The way in which Smith translated was as follows: he sat behind a blanket hung across the room to keep the sacred records from profane eyes, and read MT by the help of his "urim and•thummim," to one Oliver Cowdery, who wrote down what the invisi ble "prophet" gave as a translation—Smith himself being, as he confesses, hut a "poor writer." A farmer, of the name of Martin Harris, supplied Smith with the necessary funds to get the work printed. The Book qf Mormon finally appeared before the world in 1830, with the names of Oliver Cowdery, Martin nulls, and David Whiliner appended to a statement that an angel of God had come down from heaven and shown them the original plates. This was immediately followed up by the testimony of eight other witnesses, among whom were Smith's own father and two brothers (suspected, however, it must not be forgotten, of being addicted to sheep-stealing and other nefari ous practices), who affirmed that "Joseph Smith, junior," had shown them the mys te•ious plates. These, however, are the only persons who have been so privileged. No other human being has ever seen them. Like Maephertion's Ossianic 31SS., they have never been forthcoming. however loudly demanded, and of late years all knowledge of them has become traditional.
Attention was soon drawn to the newly published work, and a controversy sprung up regarding its real authorship. Evidence was brought forward by the opponents of Smith to show that. with the exception of certain illiterate and ungrammatical interpola tions, bearing on religions matters, the so-called Book of Mormon was really borrowed or stolen nearly •erbatira from a MS. romance written by a quondam clergyman, named Solomon Spalding, who died in 1810,- It is unnecessary to$o over. the a•gements pro and con. Suffice it to say; tliAt generally think them eonehtsive; while the " saints" consider the whole story of Spalding's MS. romance a scandalous fabrica tion. About 1829 Smith became acquainted with one Sidney Pdgdon, originally a com positor and preacher, but who by this time had begun to promulgate a species of incipient Mormonism, and had managed to found a little sect of his own. It is conjec tured by the opponents of Mormonism that Rigdon (into whose hands Spalding's romance is supposed to have fallen for some time) gave it to his new associate to further his pur poses, and that the latter—in whose soul there may have been (according to our theory of his character) some rude and gross religious notions and feelings—devised the ungram matical interpolations. This theory acquires sonic probability feelings—devised the fact that thesereligious passages do not refer to old-world faiths and the practices of an ancient ritual, but to quite modern questions, such, we are told, as were rife in the villages of western New York about 1830. Calvinism, Universalism, Methodism, Millenarianism, Roman Cath olicism, are diseussed, if not in name, yet in reality. Infant baptism is condemned; so, strange to say, arc polygamy and freemasonry.
Undeterred. nevertheless, by exposure, ridicule, and hostility, Smith and his associ ates persevered in preaching their "doctrine," which was a new Americanized phase of millenarianism. They declared that the millennium was close at hand, that the Indians were soon to be converted, and that the New Jerusalem—the final gathering-place of the saints—was to be somewhere in the heart of the American continent. The •' prophet's" house " was frequently beset by mobs and evil-designing persons; several times he was shot at, and very narrowly escaped;" but his fearless courage continued to bring him dis ciples; and on April 0, 1830, the Charch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first organized in the town of Manchester, N. Y. Smith was fiercely attacked by the leaders and preachers of the other religious denominations, but lie kept his ground stubbornly, argued pretty well, and when argument failed, had recourse to a style of zealous pro phetic asseveration, which is generally irresistible with weak and ignorant people. If the orthodox preachers, however, could not baffle him in speech, they knew how to inflame their hearers with the most ferocious animosity against the new stet; and in Jan., 1831, Smith and his followers considered it prudent to remove to a distant part of the country. They established themselves at Kirtland, in Ohio, which was to be the seat of the New Jerusalem. They now made immense progress. Their missionaries were
full of zeal (none more so, however, than Smith himself), converts were made in great numbers, and churches were established in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Illinois, etc. Still the eyes of the new sect turned westward—to the region of the great prairies, where they might be allowed to work out their system in peace and freedom. In the autumn of 1831 a colony was established in Jackson en., Mo., which a "revelation" given to Smith assured the saints was " the land of promise and the place for the city of Zion." Land was largely bought; preaching was vigorously carried on, a printiug-presS was established, a monthly periodical, The Morning and Finning Star, and a weekly newspaper, The Upper Missouri Advertiser, were started to propagate the doctrines of the new sect; everywhere was visible a spirit of industry, sobriety, order, and cleanliness. It is only fair to the Mormons to state these things. Account for it how we may, they were, in many important respects, morally, socially, and industrially, far in advance of their neighbors. When Smiths returned to Kirtland, he set up a mill, a store, and a bank, and continued his propagandist labors with great success, but not without savage persecution; thus, for example, on the night of Mar. 22, 1839, a mob of Methodists, :Baptists, Campbellites, and other miscellaneous zealots. broke into the prophet's house, tore him from his wife's arms, hurried him into an adjoining meadow, and tarred and feathered him! Sidney Rigdon was similarly handled, and rendered temporarily insane. Smith, however, undaunted by this brutal trentn‘ent, preached next day witIc his "flesh all scarified and defaced," and proved the folly of persecution by baptizing three new converts in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the brethren in Missouri continued to prosper, hot this very circumstance deepened the animosity towards them of all who were not Mormons. Whispers also began to be spread about their indulging in a community of wives. The rumor was not true, but it probably originated in Rigdon's theory of the "spiritual wife," which Smith at first denounced, but afterwards accepted, and thereafter commenced "sealing wives" to himself in some mysterious way that Gentiles cannot yet fathom. The first step towards polygamy—a doctrine not yet revealed, however (in fact, contrary to the " revealed" doctrine on the. subject), materi ally helped to inflame the hostility of the impulsive and unscrupulous backwoodsmen. Secret societies (according to Smith, composed "of the basest of men") were formed to expel the Mormons from Missouri; their periodicals were stopped, their printing-press confiscated, their bishops tarred and feathered, and numberless other outrages were com mitted. .Finally. the hapless " saints" were compelled to flee across the Missouri river, and man, women, and children had to encamp in the open wilderness on a winter-night in 1833. They subsequently settled in Clay co., in the same state, where they remained upwards of three years. In July, 1834, they were visited by the "prophet" himself, accompanied by 100 persons. mostly young men, and nearly all priests, deacons, teacher4, and officers of the church. During a brief residence of one week among them, he accom plished much in the way of vigorous organization ; next year, 1835. a further step was taken in the development of a hierarchy by the institution of a body of apostles—twelve in number—who weresent out to preach the among the Gentiles. One of these twelve was the famous Brighath. 'Yeung,ivho bad become a renvert about the close of 1832, and had soon shown himself to be a man of wonderful sagacity and force of character. He was ordered down east among the Yankees, and nude numerous converts even among this acute people. In 1837 Orson Hyde and Heber C. Kimball were dis patched as missionaries to England, where they received large accessions to their num bers, especially from the masses in the great manufacturing and commercial towns, Man chester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow, and, above all, from the mining districts of South Wales, where Mormonism, in some places, almost competed for popu larity with Methodism itself. Since then they have extended their strange evangelization 1,) the East Indies, Australia, the islands of the Pacific, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, and almost every country on the continent of Europe.