The Rise and Progress of the Mormon Faith and People.

              E. D. “The Rise and Progress of the Mormon Faith and People.” Southern Literary
Messenger 10 (September 1844): 526–38.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
OF THE
MORMON FAITH AND PEOPLE.
1st. “Facts in relation to the discovery of Ancient American Records, with a sketch of the
rise, faith, and doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints.” By O. Pratt,
Minister of the Gospel—1841.
2nd. The Book of Mormon. Translated by Joseph Smith; 4th Edition—1842.
3rd. The Nauvoo Neighbor. Weekly Newspaper; published at Nauvoo.
4th. The History of the Persecutions in Missouri.
5th. The Times and Seasons; a Semi-Monthly Periodical, Nauvoo.
6th. An Address to the People of the U. States. By a Minister of the Church of Latter-day-
Saints.
The works which head this page, are by no means remarkable in themselves,
either for excellence of composition, or intrinsic value; but owe their importance, solely
and exclusively, to the fact, of their forming the basis and foundation of the Mormon
Faith—constituting the starting point of the Mormon people; of whom much has been
spoken and written, and but little known, and even that little, so discolored and distorted
by prejudice and falsehood, as to be almost valueless for purposes of real information.
The object of the present article is briefly to trace the leading and fundamental
articles of their creed; with a glance at their present condition and prospects. This we are
the better enabled to do from having personally visited, during the summer of 1843, the
City of Nauvoo, the head-quarters of the faithful; in which are congregated 17,000
Mormons. While there, we had frequent conferences with the Elders of the Faith,
conversed with the redoubtable “Prophet” himself; and procured all the information,
relative to the faith and people, accessible to a stranger.
Having possessed these facilities, we would fain impart the information thus
acquired, relative to this new and strange faith, which bids fair, at no very distant day, to
constitute an important element in the population of the Mississippi Valley; and which,
from its rise, increase, and steady growth, may well claim the attention of all thinking
men; since religious fanaticism, in all times and all ages, has ever been found a most
powerful lever to uproot and destroy existing Institutions; and no sect can be deemed
contemptible, or powerless for mischief, the members of which are thoroughly in earnest,
and cursed with a proselyting spirit, which “will compass sea and land to make one
proselyte;” who, when convinced, surrenders himself heart and soul to the guidance of a
scheming, unprincipled, and ambitious leader, whose whole life hitherto, has been an
acted lie, and whose malignity is only equalled by his power.
For the Mormon people are not, as is generally supposed, a small and scattered
band of ignorant and squalid fanatics, destitute of all worldly wisdom, or common
sense,—victims of an artful delusion, blindly staggering on to ruin in the steps of the arch
hypocrite, who, by his pretended Revelations from Heaven, has duped and plundered
them. On the contrary, they are an eminently practical and industrious people; sober,
orderly, and discreet, as far as temporal matters are concerned; but in Religion, bigotted
and fanatical to the last degree; yet, so far from rejecting or despising the test of
argument, willing and ready, at all times, to enter into Theological controversies with
strangers, in which their wonderful familiarity with the Bible, (the Prophecies especially,)
is very apt to give them a decided advantage; be their adversary either Laic, or Polemic.
We were informed by the Captains of the Steamboats on the upper Mississippi,
that their boats were actually haunted by these itinerant Mormons, roving “like roaring
lions” seeking whom they might entrap into a religious controversy; and often is the
incautious traveller amazed to find, in the shrewd and sensible individual with whom he
has been agreeably conversing, a member of the church of “Latter-day-Saints,” (as they
somewhat vaingloriously term themselves,) ready to maintain, even to the death, the
“Revelations” of the “Prophet,” Joseph Smith, and firmly persuaded that he and his
church are alone of the “Elect.”
Nor is this an entirely new and distinct Religion, which has sprung up in the wilds
of the Far-West to supersede the doctrines of Christianity; for it is based upon the
Prophecies in the Old and New Testaments, and its professors claim to be the only
genuine Christians. The “Book of Mormon,” whence they derive the name by which they
are commonly known, and which is generally supposed to be their Bible, is in fact
intended merely as a supplement to the Bible, which they make their rule of faith, and
chiefly contains a pretended history of the Aborigines of this country, to which we shall
presently refer in its proper place. For the present, as it is both curious and instructive at
all times, to trace out the growth of a delusion in the human mind from its first imperfect
glimmering to its final blaze, we would briefly sketch the origin and growth of this idea
in the mind of its founder, finally developing itself in the form of [526] a new Religion;