of the church there reached the limit of religious enthusiasm. The younger members outdid the elder in manifesting their belief. They saw wonderful lights in the air, and constantly received visions. Mounting stumps in the field, they preached to imaginary congregations, and, picking up stones, they would read on them words which they said disappeared as soon as known. At the evening prayer-meetings the laying on of hands would be followed by a sort of fit, in which the enthusiasts would fall apparently lifeless on the floor, or contort their faces, creep on their hands or knees, imitate the Indian process of killing and scalping, and chase balls of fire through the fields.*

*Corrill's "Brief History of the Church," p. 16; Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 104.

Some of the young men announced that they had received "commissions" to teach and preach, written on parchment, which came to them from the sky, and which they reached by jumping into the air. Howe reproduces one of these, the conclusion of which, with the seal, follows:--

"That you had a messenger tell you to go and get the other night, you must not show to any son of Adam. Obey this, and I will stand by you in all cases. My servants, obey my commandments in all cases, and I will provide.

"Be ye always ready, Be ye always ready, Whenever I shall call, Be ye always ready, My seal.

"There shall be something of great importance revealed when I shall call you to go: My servants, be faithful over a few things, and I will make you a ruler over many. Amen, Amen, Amen."

Foolishly extravagant as these manifestations appear (Corrill says that comparatively few members indulged in them), there was nothing in them peculiar to the Mormon belief. The meetings of the Disciples, in the year of Smith's arrival in Ohio and later, when men like Campbell and Scott spoke, were swayed with the most intense religious enthusiasm. A description of the effect of Campbell's preaching at a grove meeting in the Cuyahoga Valley in 1831 says:--

"The woods were full of horses and carriages, and the hundreds already there were rapidly swelled to many thousands; all were of one race--the Yankee; all of one calling, or nearly, the farmer.... When Campbell closed, low murmurs broke and ran through the awed crowd; men and women from all parts of the vast assembly with streaming eyes came forward; young men who had climbed into small trees from curiosity, came down from conviction, and went forward for baptism."*

* Riddle's "The Portrait."

It is easy to cite very "orthodox" precedents for such manifestations. One of these we find in the accounts of what were called "the jerks," which accompanied a great revival in 1803, brought about by the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Badger, a Yale graduate and a Congregationalist, who was the first missionary to the Western Reserve. J. S. C. Abbott, in his history of Ohio, describing the "jerks," says:--

"The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward, and from side to side, with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity.... All were impressed with a conviction that there was something supernatural in these convulsions, and that it was opposing the spirit of God to resist them."

The most extravagant enthusiasm of the Kirtland converts, and the most extravagant claims of the Mormon leaders at that time, were exceeded by the manifestations of converts in the early days of Methodism, and the miraculous occurrences testified to by Wesley himself,*--a cloud tempering the sun in answer to his prayer; his horse cured of lameness by faith; the case of a blind Catholic girl who saw plainly when her eyes rested on the New Testament, but became blind again when she took up the Mass Book.

* For examples see Lecky's "England in the Nineteenth Century," Vol. III, Chap. VIII, and Wesley's "Journal."

These Mormon enthusiasts were only suffering from a manifestation to which man is subject; and we can agree with a Mormon elder who, although he left the church disgusted with its extravagances, afterward remarked, "The man of religious feeling will know how to pity rather than upbraid that zeal without knowledge which leads a man to fancy that he has found the ladder of Jacob, and that he sees the angel of the Lord ascending and descending before his eyes."

When Smith and Rigdon reached Kirtland they found the new church in a state of chaos because of these wild excitements, and of an attempt to establish a community of possessions, growing out of Rigdon's previous teachings. These communists held that what belonged to one belonged to all, and that they could even use any one's clothes or other personal property without asking permission. Many of the flock resented this, and anything but a condition of brotherly love resulted. Smith, in his account of the situation as they found it, says that the members were striving to do the will of God, "though some had strange notions, and false spirits had crept in among them. With a little caution and some wisdom, I soon assisted the brothers and sisters to overcome them. The plan of 'common stock,' which had existed in what was called 'the family,' whose members generally had embraced the Everlasting Gospel, was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord,"*--which the prophet at once expounded.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 56.

Smith announced that the Lord had informed him that the ravings of the converts were of the devil, and this had a deterring effect; but at an important meeting of elders to receive an endowment, some three months later, conducted by Smith himself, the spirits got hold of some of the elders. "It threw one from his seat to the floor," says Corrill. "It bound another so that for some time he could not use his limbs or speak; and some other curious effects were experienced. But by a mighty exertion, in the name of the Lord, it was exposed and shown to be of an evil source."

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III. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH

In order not to interrupt the story of the Mormons' experiences in Ohio, leaving the first steps taken in Missouri to be treated in connection with the regular course of events in that state, it will be sufficient to say here that Cowdery, Pratt, and their two companions continued their journey as far as the western border of Missouri, in the winter of 1830 and 1831, making their headquarters at Independence, Jackson County; that, on receipt of their reports about that country, Smith and Rigdon, with others, made a trip there in June, 1831, during which the corner-stones of the City of Zion and the Temple were laid, and officers were appointed to receive money for the purchase of the land for the Saints, its division; etc. Smith and Rigdon returned to Kirtland on August 27, 1831.

The growth of the church in Ohio was rapid. In two or three weeks after the arrival of the four pioneer missionaries, 127 persons had been baptized, and by the spring of 1831 the number of converts had increased to 1000. Almost all the male converts were honored with the title of elder. By a "revelation" dated February 9, 1831 (Sec. 42), all of these elders, except Smith and Rigdon, were directed to "go forth in the power of my spirit, preaching my Gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the voice of a trump." This was the beginning of that extensive system of proselyting which was soon extended to Europe, which was so instrumental in augmenting the membership of the church in its earlier days, and which is still carried on with the utmost zeal and persistence. The early missionaries travelled north into Canada and through almost all the states, causing alarm even in New England by the success of their work. One man there, in 1832, reprinted at his own expense Alexander Campbell's pamphlet exposing the ridiculous features of the Mormon Bible, for distribution as an offset to the arguments of the elders. Women of means were among those who moved to Kirtland from Massachusetts. In three years after Smith and Rigdon met in Palmyra, Mormon congregations had been established in nearly all the Northern and Middle states and in some of the Southern, with baptisms of from 30 to 130 in a place.*

Smith had relaxed none of his determination to be the one head of the church. As soon as he arrived in Kirtland he put forth a long "revelation" (Sec. 43) which left Rigdon no doubt of the prophet's intentions. It declared to the elders that "there is none other but Smith appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken," and that "none else shall be appointed unto his gift except it be through him." Not only was Smith's spiritual power thus intrenched, but his temporal welfare was looked after. "And again I say unto you," continues this mouthpiece of the Lord, "if ye desire the mysteries of the Kingdom, provide for him food and raiment and whatsoever he needeth to accomplish the work wherewith I have commanded him." In the same month came another declaration, saying (Sec. 41) "is meet that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., should have a house built, in which to live and translate" (the Scriptures). With a streak of generosity it was added, "It is meet that my servant Sidney Rigdon should live as seemeth him good."

*Turner's "Mormonism in all Ages," p. 38.

The iron hand with which Smith repressed Rigdon from the date of their arrival in Ohio affords strong proof of Rigdon's complicity in the Bible plot, and of Smith's realization of the fact that he stood to his accomplice in the relation of a burglar to his mate, where the burglar has both the boodle and the secret in his possession. An illustration of this occurred during their first trip to Missouri. Rigdon and Smith did not agree about the desirability of western Missouri as a permanent abiding-place for the church. The Rev. Ezra Booth, after leaving the Mormons, contributed a series of letters on his experience with Smith to the Ohio Star of Ravenna.* In the first of these he said: "On our arrival in the western part of the state of Missouri we discovered that prophecy and visions had failed, or rather had proved false. This fact was so notorious that Mr. Rigdon himself says that 'Joseph's vision was a bad thing.'" Smith nevertheless directed Rigdon to write a description of that promised land, and, when the production did not suit him, he represented the Lord as censuring Rigdon in a "revelation" (Sec. 63):--

* Copied in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled."

"And now behold, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, am not pleased with my servant Sidney Rigdon; he exalteth himself in his heart, and receiveth not counsel, but grieveth the spirit. Wherefore his writing is not acceptable unto the Lord; and he shall make another, and if the Lord receiveth it not, behold he standeth no longer in the office which I have appointed him."

That the proud-minded, educated preacher, who refused to allow Campbell to claim the foundership of the Disciples' church, should take such a rebuke and threat of dismissal in silence from Joe Smith of Palmyra, and continue under his leadership, certainly indicates some wonderful hold that the prophet had upon him.

While the travelling elders were doing successful work in adding new converts to the fold, there was beginning to manifest itself at Kirtland that "apostasy" which lost the church so many members of influence, and was continued in Missouri so far that Mayor Grant said, in Salt Lake City, in 1856, that "one-half at least of the Yankee members of this church have apostatized."* The secession of men like Booth and Ryder, and their public exposure of Smith's methods, coupled with rumors of immoral practices in the fold, were followed by the tarring and feathering of Smith and Rigdon on the night of Saturday, March 25, 1832. The story of this outrage is told in Smith's autobiography, and the details there given may be in the main accepted.

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 201.

Smith and his wife were living at the house of a farmer named Johnson in Hiram township, while he and Rigdon were translating the Scriptures. Mrs. Smith had taken two infant twins to bring up, and on the night in question she and her husband were taking turns sitting up with these babies, who were just recovering from the measles. While Smith was sleeping, his wife heard a tapping on the window, but gave it no attention. The mob, believing that all within were asleep, then burst in the door, seized Smith as he lay partly dressed on a trundle bed, and rushed him out of doors, his wife crying "murder." Smith struggled as best he could, but they carried him around the house, choking him until he became unconscious. Some thirty yards from the house he saw Rigdon, "stretched out on the ground, whither they had dragged him by the heels." When they had carried Smith some thirty yards farther, some of the mob meantime asking, "Ain't ye going to kill him?" a council was held and some one asked, "Simmons, where's the tarbucket?" When the bucket was brought up they tried to force the "tarpaddle" into Smith's mouth, and also, he says, to force a phial between his teeth. He adds:

"All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar, and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat. They then left me, and I attempted to rise, but fell again. I pulled the tar away from my lips, etc., so that I could breathe more freely, and after a while I began to recover, and raised myself up, when I saw two lights. I made my way toward one of them, and found it was father Johnson's. When I had come to the door I was naked, and the tar made me look as though I had been covered with blood; and when my wife saw me she thought I was all smashed to pieces, and fainted. During the affray abroad, the sisters of the neighborhood collected at my room. I called for a blanket; they threw me one and shut the door; I wrapped it around me and went in.... My friends spent the night in scraping and removing the tar and washing and cleansing my body, so that by morning I was ready to be clothed again.... With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached [that morning] to the congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals."

Rigdon's treatment is described as still more severe. He was not only dragged over the ground by the heels, but was well covered with tar and feathers; and when Smith called on him the next day he found him delirious, and calling for a razor with which to kill his wife.

All Mormon accounts of this, as well as later persecutions, attempt to make the ground of attack hostility to the Mormon religious beliefs, presenting them entirely in the light of outrages on liberty of opinion. Symonds Ryder (whom Smith accuses of being one of the mob), says that the attack had this origin: The people of Hiram had the reputation of being very receptive and liberal in their religious views. The Mormons therefore preached to them, and seemed in a fair way to win a decided success, when the leaders made their first trip to Missouri. Papers which they left behind outlining the internal system of the new church fell into the hands of some of the converts, and revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith, the Prophet.... Some who had been the dupes of this deception determined not to let it pass with impunity; and, accordingly, a company was formed of citizens from Shalersville, Garretsville, and Hiram, and took Smith and Rigdon from their beds and tarred and feathered them.*

* Hayden's "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve," p. 221.

This manifestation of hostility to the leaders of the new church was only a more pronounced form of that which showed itself against Smith before he left New York State. When a man of his character and previous history assumes the right to baptize and administer the sacrament, he is certain to arouse the animosity, not only of orthodox church members, but of members of the community who are lax in their church duties. Goldsmith illustrates this kind of feeling when, in "She Stoops to Conquer," he makes one of the "several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco" in the alehouse say, "I loves to hear him, the squire sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low," and another responds, "O, damn anything that's low." The Anti-Mormon feeling was intensified and broadened by the aggressiveness with which the Mormons sought for converts in the orthodox flocks.

Beliefs radically different from those accepted by any of the orthodox denominations have escaped hostile opposition in this country, even when they have outraged generally accepted social customs. The Harmonists, in a body of 600, emigrated to Pennsylvania to escape the persecution to which they were subjected in Germany, purchased 5000 acres of land and organized a town; moved later to Indiana, where they purchased 25,000 acres; and ten years afterward returned to Pennsylvania, and bought 5000 acres in another place,--all the time holding to their belief in a community of goods and a speedy coming of Christ, as well as the duty of practicing celibacy,--without exciting their neighbors or arousing their enmity. The Wallingford Community in Connecticut, and the Oneida Community in New York State, practised free love among themselves without persecution, until their organizations died from natural causes. The leaders in these and other independent sects were clean men within their own rules, honest in their dealings with their neighbors, never seeking political power, and never pressing their opinions upon outsiders. An old resident of Wallingford writes to me, "The Community were, in a way, very generally respected for their high standard of integrity in all their business transactions."

As we follow the career of the Mormons from Ohio to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, we shall read their own testimony about the character of their leading men, and about their view of the rights of others in each of their neighborhoods. When Horace Greeley asked Brigham Young in Salt Lake City for an explanation of the "persecutions" of the Mormons, his reply was that there was "no other explanation than is afforded by the crucifixion of Christ and the kindred treatment of God's ministers, prophets, and saints in all ages"; which led Greeley to observe that, while a new sect is always decried and traduced,--naming the Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, and Universalists,--he could not remember "that either of them was ever generally represented and regarded by the other sects of their early days as thieves, robbers, and murderers."*

* "Overland Journey," p. 214.

Another attempt by Rigdon to assert his independence of Smith occurred while the latter was still at Mr. Johnson's house and Rigdon was in Kirtland. The fullest account of this is found in Mother Smith's "History," pp. 204-206. She says that Rigdon came in late to a prayer-meeting, much agitated, and, instead of taking the platform, paced backward and forward on the floor. Joseph's father told him they would like to hear a discourse from him, but he replied, "The keys of the Kingdom are rent from the church, and there shall not be a prayer put up in this house this day." This caused considerable excitement, and Smith's brother Hyrum left the house, saying, "I'll put a stop to this fuss pretty quick," and, mounting a horse, set out for Johnson's and brought the prophet back with him. On his arrival, a meeting of the brethren was held, and Joseph declared to them, "I myself hold the keys of this Last Dispensation, and will forever hold them, both in time and eternity, so set your hearts at rest upon that point. All is right." The next day Rigdon was tried before a council for having "lied in the name of the Lord," and was "delivered over to the buffetings of Satan," and deprived of his license, Smith telling him that "the less priesthood he had, the better it would be for him." Rigdon, Mrs. Smith says, according to his own account, "was dragged out of bed by the devil three times in one night by the heels," and, while she does not accept this literally, she declares that "his contrition was as great as a man could well live through." After awhile he got another license.

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IV. GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES

In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of tongues," and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet.* Under the new system, Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, would call on some brother, or sister, saying, "Father A., if you will rise in the name of Jesus Christ you can speak in tongues." The rule which persons thus called on were to follow was thus explained, "Arise upon your feet, speak or make some sound, continue to make sounds of some kind, and the Lord will make a language of it." It was not necessary that the words should be understood by the congregation; some other Mormon would undertake their interpretation. Much ridicule was incurred by the church because of this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman "speaking in tongues" pronounced "meliar, meli, melee," it was at once translated by a young wag, "my leg, my thigh, my knee," and, when he was called before the Council charged with irreverence, he persisted in his translation, but got off with an admonition.** At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years a doubting convert delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a woman jumped up and offered as a translation an account of the glories of the new Temple.

* This ceremony has fallen into disuse in Utah.

** "The Mormons." p. 74.

At the conference of June 4, 1831, Smith ordained Elder Wright to the high priesthood for service among the Indians, with the gift of tongues, healing the sick, etc. Wright at once declared that he saw the Saviour. At one of the sessions at Kirtland at this time, as described by an eye-witness, Smith announced that the day would come when no man would be permitted to preach unless he had seen the Lord face to face. Then, addressing Rigdon, he asked, "Sidney, have you seen the Lord?" The obedient Sidney made reply, "I saw the image of a man pass before my face, whose locks were white, and whose countenance was exceedingly fair, even surpassing all beauty that I ever beheld." Smith at once rebuked him by telling him that he would have seen more but for his unbelief.

Almost simultaneously with Smith's first announcement of his prophetic powers, while working his "peek-stone" in Pennsylvania and New York, he, as we have seen, claimed ability to perform miracles, and he announced that he had cast out a devil at Colesville in 1830.* The performance of miracles became an essential part of the church work at Kirtland, and had a great effect on the superstitious converts. The elders, who in the early days labored in England, laid great stress on their miraculous power, and there were some amusing exposures of their pretences. The Millennial Star printed a long list of successful miracles dating from 1839 to 1850, including the deaf made to hear, the blind to see, dislocated bones put in place, leprosy and cholera cured, and fevers rebuked. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery took a leading part in this work at Kirtland.** To a man nearly dead with consumption Rigdon gave assurance that he would recover "as sure as there is a God in heaven." The man's death soon followed. When a child, whose parents had been persuaded to trust its case to Mormon prayers instead of calling a physician,*** died, Smith and Rigdon promised that it would rise from the dead, and they went through certain ceremonies to accomplish that object.****

* For particulars of this miracle, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 28, 32.

** While Smith was in Washington in 1840, pressing on the federal authorities the claims of the Mormons for redress for their losses in Missouri, he preached on the church doctrines. A member of Congress who heard him sent a synopsis of the discourse to his wife, and Smith printed this entire in his autobiography (Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p. 583). Here is one passage: "He [Smith] performed no miracles. He did not pretend to possess any such power." This is an illustration of the facility with which Smith could lie, when to do so would serve his purpose.

*** The Saints were early believers in faith cure. Smith, in a sermon preached in 1841, urged them "to trust in God when sick, and live by faith and not by medicine or poison" (Millennial Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 663). A coroner's jury, in an inquest over a victim of this faith in London, England, cautioned the sect against continuing this method of curing (Times and Seasons, 1842, p. 813).

**** For further illustrations of miracle working, in Ohio, see Kennedy's "Early Days of Mormonism," Chap. V.

The lengths to which Smith dared go in his pretensions are well illustrated in an incident of these days. Among the curiosities of a travelling showman who passed through Kirtland were some Egyptian mummies. As the golden plates from which the Mormon Bible was translated were written in "reformed Egyptian," the translator of those plates was interested in all things coming from Egypt, and at his suggestion the mummies were purchased by and for the church. On them were found some papyri which Joseph, with the assistance of Phelps and Cowdery, set about "translating." Their success was great, and Smith was able to announce: "We found that one of these rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph.* Truly we could see that the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of truth." That there might be no question about the accuracy of Smith's translation, he exhibited a certificate signed by the proprietor of the show, saying that he had exhibited the "hieroglyphic characters" to the most learned men in many cities, "and from all the information that I could ever learn or meet with, I find that of Joseph Smith, Jr., to correspond in the most minute matters." * When the papyri were shown to Josiah Quincy and Charles Francis Adams, on the occasion of their visit to Nauvoo in 1844, Joseph Smith, pointing out the inscriptions, said: "That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful. This is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest account of the creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of Genesis."--"Figures of the Past," p. 386.

Smith's autobiography contains this memorandum: "October 1, 1835. This afternoon I labored on the Egyptian alphabet in company with Brother O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, and during the research the principals of astronomy, as understood by Father Abraham and the Ancients, unfolded to our understanding." When he was in the height of his power in Nauvoo, Smith printed in the Times and Seasons a reproduction of these hieroglyphics accompanied by this alleged translation, of what he called "the Book of Abraham," and they were also printed in the Millennial Star.* The translation was a meaningless jumble of words after this fashion:--

* See Vol. XIX, p. 100, etc., from which the accompanying facsimile is taken.

"In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my father, I, Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence, and finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the Fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same, having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring to be one also who possessed great knowledge, and to possess greater knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness."

Remy submitted a reproduction of these hieroglyphics to Theodule Deveria, of the Museum of the Louvre, in Paris, who found, of course, that Smith's purported translation was wholly fraudulent. For instance, his Abraham fastened on an altar was a representation of Osiris coming to life on his funeral couch, his officiating priest was the god Anubis, and what Smith represents to indicate an angel of the Lord is "the soul of Osiris, under the form of a hawk."* Smith's whole career offered no more brazen illustration of his impostures than this.

* See "A Journey to Great Salt Lake City", by Jules Remy (1861), Note XVII.

A visitor to the Kirtland Temple some years later paid Joseph's father half a dollar in order to see the Egyptian curios, which were kept in the attic of that structure.

A well-authenticated anecdote, giving another illustration of Smith's professed knowledge of the Egyptian language is told by the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who, after holding the Professorship of Divinity in Kemper College, in Missouri, became vicar of a church in England. Mr. Caswall, on the occasion of a visit to Nauvoo in 1842, having heard of Smith's Egyptian lore, took with him an ancient Greek manuscript of the Psalter, on parchment, with which to test the prophet's scholarship. The belief of Smith's followers in his powers was shown by their eagerness to have him see this manuscript, and their persistence in urging Mr. Caswall to wait a day for Smith's return from Carthage that he might submit it to the prophet. Mr. Caswall the next day handed the manuscript to Smith and asked him to explain its contents. After a brief examination, Smith explained: "It ain't Greek at all, except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics. These figures (pointing to the capitals) is Egyptian hieroglyphics written in the reformed Egyptian. These characters are like the letters that were engraved on the golden plates."*

* "The City of the Mormons," p. 36 (1842).

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V. SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES

When Rigdon returned to Ohio with Smith in January, 1831, it seems to have been his intention to make Kirtland the permanent headquarters of the new church. He had written to his people from Palmyra, "Be it known to you, brethren, that you are dwelling on your eternal inheritance." When Cowdery and his associates arrived in Ohio on their first trip, they announced as the boundaries of the Promised Land the township of Kirtland on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Within two months of his arrival at Kirtland Smith gave out a "revelation" (Sec. 45), in which the Lord commanded the elders to go forth into the western countries and buildup churches, and they were told of a City of Refuge for the church, to be called the New Jerusalem. No definite location of this city was given, and the faithful were warned to "keep these things from going abroad unto the world." Another "revelation" of the same month (Sec. 48) announced that it was necessary for all to remain for the present in their places of abode, and directed those who had lands "to impart to the eastern brethren," and the others to buy lands, and all to save money "to purchase lands for an inheritance, even the city."

The reports of those who first went to Missouri induced Smith and Rigdon, before they made their first trip to that state, to announce that the Saints would pass one more winter in Ohio. But when they had visited the Missouri frontier and realized its distance from even the Ohio border line, and the actual privations to which settlers there must submit, their zeal weakened, and they declared, "It will be many years before we come here, for the Lord has a great work for us to do in Ohio." The building of the Temple at Kirtland, and the investments in lots and in business enterprises there showed that a permanent settlement in Ohio was then decided on.

Smith's first business enterprise for the church in Ohio was a general store which he opened in Hiram. This establishment has been described as "a poorly furnished country store where commerce looks starvation in the face."* The difficulty of combining the positions of prophet, head of the church, and retail merchant was naturally great. The result of the combination has been graphically pictured by no less an authority than Brigham Young. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, explaining why the church did not maintain a store there, Young said:--

* Salt Lake Herald, November 17, 1877.

"You that have lived in Nauvoo, in Missouri, in Kirtland, Ohio, can you assign a reason why Joseph could not keep a store and be a merchant? Let me just give you a few reasons; and there are men here who know just how matters went in those days. Joseph goes to New York and buys $20,000 worth of goods, comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes one of the brethren. Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife: What if Joseph says, 'No, I cannot without money.' The consequence would be, 'He is no Prophet,' says James. Pretty soon Thomas walks in. 'Brother Joseph, will you trust me for a pair of boots?' 'No, I cannot let them go without money.' 'Well,' says Thomas, 'Brother Joseph is no Prophet; I have found THAT out and I am glad of it.' After a while in comes Bill and Sister Susan. Says Bill, 'Brother Joseph, I want a shawl. I have not got any money, but I wish you to trust me a week or a fortnight.' Well, Brother Joseph thinks the others have gone and apostatized, and he don't know but these goods will make the whole church do the same, so he lets Bill have a shawl. Bill walks of with it and meets a brother. 'Well,' says he, 'what do you think of Brother Joseph?' 'O, he is a first rate man, and I fully believe he is a Prophet. He has trusted me with this shawl.' Richard says, 'I think I will go down and see if he won't trust me some.' In walks Richard. Brother Joseph, I want to trade about $20.' 'Well,'says Joseph, 'these goods will make the people apostatize, so over they go; they are of less value than the people.' Richard gets his goods. Another comes in the same way to make a trade of $25, and so it goes. Joseph was a first rate fellow with them all the time, provided he never would ask them to pay him. And so you may trace it down through the history of this people."*

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 215.

If this analysis of the flock which Smith gathered in Ohio, and which formed the nucleus of the settlements in Missouri, was not permanently recorded in an official church record, its authenticity would be vigorously assailed.

Later enterprises at Kirtland, undertaken under the auspices of the church, included a steam sawmill and a tannery, both of which were losing concerns. But the speculation to which later Mormon authorities attributed the principal financial disasters of the church at Kirtland was the purchase of land and its sale as town lots.* The craze for land speculation in those days was not confined, however, to the Mormons. That was the period when the purchase of public lands of the United States seemed likely to reach no limit. These sales, which amounted to $2,300,000 in 1830, and to $4,800,000 in 1834, lumped to $14,757,600 in 1835, and to $24,877,179 in 1836. The government deposits (then made in the state banks) increased from $10,000,000 on January 1, 1835, to $41,500,000 on June 1, 1836, the increase coming from receipts from land sales. This led to that bank expansion which was measured by the growth of bank capital in this country from $61,000,000 to $200,000,000 between 1830 and 1834, with a further advance to $251,000,000.

* "Real estate rose from 100 to 800 per cent and in many cases more. Men who were not thought worth $50 or $100 became purchasers of thousands. Notes (sometimes cash), deeds and mortgages passed and repassed, till all, or nearly all, supposed they had become wealthy, or at least had acquired a competence."--Messenger and Advocate, June, 1837.

The Mormon leaders and their people were peculiarly liable to be led into disaster when sharing in this speculators' fever. They were, however, quick to take advantage of the spirit of the times. The Zion of Missouri lost its attractiveness to them, and on February 23, 1833, the Presidency decided to purchase land at Kirtland, and to establish there on a permanent Stake of Zion. The land purchases of the church began at once, and we find a record of one Council meeting, on March 23, 1833, at which it was decided to buy three farms costing respectively $4000, $2100, and $5000. Kirtland was laid out (on paper) with 32 streets, cutting one another at right angles, each four rods wide. This provided for 225 blocks of 20 lots each. Twenty-nine of the streets were named after Mormons. Joseph and his family appear many times in the list of conveyors of these lots. The original map of the city, as described in Smith's autobiography, provided for 24 public buildings temples, schools, etc.; no lot to contain more than one house, and that not to be nearer than 25 feet from the street, with a prohibition against erecting a stable on a house lot.*

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 438-439.

Of course this Mormon capital must have a grand church edifice, to meet Smith's views, and he called a council to decide about the character of the new meeting-house. A few of the speakers favored a modest frame building, but a majority thought a log one better suited to their means. Joseph rebuked the latter, asking, "Shall we, brethren, build a house for our God of logs?" and he straightway led them to the corner of a wheat field, where the trench for the foundation was at once begun.* No greater exhibition of business folly could have been given than the undertaking of the costly building then planned on so slender a financial foundation.

* Mother Smith's "Biographical Sketches" p. 213.

The corner-stone was laid on July 23, 1833, and the Temple was not dedicated until March 27, 1836. Mormon devotion certainly showed itself while this work was going on. Every male member was expected to give one-seventh of his time to the building without pay, and those who worked on it at day's wages had, in most instances, no other income, and often lived on nothing but corn meal. The women, as their share, knit and wove garments for the workmen.

The Temple, which is of stone covered with a cement stucco (it is still in use), measures 60 by 80 feet on the ground, is 123 feet in height to the top of the spire, and contains two stories and an attic.

The cost of this Temple was $40,000, and, notwithstanding the sacrifices made by the Saints in assisting its construction, and the schemes of the church officers to secure funds, a debt of from $15,000 to $20,000 remained upon it. That the church was financially embarrassed at the very beginning of the work is shown by a letter addressed to the brethren in Zion, Missouri, by Smith, Rigdon, and Williams, dated June 25, 1833, in which they said, "Say to Brother Gilbert that we have no power to assist him in a pecuniary point, as we know not the hour when we shall be sued for debts which we have contracted ourselves in New York."*

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 450.

To understand the business crash and scandals which compelled Smith and his associates to flee from Ohio, it is necessary to explain the business system adopted by the church under them. This system began with a rule about the consecration of property. As originally published in the Evening and Morning Star, and in chapter xliv of the "Book of Commandments," this rule declared, "Thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken," with a provision that the Bishop, after he had received such an irrevocable deed, should appoint every man a steward over so much of his property as would be sufficient for himself and family. In the later edition of the "Doctrine and Covenants" this was changed to read, "And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate thy properties for their support," etc.

By a "revelation" given out while the heads of the church were in Jackson County, Missouri, in April, 1832 (Sec. 82), a sort of firm was appointed, including Smith, Rigdon, Cowdery, Harris, and N. K. Whitney, "to manage the affairs of the poor, and all things pertaining to the bishopric," both in Ohio and Missouri. This firm thus assumed control of the property which "revelation" had placed in the hands of the Bishop. This arrangement was known as The Order of Enoch. Next came a "revelation" dated April 23, 1834. (Sec. 104), by which the properties of the Order were divided, Rigdon getting the place in which he was living in Kirtland, and the tannery; Harris a lot, with a command to "devote his monies for the proclaiming of my words"; Cowdery and Williams, the printing-office, with some extra lots to Cowdery; and Smith, the lot designed for the Temple, and "the inheritance on which his father resides." The building of the Temple having brought the Mormon leaders into debt, this "revelation," was designed to help them out, and it contained these further directions, in the voice of the Lord, be it remembered: "The covenants being broken through transgression, by covetousness and feigned words, therefore you are dissolved as a United Order with your brethren, that you are not bound only up to this hour unto them, only on this wise, as I said, by loan as shall be agreed by this Order in council, as your circumstances will admit, and the voice of the council direct.....

"And again verily I say unto you, concerning your debts, behold it is my will that you should pay all your debts; and it is my will that you should humble yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your diligence and humility and the prayer of faith; and inasmuch as you are diligent and humble, and exercise the prayer of faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance.... I give you a promise that you shall be delivered this once out of your bondage; inasmuch as you obtained a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands even until you shall loan enough [meaning borrow] to deliver yourselves from bondage, it is your privilege; and pledge the properties which I have put into your hands this once.... The master will not suffer his house to be broken up. Even so. Amen."

It does not appear that the Mormon leaders took advantage of this authorization to borrow money on Kirtland real estate, if they could; but in 1835 they set up several mercantile establishments, finding firms in Cleveland, Buffalo, and farther east who would take their notes on six months' time. "A great part of the goods of these houses," says William Harris, "went to pay the workmen on the Temple, and many were sold on credit, so that when the notes became due the houses were not able to meet them."

Smith's autobiography relates part of one story of an effort of his to secure money at this trying time, the complete details of which have been since supplied. He simply says that on July 25, 1836, in company with his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery, he started on a trip which brought them to Salem, Massachusetts, where "we hired a house and occupied the same during the month, teaching the people from house to house."* The Mormon of to-day, in reading his "Doctrine and Covenants," finds Section 111 very perplexing. No place of its reception is given, but it goes on to say:--

* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 281.

"I, the Lord your God, am not displeased with your coming this journey, notwithstanding your follies; I have much treasure in this city for you, for the benefit of Zion;... and it shall come to pass in due time, that I will give this city into your hands, that you shall have power over it, insomuch that they shall not discover your secret parts; and its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours. Concern not yourself about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them.... And inquire diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this city; for there are more treasures than one for you in this city."

"This city" was Salem, Massachusetts, and the "revelation" was put forth to brace up the spirits of Smith's fellow-travellers. A Mormon named Burgess had gone to Kirtland with a story about a large amount of money that was buried in the cellar of a house in Salem which had belonged to a widow, and the location of which he alone knew. Smith credited this report, and looked to the treasure to assist him in his financial difficulties, and he took the persons named with him on the trip. But when they got there Burgess said that time had so changed the appearance of the houses that he could not be sure which was the widow's, and he cleared out. Smith then hired a house which he thought might be the right one,--it proved not to be,--and it was when his associates were--becoming discouraged that the ex-money-digger uttered the words quoted, to strengthen their courage. "We speak of these things with regret," says Ebenezer Robinson, who believed in the prophet's divine calling to the last.*

* The Return, July, 1889.

Brought face to face with apparent financial disaster, the next step taken to prevent this was the establishment of a bank. Smith told of a "revelation" concerning a bank "which would swallow up all other banks." An application for a charter was made to the Ohio legislature, but it was refused. The law of Ohio at that time provided that "all notes and bills, bonds and other securities [of an unchartered bank] shall be held and taken in all courts as absolutely void." This, however, did not deter a man of Smith's audacity, and soon came the announcement of the organization of the "Kirtland Safety Society Bank," with an alleged capital of $4,000,000. The articles of agreement had been drawn up on November 2, 1836, and Oliver Cowdery had been sent to Philadelphia to get the plates for the notes at the same time that Orson Hyde set out to the state capital to secure a charter. Cowdery took no chances of failure, and he came back not only with a plate, but with $200,000 in printed bills. To avoid the inconvenience of having no charter, the members of the Safety Society met on January 2, 1837, and reorganized under the name of the "Kirtland Society Anti-banking Company," and, in the hope of placing the bills within the law (or at least beyond its reach), the word "Bank" was changed with a stamp so that it read "Anti-BANK-ing Co.," as in the facsimile here presented.

W. Harris thus describes the banking scheme:--

"Subscribers for stock were allowed to pay the amount of their subscriptions in town lots at five or six times their real value; others paid in personal property at a high valuation, and some were paid in cash. When the notes were first issued they were current in the vicinity, and Smith took advantage of their credit to pay off with them the debts he and his brethren had contracted in the neighborhood for land, etc. The Eastern creditors, however, refused to take them. This led to the expedient of exchanging them for the notes of other banks. Accordingly, the Elders were sent into the country to barter off Kirtland money, which they did with great zeal, and continued the operation until the notes were not worth twelve and a half cents to the dollar."*

* "Mormonism Portrayed," p. 31

Just how much of this currency was issued the records do not show. Hall says that Brigham Young, who had joined the flock at Kirtland, disposed of $10,000 worth of it in the States, and that Smith and other church officers reaped a rich harvest with it in Canada, explaining, "The credit of the bank here was good, even high."* Kidder quotes a gentleman living near Kirtland who said that the cash capital paid in was only about $5000, and that they succeeded in floating from $50,000 to $100,000. Ann Eliza, Brigham's "wife No. 19," says that her father invested everything he had but his house and shop in the bank, and lost it all.

* "Abominations of Mormonism Exposed" (1852), pp. 19, 20.

Cyrus Smalling, one of the Seventy at Kirtland, wrote an account of Kirtland banking operations under date of March 10, 1841, in which he said that Smith and his associates collected about $6000 in specie, and that when people in the neighborhood went to the bank to inquire about its specie reserve, "Smith had some one or two hundred boxes made, and gathered all the lead and shot the village had, or that part of it that he controlled, and filled the boxes with lead, shot, etc., and marked them $1000 each. Then, when they went to examine the vault, he had one box on a table partly filled for them to see; and when they proceeded to the vault, Smith told them that the church had $200,000 in specie; and he opened one box and they saw that it was silver; and they were seemingly satisfied, and went away for a few days until the elders were packed off in every direction to pass their paper money."*

* "Mormons; or Knavery Exposed" (1841).

Smith believed in specie payments to his bank, whatever might be his intentions as regards the redemption of his notes, for, in the Messenger and Advocate (pp. 441-443), following the by-laws of the Anti-banking Company, was printed a statement signed by him, saying:--

"We want the brethren from abroad to call on us and take stock in the Safety Society, and we would remind them of the sayings of the Prophet Isaiah contained in the 60th chapter, and more particularly in the 9th and 17th verses which are as follows:--

"Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God.

"For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, etc."

The Messenger and Advocate (edited by W. A. Cowdery), of July, 1837, contained a long article on the bank and its troubles, pointing out, first, that the bank was opened without a charter, being "considered a kind of joint stock association," and that "the private property of the stockholders was holden in proportion to the amount of their subscriptions for the redemption of the paper," and also that its notes were absolutely void under the state law. The editor goes on to say:--

"Previously to the commencement of discounting by the bank, large debts had been contracted for merchandise in New York and other cities, and large contracts entered into for real estate in this and adjoining towns; some of them had fallen due and must be met, or incur forfeitures of large sums. These causes, we are bound to believe, operated to induce the officers of the bank to let out larger sums than their better judgments dictated, which almost invariably fell into or passed through the hands of those who sought our ruin.... Hundreds who were enemies either came or sent their agents and demanded specie, till the officers thought best to refuse payment."

This subtle explanation of the suspension of specie payments is followed with a discussion of monopolies, etc., leading up to a statement of the obligations of the Mormons in regard to the discredited bank-notes, most of which were in circulation elsewhere. To the question; "Shall we unite as one man, say it is good, and make it good by taking it on a par with gold?" he replies, "No," explaining that, owing to the fewness of the church members as compared with the world at large, "it must be confined in its circulation and par value to the limits of our own society." To the question, "Shall we then take it at its marked price for our property," he again replies, "No," explaining that their enemies had received the paper at a discount, and that, to receive it at par from them, would "give them voluntarily and with one eye open just that advantage over us to oppress, degrade and depress us." This combined financial and spiritual adviser closes his article by urging the brethren to set apart a portion of their time to the service of God, and a portion to "the study of the science of our government and the news of the day."

A card which appeared in the Messenger and Advocate of August, 1837, signed by Smith, warned "the brethren and friends of the church to beware of speculators, renegades, and gamblers who are duping the unwary and unsuspecting by palming upon them those bills, which are of no worth here."

The actual test of the bank's soundness had come when a request was made for the redemption of the notes. The notes seem to have been accepted freely in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where it was taken for granted that a cashier and president who professed to be prophets of the Lord would not give countenance to bank paper of doubtful value.* When stories about the concern reached the Pittsburg banks, they sent an agent to Kirtland with a package of the notes for redemption. Rigdon loudly asserted the stability of the institution; but when a request for coin was repeated, it was promptly refused by him on the ground that the bills were a circulating medium "for the accommodation of the public," and that to call any of them in would defeat their object.**

* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 71.

** "Early Days of Mormonism," p. 163.

Other creditors of the Mormons were now becoming active in their demands. For failing to meet a note given to the bank at Painesville, Smith, Rigdon, and N. K. Whitney were put under $8000 bonds. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery were called into court as indorsers of paper for one of the Mormon firms, and judgment was given against them. To satisfy a firm of New York merchants the heads of the church gave a note for $4500 secured by a mortgage on their interest in the new Temple and its contents.* The Egyptian mummies were especially excepted from this mortgage. Mother Smith describes how these relics were saved by "various stratagems" under an execution of $50 issued against the prophet.

* Ibid., pp. 159-160.

The scheme of calling the bank corporation an "anti-banking" society did not save the officers from prosecution under the state law. Informers against violators of the banking law received in Ohio a share of the fine imposed, and this led to the filing of an information against Rigdon and Smith in March, 1837, by one S. D. Rounds, in the Caeuga County Court, charging them with violating the law, and demanding a penalty of $1000 They were at once arrested and held in bail, and were convicted the following October. They appealed on the ground that the institution was an association and not a bank; but this plea was never ruled upon by the court, as the bank suspended payments and closed its doors in November, 1837, and, before the appeal could be argued, Smith and Rigdon had fled from the state to Missouri.

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VI. LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND

It is easy to understand that a church whose leaders had such views of financial responsibility as Smith's and Rigdon's, and whose members were ready to apostatize when they could not obtain credit at the prophet's store, was anything but a harmonious body. Smith was not a man to maintain his own dignity or to spare the feelings of his associates. Wilford Woodruff, describing his first sight of the prophet, at Kirtland, in 1834, said he found him with his brother Hyrum, wearing a very old hat and engaged in the sport of shooting at a mark. Woodruff accompanied him to his house, where Smith at once brought out a wolfskin, and said, "Brother Woodruff, I want you to help me tan this," and the two took off their coats and went to work at the skin.* Smith's contempt for Rigdon was never concealed. Writing of the situation at Kirtland in 1833, he spoke of Rigdon as possessing "a selfishness and independence of mind which too often manifestly destroys the confidence of those who would lay down their lives for him."** Smith was in the habit of announcing, from his lofty pulpit in the Temple, "The truth is good enough without dressing up, but brother Rigdon will now proceed to dress it up."*** Some of the new converts backed out as soon as they got a close view of the church. Elder G. A. Smith, a cousin of Joseph, in a sermon in Salt Lake City, in 1855, mentioned some incidents of this kind. One family, who had journeyed a long distance to join the church in Kirtland, changed their minds because Joseph's wife invited them to have a cup of tea "after the word of wisdom was given." Another family withdrew after seeing Joseph begin playing with his children as soon as he rested from the work of translating the Scriptures for the day. A Canadian ex-Methodist prayed so long at family worship at Father Johnson's that Joseph told him flatly "not to bray so much like a jackass." The prayer thereupon returned to Canada.

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 101.

** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, pp. 584-585.

*** Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.

But the discontented were not confined to new-comers. Jealousy and dissatisfaction were constantly manifesting themselves among Smith's old standbys. Written charges made against Cowdery and David Whitmer, when they were driven out of Far West, Missouri, told them: "You commenced your wickedness by heading a party to disturb the worship of the Saints in the first day of the week, and made the house of the Lord in Kirtland to be a scene of abuse and slander, to destroy the reputation of those whom the church had appointed to be their teachers, and for no other cause only that you were not the persons." In more exact terms, their offence was opposition to the course pursued by Smith. During the winter and spring of 1837, these rebels included in their list F. G. Williams, of the First Presidency, Martin Harris, D. Whitmer, Lyman E. Johnson, P. P. Pratt, and W. E. McLellin. In May, 1837, a High Council was held in Kirtland to try these men. Pratt at once objected to being tried by a body of which Smith and Rigdon were members, as they had expressed opinions against him. Rigdon confessed that he could not conscientiously try the case, Cowdery did likewise, Williams very properly withdrew, and "the Council dispersed in confusion."* It was never reassembled, but the offenders were not forgotten, and their punishment came later.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XVI, p. 10.

Mother Smith attributes much of the discord among the members at this time to "a certain young woman," an inmate of David Whitmer's house, who began prophesying with the assistance of a black stone. This seer predicted Smith's fall from office because of his transgressions, and that David Whitmer or Martin Harris would succeed him. Her proselytes became so numerous that a written list of them showed that "a great proportion of the church were decidedly in favor with the new party."*

* "Biographical Sketches," p. 221.

While Smith was thus fighting leading members of his own church, he was called upon to defend himself against a serious charge in court. A farmer near Kirtland, named Grandison Newell, received information from a seceding Mormon that Smith had directed the latter and another Mormon named Davis to kill Newell because he was a particularly open opponent of the new sect. The affidavit of this man set forth that he and Davis had twice gone to Newell's house to carry out Smith's order, and were only prevented by the absence of the intended victim. Smith was placed under $500 bonds on this charge, but on the formal hearing he was discharged on the ground of insufficient evidence.*

* Fanny Brewer of Boston, in an affidavit published in 1842, declared, "I am personally acquainted with one of the employees, Davis by name, and he frankly acknowledged to me that he was prepared to do the deed under the direction of the prophet, and was only prevented by the entreaties of his wife."

A rebellious spirit had manifested itself among the brethren in Missouri soon after Smith returned from his first visit to that state. W. W. Phelps questioned the prophet's "monarchical power and authority," and an unpleasant correspondence sprung up between them. As Smith did not succeed by his own pen in silencing his accusers, a conference of twelve high priests was called by him in Kirtland in January, 1833, which appointed Orson Hyde and Smith's brother Hyrum to write to the Missouri brethren. In this letter they were told plainly that, unless the rebellious spirit ceased, the Lord would seek another Zion. To Phelps the message was sent, "If you have fat beef and potatoes, eat them in singleness of heart, and not boast yourself in these things." It was, however, as a concession to this spirit of complaint, according to Ferris, that Smith announced the "revelation" which placed the church in the hands of a supreme governing body of three.

Smith himself furnishes a very complete picture of the disrupted condition of the Mormons in 1838, in an editorial in the Elders' journal, dated August, of that year. The tone of the article, too, sheds further light on Smith's character. Referring to the course of "a set of creatures" whom the church had excluded from fellowship, he says they "had recourse to the foulest lying to hide their iniquity;... and this gang of horse thieves and drunkards were called upon immediately to write their lives on paper." Smith then goes on to pay his respects to various officers of the church, all of whom, it should be remembered, held their positions through "revelation" and were therefore professedly chosen directly by God.

Of a statement by Warren Parish, one of the Seventy and an officer of the bank, Smith says: "Granny Parish made such an awful fuss about what was conceived in him that, night after night and day after day, he poured forth his agony before all living, as they saw proper to assemble. For a rational being to have looked at him and heard him groan and grunt, and saw him sweat and struggle, would have supposed that his womb was as much swollen as was Rebecca's when the angel told her there were two nations there." He also accuses Parish of immorality and stealing money.

Here is a part of Smith's picture of Dr. W. A. Cowdery, a presiding high priest: "This poor pitiful beggar came to Kirtland a few years since with a large family, nearly naked and destitute. It was really painful to see this pious Doctor's (for such he professed to be) rags flying when he walked upon the streets. He was taken in by us in this pitiful condition, and we put him into the printing-office and gave him enormous wages, not because he could earn it, but merely out of pity.... A truly niggardly spirit manifested itself in all his meanness."

Smith's old friend Martin Harris, now a high priest, and Cyrus Smalling, one of the Seventy, are lumped among Parish's "lackeys,", of whom Smith says: "They are so far beneath contempt that a notice of them would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make." Of Leonard Rich, one of the seven presidents of the seventy elders, Smith says that he "was generally so drunk that he had to support himself by something to keep from falling down." J. F. Boynton and Luke Johnson, two of the Twelve, are called "a pair of young blacklegs," and Stephen Burnett, an elder, is styled "a little ignorant blockhead, whose heart was so set on money that he would at any time sell his soul for $50, and then think he had made an excellent bargain."

Smith's own personal character was freely attacked, and the subject became so public that it received notice in the Elders' Journal. One charge was improper conduct toward an orphan girl whom Mrs. Smith had taken into her family. Smith's autobiography contains an account of a council held in New Portage, Ohio, in 1834, at which Rigdon accused Martin Harris of telling A. C. Russel that "Joseph drank too much liquor when he was translating the Book of Mormon," and Harris set up as a defence that "this thing occurred previous to the translating of the Book."*

* Millennial Star, Vol. XV, p. 12.

There was a good deal of talk concerning a confession "about a girl," which Oliver Cowdery was reported to have said that Smith made to him. Denials of this for Cowdery appeared in the Elders' Journal of July, 1838, one man's statement ending thus, "Joseph asked if he ever said to him (Oliver) that he (Joseph) confessed to any one that he was guilty of the above crime; and Oliver, after some hesitation, answered no."

The Elders' Journal of August, 1838, contains a retraction by Parley P. Pratt of a letter he had written, in which he censured both Smith and Rigdon, "using great severity and harshness in regard to certain business transactions." In that letter Pratt confessed that "the whole scheme of speculation" in which the Mormon leaders were engaged was of the "devil," and he begged Smith to make restitution for having sold him, for $2000, three lots of land that did not cost Smith over $200.

Not only was the moral character of Smith and other individual members of the church successfully attacked at this time, but the charge was openly made that polygamy was practised and sanctioned. In the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," published in Kirtland in 1835, Section 101 was devoted to the marriage rite. It contained this declaration: "Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again." The value of such a denial is seen in the ease with which this section was blotted out by Smith's later "revelation" establishing polygamy.

An admission that even elders did practise polygamy at that time is found in a minute of a meeting of the Presidents of the Seventies, held on April 29, 1837, which made this declaration: "First, that we will have no fellowship whatever with any elder belonging to the Quorum of the Seventies, who is guilty of polygamy."*

* Messenger and Advocate, p. 511.

Again: The Elders' journal dated Far West, Missouri, 1838, contained a list of answers by Smith to certain questions which, in an earlier number, he had said were daily and hourly asked by all classes of people. Among these was the following: "Q. Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one? A. No, not at the same time." (He condemns the plan of marrying within a few weeks or months of the death of the first wife.) The statement has been made that polygamy first suggested itself to Smith in Ohio, while he was translating the so-called "Book of Abraham" from the papyri found on the Egyptian mummies. This so-called translation required some study of the Old Testament, and it is not at all improbable that Smith's natural inclination toward such a doctrine as polygamy secured a foundation in his reading of the Old Testament license to have a plurality of wives.

For the business troubles hanging over the community, Smith and Rigdon were held especially accountable. The flock had seen the funds confided by them to the Bishop invested partly in land that was divided among some of the Mormon leaders. Smith and Rigdon were provided with a house near the Temple, and a printing-office was established there, which was under Smith's management. Naturally, when the stock and notes of the bank became valueless, its local victims held its organizers responsible for the disaster. Mother Smith gives us an illustration of the depth of this feeling. One Sunday evening, while her husband was preaching at Kirtland, when Joseph was in Cleveland "on business pertaining to the bank," the elder Smith reflected sharply upon Warren Parish, on whom the Smiths tried to place the responsibility for the bank failure. Parish, who was present, leaped forward and tried to drag the old man out of the pulpit. Smith, Sr., appealed to Oliver Cowdery for help, but Oliver retained his seat. Then the prophet's brother William sprang to his father's assistance, and carried Parish bodily out of the church. Thereupon John Boynton, who was provided with a sword cane, drew his weapon and threatened to run it through the younger Smith. "At this juncture," says Mrs. Smith, "I left the house, not only terrified at the scene, but likewise sick at heart to see the apostasy of which Joseph had prophesied was so near at hand."*

* "Biographical Sketches," p. 221.

Eliza Snow gives a slightly different version of the same outbreak, describing its wind-up as follows:--

"John Boynton and others drew their pistols and bowie knives and rushed down from the stand into a congregation, Boynton saying he would blow out the brains of the first man who dared lay hands on him.... Amid screams and shrieks, the policemen in ejecting the belligerents knocked down a stove pipe, which fell helter-skelter among the people; but, although bowie knives and pistols were wrested from their owners and thrown hither and thither to prevent disastrous results, no one was hurt, and after a short but terrible scene to be enacted in a Temple of God, order was restored and the services of the day proceeded as usual."*

* "Biography of Lorenzo Snow," p. 20.

Smith made a stubborn defence of his business conduct. He attributed the disaster to the bank to Parish's peculation, and the general troubles of the church to "the spirit of speculation in lands and property of all kinds," as he puts it in his autobiography, wherein he alleges that "the evils were actually brought about by the brethren not giving heed to my counsel." If Smith gave any such counsel, it is unfortunate for his reputation that neither the church records nor his "revelations" contain any mention of it.

The final struggle came in December, 1837, when Smith and Rigdon made their last public appearance in the Kirtland Temple. Smith was as bold and aggressive as ever, but Rigdon, weak from illness, had to be supported to his seat. An eye-witness of the day's proceedings says* that "the pathos of Rigdon's plea, and the power of his denunciation, swayed the feelings and shook the judgments of his hearers as never in the old days of peace, and, when he had finished and was led out, a perfect silence reigned in the Temple until its door had closed upon him forever. Smith made a resolute and determined battle; false reports had been circulated, and those by whom the offence had come must repent and acknowledge their sin or be cut off from fellowship in this world, and from honor and power in that to come." He not only maintained his right to speak as the head of the church, but, after the accused had partly presented their case, and one of them had given him the lie openly, he proposed a vote on their excommunication at once and a hearing of their further pleas at a later date. This extraordinary proposal led one of the accused to cry out, "You would cut a man's head off and hear him afterward." Finally it was voted to postpone the whole subject for a few days.

* "Early Days of Mormonism," Kennedy, p. 169.

But the two leaders of the church did not attend this adjourned session. Alarmed by rumors that Grandison Newell had secured a warrant for their arrest on a charge of fraud in connection with the affairs of the bank (unfounded rumors, as it later appeared), they fled from Kirtland on horseback on the evening of January 12, 1838, and Smith never revisited that town. In his description of their flight, Smith explained that they merely followed the direction of Jesus, who said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another." He describes the weather as extremely cold, and says, "We were obliged to secrete ourselves sometimes to elude the grasp of our pursuers, who continued their race more than two hundred miles from Kirtland, armed with pistols, etc., seeking our lives." There is no other authority for this story of an armed pursuit, and the fact seems to be that the non-Mormon community were perfectly satisfied with the removal of the mock prophet from their neighborhood.

Although Kirtland continued to remain a Stake of the church, the real estate scheme of making it a big city vanished with the prophet. Foreclosures of mortgages now began; the church printing-office was first sold out by the sheriff and then destroyed by fire, and the so-called reform element took possession of the Temple. Rigdon had placed his property out of his own hands, one acre of land in Kirtland being deeded by him and his wife to their daughter.

The Temple with about two acres of land adjoining was deeded by the prophet to William Marks in 1837, and in 1841 was redeeded to Smith as trustee in trust for the church. In 1862 it was sold under an order of the probate court by Joseph Smith's administrator, and conveyed the same day to one Russel Huntley, who, in 1873, conveyed it to the prophet's grandson, Joseph Smith, and another representative of the Reorganized Church (nonpolygamist). The title of the latter organization was sustained in 1880 by judge L. S. Sherman, of the Lake County Court of Common Pleas, who held that, "The church in Utah has materially and largely departed from the faith, doctrines, laws, ordinances and usages of said original Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and has incorporated into its system of faith the doctrines of celestial marriage and a plurality of wives, and the doctrine of Adam-God worship, contrary to the laws and constitution of said original church," and that the Reorganized Church was the true and lawful successor to the original organization. At the general conference of the Reorganized Church, held at Lamoni, Iowa, in April, 1901, the Kirtland district reported a membership of 423 members.

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I. THE DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION

The state of Missouri, to which the story of the Mormons is now transferred, was, at the time of its admission to the Union, in 1821, called "a promontory of civilization into an ocean of savagery." Wild Indian tribes occupied the practically unexplored region beyond its western boundary, and its own western counties were thinly settled. Jackson County, which in 1900 had 195,193 inhabitants, had a population of 2823 by the census of 1830, and neighboring counties not so many. It was not until 1830 that the first cabin of a white man was built in Daviess County. All this territory had been released from Indian ownership by treaty only a few years when the first Mormons arrived there.

The white settler's house was a log hut, generally with a dirt floor, a mudplastered chimney, and a window without glass, a board or quilt serving to close it in time of storm or severe cold. A fireplace, with a skillet and kettle, supplied the place of a well-equipped stove. Corn was the principal grain food, and wild game supplied most of the meat. The wild animals furnished clothing as well as food; for the pioneers could not afford to pay from 15 to 25 cents a yard for calico, and from 25 to 75 cents for gingham.* Some persons indulged in homespun cloth for Sunday and festal occasions, but the common outside garments were made of dressed deerskins. Parley P. Pratt, in his autobiography, speaks of passing through a settlement where "some families were entirely dressed in skins, without any other clothing, including ladies young and old."

* "When the merchants sold a calico or gingham dress pattern they threw in their profit by giving a spool of thread (two hundred yards), hooks and eyes and lining. In the thread business, however, it was only a few years after that thirty and fifty yard spools took the place of the two hundred yards."--"History of Daviess County", p. 161.

The pioneer agriculturist of those days not only lacked the transportation facilities and improved agricultural appliances which have assisted the developers of the Northwest, but they did not even understand the nature and capability of the soil. The newcomers in western Missouri looked on the rich prairie land as worthless, and they almost invariably directed their course to the timber, where the soil was more easily broken up, and material for buildings was available. The first attempts to plough the prairie sod were very primitive. David Dailey made the first trial in Jackson County with what was called a "barshear plough" (drawn by from four to eight yokes of oxen), the "shear" of which was fastened to the beam. This cut the sod in one direction pretty well, but when he began to cross-furrow, the sod piled up in front of the plough and stopped his progress. Determined to see what the soil would grow, he cut holes in the sod with an axe, and in these dropped his seed. The first sod was broken in Daviess County in 1834, with a plough made to order, "to see what the prairies amounted to in the way of raising a crop." Such was the country toward which the first Mormon missionaries turned their faces.

We have seen that the first intimation in the Mormon records of a movement to the West was found in Smith's order to Oliver Cowdery in 1830 to go and establish the church among the Lamanites (Indians), and that Rigdon expected that the church would remain in Ohio, when he wrote to his flock from Palmyra. The four original missionaries--Cowdery, P. P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, and Peterson--did not stop long in Kirtland, but, taking with them Frederick G. Williams, they pushed on westward to Sandusky, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, preaching to some Indians on the way, until they reached Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, early in 1831. That county forms a part of the western border of the state, and from 1832, until the railroad took the place of wagon trains, Independence was the eastern terminus of the famous Santa Fe trail, and the point of departure for many companies destined both for Oregon and California. Pratt, describing their journey west of St. Louis, says: "We travelled on foot some three hundred miles, through vast prairies and through trackless wilds of snow; no beaten road, houses few and far between. We travelled for whole days, from morning till night, without a house or fire. We carried on our backs our changes of clothing, several books, and corn bread and raw pork."*

* "Autobiography of P. P. Pratt," p. 54.

The sole idea of these pioneers seemed to be to preach to the Indians. Arriving at Independence, Whitmer and Peterson went to work to support themselves as tailors, while Cowdery and Pratt crossed the border into the Indian country. The latter, however, were at once pronounced by the federal officers there to be violators of the law which forbade the settlement of white men among the Indians, and they returned to Independence, and preached thereabout during the winter. Early in February the four decided that Pratt should return to Kirtland and make a report, and he did so, travelling partly on foot, partly on horseback, and partly by steamer.

As early as March, 1830, Smith had conceived the idea (or some one else for him) of a gathering of the elect "unto one place" to prepare for the day of desolation (Sec. 29). In October, 1830, the four pioneers were commanded to start "into the wilderness among the Lamanites," and on January 2, 1831, while Rigdon was visiting Smith in New York State, another "revelation" (Sec. 38) described the land of promise as "a land flowing with milk and honey, upon which there shall be no curse when the Lord cometh." This land they and their children were to possess, both "while the earth shall stand, and again in eternity." A "revelation" (Sec. 45), dated March 7, 1831, at Kirtland, called on the faithful to assemble and visit the Western countries, where they were promised an inheritance, to be called "the New Jerusalem, a land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of most High God." These things they were to "keep from going abroad into the world" for the present.

The manner in which the elect were told by "revelation" that they should possess their land of promise has a most important bearing on the justification of the opposition which the Missourians soon manifested toward their new neighbors. In one of these "revelations," dated Kirtland, February, 1831 (Sec. 42), Christ is represented as saying, "I will consecrate the riches of the Gentiles unto my people which are of the house of Israel." Another, in the following June (Sec. 52), which directed Smith's and Rigdon's trip, promised the elect, "If ye are faithful ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land in Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, WHICH IS NOW THE LAND OF YOUR ENEMIES." Another, given while Smith was in Missouri, in August, 1831 (Sec. 59), promised to those "who have come up into this land with an eye single to My glory," that "they shall inherit the earth," and "shall receive for their reward the good things of the earth." On the same date the Saints were told that they should "open their hearts even to purchase the whole region of country as soon as time will permit,... lest they receive none inheritance save it be by the shedding of blood." It seems to have been thought wise to add to this last statement, after the return of the party to Ohio, and a "revelation" dated August, 1831 (Sec. 63), was given out, stating that the land of Zion could be obtained only "by purchase or by blood," and "as you are forbidden to shed blood, lo, your enemies are upon you, and ye shall be scourged from city to city."

* Tullidge, in his "History of Salt Lake City" (1886), defining the early Mormon view of their land rights, after quoting Brigham Young's declaration to the first arrivals in Salt Lake Valley, that he (or the church) had "no land to sell," but "every man should have his land measured out to him for city and family purposes," says: "Young could with absolute propriety give the above utterances on the land question. In the early days of the church they applied to land not only owned by the United States, but within the boundaries of states of the Union." After quoting from the above-cited "revelation" the words "save they be by the shedding of blood," he explains, "The latter clause of the quotation signifies that the Mormon prophet foresaw that, unless his disciples purchased 'this whole region of country' of the unpopulated Far West of that period, the land question held between them and anti-Mormons would lead to the shedding of blood, and that they would be in jeopardy of losing their inheritance; and this was realized."

As to their obligation to pay for any of the "good things" purchased of their enemies, a "revelation" dated September 11, 1831 (the month after the return from Missouri), gave this advice:--

"Behold it is said in my laws, or forbidden, to get in debt to thine enemies;

"But behold it is not said at any time, that the Lord should not take when he pleased, and pay as seemeth him good.

"Wherefore as ye are agents, and ye are on the Lord's errand; and whatever ye do according to the will of the Lord, it is the Lord's business, and it is the Lord's business to provide for his Saints in these last days, that they may obtain an inheritance in the land of Zion."--"Book of Commandments," Chap. 65.

In the modern version of this "revelation" to be found in Sec. 64 of the "Doctrine and Covenants," the latter part of this declaration is changed to read, "And he hath set you to provide for his saints in these last days," etc.

So eager were the Saints to occupy their land of Zion, when the movement started, that the word of "revelation" was employed to give warning against a hasty rush to the new possessions, and to establish a certain supervision of the emigration by the Bishop and other agents of the church. Notwithstanding this, the rush soon became embarrassing to the church authorities in Missouri, and a modified view of the Lord's promise was thus stated in the Evening and Morning Star of July, 1832, "Although the Lord has said that it is his business to provide for the Saints in these last days, he is not BOUND to do so unless we observe his sayings and keep them." Saints in the East were warned against giving away their property before moving, and urged not to come to Missouri without some means, and to bring with them cattle and improved breeds of sheep and hogs, with necessary seeds.

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II. SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI--FOUNDING THE CITY AND THE TEMPLE

On June 7, 1831, a "revelation" was given out (Sec. 52) announcing that the next conference would be held in the promised land in Missouri, and directing Smith and Rigdon to go thither, and naming some thirty elders, including John Corrill, David Whitmer, P. P. and Orson Pratt, Martin Harris, and Edward Partridge, who should also make the trip, two by two, preaching by the way. Booth says: "Only about two weeks were allowed them to make preparations for the journey, and most of them left what business they had to be closed by others. Some left large families, with the crops upon the ground."*

* Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled."

Smith's party left Kirtland on June 19, and arrived at Independence in the following month, journeying on foot after reaching St. Louis, a distance of about three hundred miles. Smith was delighted with the new country, with "its beautiful rolling prairies, spread out like real meadows; the varied timber of the bottoms; the plums and grapes and persimmons and the flowers; the rich soil, the horses, cattle, and hogs, and the wild game.... The season is mild and delightful nearly three quarters of the year, and as the land of Zion is situated at about equal distances from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as from the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains, it bids fair to become one of the most blessed places on the earth."* The town of Independence then consisted of a brick courthouse, two or three stores, and fifteen or twenty houses, mostly of logs.

* Smith's "Autobiography," Millennial Star, Vol. XIV.

The usual "revelation" came first (Sec. 57), announcing that "this is the land of promise and the place for the City of Zion," with Independence as its centre, and the site of the Temple a lot near the courthouse. It was also declared that the land should be purchased by the Saints, "and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line running directly between Jew and Gentile" (whatever that might mean), "and also every tract bordering by the prairies." Sidney Gilbert was ordered to "plant himself" there, and establish a store, "that he might sell goods without fraud," to obtain money for the purchase of land. Edward Partridge was "to divide the Saints their inheritance," and W. W. Phelps* and Cowdery were to be printers to the church.

* Phelps came from Canandaigua, New York, where, Howe says, he was an avowed infidel. He had been prominent in politics and had edited a party newspaper. Disappointed in his political ambition, he threw in his lot with the new church.

Marvellous stories were at once circulated of the grandeur that was to characterize the new city, of the wealth that would be gathered there by the faithful who would survive the speedy destruction of the wicked, and of the coming of the lost tribes of Israel, who had been located near the north pole, where they had become very rich. While not tracing these declarations to Smith himself, Booth, who was one of the party, says that they were told by persons in daily intercourse with him. It is doing the prophet no injustice to say that they bear his imprint.

The laying of the foundation of the City of Zion was next in order. Rigdon delivered an address in consecrating the ground, in which he enjoined them to obey all of Smith's commands. A small scrub oak tree was then cut down and trimmed, and twelve men, representing the Apostles, conveyed it to a designated place. Cowdery sought out the best stone he could find for a corner-stone, removed a little earth, and placed the stone in the excavation, delivering an address. One end of the oak tree was laid on this stone, "and there," says Booth, "was laid down the first stone and stick which are to form an essential part of the splendid City of Zion."

The next day the site of the Temple was consecrated, Smith laying the cornerstone. When the ceremonies were over, the spot was merely marked by a sapling, from two sides of which the bark was stripped, one side being marked with a "T" for Temple, and the other with "ZOM," which Smith stated stood for "Zomas," the original of Zion. At the foot of this sapling lay the corner-stone--"a small stone, covered over with bushes."

Such ceremonies might have been viewed with indulgence if conducted in some suburb of Kirtland. But when men had travelled hundreds of miles at Smith's command, suffering personal privations as well as submitting to pecuniary sacrifices, it was a severe test of their faith to have two small trees and t wo round stones in the wilderness offered to them as the only tangible indications of a land of plenty. Rigdon expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome, as we have seen; Booth left the church as soon as he got back to Ohio; members of the party called Cowdery and Smith imperious, and the prophet and Rigdon incurred the charge of "excessive cowardice" on the way.

Smith made a second trip to Independence, leaving Ohio on April 2, 1832, and arriving there on his return the following June. His stay in Missouri this time was marked by nothing more important than his acknowledgment as President of the high priesthood by a council of the church there, and a "revelation" which declared that Zion's "borders must be enlarged, her Stakes must be strengthened."

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