More of the Beauties of M0RM0NISM!
The following epitome of Gen. BENNETT'S second letter we take from the Quincy Whig Our Sangamo Journal, which has always come regularly heretofore, has ceased to pay its visits.
The second letter is dated Carthage, Han-cock county, July 2d, 1842. In this letter, Bennett, under the head of 1st, charges Smith with enticing him into a private room, where after locking the door and drawing a pistol, he tells Bennett that he would make "cat-fish bait" of him, unless he, (Bennett) made affida-vit to the effect of exonerating him from the "spiritual wife doctrine'' or "private intercourse with females in general." Bennett declined—Smith insisted that unless he did so, and al-so made a statement to the same effect before the city council, that he should deliver him o-ver to the Danites for execution that very night—that his (Smith's) "dignity and purity should be maintained before the public even at the ex-pense of life,")—and then he put the question to Bennett—"will you do it or die?"
Under the circumstances—the fear of death before him—the affidavit was drawn from Bennett, as he states, together with a statement of the same character before the city council. In proof of the fact, that a threat of the murder of Ben-nett had come from Smith, an affidavit of Fran-cis M. Higbee is given, in which Higbee swears that "Smith told him that John C. Bennett could be easily put aside or drowned and no person would be the wiser for it, and that it should be attended to," &c., &c.
Under the 2d head, he indirectly charges that Smith was concerned in the attempt to assassinate ex-Governor Boggs of Missouri, He says that Smith prophecied the death of Boggs by violent means in 1841, in a public congregation at Nauvoo. We make a short quotation from Bennett's letter: "From one to two months prior to the attempted assassina-tion of Gov. Boggs, Mr. O. P. Rockwell left Nauvoo for parts unknown to the citizens at large. I was then on terms of close intimacy with Joe Smith, and a sled him where Rock-well had gone? "Gone?" said he; "GONE TO FULFIL PROPHECY!" Rockwell return-ed to Nauvoo the day before the report of the assassination received there, and the Nauvoo Wasp remarked "it yet remains to be known who did the noble deed!" Rock-well remarked to a person now in Nauvoo, and whose name I forbear to mention for the present, from motives of prudence and safety to the person, but which shall be forthcoming in due time, that he had "been all over Up-per Missouri, and all about where Boggs lives," and this was communicated to me by that person before I withdrew from the church, and we had considerable conversation upon that daring act Rockwell is a Danite."—Bennett also hints, rather obscurely it is true, that Smith has been concerned in the murder of a "certain prisoner in Missouri," and that; Higbee and G. W. Robinson could tell more about it if they would—Under the 3d head, Bennett states his life his been sought since he life the church by the Danites, and that one Rockwell, and Capt John D. Parker, fol-lowed him to Springfield, for the purpose of taking his life, if opportunity offered.
Under the 4th head, Bennett details the at-tempt made by Smith upon the virtue of a "Mrs. Sarah M. Pratt, wife of Professor Orson! Pratt, of the University of the city of Nauvoo." He wished her for one of his "spiritual wives"—"for the Lord had given her to him"—and asked Bennett to assist him in the accomplish-ment of his wishes, but be refused. Smith fi-nally undertook the task of seducing her him-self but did not succeed. She repulsed his desires with indignation. He made the at-tempt afterwards, and upon being refused, the following detailed:—“Well, sister Pratt," says Joe, "as you have refused me, it becomes sin, unless sacrifice is offered;" and turning to me he said, "General, if you are my friend, I wish you to procure a lamb, and have it slain, and sprinkle the door posts and the gate with its blood, and take the kidneys and the entrails and offer them upon an altar of twelve stones that have not been touched with a hammer, as a burnt offering, and it will save me and my priesthood. Will you do it?" I will, replied. So I procured the lamb from Capt. John T. Barnett, and it was slain by Lieut. Stephen H. Goddard, and I offered the kidneys and entrails in sacrifice for Joe as he desired; and Joe said "all is now safe—the destroying angel pass will over, without harm-ing any of us!" [By the way, this paragraph shows what a corrupt knave Bennett was; ac-cording to his own story he was merely the pimp and accomplice of Smith in his de-signs against the females they had in their snare.]
Under the 5th head, the attempt of Smith to seduce Miss Rigdon, is detailed more at length. She was proof, however, to all his overtures, backed up as he declared them lobe by divine authority. 6th. The case of Miss Brotherton is again referred to more at length—the pro-posals that were made to her by Smith, Arc.—7th, is an affidavit from Bennett himself; wherein he swears, as to the duresse he was under when he gave the affidavit to Smith be-fore referred to, and that he has seen Smith in bed with certain married women, "whom he seduced by telling them that the Lord had granted him the blessings of Jacob, and that there was no sin t;" that he had access to numerous other married women whose husbands had been sent off on a mis-sionary tour. Under the 8th head, an affi-davit of Mrs. Melissa Schindle is given, in which she sweats that Smith came to her bed room about 10 o'clock one night, and made di-vers overtures to her to let him lodge with her! during the night; offering her moneys and striving to frighten her with his power as the head of the church. She refused to comply with his desires. He then went to an adjoin-ing bed where a widow woman was laying, got into bed, and remained there a good part of the night.
We have been thus particular--- so far as our space would allow---in making our readers familiar with the controversy between Smith and Bennett, that they may judge of the prop-er degree of credence to be attached to the statements of each. Where there is so much smoke, there must be some lire. If their state-ments, or exposures of each other's character, be founded upon the truth, the state of society at Nauvoo, must be horrible indeed---it must have been, and now is, a perfect sink of in-iquity, fit only for the residence of the deprav-ed and worthless. If the curse of an offended God, should visit our land in His wrath, for the rank corruptions and monstrous wicked-ness of the people, surely Nauvoo must go to keep company with Sodom and Gomorrah, those ancient cities of the plain. We can hard-ly put entire reliance upon the statements of Bennett—they disclose so much wickedness. Virtue and morality exist only in name, it would seem, in the holy city of Nauvoo, and that it is no better than an extended seraglio, where Smith, like Solomon of old, or the Grand Turk himself; can roam up and down, and satisfy his lustful desires at pleasure.
