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At the present day well authenticated pictures of Morland bring large prices.
MORMONS, or Latter Day Saints, the followers of a religion founded by Joseph Smith, who was born at Sharon, Windsor co., Vt., Dec. 23, 1803, and killed at Carthage, Ill., June 27, 1844. At the age of 16 years he removed with his parents to Palmyra, Wayne co., N.Y. From the testimony of their neighbors in Palmyra, the reputation of the Smiths was bad. they avoided honest labor, and occupied themselves chiefly in digging for hidden treasures and in similar visionary pursuits. they were intemperate and untruthful, and were commonly suspected of sheep stealing and other offenses. Upward of 60 of the most respectable citizens of Wayne co. testified in 1833, under oath, that the Smith family were of immoral, false, and fraudulent character, and that Joseph was the worst of the them. These statements are not, in general, contradicted by the Mormons. His most distinguished disciple, Brigham Young, says: "the doctrine he teaches is all I know about the matter; bring any thing against that if you can. As to any thing else, I do not care if he acts like a devil; he has brought forth a doctrine that will save us, if we abide by it. He may get drunk every day of his life, sleep with his neighbor's wife every night, run horses and gamble; I do mot care any thing about that, for I never embrace nay man in my faith." The Mormon writers state that Smith was very poorly educated. He could read with difficulty, wrote an imperfect hand, and had a very limited understanding of the elementary rules of arithmetic. The revelations, proclamations, letters, and other documents put forth by him in the subsequent part of his career, were generally written by others. According to his own account, Smith at about the age of 15 years began to have visions. On the night of Sept. 21, 1823, the angel Moroni appeared to him three times, giving him much instruction, and informing him that God had a work for him to do; and that a record written upon gold plates, and giving an account of the ancient inhabitants of America and the dealings of God with them, was deposited in a particular place in the earth (a hill in Manchester, Ontario co., N.Y.), and with the record, two transparent stones in silver bows like spectacles, which were anciently called the Urim and Thummim, on looking through which the golden plates would become intelligible. On Sept. 23, 1827, the angle of the Lord placed in Smith's hands the plates and the Urim and Thummim. The plates were nearly 8 inches long by 7 wide, and a little thinner than ordinary tin, and were bound together by 3 rings running through the whole. Altogether they were about 6 inches thick, and were neatly engraved on each side with hieroglyphics in a language called the reformed Egyptian, not then known on the earth. From these plates Smith, sitting behind a blanket hung across the room to keep the sacred records
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from the profane eyes, read off, with the aid of the stone spectacles, the "Book of Mormon," or Golden Bible as he sometimes called it, to Oliver Cowdery, who wrote it down as Smith read it. It was printed in 1830, in a volume of several hundred pages. Appended to it was a statement signed by Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, who had become professed believers in Smith's supernatural pretensions, and are called by the Mormons "the three witnesses." They said: "We declare with words of soberness than an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes that we beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon." Several years afterward, however, all three of these witnesses quarreled with Smith, renounced Mormonism, and avowed the falsity of their testimony. In a Mormon publication ""Elder's Journal" (1837), Smith himself wrote thus of Harris: "there are negroes who have white skins as well as black ones; Granny Parish and others who acted as lackeys, such as Martin Harris. But they are so far beneath my contempt, that to notice any of them would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make." Immediately on the appearance of the "Book of Mormon" many of Smith's neighbors testified that he had repeatedly made contradictory statements about the plates and the Golden Bible. Peter Ingersoll, one of his intimate friends, declared under oath: "Smith told me the whole affair was a hoax, that he had no such book, and did not believe that there was such a book in existence; but, said he, as I have got the damned fools fixed, I shall carry out the fun." The "Book of Mormon" is a collection of 16 distinct books professing to be written at different periods by successive prophets. Its style is an exceedingly clumsy and verbose imitation of that of the common English translation of the Bible, portions of which, to the number in all of 300 passages, are incorporated without acknowledgment, and a re frequently cited by Mormons as specimens of the book. A multitude of names are introduced, some Hebrew and biblical, others Greek and Latin, and the rest imitations of the former. The first book professes to be the work of Nephi, a Jew, the son of Lehi, who dwelt at Jerusalem in the days of King Zedekiah, about 600 B.C. In obedience to the command of the Lord, who appeared to him in a dream, he went into the wilderness of Arabia and dwelt there a long time with his family. At length, still under divine instruction, Lehi and his family set out in search of a promised land, and after traveling "nearly eastward" for 8 years, "through a wilderness," they reached the ocean. here they built a ship, and, guided by a compass, sailed to America. the Book of Mormon itself gives no indication of the part of the continent on which they landed, but later Mormon interpretations or revelations declare it to have been the coast of Chili. Those who arrived in America were Lehi and his wife, his 4 sons,
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Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi, and their 4 wives, 3 "sons of Ishmael" and their 2 wives, and Zoram, a servant, and his wife; in all, 8 adult men with as many wives. Beside these there were 2 infant sons of Lehi born during the journey through the wilderness, Jacob and Joseph. In America they found "beasts in the forest of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse, and the goat." Soon after his arrival in America Lehi died, and dissensions speedily ensued between Nephi and his elder brothers Laman and Lemuel; and, separating from them, Nephi moved into the wilderness accompanied by Sam and Zoram and their families, the boys Jacob and Joseph, and such of the women and children as took his side. Laman and Lemuel and the "sons of Ishmael" and their families, as a punishment for rebelling against Nephi, whom the Lord had appointed to be their ruler, were cursed by the Lord, and they and all their posterity condemned to have dark skins and to "become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, which did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey." This was the origin of the American Indians, who are consequently believed by the Mormons to be of Jewish race. Nephi and his 4 companions multiplied and prospered in their new settlement to such a degree that within 30 years after their departure from Jerusalem, that is, within 22 years after their arrival in America, they had become so prosperous and rich that Nephi says: "And I did teach my people to build buildings; and to work in all manner of wood and iron, and of copper and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. An I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon, save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land; wherefore it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceeding fine * * * * And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did consecrate Jacob and Joseph, that they should be priests and teachers over the land of my people. And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. And thirty years had passed away from the time we left Jerusalem." Nephi died about 50 years after his arrival in America, and his people continued to be called Nephites and to be governed by kings bearing the name of Nephi for many generations. The record of their history was continued on golden plates by Jacob the brother of Nephi, Enos the son of Jacob, Jarom the son of Enos, Omni the son of Jarom, and finally by Mormon, whose name is given to a single book, as well as to the whole volume, and who, "many hundred years after the coming of Christ," transmitted to his son Moroni the plates containing the writings of the authors already mentioned, together with those of Mosiah,
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Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Nephi the Second, and Nephi the Third. These books consist almost wholly of a narrative of transactions in North and South America, chiefly of wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites or red men, and of revolutions in the land of Zarahemla, which was near the isthmus of Darien, where there was an exceeding great city. At length, in the days of Nephi the Second, a terrible earthquake announced the crucifixion of Christ at Jerusalem, and 3 days afterward the Lord himself descended out of heaven into the chief city of the Nephites, in sight of all the people, to whom he exhibited his wounded side and the prints of the nails in his hands and feet. He remained among them 40 days, instructing them in Christianity and instituting Christian churches. The Christians of America, unlike their brethren in the old world, immediately adopted the Christian era for their chronological computations; and according to the record, in the 4 following centuries the wars between them and the heathen Lamanites continued to rage, with great destruction of the Christians, whose populous and civilized cities, which were very numerous throughout North America, were gradually captured and destroyed. In the year 334 the Christians made their final stand on the hill Cumorah, in western New York, where in a grand battle 230,000 of them were slain. Moroni, one of the survivors, after wandering a fugitive till A.D. 420, sealed up the golden plates on which all these things were written and hid them in the hill where they were found by Joseph Smith. One of the books in the collection, the book of Ether, gives an account of an earlier settlement of America than that of Lehi, by a colony from the tower of Babel, soon after the deluge, which was led by Jared, and in time became a great nation which was destroyed for its sins before the arrival of the colony from Jerusalem. The book of Alma, which professes to have been written several centuries before Christ, contains the following passage: "For do we not read, that God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and that in him is neither variableness nor shadow of changing?" These expressions, which the author of Alma cites as written and read in his day, were also written in Greek by Paul and James in their epistles in the first century after Christ. At a still earlier period Nephi, anticipating Shakespeare, speaks of "the cold and silent grave whence no traveler returns." -- The religious teachings of the "Book of Mormon" relate in great part to doctrinal questions that were rife in the villages of western New York about 1830. Calvinism, Universalism, Methodism, Millenarianism, Roman Catholicism, and other modern forms of belief are discussed. Infant baptism is warmly condemned, and polygamy is repeatedly denounced as for example: "For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse them selves in committing whoredoms because of the things which were written concerning
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David and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore I, the Lord God, will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old. Wherefore, my brethren, hear me and hearken to the word of the Lord; for there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; for I, the Lord delighteth in the chastity of women." Free masonry, which about 1830 was a popular subject of dissension in western New York, figures extensively in the "Book of Mormon," which abounds in the anti-masonic denunciations of secret societies, though Smith and all the leading Mormons subsequently became free masons, and organized their ecclesiastical hierarchy in imitation of the masonic system of degrees. --
According to the opponents of Mormonism, from investigations made soon after the appearance of the "Book of Mormon," the fact is fully established that the real author of the work was Solomon Spalding, who was born in Ashford, Conn., in 1761, was graduated at Dartmouth college, and was afterward ordained. After preaching for 3 or 4 years, he relinquished the ministry, and engaged in mercantile business in Cherry Valley, N.Y., whence in 1809 he removed to Conneaut, Ohio. From Conneaut in 1812 he removed to Pittsburg, and thence in 1814 to Amity, Penn., where he died in 1816. He had an inveterate taste for literary pursuits, and wrote several novels, which he was in the habit of reading to his friends in manuscript, as they were so worthless that he could find no publisher for them, while his poverty prevented him from issuing them at his own expense. During his residence in Ohio in 1810-'11-'12 he wrote a romance to account for the peopling of America by deriving the Indians from the Hebrews, in accordance with an absurd notion then prevalent in some parts of the country that the American Indians were descended from the lost tribes of Israel. As early as 1813 this work was announced in the newspapers as forthcoming, and as containing a translation of the "Book of Mormon." Spalding entitled his book "Manuscript Found," and intended to publish with it by way of preface or advertisement a fictitious account of its discovery in a cave in Ohio. His widow, in a statement published by her in the "Boston Journal," May 18, 1839, declares that in 1812 he placed his manuscript in a printing office at Pittsburgh, with which Sidney Rigdon was connected. Rigdon, she says, copied the manuscript; and his possession of a copy was known to all in the printing office, and was often mentioned by himself. Subsequently the original manuscript was returned to the author, who soon after died. His widow preserved it till
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after the publication of the "Book of Mormon," when she sent it to Conneaut, where a public meeting, composed in part of persons who remembered Spalding's work, had requested her to send the manuscript that it might be publicly compared with the "Book of Mormon." She says in conclusion: "I am sure that nothing would grieve my husband more, were he living, than the use which has been made of his work. The air of antiquity which was thrown about the composition doubtless suggested the idea of converting it to the purposes of delusion. Thus a historical romance, with the addition of a few pious expressions, and extracts from the Sacred Scriptures, has been construed into a new Bible, and palmed off upon a company of poor deluded fanatics as divine." Sidney Rigdon was born in St. Clair township, Allegheny co., Penn., Feb. 19, 1793. Soon after getting possession of a copy of Spalding's manuscript, he quitted the printing office and became a preacher of doctrines peculiar to himself, and very similar to those afterward incorporated into the "Book of Mormon." He had a small body of converts to his notions when about 1829 he became associated with Joseph Smith, who was then endeavoring to gain believers to his tale of the golden plates and stone spectacles. It is asserted that through Rigdon's agency Smith became possessed of a copy of Spalding's manuscript, which he read from behind the blanket to his amanuensis, Oliver Cowdery, with such additions as suited the views and purposes of Rigdon and himself. Immediately on its publication, the "Book of Mormon was claimed not only by Spalding's widow but by many of his friends as his long lost work. John Spalding, a brother of Solomon, says in a deposition: "I made him (Solomon Spalding) a visit in about 3 years after (1813), and found that he had failed, and considerably involved in debt. He then told me had he been writing a book, which he intended to have printed, the avails of which he thought would enable him to pay all his debts. The book was entitled the "Manuscript Found," of which he read to me many passages. It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America, endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jews, or the lost tribes. It gave a detailed account of their journey from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America, under the command of NEPHI AND LEHI. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions, and separated into two distinct nations, one of which he denominated Nephites and the other Lamanites. Cruel and bloody wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. They buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this country. Their arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view, in order to account for all the curious antiquities, found in various parts of North and South America. I have recently read the Book of Mormon, and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical matter,
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names, &c. as they were in my brother's writings. I well remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every sentence with 'And it came to pass,' or 'Now it came to pass,' the same as in the 'Book of Mormon;' and according to the best of my recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother Solomon wrote, with the exception of the religious matter. By what means it has fallen into the hands of Joseph Smith, Jr. I am unable to determine." Martha Spalding, the wife of John Spalding, Henry Lake, the partner in business of Solomon Spalding, and many others corroborated these statements in the fullest manner. John N. Miller of Springfield, Penn., testified in Sept., 1833, that in 1811 he was in the employ of Spalding, and lodged and boarded in his house, and frequently perused portions of the "Manuscript Found," which the author also sometimes read to him. Miller says: "I have recently examined the 'Book of Mormon,' and find in it the writings of Solomon Spalding, from beginning to end, but mixed up with Scripture and other religious matter, which I did not meet in the "Manuscript Found.' Many of the passages in the Mormon book are verbatim from Spalding, and others in part. The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact all the principal names are brought fresh to my recollection by the gold Bible." The printing of the "Book of Mormon" was done at the expense of Martin Harris, who had some property, and was persuaded that he could make money in the speculation. While the work was in progress, this man called upon Prof. Anthon of New York with a transcript on paper which Smith had given him of the characters on one of the golden plates. "This paper," Prof. Anthon states in a letter dated New York, Feb. 17, 1834. "was a singular [scroll]. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets, Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes; Roman letters, inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns; and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican calendar given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived." This letter was written to contradict a report set afloat by Smith that Prof. Anthon had pronounced the characters to be Egyptian hieroglyphics. -- Smith and Rigdon seem at first to have had vague and confused ideas as to the nature and design of the church they were about to establish. They were both inclined to teach millenarianism, which at that time was beginning to attract attention in western New York, and they accordingly settled into the doctrine that the millennium was close at hand, that the Indians were to be speedily converted, and that America was to be
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the final gathering place of the saints, who were to assemble at New Zion or New Jerusalem, somewhere in the interior of the continent. With the "Book of Mormon" as their text and authority, they began to preach this new gospel; and Smith's family and a few of his associates, together with some of Rigdon's previous followers, were soon numerous enough to constitute the Mormon church, as it was styled by the people around them, or the church of Latter Day Saints, as they presently began to call themselves. The church was first regularly organized at Manchester, N.Y., April 6, 1830, and the first conference was held at Fayette, N.Y., in June, at which time the number of believers had increased to 30. Smith, directed as he said by revelation, in Jan. 1831, led the whole body of believers to Kirtland, Ohio, which was to be the seat of the New Jerusalem. Here converts were rapidly made, and soon, desiring a wider field for the growth of the church, Smith and Rigdon traveled westward, looking for a suitable location, which was found in Independence, Jackson co., Mo., where in August Smith dedicated a site for the temple to be erected by the saints, and named the place New Jerusalem. On their return to Kirtland, where they proposed to remain for 8 years "and make money," Smith and Rigdon established a mill and a store, and set up a bank without a charter, of which Smith appointed himself president, and made Rigdon cashier. The neighboring country was flooded with notes of very doubtful [value]; and in consequence of this and other business [ -------------- ] in which Smith and Rigdon were accused of fraudulent dealing, a mob on the night of March 22, 1832, dragged the two prophets from their beds, and tarred and feathered them. About a year afterward a government for the [church] was [instituted], consisting of 3 presidents, Smith, Rigdon, and Frederic G. Williams, who together were styled the first presidency, a revelation from the Lord having declared that the sins of Rigdon and Williams were forgiven, "and that they were henceforth to be accounted as equal with Joseph Smith, jr., in holding the keys of [his] last kingdom." About this time Brigham Young became a convert to Mormonism. He was born at Whitingham, Vt., June 1, 1801, and was the son of a farmer who had been a soldier of the revolution. He arrived in Kirtland toward the close of 1832, and was soon ordained an elder, and began to preach. His talent and shrewdness speedily made him prominent, and in Feb. 1835, when a further step was taken in the organization of a hierarchy by the institution of the quorum of the 12 apostles, he was ordained one of the 12, and sent out with the other apostles to preach the new doctrines. His field of labor was the eastern states, and he was signally successful in making converts. In 1836 a large and costly temple, which had been for 3 years in process of building was consecrated at Kirtland; and in 1837 Orson Hyde and Heber C. Kimball, the latter of whom had become a convert in . . .
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