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The style is low and vulgar, and, if written by Mr. Spaulding, as it was subsequently printed, it will doubtless stand peerless and alone, as the most successful effort of the violation of every rule of taste and language which the history of our vernacular has ever furnished. Internal evidence is not wanting that some manuscript has furnished the ground-plan of the work, but that another hand has greatly enlarged the text, making such additions as the peculiar doctrines, &c., of the system required.

A few extracts will show that a considerable portion of the book was suggested by the anti-masonic excitement of western New-York, which commenced in the neighborhood, and near the time that Joe Smith professes to have found the plates from which the record was taken. The Lamanites, a wicked and ungodly race who figure largely in the work, are represented as originating and perfecting a secret combination," bound with "oaths," and having "signs" by which they could recognize each other, &c.; and one Gadianton, a kind of Jeroboam-theson-of-Nebat character, introduced this "secret combination" among the Nephtes, or religious portion of the people. The following, as a specimen, will sufficiently illustrate this portion of the book :—

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"And now, my son, these directors were prepared that the word of God might be fulfilled which he spake saying, I will bring forth out of darkness unto light all their secret works and their abominations. And I will bring to light all their secrets and abominations unto every nation that shall hereafter possess the

land. Yea, their secret abominations have been brought out of darkness and made known unto us. Retain all their oaths and their covenants and their arguments. and all their signs. And only their wickedness and their murders shall ye make known.

Yea,

Ye shall teach them to abhor such

wickedness and abominations and their murders. And the blood of those which they

cannot be at a loss as to the origin of the above.

The last part of the book is to a considerable extent made up by presenting in an awkward way objections to infant baptism, (Smith was educated in the Baptist Church,) mingled with Rigdon's doctrine of "baptism for the remission of sins," which he (Rigdon) embraced when a Campbellite preacher, and made a prominent feature of Mormonism. Take the following as an illustration :

"And now, my son, I speak unto you concerning that which grieveth me exceedingly; for it grieveth me that there should disputations rise among you. For if I have learned the truth, there has been disputations among you concerning the baptism of your little children. For immediately after I had learned these things of you, I inquired of the Lord concerning the matter. And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; wherefore little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin, wherefore, my son, I know that it is solemn mockery to baptize little children. this thing shall ye teach, repentance and baptism unto they which are accountable, and capable of committing sin. and their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, I say unto you that he that supposeth that little children needeth baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; wherefore should he be cut off while in the thought he must go down to hell. And he that saith that little children needeth baptism, denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of him, and the power of his redemption. Woe unto such; for they are in danger of death, hell, and an endless torment."-Book of Moroni, chap. viii, pp. 581-2.

Much more twaddle of a similar character will be found in the book. This, doubtless, will be deemed sufficient.

These quotations furnish strongly presumptive evidence that all similar portions of the book were not written by

murdered did cry.”-Book of Alma, chap. xvii, Mr. Spaulding. As his manuscript was pp. 328-9, first edit., Mormon Bible.

Also the following, from another part :"Yea, woe be unto you because of that great abomination which hath come among you; and ye have united yourselves unto it, yea, to that secret band which was established by Gadian

ton. Behold there were men which were judges which also belonged to the secret band of Gadianton, and they were angry," &c., &c.Book of Helaman, chap. iii, p. 428.

Any person conversant with the periodical literature of the locality and time

finished some years before the mysterious disappearance of Morgan, and the great excitement consequent upon that event, and at a time when secret fraternities were flourishing and popular, it is hardly supposable that he would hold them forth in the unfavorable light above; and as Mr. Spaulding was a Presbyterian or Congregational minister, if I am correctly informed, he would not have doomed everybody to "death, hell, and eternal torment," who held to infant baptism.

"The Book of Covenants," and "Pratt's Voice of Warning," are rather better so far as style is concerned, yet equally heterodox in doctrine, and worse in morals than their bible; both of which are received as inspired, and binding on the conscience and life. The latter is a 24mo. volume, of some one hundred and fifty pages, given by Pratt, one of the twelve apostles I think, or at least a prophet, and is a savage philippic against the people of these United States, because they refused to embrace Mormonism announcing that " God's sword was bathed in blood in heaven;" that he had delivered it to the saints, (Mormons ;) and that whosoever would not submit to the saints (Mormons) within ten years, I think, should become food for the vultures and wild beasts. It was published, as near as I recollect, in 1838, and is just as clear a denunciation of destruction to the American people by the Mormons, if they do not embrace Mormonism, as is the denunciation of destruction to the Canaanites by Israel, in the Bible.

The former is made up of various revelations, given at different times, to different individuals, and on different subjects. These two volumes and their bible, coupled with the convenient arrangement for obtaining a revelation at any time and upon any subject as occasion may require, constitute the Mormon rule of faith. One important revelation, and one on which the Mormons practiced largely, establishes the two following propositions:-1. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof in every sense. 2. The saints (Mormons) have a right, as the Lord's children, to take the Lord's property wherever they can find it, and whenever they want it. And it was their bold and open practice upon these principles, connected with many other kindred and inherent evils that led to their expulsion from Illinois.

Who the writer of the article under review is we are not informed, and certainly it is not a matter of importance to know. Evidence is furnished that he is moderately well acquainted with the earlier history of the sect, but lamentably ignorant of their latter history. Why did he not tell his readers of the bogus money, and shinplaster bank, &c., of Smith and Co., while residing in Kirtland, Ohio? Or narrate their two days' drunken frolic VOL. V.-26

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at the "endowment" of their temple there? Why did he not say something of the murders and thefts committed in Missouri? Or of Rigdon's famous "Salt Sermon," delivered on the fourth of July in Far West Mo. ? in which he asserted that Judas was murdered by the apostles for betraying his master; that Ananias and Sapphira were killed by the young men for lying; and all this to stimulate the "Danites" to murder any who should dare to leave the Mormon fraternity; and in the same discourse proclaimed war to the death with Missouri if she should dare to interfere civilly or otherwise with the Mormons. All this and much more is passed over in silence! If the writer was ignorant of these facts, what business had he to write on the subject? If not, where is the honesty in suppressing them? Yet all this "eminently interesting history" is passed over in entire silence, while others, whose fathers, brothers and sons had been murdered by the Mormons, are held forth as the "ruffian population of the neighboring country," simply because they would not allow a horde of pirates to fatten in their midst.

The greatest outrage upon truth, however, remains yet to be noticed. It reads as follows:-(See p. 487, Nat. Mag., June, 1854.)

"Whatever charges were preferred against Smith and his disciples to justify the outrages to which they were subjected, the history of their expulsion from Nauvoo is simply a series of illustrations of the fact that the ruffian population of the neighboring country set on foot a vast scheme of robbery, in order to obtain the lands and improvements of the Mormons without paying for them."

The above rash and unqualified sentence I have read with perfect astonishment. How any respectable man would dare to risk and ruin his reputation for candor and veracity, in the estimation of all who know the facts in the case, by such a non-truth is more than I can comprehend; and I am bold to say that a more flagrant perversion of truth was never perpetrated in the English or any other language.

Please permit me to ask, What is to be done when the bands of civil society are all broken ?—when the terms law and order are made the mere catch-words to authorize violence, outrage and murder ?— when frequent appeals to the civil authorities have only resulted in the defeat of justice and increased outrage? Is there

nothing in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, worth contending for? Are we not to be allowed to appear and remove those who will not allow us to possess those blessings quietly?

The bare supposition that any portion of the American people would "set on foot a vast scheme of robbery" to drive off a flourishing city of fifteen or twenty thousand peaceable and orderly inhabitants is absurd. Permit me to state what can be proved by a thousand unimpeached and unimpeachable witnesses now living.

Within less than a year from the establishment of the Mormons in Nauvoo, and some time before they became an object of either fear or favor politically, there had been a concerted plan of theft and plunder carried on by the Mormons in all the surrounding country. It was no very strange thing for a Mormon to take his team, drive into a neighboring field, load his wagon with oats, corn, or wheat, and take it off to Nauvoo; or to ride out upon the prairies, herd as many beeves as he liked, and drive them to the same place; rather stealthily at first, but boldly toward the last. When an appeal was made to the civil authorities and the criminal arrested, fifty or a hundred Mormon witnesses were called in, an alibi was proved, leaving the sufferer to pay costs, with a threat that if he was troublesome about it his house would be burned, or some other evil inflicted. To avoid paying their debts the following arrangement was made :—

"It was discovered," says Governor Ford, in his History of Illinois, p. 405, "that that people had an institution in their Church called Oneness,' which was composed of five persons, over whom One' was appointed as a kind of guardian. This One,' as trustee for the rest, was to own all the property of the association; so that if it were levied upon for debt by an execution, the Mormons could prove that it belonged to one or the other of the parties as might be required to defeat the execution."

This arrangement enabled them to swindle all to whom they were indebted; and they were not backward in carrying it out. This overbearing and perfectly lawless course had been pursued until all, or nearly all the original inhabitants of Nauvoo had left, and was then commenced on the old settlers of the county in general. When they proposed to sell and move away, none would buy but Mormons, and they would offer only from $1 50 to $2 per acre, for farms that were worth

from $15 to $25 per acre. Many of the old settlers had been plundered, swindled, and dragooned in this way out of their property, and it was boldly proclaimed by the Mormons, that they intended to take the entire county and the adjoining counties in the same way.

Add to this the following picture from Governor Ford's " History of Illinois,” already alluded to:-(See pp. 320–322.)

"No further demand for the arrest of Joe

Smith having been made by Missouri, he became emboldened by success. The Mormons became more arrogant and overbearing. In the winter of 1843 and '44, the common council of Nauvoo passed some further ordinances to protect their leaders from arrest on demand by Missouri. They enacted that no writ issued from any other place than Nauvoo for the arrest of any person in it, should be executed in the city without an approval indorsed by the mayor(Smith was mayor:) that if any public officer, by virtue of any foreign writ, should attempt to make an arrest in the city without such approval of his process, he should be subject to be imprisoned for life, and that the governor of the state should not have the power of pardoning the offender without the consent of the mayor. When these ordinances were published, they created general astonishment. Many people began to believe, in good earnest, that the Mormons were about to set up a separate government for themselves, in defiance of the law of the state. Owners of property stolen in other counties made pursuit into Nauvoo, and were fined by the Mormon courts for daring to seek their property in the holy city. To one such I granted a pardon. Several of the Mormons had been convicted of larceny, and they never failed in any instance to procure a petition signed by fifteen hundred or two thousand of their friends for their pardon. But that which made it more certain than anything else that the Mormons contemplated ́a separate government was, that about this time they petitioned Congress to establish a Territorial Government for them in Nauvoo, as if Congress had any power to establish such a government, or any other, within the bounds of the state.

"To crown the whole folly of the Mormons, in the spring of 1844 Joe Smith announced himself as a candidate for President of the United States. His followers were confident that he would be elected. Two or three thousand missionaries were sent out to preach their

religion, and to electioneer in favor of their prophet for the presidency. This folly at once covered that people with ridicule in the minds of all sensible men, and brought them into conflict with the zealots and bigots of all political parties; as the arrogance and extravagance of their religious pretensions had already aroused the opposition of all other denominations in religion.

could be got from the best men who had seceded "It seems, from the best information that from the Mormon Church, that Joe Smith, about this time, conceived the idea of making himself

a temporal prince as well as a spiritual leader of his people. He instituted a new and select order of the priesthood, the members of which were to be priests and kings, temporally and spiritually these were to be his nobility, who were to be the upholders of his throne. He caused himself to be crowned and anointed king and priest far above the rest; and he prescribed the form of an oath of allegiance to himself, which he administered to his principal followers. To uphold his pretensions to royalty, he deduced his descent by an unbroken chain from Joseph, the son of Jacob; and that of his wife from some other renowned personage of the Old Testament history. The Mormons openly denounced the government of the United States as utterly corrupt, and as being about to pass away, and to be replaced by the government of God, to be administered by his servant Joseph. It is now at this day certain also, that about this time the prophet reinstituted an order in the Church called the 'Danite

Band.' These were to be a body of police and guards about the person of their sovereign, who were sworn to obey his orders as the orders of God himself. About this time he gave a new touch to a female order already existing in the Church, called 'spiritual wives.' A docget to heaven, except as the wife of a Mormon

trine was now revealed, that no woman could

elder. The elders were allowed to have as many of these wives as they could maintain; and it was a doctrine of the Church, that any female could be sealed up to eternal life,' by

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uniting herself as wife or concubine to the elder of her choice. This doctrine was maintained by an appeal to the Old Testament Scriptures, and by the example of Abraham and Jacob, of David and Solomon, the favorites of God in a former age of the world."

Add to all this, and much more, that their city charter organized the Nauvoo Legion, which was now drilled regularly and well furnished with arms, partly from the state, but mostly from other sources, and numbered from four thousand to six thousand men, as they reported ;-that Smith had sent several expeditions or secret embassies to Missouri, to murder the governor of that state, and had threatened several prominent individuals with the same fate;—that he had his Danites sworn to obey his commands as the commands of God-who looked upon him as the followers of Mohammed looked upon their prophet-all this, and much more, carried on at the bidding of a coarse, loafing, vulgar blackguard, called a prophet, backed by twenty thousand people, all of the same spirit;—that Nauvoo was the head-quarters of a well-organized band of highwaymen, burglars, thieves, and cut-throats ;— that no arrest could be made in the city; that this had been growing worse and worse from the beginning of their settlement

there;-that many appeals had been made to the law, and that justice could not be obtained there ;-that society had been dissolved ;-that the Legion had been ordered out to oppose the serving of a civil process in Nauvoo :-thus committing treason against the United States and the state of Illinois. And I submit it to any man of sense, whether the people were not justifiable in expelling them from the state. "Ruffian inhabitants!" indeed. It is a slander, and utterly false. Many of them were from "ruffian" New-England, and have been as orderly and as quiet before and since the expulsion of the Mormons, as their fathers and brothers who were left behind.

The death of Joe Smith was an unlawful, high-handed affair; but neither Hancock County, nor the adjoining counties, nor the state of Illinois, are responsible for it. It was the work of a company of men mostly from Missouri, who had some old debts, and probably the murders of fathers and brothers to avenge-murders committed by the Mormons while in that state. Part of the company was from Hancock and adjoining counties, and was composed of men whose feelings and rights had been outraged in the most egregious manner. But the act was wrong; Smith was under arrest on the charge of treason, and the executive of the state had pledged his word that his person should be secure. The Carthage Grays had pledged their word to the governor that the persons of the prisoners should be protected. Soon after the governor left Carthage for Nauvoo, the Grays, left as a guard, learned that some two hundred desperate men, well armed, were in the neighborhood, and determined on the death of the Smiths. They could not have defended them if they had tried; but they should not have tacitly consented to their death. Rather, they should either have fought to the last, or let the prisoners go free, and favored their escape. They did neither, and are justly censurable; although any course afforded but a poor prospect of escape for the prisoners. But why charge Illinois or Hancock County with their death? It was neither known, planned, nor executed by the one or the other. We might as well charge the author of the article reviewed with their murder.

That the settlers had no part in the matter-indeed were afraid to have com

mitted the act-is shown from the fact that they almost universally fled, lest the Nauvoo Legion should subject them to an indiscriminate massacre. And all that prevented such a catastrophe, probably, was the fact that Governor Ford arrested the two messengers that had fled from Carthage to Nauvoo with the intelligence, just as they were about to enter the city; took them back to Carthage; and then sent a letter, probably dictated by himself, and written by two Mormon leaders, of a pacific character, which, with measures immediately adopted, gave them to understand that though they might obtain a temporary advantage, they would soon have the whole force of the state arrayed against them, and of course, sooner or later, would either be hung or shot, if they

went to war.

Thus was illegally punished a knave with the blood of scores of murdered victims on his hands.

For about a year after the death of the prophet, the depredations of the Mormons ceased to some extent, and the country was comparatively quiet. After this the apostles and preachers of Mormonism were all called in; and, says Ford, (Hist., pp. 360-1 :)

"It was announced that the world had rejected the gospel by the murder of the prophet and patriarch, and was left to perish in its sins. In the mean time, both before and after this, the elders at Nauvoo quit preaching about religion. The Mormons came from every part pouring into the city; the congregations were regularly called together for worship; but instead of expounding the new gospel, the zealous and infuriated preachers now indulged only in curses and strains of abuse of the Gentiles; and it seemed to be their design to fill their followers with the greatest amount of hatred to all mankind except the saints.' A sermon was no more than an inflammatory stump speech

relating to their quarrels with their enemies, and ornamented with an abundance of profanity. From my own personal knowledge of this people, I can say with truth, that I have never known many of their leaders who were not addicted to profane swearing. No other kind of discourses than these we heard in the city. Curses upon their enemies, upon the country, upon government, upon all public of ficers, were now the lessons taught by the elders to influence their people with the highest degree of spite and malice against all who were not of the Mormon Church, or its obsequious tools."

From this time burglary, theft, counterfeiting, and robbery, were practiced by them, and the perpetrators were protected and secured in Nauvoo. The county of

ficers were all Mormons or Jack-Mormons, and no criminal could be convicted. In this state of affairs, a company of Mormon thieves had been followed to a Mormon neighborhood, near Lima. Search was made for the stolen property, (a wagonload of leather,) and it, with many other stolen articles, were found hid under the floors of the Mormon cabins. The people (mob if you please) then ordered them to leave in two days after which they tore down the cabins, and burned them in whole or in part. The Mormons left for Nauvoo, some twenty miles distant. Buckinstos, the Jack-Mormon sheriff, ordered out the posse-comitatus—but not a man would go. He then went to Nauvoo, where he raised several hundred armed Mormons, with which he swept the whole country, took possession of Carthage, and established a permanent guard there. The people fled everywhere from this horde of plunderers --some to Missouri, some to Iowa, and some to other parts of Illinois. During the ascendency of the sheriff and his posse, and in the absence of the people, the Mormons" sallied forth and ravaged the country, stealing and plundering whatever was convenient to carry or drive away." M'Bratney was shot by this gang; another party murdered a man by the name of Daubneyar; F. A. Worrell was waylaid and shot, and then pierced many times with bayonets by the Mormons; and a man by the name of Wilcox was murdered in Nauvoo, as it was believed, by the order of the twelve apostles."

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This, of course, brought matters to a crisis. Troops were ordered out; and when they arrived at Carthage it was very evident that the Mormons or the people fluential men in the state, used all their must leave. The governor, and other ininfluence to induce the Mormons to leave; and they finally agreed to do so as soon as the grass grew. The reason that some of them left in the winter was, they were told by those in high authority, that if they remained until the Mississippi opened in the spring, the United States troops would be upon them, and that every criminal would be arrested and tried. The "apostles," and leaders of course, left, although they might have remained until spring. reason is at once obvious. Many went in the spring; yet from one thousand to two thousand remained, who still continued their old practices, saying, that they did

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