A METHODIST PRIEST CONVERTED BY A MIRACLE -- WANTS POWER TO SMITE -- THE PROPHET AT HIRAM ENGAGED IN TRANSLATING -- ORDER FOR PUBLICATION OF "THE EVENING AND MORNING STAR" -- MAN-MADE COMMANDMENTS.

A NIGHT OF FURY -- THE MURDEROUS MOB AT HIRAM -- JOSEPH DRAGGED FROM HIS BED, AND IS STRIPPED, BRUISED AND ALMOST SLAIN BY A PROFANE AND DRUNKEN CROWD LED BY APOSTATES AND SECTARIAN MINISTERS.

DEPARTURE OF THE PROPHET FROM HIRAM FOR THE CONSECRATED LAND IN MISSOURI ACCEPTED AS THE PRESIDENT OF THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD -- RETURNING FROM ZION, AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO POISON HIM -- SAVED UNDER BISHOP WHITNEY'S ADMINISTRATION.

                                  HISTORY  OF  THE  MORMON  CHURCH                                   465

466                                   HISTORY  OF  THE  MORMON  CHURCH                                  

                                  HISTORY  OF  THE  MORMON  CHURCH                                   467

138                                         ESSENTIALS  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY                                        

                                          THE  BOOK  OF  COMMANDMENTS                                          139

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.

The spirit of God has been moving the minds of such men as Glas, Sandeman, and others to plead for a restoration of the ancient Gospel. [5]

Hence we cherish the hope and breathe the prayer that the spirit of missionary zeal and of primitive simplicity may shed its effulgence on our American Zion... [6]

It is obvious to the most superficial observer, who is at all

the course, and the only course, that will effect a cure and renovate the constitution. [14]

And while I write and labor as I do, he that knows the hearts of all flesh knows that I do it from the fullest conviction from his oracles that the Christianity of our day is a corrupt Christianity, and that the ancient order of things is lost sight of in almost all denominations of professing Christians. [15]

It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as there are opinions among men; as many doctrines as inclinations; and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily. And as there is but one faith, so is there but one God, one Lord, and one baptism. We renounce this one faith when we make so many different creeds; and that diversity is the reason why we have no true faith among us. We can not be ignorant that since the Council of Nice, we have done nothing but make creeds. [16]

I have looked upon thee and thy works. I have heard thy prayers, and prepared thee for a greater work.

Thou art blessed, for thou shalt do great things. Behold thou wast sent forth, even as John, to prepare the way before Elijah which should come, and thou knewest it not.

Thou didst baptize by water unto repentance, but they received not the Holy Ghost;

But now I give unto thee a commandment, that thou shalt baptize by water, and they shall receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, even as the apostles of old.

And it shall come to pass that there shall be a great work in the land, even among the Gentiles, for their folly and their abominations shall be made manifest in the eyes of all people. [17]

Baptists surrendering the title, yet holding the Head, even Christ; Restorationists, giving up their fruitless and faulty speculation, now obedient to the faith once delivered to the saints; Bible Christians, recovered from their negative gospel to the apostle's method of preaching, together with very many other forms of religions belief, all rejoicing together, perfectly united in the same mind and the same judgment. [27]

Sidney Rigdon was an orator of no inconsiderable abilities. In person, he was full medium height, rotund in form; of countenance, while speaking, open and winning, with a little cast of melancholy. His action clear and musical. Yet he was an enthusiast, and unstable. His personal influence with an audience was very great; but many, with talents far inferior, surpassed him in judgment and permanent power with the people. He was just the man for an awakening.

The trumpet which blew gave no uncertain sound. It was the old jubilee trumpet, first sounded by the fishermen of Galilee on the day of Pentecost, announcing glad tidings to the nations that the year of release from bondage in sin had now come, calling ransomed sinners to return, freely pardoned, to their homes. They spoke with authority, for the word they delivered was not theirs, but that of Jesus Christ. The whole community was quickly and thoroughly aroused. Many turned to the Lord. The first person to accept the offered boon and lead the people to Christ, was an intelligent young man, M. S. Clapp, then in his twenty-first year, son of Judge Clapp. His older brother, Thomas J. Clapp, had been baptized in June previous. Twenty persons were baptized the first time they repaired to the Jordan. The immediate result of the meeting was the conversion of over fifty souls to the Lord Jesus.

It is impossible to describe the agitation of the public mind. The things which they heard were so new, yet so clearly scriptural,

that, while some hesitated and many wondered, they could not gainsay it; and nearly the whole church accepted cordially the doctrine of the Lord, exchanged their "articles" for the new covenant as the only divine the basis for Christ's church, and abandoned unscriptural titles and church names, choosing to be known simply as the disciples of Christ.

From Mentor they went to Kirtland, where almost an equal in-gathering awaited them. The fields were white for the harvest. At the first baptizing here, twenty souls were lifted into the kingdom. Others followed, and soon the numbers so increased that a separate organization became a necessity -- so mightily prevailed the word of the Lord.

The news of this great overturn spread quickly through the country, up and down the lake shore. Bentley went to Painesville. The rumor of the revival in Mentor preceded him, with some exaggerated and perverted accounts of the preaching. He delivered a few discourses on the first principles of the gospel, and left them to leaven the minds of his hearers. The church now contained over a hundred members.

Few communities have been so stable; the families here named have composed the staple of membership, and the support of the church from that time to the present. This congregation has long stood as a lighthouse. It was shaken as by a tempest under the outbreak of Mormonism; but it is to be noted that few of its members were led astray. While the church in Kirtland, with less experience, and more immediately in Rigdon's power, became engulphed, and has never since been recovered, the church in Mentor, with stronger material, withstood the shock. They were much aided in their resistance by the presence of Elder Thomas Campbell, who spent several months there and in the vicinity during the agitation which it produced.

Bro. A. P. Jones and J. J. Moss, equally bold and with more learning, was his true yoke-fellow. They were both teaching in the vicinity of Kirtland, when Mormonism invaded the place, and hand in hand, though young, they often put its champions to flight.

This was in the fall of 1830. This coarse imposture was not born of chance. Characterized by much that is gross, and accompanied by practices repulsive for their lowness and vulgarity, it yet had a plan and an aim, and it was led on by a master spirit of delusion. It marked out its own coarse, and premeditated its points of attack. Its advent in Mentor was not accidental. Its four emissaries to the "Lamanites" in the West, like the four evil messengers from the Euphrates (Rev. ix: 15), had Rigdon in their

eye before leaving Palmyra, N. Y. On his part, Rigdon, with pompous pretense, was travailing with expectancy of some great event soon tube revealed to the surprise and astonishment of mankind. Gifted with very fine powers of mind, an imagination at once fertile, glowing and wild to extravagance, with temperament tinged with sadness and bordering on credulity, he was prepared and preparing others for the voice of some mysterious event soon to come.

The discomfiture he experienced at the hands of Mr. Campbell at Austintown, when seeking to introduce his common property scheme, turned him away mortified, chagrined and alienated. This was only two and a half months before he received, in peace, the messengers of delusion. Another fact: A little after this, the same fall, and before the first emissaries of the Mormon prophet came to Mentor, Parley P. Pratt, a young preacher of some promise from Lorain County, a disciple under Rigdon's influence, passing through Palmyra, the prophet's home, turned aside to see this great sight. He became an easy convert Immediately an embassy is prepared, composed of this same P. P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery and two others, for the "Lamanites."

The next scene opens in Mentor. About the middle of November, came two footmen with carpet bags filled with copies of the Book of Mormon, stopped at Rigdon's What passed that night between him and these young prophets no pen will reveal; but interpreting events came rapidly on. Next morning, while Judge Clapp's family were at breakfast, in came Rigdon, and in an excited manner said: "Two men came to my house last night on a c-u-r-i-o-u-s- mission;" prolonging the word in a strange manner. When thus awakened, all around the table looking up, he proceeded to narrate how some men in Palmyra, N. Y., had found, by the direction of an angel, certain plates inscribed with mysterious characters; that by the same heavenly visitant, a young man, ignorant of letters, had been led into the secret of deciphering the writing on the plates; that it made known the origin of the Indian tribes; with other matters of great interest to the world and that the discovery would be of such importance as to open the way for the introduction of the Millennium. Amazement! They had been accustomed to his stories about the Indians, much more marvelous than credible, but that strange statement, made with an air both of wonder and credulity, overcame their patience. "It's all a lie," cried out Matthew; quite disconcerting the half apostate Rigdon; and this future Aaron of the new prophet retired.

These two men who came to Rigdon's residence, were the young preacher before named, P. P. Pratt, intimately acquainted

with Rigdon, and therefore, doubtless chosen to lead the mission, and Oliver Cowdery. This Mr. Cowdery was one of the three original witnesses to Mormonism; Martin Harris and David Whitmer were the other two. Harris was the first scribe to record the new Bible at the dictation of Smith; but through carelessness he suffered the devil to steal 116 pages of the manuscript, and then Cowdery was chosen in his stead.

These men staid with Rigdon all the week. In the neighborhood lived a Mr. Morely, a member of the church in Kirtland, who, acting on the community principles, had established a "family." The new doctrines of having "all things in common," and of restoring miracles to the world as a fruit and proof of true faith, found a ready welcome by this incipient "community." They were all, seventeen in number, re-immersed in one night into this new dispensation.

At this, Rigdon seemed much displeased. He told them what they had done was without precedent or authority from the Scriptures, as he showed, baptized penitential believers for the remission of sins. When pressed, they said what they had done was merely at the solicitation of those persons. Rigdon called on them for proofs of the truth of their book and mission. They related the manner in which they obtained faith, which was by praying for a sign, and an angel appeared to them. Rigdon here showed them from Scripture the possibility of their being deceived: "For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." "But." said Cowdery, "do you think if I should go to my Heavenly Father, with all sincerity, and pray to him, in the name of Jesus Christ, that he would not show me an angel -- that he would suffer Satan to deceive me." Rigdon replied: "If the Heavenly Father has ever promised to show you an angel to confirm anything, he would not suffer you to be deceived; for John says: "If we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us." "But," he continued, "if you should ask the Heavenly Father to show you an angel, when he has never promised such a thing -- if the devil never had an opportunity before of deceiving you, you give him one now."

This was a word in season, fitly spoken; yet, strange enough! two days afterward he was persuaded to tempt God by asking this sign. The sign appeared, and he was convinced that Mormonism was of God! According to his own reasoning, therefore, Satan appeared to him as an angel of light. But he now imputed his former reasoning to pride, incredulity, and the influence of the Evil One."

The next Sunday Rigdon, accompanied by Pratt and Cowdery,

went to Kirtland to his appointment. He attempted to preach; but with the awful blasphemy in his heart, and the guilt of so shameless an apostasy on his conscience, how could he open his mouth in the name of the insulted Jesus. The eloquent lips which never stammered before, soon became speechless, and his tongue was dumb. The faithless watchman, covered with the shame of his fall, surrendered his pulpit and congregation to the prey of wolves. Cowdery and Pratt did most of the preaching; and that day, both Mr. and Mrs. Rigdon, with many of the members of the church in Kirtland, were baptized into the new faith.

Though coming into Ohio first among the disciples, and introduced to their attention in a well-planned and artful manner, very few of the leading members were for a moment deceived. After its first approach, it boasted of few converts from any of our churches. Rigdon, Pratt and Orson Hyde, the last two young and but little known, were the only preachers who gave it countenance.

The opposition to it was quick on its feet, in rank, and doing effective work to check the imposture. J. J. Moss, at the time a young school-teacher in the place, pelted them, but not with grass. Isaac Moore stood up, and became a shield to many. The vigilance of the Clapps prevented any serious inroads into the church of Mentor. Collins forbade its approach to Chardon, and it merely skulked around it hills. Alexander P. Jones was there also, young, shrewd, and skilled. In many an encounter he was left without a foe. But the misfortune governing the case was that many people, victims of excitement and credulity, and taught in nearly all pulpits to pray for faith, now found themselves met on their own grounds, and so finding an emotion or impulse answerable to an expected response from heaven, dared not dispute the answer to their own prayers, and were hurried into the vortex. The reason the delusion made little progress among the Disciples, save only at Kirtland, where the way it was paved by the common-stock principle, is to be found in the cardinal principle everywhere taught and accepted among them, that faith is founded on testimony.

The venerable Thomas Campbell, hearing of the defection of Rigdon and the progress this silly delusion was making, came quickly to the front. He spent much of the winter in Mentor and vicinity. His wise counsels and great weight of influence interposed an effectual barrier against its encroachments. He addressed a communication to Rigdon so firm, so fatherly and characteristic, that the reader shall have the pleasure of perusing it. Its great length will apologize for the omission of a portion of it. Soon after his return to Kirtland, Rigdon fulminated a pompous

challenge to the world to disprove the new Bible. On this Mr. Campbell wrote him, as follows:

---

Mentor, February 4, 1831.        

Mr. Sidney Rigdon,

"Dear Sir: -- It may seem strange, that instead of a confidential and friendly visit, after so long an absence, I should thus address, by letter, one whom for many years I have considered not only as a courteous and benevolent friend, but is a beloved brother and fellow-laborer in the gospel; but, alas! how changed, how fallen! Nevertheless, I should now have visited you, as formerly, could I conceive that my so doing would answer the important purpose, both to ourselves and to the public, to which we both stand pledged, from the conspicuous and important stations we occupy -- you as the professed disciple and public teacher of the infernal Book of Mormon, and I as a professed disciple and public teacher of the supernal book of the Old and New Testaments of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which you now say is superceded by the Book of Mormon -- is become a dead letter; -- so dead that the belief and obedience of it, without the reception of the latter, is no longer available for salvation. To the disproof of this assertion, I understand you to defy the world. I here use the epithets infernal and supernal in their primary and literal meaning, the former signifying from beneath, the latter from above, both of which are truly applied, if the respective authors may be accredited; of the later of which, however, I have no doubt. But, my dear sir, supposing you are sincere in your present, as in your former profession, neither yourself, your friends, nor the world are bound to consider you as more infallable in your latter than in your former confidence, any further than you can render good and intelligible reasons for your present certainty. This, I understand from your declaration on last Lord's day, you are abundantly prepared and ready to do. I, therefore, as in duty bound, accept the challenge, and shall hold myself in readiness, if the Lord permit, to meet you publicly, in any place, either in Mentor or Kirtland, or in any of the adjoining towns that may appear most eligible for the accommodation of the public. The sooner the investigation takes place pace the better for all concerned.

"The proposition that I have assumed, and which I mean to assume and defend against Mormonism and every other ism that has been assumed since the Christian era, is the all-sufficiency and the alone-sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, vulgarly called the Bible, to make every

intelligent believer wise to salvation, thoroughly furnished for any good work. This proposition, clearly and fully established, as I believe it most certainly can be, we have no more need for Quakerism, Shakerism, Wilkinsonianism, Buchanism, Mormonism, or any other ism, than we have for three eyes, three ears, three hands, or three feet, in order to see, hear, work, or walk. [28]

So long as a disposition to alter the Bible was confined to erratic sects, such as Campbellites, Universalists, etc., we had no fears. Nothing better could be expected from such a source; but when a great evangelical denomination betrays a disposition to tamper with the English Bible, it is time to be alarmed for the purity of the Word of God.

...For behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also

many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.

And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.

Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God. [2]

And she brought forth a masculine son. Revelation 12:5.

In those days appeared John the Immerser, who proclaimed in the wilderness of Judea, saying Reform, for the Reign of Heaven approaches. Matthew 3:1-2.

But I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother unjustly, shall be obnoxious to the judges; whosoever shall call him fool, shall be obnoxious to the council; but whosoever shall call him miscreant, shall be obnoxious to hell fire. Matthew 5:22.

And why do you observe the mote in your brother's eye, but are insensible of the splinter in your own eye? Or how dare you

say to your brother, Let me take the mote out of your eye; when lo! you have a splinter in your own? Hypocrite, first take the splinter out of your own eye; then you will see clearly to take the mote out of your brother's eye. Matthew 7:3.

But whosoever hears these my precepts, and does them not, shall be compared to a simpleton, who built his house upon the sand. Matthew 7:25.

Who though he was in the form of God did not affect to appear in divine majesty. Phillipians 2:6-7.

I tell you likewise, you are named Stone, and on this rock I will build my congregation, on which the gates of Hades shall not prevail. Matthew 16:18.

"From persons of sound biblical learning and candor, we have nothing to fear; but from all bigots and liberal critics we expect the same coarse treatment which has fallen to the lot of every translator from Jerome's time until the present day, March 1, 1833."

Falsification of the Scriptures. -- A reverend gentleman in England, named Curtis, has recently made some appalling disclosures in relation to the careless and iniquitous manner in which the University editions of the Holy Bible, published by the King's printer, are put forth to the world. Mr. Curtis has exposed some enormous errors, and variations from the original text, as given in King James' time. Six hundred mistakes have been found in one book, and eight hundred in another! many of them most important, and all of them inexcusable. Some of the grosser ones,

which would seem to have been concerted and intentional, have been rife for forty years. The true sense of Holy Writ, it is contended, has been greatly warped by these errors; and measures are in train to have them ratified, in all future editions of the scriptures published in England. It is stated that the churches in America have long since adopted the edition in question as a standard; -- if so, it is of the last importance, we should conceive to import one of the corrected copies, now preparing, at the earliest period. The writer remarks, with much sorrowful feeling, that such perversions of the Sacred Word have given rise to more scoffers and infidels, than could have been otherwise produced by any other cause.

In regard to the falsifications and mistakes of the Bible, noticed in the first article, there is great reason to fear that they extend beyond the "University Editions published by the King's Printer." In the multiplicity of editions we see every day palmed upon the world, without any sanction or authority whatever, by booksellers and societies and denominations and sects of all sorts, where is the security that the text may not be altered to suit the peculiar tenets of each particular sect, or marred by the carelessness or ignorance of the publishers? We have heard it asserted, and from the hurried manner in which these Bibles are multiplied almost to infinity, we believe it to be true, that many of the common editions are scandalously inaccurate, if not wilfully falsified, to sanction the peculiar tenets of the sects by whom they are published. The common people who have in a great degree lost their reverence and value for the Sacred Book, from the usual effects of too great plenty, receive it without enquiry, though there is no security whatever for its accuracy, and no sanction of church or state to guard against interpolation, corruption or mistake.

These things ought not to be. The Bible is too important a volume to be left thus at the mercy of ignorance, carelessness, or wilful interested falsification. It should come forth with the sanction of some high and responsible authority, and carry with it evidence that it has undergone the strict scrutiny of persons, whose learning and integrity sufficiently guaranty the public against deception and falsehood. As it is now, we really see no obstacle to publishing Bibles to suit any system of morals or religion, and whose precepts may outrage every principle of the Decalogue. Living as we do under a Government which neither interferes nor allows interference in religious matters, it is without

doubt difficult, if not impossible, to prevent impositions of this kind, since there is no law that we know of to prevent a man from publishing any book he pleases under the denomination of the Holy Bible. Still the evil we speak of is not the less to be deplored; and we cannot but recommend it most earnestly to the attention of all those who would preserve the scriptures from degenerating by degress into a heterogeneous jumble of contradictory and irreconcilable inconsistencies. The few doctrinal differences originating in the two translations of the Bibles of the Catholic and Protestant faiths, detract but little from the divinity of the Scriptures; but the eternal multiplication of these differences, must, in the end, entirely destroy their force and authority, and undermine the very foundation of our faith. When it is seen that they sanction the most opposite and incongruous opinions, and that those who agree in nothing under heaven, can find in the Scriptures authority for all their differences, it cannot but happen that reflecting minds will begin to doubt the infallibility of an oracle so liable to be misinterpreted.

There is no commentator, theologian, critic, or man of letters, who has paid much attention to the common English version, who does not say that it needs correction and emendation. But how this is to be accomplished....

And why does he call the common version "King James' Bible," when there are many thousand alterations in it? So rare is a pure copy of King James', that I presume Dr. Clelland never saw one. I have not leisure to count, but I will affirm on the comparisons which I have made, taking, the ration of a single book, that there are more than ten thousand alterations in the Bible Society editions of the King's version, compared with a genuine King James' Bible!

....To look to England for any change in the present version of the English Bible, is out of the question. The relative situation of the Established and Dissenting Churches, is sufficient to satisfy any one, that while it subsists, there can be no agreement,

even on such points as a reformation of the present English Bible, in matters not sectarian. We must, therefore, judge and act for ourselves; and as unquestionably the changes, that might be adopted in this country, would be sanctioned, for the most part, if not altogether, by the best English and Scotch commentators, we may indulge the hope that we might thus be instrumental in preparing the way in Great Britain, for an amend-men of King James' Bible among themselves.

Moreover, there was a Pharisee, whose name was Nicodemus, a senator of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night, and said unto Him, Teacher, we know that thou art an instructor emanated from God; for no one can achieve these miracles which thou performest unless God be with him. Jesus answered and said to him, Indeed, I assure you, that except a man be reproduced, he cannot realize the reign of God. Nicodemus says to him, How can a man be produced when he is mature? Can he again pass into a state of embryo, and be produced? Jesus replied. I most assuredly declare to you, that unless a man be produced of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is produced from the body is natural life, and that which is produced from the Spirit is spiritual life. [3]

As to the delicacy, (which appears the chief object of the translator,) I would ask whether this squeamishness and fastidiousness do not betray more indelicacy of thought than is found in the simple and unaffected language of nature. The prude is more scrupulous and affected than a woman of unsuspected virtue. The over nicety of the former excites suspicion, while the simplicity and artlessness of the latter exhibit a mind unpractised in the arts of deception. If it be indelicate to speak of being born again, it is equally so to speak of being born; and this translator,

to be consistent with himself, ought to exclude this word and all its relatives from the Bible. Instead of "Them who are born of woman," he ought to say, 'Of them that are produced by women;' and instead of "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt not have criminal conversation with a married lady." But even this is too coarse for a gentleman of such refined taste. It would be better to leave out the commandment altogether than to offend the rules of politeness! [4]

I think it will do much to expand the too contracted minds of many of the leaders of the people on the subject of New and Old Versions. It will correct much, of that blind and implicit homage paid to the King's translators and translation, and cannot fail to convince the most prejudiced eulogists of the piety and eminent proficiency in ancient and sacred literature of the authors of the common version, that they have been rendering honor where it was not due, and ignorantly withholding it from the real author of the common version, to whom it was justly due: for certainly there is no man of good sense and of ordinary candor, who, after examining and comparing William Tyndal's Testament with the common, that will not acknowledge that William Tyndal is the real author of the King's version; or, in other words, that the King's translators were no translators at all, but simply copyists of Tyndal and collator of other Protestant versions. My edition of Campbell, MacKnight, and Doddridge's version, is fully as much my version as the common version is that of King James' "forty-seven eminent Divines." [7]

The Bible is the very utterance of the Eternal; as much God's own word as if high heaven were open and we heard God speaking to us with human voice. Every book is inspired alike, and is inspired entirely. Inspiration is not a difference of degree, but of kind. The Bible is filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit of God; the books of it, and the words of it and the very letters of it. The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth on the throne. Each book of it, every letter of it is the direct utterance of the Most High, supreme, absolute, faultless, unerring.

What mean these words, 1 Car. XV. 29. "Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the dead?"

Answer. The next verse gives the key of interpretation. "And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?" Why should I, Paul, hazard my life in attesting the resurrection of Jesus Christ, if I had not the most unequivocal proof of his resurrection? Through this medium contemplate the preceding words. Only recollect that the word immerse is used frequently for sufferings. Jesus said, "I have an immersion to undergo, and how am I straightened till it be accomplished." I have to

be immersed in an immense flood of sufferings. Also the phrase, "fallen asleep for Christ," is equivalent to dying for declaring faith in him. Now these criticisms regarded, and the elliptical verse 29, is plain and forcible -- "If there be no resurrection from the dead, what shall they do who are immersed in afflictions and distress for believing and declaring that the dead will be raised? If the dead rise not at all, if they are not assured of their resurrection, why do they submit to be immersed in sorrows in the hope of a resurrection?"

Our early translators seem to have adopted the Roman Catholic notion of the gospel being preached to departed souls -- "For whi for this thing it is preeched also to deed men." -- Wickliff. "For unto thys purpose verely was the gospel preached also unto the deed."-- Cranmer. Later translators have entertained very various opinions. Whitby, MacKnight, and Wakefield, consider `the dead' to be the Gentile world, "dead in sins." Wesley understands the apostle to say, "the gospel was preached ever since it was given to Adam, to them that are now dead, in their several generations." Scott thinks "the gospel had before this been preached to those (righteous persons) who were dead when the apostle wrote, either as martyrs for the truth, or dying in the course of providence." Knatchbull, by giving the words a scarcely justifiable construction, makes easy sense: "For this cause was the gospel preached to them that were dead, that they who lived according to men in the flesh may be condemned; but they who live according to God in the spirit may live." Boothroyd regards the dead as being martyrs, who, though they were condemned as to men in the flesh, yet lived as to God in the spirit. Adam Clarks takes the dead to be antedeluvians, who, although dead in sins and condemned to death by the righteous judgment of God, yet were respited and preached to, that they might "live a blessed life in eternity." [11]

That God should send a message to mankind, on such an important subject as their eternal happiness, in language not intelligible to the most illiterate of them, is utterly incredible, and to impute such conduct to the Deity is manifest impiety. If, then, the scriptures do contain a divine communication, it follows of course, that the words chosen by the Revealing Spirit must be the fittest to convey the ideas which he meant to communicate, that could be selected, and such as he knew to be perfectly intelligible to those to whom he addressed them, so far as he intended them to be understood. This granted, we are certainly authorized to consider the words of Scripture as they stand in the connexion formed by the Spirit, as calculated to convey with perfect clearness and certainty, all the information which he designed to convey by them, and of course as insusceptible of additional clearness of certainty by and change of terms which man can devise.

And that King James' version needs a revision is just as plain to the learned and biblical student, as that the Scotch and English used in the sixteenth century, is not the language now spoken in these United States. And this may be made as plain to the common mind, as it is that the coat which suited the boy of twelve, will not suit the same person when forty years old. As the boy grows from his coat, so do we from the language of our ancestors.

One of the objections which the enemies of the Bible have against it is what they call the "contradictions" in it. The Mormons are chief among those who try to show that there are contradictions in the Bible. They say these contradictions show that the book has not been properly translated, and that God favored the world by giving Joseph Smith a better translation. [12]

Some of this class of people, perceiving that such a church as they had formed an idea of would never be established by human means, indulged the hope that God himself would in his own time erect for himself a new church, free from every blemish and impurity; and that he would raise up certain persons, and fill them with heavenly light for the accomplishment of this great object. [1]

Christianity, having degenerated into a Beast and Harlot, receives sentence of condemnation, which yet God is pleased not to execute without calling men to repentance by one more, and that the last Dispensation of his Grace.... In the world's sixth, which is its old age, it shall by the favor of Jesus Christ receive one more Dispensation of his Grace, which will be the last the wicked world is ever to expect. It will consist, as the former did, in appearing, revelation and re-establishment of some ordinances. [6]

"Fits of melancholy followed by fits of enthusiasm accompanied by some kind of nervous spasms and swoonings which he has since his defection," argued Alexander Campbell, "he interpreted into the agency of the Holy Ghost... Baptism for the remission of sins is a phrase not found in their book. A few of their leaders took it from Rigdon.... The Mormonite religion was got up to deceive the people and obtain their property, and was a wicked contrivance with Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith, Jr. May God have mercy on the wicked men, and may they repent of this their wickedness." [7]

This reverence have I learnt to give to those books of Scripture only which are called canonical. Others I so read that I think not anything to be true because they so thought it, but because they were able to persuade me either by those canonical authors, or by some probable reason, that it did not swerve from the truth.

The gates of admission into these three kingdoms is different -- Flesh, Faith, and Works. To be born of the flesh, or to be a descendant of Abraham, introduced a child into the first kingdom of God. To be born of water and spirit, through faith in Jesus Christ, brings men and women into the second kingdom. But neither flesh, faith, nor water, without good works, will introduce a man or woman into the third kingdom.

The nature of these three kingdoms, the privileges enjoyed by the subjects, and the terms of admission, are very imperfectly understood in the present day. These kingdoms are unhappily confounded in the minds of many.... All the descendants of Jacob, without regard to regeneration, were lawful subjects of the first kingdom. None can be subjects of the second unless born again; and flesh and blood cannot inherit the third and ultimate kingdom.... It is but an opinion that infants, idiots, and some Jews and Pagans may without even faith or baptism, be brought into the third kingdom, merely in consequence of the sacrifice of Christ; and I doubt not that many Paidobaptists of all sects will be admitted into the kingdom of glory. Indeed, all they who obey Jesus Christ, through faith in his blood, according to their knowledge, I am of the opinion will be introduced into that kingdom....

There are three kingdoms: the kingdom of the Law, the Kingdom of Favor, and the Kingdom of Glory; each has a different constitution, different subjects, privileges, and terms of admission.... But when we speak of admission into the everlasting kingdom, we must have due respect to those grand and fundamental principles so clearly propounded in the New Institution. We must discriminate between the kingdom of favor and the kingdom of glory....

When I waited at the altar and waited in the sanctuary my conscience was often troubled... I saw that His institution differed from that of Moses as the sun excelled a star. I apprehended the reign of favor, and gladly became a citizen of the second kingdom.... I felt myself in a new kingdom, a kingdom of favor. Sin did not now lord it over me as before, and my heart beat in unison with the favor which superabounded; so that in comparison with the former kingdom, my sun always shone in a bright and cloudless sky....

I ran the race and finished my course. I slept in Jesus; and lo! I awoke at the second trump, and all my deeds came into remembrance, not one of them was forgotten by God.... The contrast between the kingdom of law and the kingdom of favor prepared me to enjoy and to relish the contrast between the kingdom of favor and the kingdom of glory.... I have been thrice born -- once of flesh, once of water and spirit, and once from the grave. Each birth brought me into congenial society. My fellow citizens always resembled my nativity. I was surrounded once with the children of the flesh, then with those born from above, and now with those born from the ashes of the grave.

Perhaps in no place, except Kirtland, did the doctrines of the "Latter-day Saints" gain a more permanent footing than in Hiram. It entrenched itself there so strongly that its leaders felt assured of the capture of the town. Rigdon's former popularity in that region gave wings to their appeal, and many people, not avowed converts, were under a spell of wonder at the strange things sounded in their ears." [11]

Nothing could be more pleasing to the Saints upon the order of the kingdom of the Lord, than the light which burst upon the world through the foregoing vision. Every law, every commandment, every promise, every truth, and every point touching the destiny of man, from Genesis to Revelation, where the purity of the scriptures, remains unsullied by the folly of men, go to show the perfection of the theory (of different degrees of glory in the future life) and witness the fact that that document is a transcript from the records of the eternal world. The sublimity of the ideas; the purity of the language; the scope for action; the continued duration for completion, in order that the heirs of salvation may confess the Lord and bow the knee; the rewards for faithfulness, and the punishments for sins, are so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that every honest man is constrained to exclaim: "It came from God!"

To give particulars of the Mormon excitement of 1831 would require a volume -- a few words must suffice. It has been stated that from the year 1815 to 1835, a period of twenty years, "all sorts of doctrine by all sorts of preachers had been heard;" and most of the people of Hiram had been disposed to turn out and hear. This went by the specious name of "liberal." The Mormons in Kirtland, being informed of this peculiar state of things, were soon prepared for the onset.

In the winter of 1831 Joseph Smith, with others, had an appointment in the south school-house, in Hiram. Such was the apparent piety, sincerity and humility of the speakers, that many of the hearers were greatly affected, and thought it impossible that such preachers should lie in wait to deceive.

During the next spring and summer several converts were made, and their success seemed to indicate an immediate triumph in Hiram. But when they went to Missouri to lay the foundation of the splendid city of Zion, and also of the temple, they left their papers behind. This gave their new converts an opportunity to become acquainted with the internal arrangement of their church, which revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet. This was too much for the Hiramites, and they left the Mormonites faster than they had ever joined them, and by fall the Mormon church in Hiram was a very lean concern.

But some who had been the dupes of this deception, determined not to let it pass with impunity; and, accordingly, a company was formed of citizens from Shalersville, Garretsville, and Hiram, in March, 1832, and proceeded to headquarters in the darkness of night, and took Smith and Rigdon from their beds, and tarred and feathered them both, and let them go. This had the desired effect, which was to get rid of them. They soon left for Kirtland.

All who continued with the Mormons, and had any property, lost all; among whom was John Johnson, one of our most worthy men; also, Esq. Snow, of Mantua, who lost two or three thousand dollars. [14]

PERSECUTIONS  LED  BY  MODERN  PREACHERS                                                     69

THE CAUSE OF PERSECUTION OF THE SAINTS

BY BENJAMIN F. JOHNSON

70                                                             FATE  OF  JOSEPH  SMITH'S  PERSECUTORS

REAR  OF  JOHNSON  RESIDENCE

PERSECUTIONS  LED  BY  MODERN  PREACHERS                                                     71

JOSEPH  SMITH  IS  TARRED  AND  FEATHERED
BY JOHN D. BARBER

72                                                             FATE  OF  JOSEPH  SMITH'S  PERSECUTORS

THE  FATE  OF  OTHERS  IN  THIS  AFFAIR

DEVILS  INCARNATE  LED  BY  SECTARIAN  MINISTERS

PERSECUTIONS  LED  BY  MODERN  PREACHERS                                                     73

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74                                                             FATE  OF  JOSEPH  SMITH'S  PERSECUTORS

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THE  FIRST  APOSTATES  OF  THE  CHURCH
BY B. H. ROBERTS

PERSECUTIONS  LED  BY  MODERN  PREACHERS                                                     75

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