* 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, annoucing 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 Yound 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."



CHAPTER 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, uopuw or uopuwv 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, Stenbouse 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 he 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.



BOOK II. IN OHIO

CHAPTER 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."



CHAPTER 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."



CHAPTER 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 AntiMormon 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.



CHAPTER 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.