THE MORMONS: OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS, 29 with Smith-must quit the country, Placed on a noble hill, and built of and in this class were included Cow- polished white limestone, the temple dery, and all others who had opposed was intended to surpass all other ediany of the prophet's measures. By fices of a kindred sort, and though dwelling on their past injuries and never completed, a million of dollars the radiant visions of ambition, the (£220,000) were expended upon it. Mormon population grew excited to Smith's glory had now attained its an alarming degree; and a collision meridian; but it began fast to apbetween them and the Missiourians proach the western horizon. This he was inevitable. Two election scenes did not suspect, and was probably, brought the opposite parties together, like the king of Babylon, revolving and a fearful combustion of passion delicious thoughts of future grandeur: ensued ;-civil war succeeded; and in for in 1844 he allowed himself to be the fury of the conflict the Mormons nominated for the Presidentship of assailed the state militia, which was the United States, and issued, Feb. 7, then brought out in great strength a remarkable address-but without against them. Smith at length sur- any intention of going to the poll. rendered himself as prisoner, and nar- His enemies in Missouri however, conrowly escaped being shot by order of tinued filled with animosity, which a court-martial; but was committed was augmented by an unsuccessful atto prison-from which he escaped, tempt to assassinate their ex-governor, after one failure, in the spring of 1839, one of Smith's greatest enemies. A and regained the main body of his charge of complicity was preferred adisciples in Illinois, who were congre- gainst the prophet which was strengthgated at a beautiful situation on the ened by the remembrance of one of Upper Mississippi, where the river his predictions in 1841, that Boggs makes a noble bend. There a city would die by violent hands within a was planned called Nauvoo, which, in year. One of the old Danites is supthe prophet's Hebrew signified "beau- posed to have been the proposed tiful." In a brief period a handsome murderer. Clouds of troubles were city rose to delight Joseph's eyes; but now collecting in surgy masses above his heart was set on power; and in his head. While at a place on the structed by his Missouri troubles, he border of Illinois, he was carried off was eager to establish it on a legal by a coup de main, executed by two foundation. In this he was wonder- Missouri sheriffs' officers; but after fully successful, the State Legisla- several weeks custody regained his ture granting (Dec. 16, 1840) his de- freedom. A mine however was sprung mands for municipal and university in Nauvoo itself. He was charged charters; and in the room of the ill-with favouring and acting upon the trained Danite Bands appeared the more martially efficient "Nauvoo Legion," numbering 1,700 men, to whose custody the arms of the State itself were entrusted. Of this legion Smith was appointed Lieutenant General, and also Chief Councillor of Nauvoo, and a Regent of the University. In January 1841, he had a revelation respecting a new temple, and one concerning a grand hotel, in which it was provided that " Joseph and his house should have place from generation to generation !" On the 6th of April, with a mighty parade of military noise and glitter, the foundation-stone of the temple was laid by the prophet; and from this time to the abandonment of the structure, a ty thing was exacted from each saint, levied on all his property. "spiritual wife" doctrine, first broached by Rigdon; but the corporation of Nauvoo ordered the newspaper of his accusers to be suppressed, which was done with fire and fury. Flying for their lives to Carthage, Foster and Law obtained a warrant against Joseph and Hyrum Smith; this was served, but nullified by the mayor of Nauvoo, and the county authorities ordered out the militia. The Mormons were preparing to resist, but at the invitation of Mr. Ford, the Governor, the brothers surrendered, to save the effusion of blood which a conflict would have caused, resulting, as that must have done in the defeat and massacre of all the Mormons within reach. The Smiths were lodged in the gaol at Carthage, where, on the 27th of June, as is well known, a ruffian mob, fear ing that a rescue would be planned, weak judgments and conceited dispo. stormed the building and shot them sitions are speedily prone to construe both, the prophet's last words being success into a token of Divine appro"O Lord, my God!" So went down val; so "deceitful is the heart above his sun in blackness and blood! His all things, and desperately wicked." murder was cowardly and horrible, The Mormon Prophet is charged by but a striking fulfilment of the words, his adversaries with nearly every vice "They that take the sword, shall which stains the calendar of crime; perish by the sword!" He was buried and his adherents claim for him every with all the honours which his devo- virtue which can adorn the angels. tees could lavish on their Prophet, We shall judge, perhaps, not very erwho was now encircled with all the roneously, if we ascribe to him cuncharms which martyrdom could fur- ning rather than wisdom, directed by nish. Space would fail us to notify an intense spirit of self-seeking, which subsequent events. The Mormons grew more voracious and unscrupuexercised commendable forbearance; lous as his deception prospered. His and devoted increased attention to conscience seems seldom to have stood their internal economy and foreign in the way of his lust for luxury, auxiliaries. Addresses were publish- wealth, and power: and there is saed to all the saints throughout the tisfactory proof that he became dazworld, the largest of which bore the zled and magnetized with prospects name of "Brigham Young," Presi- which it would have required the gedent of the Twelve Apostles, who nius of an Alexander, and the lifetime vaulted into the vacant seat of au- of a Methuselah, to realize. thority. Rigdon, who made the same MORMONISM AS A RELIGIOUS SYSattempt, was tried and cast out, load- TEM has its Scriptures, Creed, and ed with charges of the grossest de- Constitution. Its Scriptures or Bible scription. It is history still fresh that consist of the Book of Mormon, and the Mormons were compelled to suc- the Book of Covenants and Revelacumb to the hostile feelings engen- tions, with a New Version of THE dered against them, and on Feb. 3rd, HOLY BIBLE, infamously altered to 1846, began to remove farther west. favour the new imposture. Many Their sufferings by the way were piti- books have been published by the ably severe; but in 1848 their exodus Mormons, most of them by their great was completed, and the ill-fated refu- litterateur, Orson Pratt; but their gees, resting in the Great Salt Lake inspired writings are confined to the Valley, founded the territory of Dese-books first named, with such miscella. ret, which more lately has been received into the United States under the name of Utah, of which Brigham Young is the legal Governor. Full of vicissitudes has been the career of this singular people; and these are not likely to abate. Their return of prosperity has again developed the seclusive and aggressive spirit which affliction and reverses had tamed, and it is said they have refused to submit to any jurisdiction but that emanating from their own ecclesiastical authorities. Should they resist the Constitution of the United States, a more terrible visitation will befal them, which for the sake of our common humanity, we hope their prudence will avert. Smith's character it is difficult to estimate, as it is impossible to say whether, like other successful imposters, he did not succeed in at last imposing on himself. Persons of neous contributions as may arise from time to time. The Book of Mormon professes to be a transcript from the unsealed golden plates. It is in fifteen books, and the drift of the whole is a romantic account of the migration from Palestine to America, in the reign of Zedekiah, of Lehi and his sons and daughters-in-law, by whom the new Continent was peopled, the Nephites becoming a settled community, and the Lamanites, the copper-col oured Indians. A tedious account is given of their wanderings, dissensions, leagues, wars, and degeneracy, until about the year 430, A.D., both races fight a pitched battle, which ends in the slaughter of 230,000 Nephites. Mormon and his son Moroni are preserved by flight; but the former dying of his wounds, entrusts all the golden plates to his son, who deposits them in the hill Camorah, whence, THE MORMONS: OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS. after an interval of 1427 years, they were disinterred by Joseph Smith! The story-part of the book is to be attributed to the pen of Solomon Spaulding, an invalid clergyman, who occupied his leisure time in composing it, and reading it in fragments to his neighbours, who, when the Book of Mormon was published, at once recollected the incidents and names. In May 1839, Mrs. Davison, Mr. Spaulding's widow, issued a blighting exposure of the forgery. With the legendary story, however, of Mr. Spaulding, either Smith or some other person had intermingled dreary prophecies, and re-arranged the whole. Who did the interpolating part is still uncertain. Smith's own ability is supposed by some to have been incompetent even to this poor task; while the flagrant blunders,-scientific, historical, chronological, philological, and grammatical,-which repeatedly occur, prove the mechanist to have been a bungling ignoramus.* The fact that the additions coincided with the peculiar sentiments advocated at that time by Rigdon, gives colour to the theory that he was behind the blanket assisting Joseph in his "translations," although not avowedly known to him till the book was printed. As to evidence of the reality of the golden plates, it is a sorry affair. The three original witnesses were Harris, Cowdery, and Whitmer, who testified that an angel came down from heaven, and brought and laid the plates before their eyes, so that they beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon;" but of what value their attestation is will be seen from several facts. When Harris was afterwards pressed whether he saw them with his bodily eyes, just as he saw a pencilcase held up before him, he answered, "I did NOT see them as I do that pencil-case; yet I saw them with the 66 *One of these nods-but not homeric!is too amusing to be omitted. Mention is made of the mariner's compass, in this erudite history, as existing 2000 years before its discovery; and this having been alleged to a Mormon elder against the authenticity of Mormon's record, the charge was gravely par. ried by a reference to Acts xxviii, 13," We fetched a compass!"-from which passage no doubt the Prophet borrowed his. 31 eye of faith. I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me, though at the time they were covered over with a cloth." Whitmer describ ed the angel as being "like a man in grey clothes, having his throat cut!" In 1831, Smith avowed himself unable to trust Harris with certain 'moneys;' and in 1838 he dubs this poor dupe a lackey far beneath contempt,' while Rigdon classes Cowdery and Whitmer with counterfeits, thieves, liars, and blacklegs of the deepest dye, united to deceive, cheat, and defraud the saints.' Admirable witnesses! Sufficit ad nauseam. What does "Mormon" mean, some may ask? The question was proposed to Joseph, who replied that mon is the Egyptian for good, and "hence with the addition of more, or the contraction mor, we have the word Mormon, which means literally, more good." But the Prophet's Egyptian lore is not to be credited. In 1842 Mr. Caswell visited Nauvoo, and in an interview with Smith, (whom he pictures as a " coarse plebeian person in aspect, and exhibiting in his countenance a curious mixture of the knave and clown,") handed to him an ancient Greek MS. of the Psalms, which he boldly pronounced to be a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics; and pointing to the capital letters at the commencement of each verse, he said, "Them figures is Egyptian hieroglyphics, and them which follows is the interpretation of the hieroglyphics written in the reformed Egyptian language. Them characters is like the letters that were engraved on the golden plates !" Its creed embraces faith in its Bible, as it now is, and subject to future enlargements-in the constitution of the church as laid down by Smith in four ordinances, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Laying on of Hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the Lord's Supper-the literal gathering of Israel, and restoration of the ten tribes-the establishment of Zion in America-Christ's personal reign, &c. Their views of the Divine Being however, are very objectionable, indeed, truly blasphemous; for they represent Him as a material, organized intelligence, possessing both parts and passions, not omnipresent, and undergoing such developement; that when the Father and Son have arrived at a certain increase of greatness, men will be equal to what they now are! The sublime idea of Infinity is scouted as the notion of nonentity. These, and other errors respecting angels, &c., arise from an axiom of Mormon hermeneutics-to take any and every word in the Scriptures in a literal, anthropomorphic sense. Among the gifts of the Spirit those of tongues and miracles occupy a forefront place; but the Mormon elders, unlike the ancient Confessors, are mighty in word instead of in deed; and demonstrate the vanity of their pretensions, by carefully avoiding any public attempt to raise the dead. This is the impassable asses-bridge in the science of thaumaturgic deception. The schism on the "spiritual wife" question must be just referred to. Not very remotely it was the cause of Smith's assassination, and brought his church to the verge of dissolution. "The Books of Doctrines and Covenants" do not sanction, but forbid the practice, which is a mere euphenism for polygamy,-and the public official addresses are emphatic in the negative; but there is much reason to fear that Smith's creed was better than his conduct, and that excesses under that equivocal name were committed and sought to be concealed. If dependence is to be placed on testimony respecting the present President, Brigham Young, he glories in his shame, so as to make every friend of modesty and morality blush for him, and sigh over his evil example, which must corrupt good manners. The Ecclesiastical Constitution of Mormonism is singularly elaborate: its fundamental dogma being a twofold priesthood: that of Melchisedec, the greater; and that of Aaron, the lesser; to both which Smith was ordained-to the first by John the Baptist, and to the second by Peter, James, and John! The Mechisedec priesthood consists of high priests and elders, who take charge of all spiritual affairs, hold the spiritual keys, receive heavenly mysteries, commune with the general assembly and church of the firstborn, &c. But there are official distinc tions-(1.) a presidency or high council of three high priests residing at Zion, or the centre, now Great Salt Lake City. (2.) Twelve apostles or special witnesses, and (3) seventy evangelists. The apostles act under the direction of the presidency, and the evangelists under that of the apostles; and though the theory is that each of these orders is equal in authority to the others, practically the chief power is in the high council at Zion; for the apostles and evangelists at the "Stakes," or foreign stations, are only able to act with equal authority when a majority of them are assembled,-and when those thus met are unanimous; a double concurrence, seldom likely to happen. The Aaronic priesthood consists of bishops, priests, teachers and deacons, who administer the ordinances, and conduct the temporal affairs of the church. But a bishop, unless a literal descendant of Aaron (!) must be a high priest also of the Melchisedec priesthood; a significant proviso. Superadded to these distinctions is a general law of presidency viz., one president over twelve deacons; one over twenty-four teachers; one, (who must be a bishop) over forty-eight priests; one over ninety-six elders; one out of the twelve apostles; and one out of the three high priest presidents, who thus becomes in fact, Pontifex Maximus, or Pope. One order yet remains, viz., the seventy elders belonging to the Melchisedec priesthood, who have seven presidents out of their own number, the seventh of whom presides over the other six; and these seven are empowered to choose seventy times their own number, or 490, not included in the original seventy, and who are reserved for domestic rather than for foreign service. THE ANALOGIES, DOCTRINAL AND HISTORICAL suggested by this Mormon religion are exceedingly numerous, and so ramified that it may claim relationship to almost every religion and heresy that has ever existed. Its theognostic views are more pagan than Jewish or christian,-a form of that pantheism which makes the Divine essence and intelligence the same in quality with man's; its founder has his equal, but not superior, in Simon THE MORMONS OR LATTER-DAY SAINTS. Magus, or Manes; its dogma of faith as an impulse rather than an efficient belief of testimony, unites it with every extreme of error from the "spiritual school" of Newman to that ultraorthodoxy which makes faith the result, and not the instrument, of the soul's regeneration; its notion of sacramental efficacy brings it into the society of the ancient fathers and the modern puseyites; its multiplied orders with the use of the name priesthood, and the powers supposed to be confined to a peculiar caste, assimilate it to popery, while by the subtle division of the priesthood into spiritual and temporal it secures what popery never obtained, an absolute control over its disciples' manner of supporting the church-embodying the theocratic idea as never has been attempted since the time of Moses; its miraculous assumptions put it into the same asylum with the sacerdotal conjurism of all false religions, and with such fanatical eruptions as Rappism, Irvingism, and Shakerism; its dream of domination is one with the Anabaptist spirit of Munster and the Fifth Monarchy furor of England and what shall we say more? Only that to complete all, it is the Muhammedanism of Arabia, with a christian mask and an English speech. The marks of likeness in its origin and principles to the imposture that went forth from Mecca would supply material for a separate dissertation. Joseph Smith might in a long train of respects be taken for Muhammed redivivus-risen from the dead. But the parallel is so extensive that we must reserve it for another time. 33 and mental culture have sometimes been lowest when architecture, as an art, has been flourishing among them. The cathedrals of England were erected in the night time of our intellectual history. Mormon poetry can only claim the name by courtesy. The hymn book published by Brigham Young, the present Grand Llama, Mufti, or Pope, is never destined to rival the Psalms of David, or the Lyrics of Watts. The hymns are not all strictly religious. A friendly critic extracts one "which is sometimes sung on shipboard prior to the departure of Mormon emigrants," which he pronounces to be, in point of literary merit, among the best in the volume." It is pathetic, and the versification is smooth; but there is an absence of that power of idealizing the real and realizing the ideal which separates metre from poetry and gives the poet sovereignty over the imagination and the heart. The first verse runs, "Yes, my native land I love thee; All thy scenes I love them well; Friends, connections, happy country, Can I bid you all farewell? Can I leave thee, Far in distant lands to dwell ?" One in the same volume addressed to the "Twelve Apostles," is strained Joseph's translating glass to make it and windy. The fifth verse requires clear Listen ye islands of the sca, For every isle shall hear the sound; Nations and tongues before unknown, 66 Tho' long since lost shall now be found." Surely it will require all the acuteness THE LITERATURE of Mormonism is of even a Mormon to find these eccendry and scanty. Putting aside Mr. tric "nations and tongues" which are Orson Pratt's metaphysics and his con- yet unknown, but the fact of whose troversial ability-our opinion of which existence and their having been long was not promoted by a perusal of one 'lost," is known to the sapient bard! of his tracts, which ran over with the The islands may well list at this oracucraft and cant of a partizan debater lar announcement. The degrading even the polemical literature of this conceptions of the Divine Majesty inheretogeneous society has been of a culcated by the Mormon catechism poor and paltry kind; and from the must amply react in inducing irreveranks of the Mormons during their rent flippancy. Their "poetry is twenty-two years propagandism there contaminated with this spirit. In the has not arisen one great mind embalm-Times and Seasons," a paper edited precious life-blood" in a by Smith, and published in the Illinois good book." Their architectural de- Zion "-Nauvoo,-there occurs this signs have evinced most originality wretched piece of doggrelized blasand genius; but a nation's intelligence phemy-which would not be quoted ing its 66 66 66 |