From Household Words.
IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET SMITH.
SKETCH OF MOR MONISM.
OUR age, among other curious phenomena, has produced a new religion, designated Mor- monism, and a prophet, named Joe Smith. Within the last twenty- five years, the sect founded by this man has risen into a State, and swelled into the number of three hundred thousand. It exhibits fanaticism in its newest garb; homely, wild, vulgar fanaticism; sing- ing hymns to nigger tunes, and seeing visions in the age of railways. This rise of the Mor- mons is, indeed, a curious and interesting fea- ture of our age. In sectarian history, nothing so strangely important has happened for a century at least.
In 1805 there was born in Sharon, Windsor county, Vermont, United States, a boy to the house of one Smith there. He was named Joseph. His parents— poor, industrious peo- ple— moved shortly afterward to Palmyra, New- York. Joseph was brought up as a farmer. Joseph, a vigorous, wild, uncultivated boy, seems to have been used to working from the beginning. His lot turned to the homely side of affairs in general. What he saw of daily life was the necessity of digging and clearing; what he heard of religious matters was through the medium of a squabbling, vio- lent, fanatical sectarianism. Joe's career was the product of these two influences: his " re- ligion" presents, accordingly, two marked phe- nomena ; immense practical industry, and pitiable superstitious delusion. What the Mormons do, seems to be excellent; what they say, is mostly nonsense.
At the very outset of the story, we are met by the marvellous. Joseph Smith, the igno- rant rustic, sees visions, lays claim to inspira- tion, and pretends to commune with angels and with the Divinity himself. He is a ploughboy, and aspires to be a prophet; he is at first what they call " wild," but repents; in his rude, coarse life, and narrow way, he really has a genuine interest in the Bible. In this disturbed variety of feelings the young Yankee grows up; he is, as you see pretty clearly, naturally shrewd, yet credulous. The neighbors are puzzled what to make of Joseph; he complains that " persecution" was his lot very early. The neighboring ministers did not listen very favorably to Joe's visions. The time for all that, they told him, was gone by; nobody had visions now- a- days! But Joseph struggled on; for he felt some power in him- self; felt that he was, in his way, a shining light'; but, like many other shining lights, set in a desperately thick horn lantern! The fact was, Joseph, naturally gifted, was wretch- edly brought up. Perhaps it would be fair to say that he hoped to be able to do some good in his time ; so he rushed into his career with stratagetic disguises to help him on. The world would not listen to plain Joe Smith, junior, prophet, unaided. Joe Smith must have something to help him. In the nine- teenth century you must " rig" your spiritual market, Joe thought, as well as any other. So, to make things pleasant, he set about cook- ing up his own accounts of his own prophe- cies with a tale of the marvellous. Accord- ingly, in 1827, a rumor spread about among persons interested in these matters, that Jo- seph Smith, Junior, had made a discovery of importance. Inspired by a vision, he had searched in a certain spot of ground, and there had discovered some records, written on " plates, apparently of gold," which contained, in Egyptian characters, an additional Bible ! This was, indeed, the " Book of Mormon," from which the sect derive their name. The book professed to be a sacred and inspired nar- rative, reserved for the new prophet to usher into the world, and is thus described by one of the Mormon apostles :
" The book of Mormon contains the history of the ancient inhabitants of America, who were a branch of the house of Israel, of the tribe of Joseph ; of whom the Indians are still a remnant; but the principal nation of them having fallen in battle, in the fourth or fifth century, one of their prophets, whose name was Mormon, saw fit to make an abridgment of their history, their prophecies, and their doctrine, which he engraved on plates; and afterwards, being slain, the record fell into the hands of his son Moroni, who, being hunted by his enemies, was directed to deposit the re- cord safely in the earth, with a promise from God that it should be preserved, and should be brought to light in the latter days by means of a Gentile nation, who should possess the land. The deposit was made about the year 420, on a hill then called Cumora, now in Ontario county, where it was pre- served in safety until it was brought to light by no less than the ministry of angels, and translated by inspiration. And the great Jehovah bore record of the same to chosen witnesses, who declared it to the world."
This book is extant ( in its printed English form, of course) in the British Museum, and resembles the Scriptures about as much as a paraphrase of the Pentateuch by Moses & Son's poet! It appears from all the evidence, in fact, that this book of Mormon was founded on an historical romance, written by an Amer- ican author some years before Prophet Smith's time, which fell, while still in MS., into the hands of a friend of the prophet, and which was sublimated into an " inspired" state by the prophet and a personal acquaintance. It was followed by a book of doctrines and cove- nants.
Not long after their publication, the success
of these works was so great, that Joseph's faith in his own fabrications appears to have become wonderfully strengthened; and he began, poor fellow, to believe in himself, and to take up prophecy as a trade. He had oc- casional " revelations" to suit each new phase in his career. He professed also to work miracles, and to cast devils out of the bodies of brother Tomkins and brother Gibbs, whenever those worthy men were troubled with them.
The sect increased with great rapidity. It gained converts everywhere in the States. The disciples took the name of the " Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints." They held that these present days are the " latter" ones, preparatory to the Millennium. A mate- rial, eminently Jonathonian form of Christian- ity organized itself gradually; Joseph had apostles and disciples; once more the world saw a man believed in by his fellow- men, and reverenced as sacred.
It sounds strange to hear of a church hav- ing a " location." But a " location" was the term they applied to their place of settlement. Their first one was in Jackson county, Mis- souri. Here was to be the " New- Jerusa- lem." Picture to yourselves loaded wagons travelling westward; canal boats swimming low and deep down the rivers; the tall, brawny prophet with dark eyes ; the Church is on its way ! One likes to see a love of the beauti- ful in Joe. Joe looks round the landscape, and sees " the great rolling prairies like a sea of meadows." Here was Zion at last, and Joseph had a " revelation" on the subject. His revelations are the oddest compositions— scriptural phrase and sturdy business details blended. '•'• Verily I say unto you, let my ser- vant Sidney Gilbert plant himself in this place and establish a store !" This is an odd weav- ing together of velvet and fustian ; like using Raphael's " Madonna" for a public- house sign.
Prophets, we all know, are persecuted in all ages. Joe was no exception. But unhap- pily Joseph was ludicrously persecuted. He was a martyr; but a martyr to practical jokes. The brawny man was dragged from his bed one night by a horde of Methodists, Baptists, Campbellites, and other burning zealots. Wild cries are heard through the night air; the prophet is hauled along, furious orthodoxy buffeting him right and left. Where is the tar- bucket 1
The fatal bucket— black and calm as a pool of Erebus— is brought. Joe is ferociously anointed with pitch ; the thick dark fluid sticks all over him, and causes the plumage merci- lessly coated over his sacred person to adhere as tightly as if he had been really blessed with wings. A saint tarred and feathered is, indeed, a new chapter in the Book of Martyrs. The faith that could survive so tremendous a ba- thos was impregnable, and showed the un- bounded power of the prophet over his fol- lowers. It took the whole night for the " in- spired" friends of the prophet to cleanse his revered and canonized skin! Yet, scared and bleared as he was— raw as some goose plucked alive— Joe preached the next day to his own egregious multitude.
The agitation in Jackson county, Missouri, by degrees grew furious; there were Mor- mon newspapers and anti- Mormon newspa- pers ; and when the pen and the leading arti- cle had done their worst, the sword, ( the States' name for which is " bowie- knife,") the bludgeon and the revolver were brought into play. Judge Lynch, who never is to be both- ered with juries, and decides in a second on his own responsibility, was continually in- voked; end there were perpetual scenes of bloodshed. In the end, the war waxed too hot even for the dauntless Joseph. When he found that active valor was of no avail against his enemies, he betook himself to the courage of discretion, the passive and the better part of valor. He went away. In May, 1834, the entire community packed up its " notions" and effected a successful exode.
We find that after their expulsion from Missouri, they migrated to Illinois, and mus- tered fifteen thousand souls. Here they es- tablished a city, which they called " Nauvoo," or the " Beautiful," and by the consent of everybody, worked right well. Joe was mayor, president, prophet; spiritual and temporal head of the settlement. They now began to send out missionaries, and to build a temple of polished white limestone. It was one hundred and thirty- eight feet in length, and eighty- eight in breadth, surmounted by a pyramidal tower; and was so elevated on a rising ground that it stood in the sight of the whole population. The Mormons spent a million of dollars on this edifice.
We now view Joe at the summit of his career. Joe has military rank, and reviews his troops as Lieutenant- General. Drums beat, and flags are waved. He rides abroad a King. His Work is now nearly done. The city grows around him daily; houses with gardens spring up ; the hum of the mill is con- stantly heard. Every visitor to Nauvoo de- scribes the prosperity of the place as marvel- lous. The solid element of the religion invented by Joseph Smith is, that it inculcates work; hard, useful, wealth- creating labor. The Prophet also incorporated into his creed a thorough appreciation of relaxation. That all work and no play makes a dull boy of Jack, nobody knew better than Joe. One does not like to speak with levity of a prophet; but, perhaps, the exact adjective for Joe's religion is— jolly ! An air of jollity attends the faith. It is a jovial heresy ; a heresy that " don't go home till morning!" Thus, after some squab- bling, a small fight or two, ( not more intestine dissension than falls to the lot of most new communities,) the two grand desiderata of this life were realized— prosperity and ease. It was soon spread abroad that one of the first things realized in this good, substantial town of Nauvoo, was plenty to eat and drink. In consequence, Joe's disciples increased by the thousand. All sorts of pleasant fellows who loved an easy life flocked thitherward.
There was, travellers say, a healthy, happy look about the place. Life rolled along there in a clear, vigorous way, like the flood of the Mississippi hard by. Joe himself is described as a " cheerful, social companion." So very social in his tastes, that there got about a rumor that he had a tendency to make Nauvoo into a kind of New World Oriental Paradise. One of his apostles, Sidney Rigdon, broached a doctrine concerning " spiritual wives" which excited great scandal.
We have read one or two of Joe's published letters; they show a shrewd, hard- headed fellow. He writes to one man—" facts, like diamonds, not only cut glass, but they are the most precious diamonds on earth." There is a sturdy self- assertion about him; and that self- assertion is perpetuated; for the Mor- mons seem to differ from other sects chiefly in believing the continued inspiration of their prophets. Their faith, with its materialism; its rude hopes ; its belief in the superiority of their best teachers ; its heartiness in physical labor, is indeed a piece of genuine transatlan- tic life, likely to hold together long. Then- belief in their " Book of Mormon" implies a rugged, ignorant belief in Holy Writ, too. To speak seriously of our prophet, Joe Smith, we should say that the sturdy, illiterate, shrewd Yankee conceived power in him to do a work ; brooding over the Bible in his youth, and see- ing it through the hazy eyes of his rude igno- rance, such a man, with a warm heart, might fancy many strange things. Orthodoxy should consider whose fault it is that Joe Smithism could erect itself into a sect; orthodoxy should look at the three hundred thousand souls, and reflect on them. The ruling powers of the world should stoop to learn lessons of these things. Balaam learned something very im- portant from the speaking of his poor ass. The ass saw the angel when respectable Ba- laam could not. In Roman history, when anything terrible was happening to the re-
public, we find— los locutus est! Things are bad indeed when the very ox has to have his say!
We now come to the close of Joe's earthly career. The peace and prosperity of Nauvoo were soon interrupted. The prophet's old Missourian enemies kept harassing him with litigation; and some bad sheep in his own flock gave him great trouble. " At this time he appears to have been quite as convinced of the divinity of his mission as the most cred- ulous of his disciples," says his latest histo- rian. No such thing ; what good he was des- tined to do, he had now done ; and for the bad he was about to pay. There were dissenters from Joe's Church; heretics to his hetero- doxy, who looked on the prophet as a hum- bug. These were not genuine believers ; but wretched, cunning impostors, who were never " deluded;" being far too bad for any such in- nocent exercise of faith. These committed acts of licentiousness, ( such as cannot be proved against Joe,) and he had to excommu- nicate some of them. They started a news- paper called the " Nauvoo Expositor." In this they calumniated Joseph so vilely that his supporters rose; two hundred men attacked the office of the journal, armed with muskets, swords, pistols, and axes, and reduced it to ashes.
The proprietors, editors, reporters, compos- itors, and pressmen of the journal fled to the town of Carthage, and applied for a warrant against Joseph, his brother Hiram, and sixteen others. The warrant was served on Joseph as Mayor, and he refused to acknowledge its validity. Illinois instantly made preparations for civil war. Mormons gathered from all parts, and Anti- Mormons likewise. Gover- nor Ford took the field; Nauvoo was fortified. Everywhere resounded the note of prepara- tion for war.
Governor Ford issued a proclamation calling on Joseph Smith and his brother to surrender, pledging his word that they should be pro- tected. They agreed, accordingly, to stand their trial; Joe, however, observing, with a sad, calm heart, " I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer's morning!" ( The tranquil, life- enjoying pro- phet!) " I shall die innocent."
We now are to picture the brothers in prison. Their assailants prowl uneasily round the walls ; there is a desperate hungry unea- siness about the mob; they are afraid Joe will escape. One can fancy their murmuring reaching the prophet's ears— the low, mur- derous humming, every now and then.
The evening of the 27th of June, 1844, came; it had been a warm summer day in the Western country. The brothers were stand- ing chatting with two friends in an up- stairs room of their house of detention. There was a rattle of musketry. They sprang forward against the door— a bullet went through it. They sprang backwards. Open flew the door, and an armed mob with blackened faces came in. A flash and a roar, and down went Hiram Smith, shot. Joe's revolver snapped three times, missing fire. He made a bound to the window. Two balls struck him from the door; one struck him from the window. There was one wild cry from his heart, " O Lord, my God !" and down he fell out of the window on the ground. They propped him against a wall there, and shot at him again, as his bleeding body drooped forward from it. Four bullets were found in his body; and will, peradventure, be carried to the credit- side of his life- account.
After his death, the Mormons had a time of snd tribulations : n time of troubles from with- in and without. It is easy to see that secta- rian ferocity was at the bottom of the persecu- tion they met with. Governor Ford issued a proclamation denying for himself any belief in their having committed certain crimes attrib- uted to them ; and some time before, the cel- ebrated Henry Clay had expressed his " lively interest" in their progress, and his " sympa- thy with their sufferings." But the neighbors could not be pacified; the Mormons had to go away west once more; and the town they had built was reduced to ashes. They crossed the Mississippi, and set out for the " Great Salt Lake Valley," away beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Their passage is one of the most marvellous things on record. Colonel Kane, of the United States, who travelled with them, has left an extremely interesting account of it. We hear of wagons crossing the Mississippi on the ice ; of weary journeys across wild prairies ; long chill nights of dead cold ; sickness and death ; graves dotting all the line of march ; seed sown here and there, with thoughtful benevo- lence, that after voyagers might find a crop growing for them. Then there were halts, when " tabernacle camps" were pitched, and hymns were chanted. The prairies heard—
" By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept," sung there. Their depth of faith through that dreary journey was wonderful; it seems to have warmed them like actual fire.
They established themselves in the State of Deseret, and some of their body were the first who discovered the gold of California. But it seems that the colony did not send many there ; they esteemed it their proper office to " raise grain, and to build cities." They claim, too, the distinction of living in better and higher relation to the Indian tribes than any settlers have yet done.
We have scattered up and down such re- marks as we thought would illustrate Joe Smith's career. Let us say a word of the Mormon organization.
The Mormons are governed by elders, priests, teachers, exliorters, and deacons. An apostle is an elder, and baptizes and ordains. The priest teaches, expounds, and adminis- ters sacraments. The teacher watches over the church, and sees that there is no iniquity; he exercises, in fact, a kind of censorship. The elders meet in conference every three months ; and the presiding elder or president is ordained by the direction of a high council or general conference.
By the latest accounts, the Great Salt Lake City prospers very well. It is the capital of the State of " Deseret," with boundaries of immense extent. They stretch from thirty- three degrees northern latitude, to a point where they intersect the one hundred and eighth degree of western longitude. Thence they run to the south- west, to rejoin the northern frontier of Mexico, and follow to the west, even to its mouth, the bed of the river Gila, which separates the State of Deseret from the Mexican frontiers. The line of sep- aration further runs along the frontier of Low California to the Pacific Ocean. It remounts the side towards the north- west, as far as one hundred and eight degrees thirty minutes of west longitude, while it trends towards the north, to the point where this line meets the principal crest of Sierra Nevada. These boundaries stretch still northward along this chain, till it meets with that which separates the waters of the Columbia and those waters which are lost in the great basin. They then double towards the east, to follow this last chain, which separates the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from those of the Gulf of California, at the point of departure. Such are the boun- daries as described on a map published by order of the Senate of the United States.
Accessions to the Mormon community are being fast made from this country; a fact we learn from a well drawn- up volume of the " National Illustrated Library," entitled, " The Mormons, or Latter- Day Saints; a Contem- porary History," Another authority avers that from Liverpool alone, fifteen thousand emigrants have turned their faces to the new Mormon Mecca in Deseret, with the view of making it their future home. " Under the name of Latter- Day Saints," says one of Mr. Johnston's " Notes of North America," " the delusions of the system are hidden from the masses by the emissaries who have been de-
spatched into various countries to recruit their numbers among the ignorant and devoutly in- clined lovers of novelty. Who can tell what two centuries may do in the way of giving an historical position to this rising heresy ?"
Nauvoo was a neglected ruin, when M. Cabet, the spirited speculator in " Icarie," thought the site more salubrious than Texas, and resolved to establish his French colony there. His party arrived at tile spot in 1849. We see from a letter of M. Cabot's that the system he has established is ", a commonalty, founded on fraternity and equality, on educa- tion and work."
The American journals also afford a favora- ble account of the progress of Nauvoo. It will be a matter of philosophical interest to see how a colony founded on social impulses will advance in comparison with another founded on religious ones.
