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The Sun
- 1847 September, pp. 299–300—Criticism of Y Diwygiwr
- 1848 June, pp. 187–89—The Shepherds of Eppynt—a conversation
- 1848 June, pp. 196–97—Lunch with a Preacher of the LDS (in Kidwelly)
- 1848 July, pp. 216–19—Mormonism—general information
- 1848 October, p. 333—Tractarianism in the Schools—(a return to Catholicism)
- 1848 November, pp. 354–55—Llandovery versus Mormonism—poem
- 1848 December, p. 402—Critique of pamphlet by Curate David Evans
- 1849 January, pp. 33–34—Miracle of the Cudgel
- 1849 March, p. 103—California—hundreds of Welsh are going to California
- 1849 April, p. 135—California—terrible things happening
- 1852 February, pp. 71–72—Mormonism—from the N Y National Police Gazette
- 1852 March, p. 104—Fate of a Mormon—William Barns drowned
- 1852 April, pp. 136–37—Mormonism—Letter from St. Louis by Evan Howell
- 1852 October, pp. 321–25—Debate about Miracles by “An Observer”
- 1853 February, pp. 65–68—Origin and Growth of Mormonism—general
- 1853 April, pp. 142–45—O and G of Mormonism—continued from p. 68
- 1853 June, pp. 207–9—O & G of Mormonism—continued from p. 145
- 1853 June, pp. 230–31—Mormonism—review Ashley pamphlet—great quote!
- 1853 October, p. 363—about Robyn Ddu, Eryri
- 1854 September, p. 301—Mormonism—Rees Davies letter from New Orleans
- 1855 September, p. 299—two paragraphs—crickets in SLC—statistics in SLC
- 1856 September, pp. 291–92—Mormonism—preachers in Cardigan
- 1857 July, p. 221—Mormonism—“that great, corrupt beast BY”
- 1857 September, pp. 270–74—doctrinal attack on Mormonism followed by quotes from Mormonism Laid Bare, the Seventh Degree of the Temple
- 1858 August, pp. 241–43—“M” predicts the sun is setting for Mormons
- 1859 October, p. 318—The Middle of the Way Is Best
Sun, September 1847, pp. 299–300
https://
[This is dated 13 July 1847, Llanelli, by Peiriannydd (Engineer)]
The Latest Remarkable Happenings in Llanelli
[This is the main heading for the entire article. Point 6 is “Attack of the Editor of The Revivalist on the Mormons.” Keep in mind that The Sun is an Anglican periodical.]
Attack of the Editor of the Revivalist on the Mormons.
About six months ago a miner by the name of William Hughes came to work here, who it appears is a kind of missionary for the Society of the Mormons in Merthyr Tydfil. This illiterate man, although completely deprived of reason, language, and imagination, has succeeded, and continues to succeed, in beguiling several innocents to join with the Mormons: there are now about forty, the majority from the Baptists. In their number there are men driven from the chapels by the merchandise-making on the part of the ministers, the majority of them Baptists. The Editor thunders frightfully from the pulpit against these innocents, because several from his flock have joined with them, with others inclined to do so. But upon reading The Revivalist for this month, one would think that they are not causing him any distress—he wants to appear great before the public. He pretends that he has received a letter from a Correspondent, and that letter is one of the clumsiest letters ever to appear in print. Furthermore, it is a bare lie about the Mormons, to say that they are making merchandise of their preaching, for one of their primary points is preaching for free. If they were making merchandise with their preaching, the Editor should have enough humility and courtesy as to hide that from the public, for he himself is the master craftsman in that sort of thing: but a whore says whore first. And he makes a comment after the letter with phrases so despicable as are possible for him to come up with. He says that Mormonism is the most innocuous little thing ever before seen; that it is just a few illiterate men who wish to draw the attention of the world to themselves; that the best procedure is to pretend not to see them or hear them, and that will be sure to kill them. This is not the first time for the Editor to flee to the shelter of silence for safety—he has no talents, no instruction, nor gift for public debate. Now, in closing, “I shall express my opinion, I shall reveal my thoughts” with respect to Mormonism. It is a snake, generated by the extremes of Nonconformity, and it will certainly be poisoned to death. The Nonconformist Ministers have become so big, so puffed up, so controlling, so imperious, so oppressive, and so greedy for money, as to cause every thoughtful and sensible man to tire of them. But now there is a counteraction taking place, and no one who lives another twenty years will be able to count Nonconformity among the things that have been, that are now, or will ever be.
Llanelli, July 13, 1847
An Engineer
Sun, June 1848, pp. 187–88
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The Shepherds of Epynt
Idwal. It is said that the Mormons are continually succeeding in the Industrial areas, and in several places here and there throughout the country. Is this not horrifying to contemplate? And is it not proof that some strange darkness holds sway over the minds of the people?
Ivor. It is proclaimed from the pulpit, and also published in the press, shouted out, sometimes that there are thirteen Nonconformists for each Anglican, and at other times that eight of every ten are Nonconformists in Wales.
Idwal. Yes, it is proclaimed, and as Nonconformists we stand by this. The populace is with us in Wales, it is in our meetings that the people are seen, and in our Sunday Schools that the people are educated; in a word, the people belong to us. But pray Ifor, what has that to do with the success of Mormonism? We preach against Mormonism, write against Mormonism, and curse Mormonism constantly; but, for all of this, Mormonism succeeds despite us.
Ivor. I do not mean or intend at the moment to argue against Mormonism or either to curse Mormonism. I believe it is a deceitful, unreasonable, unscriptural, and blasphemous heresy; but what I want to know is this, -- What is the ratio between the Nonconformists who have embraced Mormonism and the Anglicans who have embraced this heresy? Is it not the men who belonged to the different denominations who have joined Mormonism[?
Idwal. Well, the truth, and nothing but the truth; according to everything I understand about Mormonism, practically no one but the Nonconformists have embraced this deceit which is so destructive to the religion of the New Testament.
Ivor. Well then, now, for all your apparent efforts as Nonconformists, for all your boasting of your popularity, for all your preaching and preaching, for all your meetings of every description, for all your great teaching in the Sunday Schools, despite your Topics and your Catechism, and despite the great light you say you are in, here is the transparent trickery of light you say you are in, here is the transparent trickery of Mormonism, here is the Mormon religious deceit, here is the greatest heretical religious peddling which is told about in the chronicle of the heresies of every age, ensnaring and leading hundreds of you to the greatest whirlpool of heresy that ever was heard of. Men who have been educated in your Sunday Schools, men who have learned your Topics and your Catechisms, men brought up in your doctrines, men who have followed your meetings and your festivals, and men who have had their Bibles in their hands in your midst, and have taken part in your religious service—these men, who were born, raised, and grew among you, are leaving you and turning their backs on you, to embrace the order of the gold plates, to accept the revelation of Joseph Smith, to believe the Shibboleth of this false prophet, and to become entangled in a confusion of errors, which would be refused by the chief lunatics of the kingdom! After all your boasting, there must be some significant mistake in your religious education, you must not be cultivating minds and teaching the people properly, otherwise a heresy and system of errors such as that of Joseph Smith could not trick the people away from you as it is doing at present! What have you been doing all these years? and what are you doing now?
Idwal. Men will go after errors, despite everything; and the most sensible of men are enticed by heresies.
Ivor. That is true enough; but Mormonism is not a heresy in clothing, but a stark, naked heresy. Not a heresy with a pleasant bait on the hook, but a heresy with only the hook itself. Not a heresy appearing in the guise of the truth; but a shameless naked lie walking in the light, with its horns, its tail, its hooves, its whole deformity clear in every part of it; and this Mormon deceit, in all its unreasonableness, in all its enormity, and in all its disagreement with the Scriptures of the blessed God, has drawn scores if not hundreds of you after it! Much Mormon success is attributable to you; for you are not, for all your fuss, rooted and built in the sacred truth, and therefore you fall prey to the Spirit of Mormonism, and that not in the manner of a lamb, but in the manner of the hellish toad itself, crawling up to the edges of the bottomless pit! Instead of giving the people the foundation of the most holy faith, you confuse them with political matters, lecture them out of their senses, disturb them with the winds of contention, inflame them with the firebrands of prejudice, and sour them with the leaven of envy and malice, and so exhaust their minds of all truly religious feelings, and in the long run reduce them to such a state that even Joseph Smith’s trickery from distant America preys on them in the midst of your folds!
Sun, June 1848, pp. 196–97
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A Dinner for One of the Preachers of the Latter-day Saints, etc.
Messers Editors,
I was reading ‘Evan’s Sketches’ last week; and after I had been over the book, I could not fail to be surprised thinking of the different views there are about religion; each one saying that the Bible is his rule, and no one dare doubt that it is he who is correct. You know that time continually gives rise to new things; and among the religious people of this enlightened age, time has produced a Sect which, they say, has found the right way to take religion forward, namely the Latter-day Saints. Dear people! Save us, good Lord, from following these weak-headed ones! They have, they say, the right way; but be it between them and their work, they will each be responsible for themselves in the day which is to come. But not to beat about the bush, let me tell you that the Saints are going to raise their heads up high in this town and community, Kidwelly.
The woman from a certain tavern, and her sister, have turned away from their previous form of worship to the Saints’ way, and have joined them. One day, one of their Preachers was to dine in the house of this zealous sister, and a great spread was laid out there. Among the delicacies, there was a leg of mutton. When the woman was putting the things on the table, she sent her husband out of the house into the garden, and one of the little children with him, on the pretext of taking care of the latter; because she puts her husband in second place, and consequently she did not consider him suitable to sit down to dinner with people as pure and unsoiled as they; and also, the husband is a member of the Established Church. The husband, having considered for some time in the garden the disregard his wife was inflicting on him, ran into the house and into the parlor or the dinner room; and they were about to start; and in the twinkling of an eye, he snatched the leg of mutton from the dish, together with a sixpenny loaf from the table, and out he went, through the street of the town, with his plunder under his coat; and off he went towards his father’s house, who lives about twenty miles away; and he feasted on them happily along the way. This unfortunate event for the Saints was similar to, and as sudden as, the part of the hand writing on the wall for Belshazzar once was; but not as bad in the end, although there was sadness there, and the remainder was not enjoyed. This in brief, although there are many other things I could send.
Ioan Ysgythrydd [John the Engraver]
Sun, July 1848, pp. 216–19
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Mormonism
For years we have heard about Mormonism, and have read some parts of the Book of Mormon; but we looked at and considered this organization as being like mist which would soon disappear, or as being like a bubble bursting on the surface of the water as soon as it was formed. Until recently we could not believe that such a thing was possible for the Welsh, who profess having so much respect for the Revelations of God in the Old Testament and the New, to receive their nourishment from this new wind of teaching, which give such an insult to the Holy Scriptures of God who is blessed forever and ever. But with truly worried feelings, we are obliged to publish, that the blasphemy of Mormonism is gaining ground, spreading out, and are gathering a substantial amount of booty from the congregations of our country; and that is not because of grace, enlightenment, comforts, happiness, blessings, or anything other excellent qualities of this organization; but because it nurtures false boldness in those who profess it, and encourages their pride, and gives sufficient free rein to the venomous, jealous, and cruel darkness in men to sweep others from the way, as if no one but they alone inherit the land to dwell in.
Mormonism does not prove the corruption or the impurity of this religion or any other—the Roman Church, the Greek Church, the Established Protestant churches, the Baptist union, the Wesleyans, the Independents, the Methodists, and others; because others have already done this, and continue to do so while raising a voice against the System of Mormonism. Mormonism does not embrace opinions that are different from the opinions of Christian religions; because, since the early ages of Christianity, Baptism, in some special relations, has been, and continues to be, a topic of debate. Mormonism does not believe that it is possible to work miracles; because that subject has been and continues to be preached by the Greek and Roman churches for the benefit of many ages and generations. Mormonism does not believe in any priesthood, orders, or ministry relating to the Old and the New Testaments; and Mormonism is not any controversial or non-controversial topic in the two Testaments; but the principle, the system, and the substance of Mormonism are unique; namely, that new and direct revelation, through the ministering of angels, or through some other ministry, has been given to Joseph Smith and his followers, and that the mind and the will of God continue to be given to the Mormons in various ways and means. It is necessary to disassociate Mormonism entirely from the Scriptures of the two Testaments; this new System must stand on its own new foundation completely, and that is because it professes revelation disassociated further from the mind and will of God than is contained in the Scriptures of the two Testaments. Regardless of whatever heresies in teachings, regardless of whatever pollution in practices, regardless of whatever corruptions in doctrine, regardless of whatever faults in ministry, and regardless of whatever other thing or things that are possibly erroneous, degenerate, corrupted, or polluted in the Church, or in the Christian churches, the Scriptures of the New Testament itself are sufficient to restore it to its original purity in every respect; for, inasmuch as it is said that they are capable of “making a man of God perfect,” they are just as capable of making the Church of God perfect. The Mormons profess that their efforts are to restore the Christian Church to its original purity, and do so in its teachings, in the administration of its ordinances, in its discipline, in its practices, and in everything that pertains to it; and as far as these are their intentions, they are honorable for their objectives. But, inasmuch as the Scriptures of the New Testament are sufficient for this, and inasmuch as the Mormons profess their belief in these Scriptures, and use them in support of their additional revelation, they are obligated to put aside the New Testament completely. The doctrine, ordinances, ministry and practices of the Church of the New Testament, are in the New Testament; its foundations were set down in principles by the Son of God himself; they were built in a superior manner by inspired Apostles; the Book of its rules, its belief, its ordinances, and its ministry are in our midst; the Mormons profess that they respect this, that they believe in this, that they follow this, and that they wish to restore the Church back to its original state in this, and to do so through the help of new revelation, which was given close to 415 years after the original Revelation of the Christian Church!
When Mohammed went about forming his religion, he saw immediately that if he claimed revelation, that he was obligated to do away with the old revelations, which formed the society according to rules, teachings, ministry, doctrine, and new practices; and, thus, he gave the Koran to his followers, which thereafter was to be the inspired book for them, inasmuch as the other Books given through the authority of the Almighty were done away. But here is Joseph Smith claiming to have new revelation, and his followers claiming to have new revelations; yet without offering, in any way, a structure for the Church in a new manner and order, but only through the vision and the new revelations, attempting to restore them back to their original structure under the old Revelation! Mohammed put the Scriptures aside, for he could not find consistency in their authority with his own revelation; he could not bring forward any reason for the necessity nor the usefulness of a new revelation to purify, cleanse, and sift the Christian Church; consequently, he put the Christian Church aside, and he formed a new Church under a new revelation. But Joseph Smith, despite seeing, speaking with, and associating with angels; despite the tablets, or the golden plates, and despite all the revelations given him in some way or another, the sole purpose of the vision and the revelations given him, and the only benefit he could derive from them, was to restore the Church in its primitive purity under the revelation of the New Testament.
What is Revelation? More particularly, what is the Godly Revelation, in the meaning of Spiritual Books acknowledged as such by men? The Mind and Will of God in relation to the establishment, the governance, and the doctrine of godly things, which are to stand and remain until a further Revelation; and every later Revelation to be proven through stronger proofs than the previous Revelation. The Revelation of the Mind and Will of God was given through Moses, and this Revelation was proven through great works and wonders; and the structure that was established under the Revelation given through Moses stood until the further Revelation was given through the Lord Jesus Christ, which also was proven through miracles and wonders from heaven and on the earth. This is the great Revelation; this is the wondrous Revelation; this is the Revelation of the boundaries of the ages; this is the Revelation that shook the heavens and the earth; and in the light of this Revelation, from its giving when it was explained, to the sound of the trump of the Judgment, all the saints through all the ages which have passed and are yet to come, coming “unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” This is the Revelation through which we have received the unshakeable kingdom; this is the Revelation which is to stand until cometh “the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign (under this Revelation), till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Is there anything insufficient, imperfect, weak, and unsuitable for the Christian Church, in this Revelation? Is there any need for more extensive knowledge about the Son of God, about his death, about his resurrection, and about his ascension into heaven, or about any other doctrines which pertain to the Christian Church? There is more to reveal than has been revealed; but what further revelations can be given to men in the flesh than have been given? We must be brethren in eternity before receiving further spiritual revelations than we have already received.
And apart from the revelation of the Book of Mormon, there is nothing new in the Mormon System that is not already believed or professed by some Christian sect or other, since hundreds of years that have passed, without such requesting and waiting for new revelations. The Apostles baptized immediately, when it was expedient and when there was an opportunity for that; at night as well as during the day; this is scriptural; and it is also scriptural not to be hasty in administering the ordinances of the gospel, and there was need for a Mormon revelation against doing that. There were some heretics baptizing the people in the nude, ages and ages before Mormon and his revelation were ever heard of. There is nothing new in the manner of preaching without texts; there is nothing new in their work of casting out devils; there is nothing new in their claims of working miracles; their opinions, their claims, their manners, their customs, and nearly ever other thing which is in their midst, have been professed, believed, and practices by some in some age or other; and even though all that has been chronicled on the pages of history, the Mormons take them as if they were things never before practiced by anyone except by them under Mormon’s revelation!
The Book of Mormon itself, in which there is some good, is nothing but the language and sound of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, in a manner of chastisements, instructions, and counsels to Israel. There is no harm in many of the things in the Book of Mormon, in the abridgment of them; but when these good things are linked with the nonsense, the prophecies, and the blasphemies that are sprinkled through it, together with their claim that they have been revealed to Joseph Smith through the ministering of angels; and when all of it is linked to the Mormon System, as a religion originating directly from God, and this religion darkening and bewildering those who profess it, it is a deceitful, blasphemous, and devilish heresy—a perfect caricature of Christianity!
It is now as it was from the foundation of Christianity; and that which was foretold by St. Paul, when he said to Timothy, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” It is an obvious fact from the beginning until the present time that it is fables that have been a poison to Christianity! Read the early stories, and read the later stories—it is fables that have poisoned Christianity, and have hidden the teachings of true Christianity from the people, and have led them astray from the simplicity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fables about the martyrs, about visions, about angels, and about supernatural apparitions, are what have caused the truth in the simplicity of all that to be corrupted in the early ages of Christianity; for the people in all ages are so ready to listen to fables. Catholic Rome was built on fables, and its success to this day depends on fables. Fables are the foundation of Mormonism, and it is on the back of fables that Mormonism is sustained. Fables are preached, fables are believed; and it is sad to report that it is fables that have bewildered them, and made them madmen in the middle of the whirlpool of their deceit. It is extremely said that the people are being led astray by such deceit, a deceit that is endangering the salvation of their souls.
The Editor
Sun, October 1848, p. 333
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Tractarianism in the Schools
It appears that the Tractarians, or, as they are commonly called, the Puseyites, are at work day and night spreading the deadly Roman poison in every manner and means they can. They are bringing their Catholicism forward using every method, especially to the Schools; but the Oxford Bishop has ordered that their books be thrown out. Why do not those Priests who favor Rome, go to Rome? That would be polite of them, instead of staying at odds with their consciences, if in fact they have consciences, within the walls of the Church which they intend to destroy! Seeing that Tractarianism is under the lash everywhere, we believe that it is about to raise its head in Wales! No priest or preacher, in the true mantle of Rome, will make any impression on the people of Wales; but let them bring Catholicism under the mantle of any kind of Sectarianism, we fear, according to the present signs, that the Welsh are ready to receive it. Evidence of this is the success of the Mormons.
Sun, November 1848, pp. 354–55
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Llandovery versus Mormonism
Mormonism is trying
To extend its dwelling place;
To Llandovery it now has gone, --
But it will find no succor there.
For there is no need there
For any of its miracles;
The magic there will thrash its foolish
And strange, empty assertions.
If its missionaries speak
One of the deep languages
Given to the seed of the men of the ark,
The Arch-deacon will know it.
No miraculous help is needed
For any human tongue;
With the power of learning, it’s an easy task
To deal with a foreign language.
If they try to come near
A sick man at the brink of his vigil,
They will be driven far away,
And Doctor Thomas sent for.
He is there regularly
Passing among the sick:-
At sending sickness away from its cell,
He’s much better than a Mormon.
Nearby is Brutus once more,
Killing evil vipers,
Of every color, and every kind,
And he will kill Mormonism.
Therefore I shall end now,
Shouting to the utmost,--
Of every trick that has come to the world,
Mormonism is the meanest.
Glan Bran.
ANTI-MORMON.
Sun, December 1848, p. 402
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The Latter-day Saints, and Miraculous Gifts; namely a Sermon which was delivered in St. David’s Church, Carmarthen. By the Rev. David Evans, Curate. Carmarthen: Printed by William Spurrell, King Street.
In our time the Mormons, or the Latter-day Saints, and their beliefs, are too despicable to take any note of them; but the common folk are paying attention to them; and the apostles of this blasphemous heresy are deceiving many of the people and putting their salvation at risk. This Sermon is an excellent antidote to this deadly poison; but for it to have effect, it would be better for the reverend author to devise some way of bringing it off the press more cheaply, in order to disseminate it generally.
Sun, 1849 January, pp. 33–34
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Miracle of the Cudgel
It is strange all the talk there is these days about miracles, and about performing them too. It is surprising to think how many scoundrels of the night belong to the Apostolic Sect (as it calls itself.)
This sect carries on its wiles so cunningly that its foundation and structure are based entirely on lies. These men, namely the Latter-day Saints, claim that they have the privilege of seeing God himself, and that he has a tongue that speaks in a body like a man, that he informs them of things to come, and shows them what is erroneous in the religious order of the sects; also, that he recently announced, and this in a voice from heaven, that the fruit of the vine should no longer be drunk in the Sacrament, but water used always; and so water is used, and many things that would make it hard to believe that one Welshman could have become so weak-headed, if there were not examples before us. But it is true that it is not the best who are charmed, but the worst of the human race in every country. And to prove this matter, one of their Apostles found out last Sunday that devils had entered seventeen of the Saints, and that they had fallen from grace; and that it will be a difficult job to get so many villains out of the men. It is also appropriate to note that the devils dragged the pure men to Bacchus and Venus; and there is great trouble in China, Merthyr, because of it.
Recently three of these Apostles were going to a nearby town. They went to the door of a house in the town, and asked for lodgings for one of the three; they obtained what they wanted; the stranger went to the bed betimes, and slept through the night. The woman of the house, seeing him not getting up from his bed as late as ten o’clock in the morning, went to call the stranger to get up; but alas! the Saint was dead. The woman shook the lodger; but there was no life, not a breath in the Saint. The woman ran down to the kitchen, and told her husband, who was dumb-founded. By now there was knocking at the door; and when the door was opened, the Saints from the night before appeared, who were completely unknown to the people of the house. Well, said the reverend gentlemen, there is a dead man in this house. “Oh dear, yes,” said the woman in fear. But then it occurred to the man of the house that they were Saints; and he asked them to come into the house. They asked to see the dead man. “Oh, indeed,” said the man of the house, “it is likely that a miracle is to be performed.” “Yes,” said the children of damnation, “if the Lord is willing.” “Mary, Mary,” said the man of the house, “where is the cudgel?” He took hold of it, and started beating the dead man, shouting, “I’ll give him resurrection—the cudgel’s the thing.” Up shot the dead man from the grave of the bed, onto his feet, and was soon standing dressed, not in a shroud, but in his clothes and his right mind. Who, says someone, are such devils in men’s skins? Only Welshmen who have left the Great King; yes, I say, the leader of the pack is a Welshman, brought up under the wing of the Calvinistic Methodists, well taught from his youth; but now, like the devil, he has gone out to trick the whole world; and hundreds of men can be seen on Sundays gathering, in this town, to listen to these destructive heretics.
Should the Ministers of the Gospel not come forward to stand up for truth against the Mormon Bible? Some could be named who have come out excellently and skillfully, such as Davies from Dowlais, and Iorwerth from Rhymni; and one of the meetings which had the strangest effects here for a long time was in the parish Church, on a Sunday evening at the beginning of this month. The Reverend Mr. Rowlands took his text from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 23, verse 28—“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully, etc.” His simple style, and his courteous language, together with the weight which appeared in his sermon, defending the Scriptures against the Mormon Bible, had a remarkable influence on the whole, large congregation of fifteen hundred to two thousand men. His method was as follows:
The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream. “I have seen God and spoken with him.” You saw him, did you?—“I saw him.” Did you die at the time, and were you resurrected by one of Apostles? “No.”—You were not dead at the time, then.—“Oh no, I remember the whole thing, and I can relate it all.”—You did not see or hear him, you poor thing. If you had heard him, you would have heard inexpressible things; and if you had seen the Almighty, you would not be seen alive a moment afterwards; so, the thing is doubtful, whether you saw him or not.—He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.—“I beseech thee, shew me thy glory,” said Moses, the servant of the Lord; and the answer that godly man received, who had been to the top of Sinai, when the people of Israel were trembling, and feared to come near to the mountain, was this— “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall be no man see me, and live.” Well, friends, do you judge that the colliers and miners of this town are better people, more godly, and more holy than gentle Moses, the leader of the children of Israel through sea and wilderness? If the things that are spread about are true, they must be better than Moses. Moses could not have lived, said the Lord himself; and you see these people alive, and relating their visions.
Before the end of the sermon, a small book was seen being held up in the Minister’s hand; and after making it known that it was the Mormon Bible, which came up from the earth in America, he compared it with the beast John saw rising from the earth, since it spoke like a dragon, although it looked like a lamb. After the Minister had further proved that the Booklet could not be of divine authority, he said above it, “From the earth thou camest, and in the earth thou shalt be placed.” And down it went.
Merthyr Tydfil
A Stranger
Sun, March 1849, p. 103
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California
Men by the thousands are going toward California to search for gold; and good gracious, it is said that scores, if not hundreds, of people of our country have been charmed by the Mormons to sell their possessions, and have already started off toward that land!
Sun, April 1849, p. 135
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California
The latest news from California, the land of gold, and the paradise of the Mormons, is the following: There is no kind of government there, except let the strongest oppress and weakest squeal; murders and pillaging are being committed almost hourly; twenty murders were committed in six weeks, with no inquiry conducted about them.
Sun, March 1850, pp. 96–97—[See Zion’s Trumpet, March 1850, pp. 84–87]—See also the Revivalist
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The Mormons
There is some tremendous stir among the Latter-day Saints, in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. They have erected a chapel between the Baptist and Independent chapels; and they play some great tricks there at times. One Sabbath evening recently, one of them dressed up in the guise of the evil spirit, with two horns and a big tail. Only a few of the Saints knew of his coming; consequently, there was quite a commotion, and many were frightened. Diabolus took advantage of this, and performed his tricks on the floor, waving his tail and stamping his feet terrifyingly; and it is not known how the scene would have ended, if it had not been for the presence of one of the Apostles, who caused his Satanic majesty to flee with a word from his lips.
The insolence of this rascal is shamefully offensive, and enough to stir up the wrath of heaven. They proclaim the name of the Holy Trinity above ungodly men along side some rivulet or pool of water. Lately, one Saturday night, they immersed two of the main idlers of the town when they were very drunk. They pretend to work many miracles and wonders, but everything seen from them here, any more than in other places, was nothing more than fraud and trickery. So much as this can be said about Mormonism—it is a viper that has leaped across the heat of the fire that has been lit by the various Sects in Wales. No wonder that godless men are joking like this, because they have not seen a much better example from the Nonconformist Ministers, men from whom one would expect better things. These are turning their Houses of Worship into Playhouses, for every bit of rubbish to make the things they deem best in them. An example of this has been seen recently among the Baptists—selling Almanacs, under the guise of speaking against the Unity of the Church and the State, with Ministers of God stomping their feet on its sacredness!
Llanelli. W. D.
Sun, February 1852, pp. 71–72
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Mormonism
The New York National Police Gazette has a lot of news about the Mormons of Salt Lake, in California. One of the correspondents of this newspaper gives a frightening account of their morals. “President Young has ninety wives; he has ridden in a carriage through the town lately accompanied by sixteen of them; and fourteen of them have children on their laps. It is said that Heber C. Kimball, a member of the Tribunal council, and the second person in the Trinity, has about the same number, among which are a mother and her two daughters. One man is free to keep as many wives as the other.”
Sun, March 1852, p. 104
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The Fate of a Mormon
A few days ago, one of the Mormon prophets was going to baptize two men in the Trent River, near Beeston. The name of the prophet was William Barns. The water in the river was very high, and the two men showed some signs of fear. But the prophet’s faith was as strong as Mount Snowden; and into the river he went, proclaiming that no harm or evil would come to them; but he was swept away by the stream and drowned. We had intended to make a brief observation here, but we shall refrain from doing so at present.
Sun, April 1852, pp. 136–37
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Mormonism
In a recent correspondence with an old friend in Caernarvonshire, he said that there was no cause for concern with regard to Catholicism in Wales; that it would never establish itself as a religion in the Principality. We were also of this opinion, but the progress and success of Mormonism in Wales have convinced us that the Welsh are as willing to fall prey to the Jesuit emissaries of Rome as any other nation. Twenty years ago, if anyone had said that the time was at hand for wanderers to come to the door, and preach an American prophet to the people, that he had seen visions of the Almighty, had received revelations from heaven, that he had received a golden book through the hands of angels, that the followers of this sect would perform miracles and wonders, would speak in foreign tongues, and that the people would go away in their hundreds to the ends of the earth, to establish a new state and church, etc., it would have been thought that the one who said this was completely mad. But it has happened, yes, in Wales. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the Welsh have accepted this deceit. Hundreds have left their country to follow the deceit; and we now present the following letter which was sent by one of the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, as they call themselves, and was sent to a Priest in Glamorganshire.
St. Louis. December 7, 1851
Dear Friend,
I seize the present opportunity to inform you of the state of things in this country. I, together with my wife and child, have been ill for six months; but I am now a little better, having lost, however, all my comfort, for I buried my wife and my child in the same grave, in Illinois; I am living in Missouri at present. It is very unhealthy here, and I beg you to use all your influence to persuade all my friends, and the people in general in your country, to stay where they are, rather than be blinded by such a system of knavery and violence as Mormonism. It is nothing but naked trickery; I found it out to be such through heartbreak; and if only the people would see their heresy. They make all sorts of promises to them at home, but when they come here, they laugh at them. I do not say this to discourage anyone, but to inform them of the state of things here, so that if they do come here after having prior knowledge of the dangers, they must take the consequences. Of the four hundred who came here, two hundred have died. No Welshman died while crossing the sea, nor while coming up the river, apart from four children. I live with William Davies, Abercarn, Monmouthshire, who came here with the Mormons; and this is his handwriting to prove that this is the truth. It would be better for us not to be born than to come here to be Mormons. They take everything from you at home, and when you come here, they starve you. Your leader, Brigham Young, has twenty-four wives, and nineteen of them have babies at their breasts, at present, and those who are lower in position than he, have their wives in proportion to their positions; some fourteen, some seven, and others various numbers. And now they are doing their best to scorn the officials of the United States, who have left their positions, and have gone to Washington, and given that the Senate is sitting, we shall hear what they will do. The Mormons are very unkind to each other; I was obliged to dig a grave myself for my wife; she was properly buried; but the Mormons gave no help in any way. To the men who gave them money they promised lands, and everything else when they came here, but they have been left to die in the Workhouse. Among these are Howells, Williams, and Wm. Rees, and there are many others in the Workhouse here. We do not know whether they will recover or die. Your friend and well-wisher,
Evan Howell
P.S. I wish to tell you that the Sabbath is not considered here any different from any other day. There is gambling of all sorts here on the Sabbath! horseback riding, ten pin bowling, card playing; and the Mormon leaders take part in them to a large extent, as well as dancing, swearing, and every unseemly thing.
E. H.
Sun, February 1853, pp. 65–68
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The Origin and Growth of Mormonism
Joseph Smith, author of the Mormon Deceit, first came into view in Palmyra, New York. There he grew up about thirty years ago. His father was a farmer, but he was deeply involved in divination, incantation, prognostications, wild imaginings, digging for money during the night, deception and lies. It appears that Joseph was his favorite child. He inherited all the characteristics of his father, and added greatly to the store of the foregoing, valuable gifts, adding to them also the continual possession and a great abundance of laziness and idleness. It appears that he told the most outlandish and unbelievable lies in order to see to what extent he could deceive his supporters.
We bring Smith the elder first before our readers. In the testimony of Mr. Peter Ingersoll, which was made public in 1833, the witness says that he was
“In the neighborhood of Smith from 1822 to 1830. The general employment of the family was digging for money. Smith, Sen., invited me once to go with him to see if a mineral rod would work in my hand, saying that he was confident that it would. As my oxen were eating, and being myself at leisure, I accepted the invitation. When we arrived near the place at which he thought there was money, he cut a small witch hazel bush and gave me direction how to hold it, telling me to say ‘work to the money,’ which I did in an audible voice. He rebuked me for speaking the words too loudly, and said it must be spoken in a whisper. While the old man was standing off some rods, throwing himself into various shapes, I told him the rod did not work. He seemed much surprised at this, and he said he thought he saw it move in my hand. It was now time for me to return to my labor. On my return, I picked up a small stone and was tossing it from one hand to the other. Said he (looking very earnestly), ‘What are you going to do with that stone?’ ‘Throw it at the birds,’ I replied. “No,’ said he, ‘it is of great worth.” I gave it to him. ‘Now,’ if you only knew the value there is back of my house!’ pointing to a place near. ‘There,’ he said, ‘is one chest of gold and another of silver.’ He then put the stone which I had given him into his hat, and stooping forward, he bowed and made sundry maneuvers, similar to those of a stool pigeon. At length, he took down his hat, and being very much exhausted, said in a faint voice, ‘If you know what I had seen, you would believe.’ His son Alvin then went through with the same performance, which was equally disgusting.
“At another time, Joseph the elder, told me that the best time for digging money was in the heat of the summer when the heat of the sun caused the chests of money to rise near the top of the ground. ‘You notice,’ said he, ‘the large stones on the top of the ground—we call them rocks, and they truly appear so, but they are, in fact, most of them chests of money raised by the heat of the sun.’”
The good and true characteristic of this evidence is that it is established through the testimony of several witnesses, and a similar account is given about the Joseph Smith family by the Reverend John A. Clark, and others. Mr. Clark says:
“Joe Smith, who despite that has been a Mormon prophet, belonged to a very cunning family, close to Palmyra. He lived a kind of nomadic life. From the time he was a child Joe appeared to be exceptionally stupid and destitute of any genius, but his father claimed that he possessed some kind of power to look into the depths of the earth and determine where there were valuable treasures hidden. In their travels to search for money, Joe was customarily the leader, putting some remarkable stone in his hat, through which he looked to determine where they would begin to dig.”
Mr. E. D. Howe, in his book called Mormonism Unveiled, says: “If the eleven witnesses, those who testify to having seen the Golden Bible, are to be considered truthful, from what they have already said, we offer affidavits of some of the most respected citizens of our country who have made solemn declarations on their oath that no credence can be given to any member of the Smith family.” Such is the general course of the testimony relating to the family. These excellent characteristics in the leaders of the family are crowned with the graces of laziness and drunkenness. They all came together in Joseph Smith Jr., and they manifested themselves in him in great abundance.
Such accounts as the foregoing that are given about the character of Smith the elder, his deeds and his language cannot fail to be of considerable interest to our readers; but since it is by the deeds and the language only that the character of a man can truly be made evident, while the general reports about him which are given only as inferences are open to the accusation of their being prejudiced, the same manner of showing the character of Smith the younger will be followed through quotations of the affidavits of witnesses who have seen him and heard him.
“William Stafford, who first became acquainted with Joseph Senior and his family in the year 1820. They lived at that time in Palmyra, about one mile and a half from my residence. The devoted a great part of their time to digging for money, especially in the night time, when they said the money could be most easily obtained. I have heard them tell marvelous tales respecting the discoveries they have made in digging for money. They would say for instance that in such a place, in such a hill, on a certain man’s farm, there were barrels and chests of gold and of silver, bars of gold, golden images, brass kettles filled with gold and silver, gold candlesticks, etc. They would say also that nearly all the hills in this part of New York were thrown up by human hands, and in them were large caves, which Joseph Jr. could see by placing a stone of singular appearance in his hat, in such a manner as to exclude all light; at which time they pretended he could see all things within and under the earth and that he could see within the caves large gold bars and silver plates; also that he could discover the spirits in whose charge these treasures were, clothed in ancient dress. At certain times these treasures could be obtained very easily; at others, the obtaining of them was difficult. The facility of approaching them, depended in a great measure on the state of the moon. I believe that the new moon and good Friday were regarded as the most favorable times for obtaining these treasures.
“Joseph Smith Sen. Came to me one night and told me that Joseph Smith Jun. had been looking in his glass, and had seen, not many rods from his house, two or three kegs of gold and silver some feet under the surface of the earth; and that none others but the elder Joseph and myself could get them. I consented to go, and early in the evening repaired to the place of deposit. Joseph Sen. First made a circle twelve or fourteen feet in diameter. This circle, said he, contains the treasure. He then stuck in the ground a row of witch hazel sticks around the said circle for the purpose of keeping off the evil spirits. Within this circle he made another of about eight or ten feet in diameter. He walked around three times on the periphery of this last circle, muttering to himself something which I could not understand. He next stuck a steel rod in the center of the circles and then enjoined profound silence upon us, lest we should arouse the evil spirit who had the charge of these treasures. After we had dug a trench about five feet in depth around the rod, the old man by signs and motions asked leave of absence and went to the house to inquire of young Joseph the cause of our disappointment. He soon returned and said that Joseph had remained all this time in the house, looking in his stone and watching the motions of the evil spirit and that he saw the spirit come up to the ring, and as soon as it beheld the cone which we had formed around the rod, it caused the money to sink. We then went into the house, and the old man observed that we had made a mistake in the commencement of the operation. If it had not been for that, said he, we should have got the money.
“At another time they devised a scheme by which they might satiate their hunger with the mutton of one of my sheep. They had seen in my flock of sheep a large, fat, black ram. Old Joseph and one of the boys came to me one day and said that Joseph Jr. had discovered some very remarkable and valuable treasures which could be procured only in one way. That way was as follows: that a black sheep should be taken to the ground where the treasures were concealed and that after cutting its throat it should be led around a circle while bleeding. This being done, the wrath of the evil spirit would be appeased. The treasures could then be obtained, and my share of them was to be fourfold. To gratify my curiosity, I let them have a large fat sheep. They afterwards informed me that the sheep was killed pursuant to commandment; but as there was some mistake in the process it did not have the desired effect. This, I believe, is the only time they ever made money-digging a profitable business. They, however, had around them constantly a worthless gang whose employment it was to dig money nights, and who, day times, had more to do with mutton than money.
“When they found that the people of this vicinity would no longer put any faith in their schemes for digging money they then pretended to find a gold Bible of which, they said, the Book of Mormon was only an introduction.”
Such is the testimony of Messrs. Ingersoll and Stafford on their oath. Many others testify the same thing on their oath with additional accounts of the drunkenness of Joseph, the father and the son. Barton Stafford says the following:
“Joseph Smith Sen. Was a noted drunkard and most of his family followed his example, and Joseph Jr. especially who was very much addicted to intemperance. Even since he professed to be inspired of the Lord to translate the Book of Mormon, he one day while at work in my father’s field got quite drunk on a composition of cider, molasses, and water. Finding his legs to refuse their office he leaned upon the fence and hung for some time. At length, when he found himself on his feet, and awake from his sleep, he fell to scuffling with one of the workmen who tore his shirt nearly off from him. His wife, who was at our house on a visit, appeared very much grieved at his conduct, and to protect his back from the rays of the sun and conceal his nakedness threw her shawl over his shoulders, and in that plight escorted the Prophet home.”
Fifty of the citizens of Palmyra testified that “Joseph Smith Sen. and his son Joseph especially were completely destitute of any moral character and were given to evil practices.” And eleven of the citizens of Manchester (America) confirmed that the family of Joseph Smith Sen. were “not only an idle and lazy pack of men, but also intemperate and whose word could not be depended on, and we are truly happy to be free from their association.”
These quotations from affidavits given in New York, eighteen or twenty years ago at the inception of the Mormon deceit, and provided a lively portrayal of the character of Joseph Smith. Some parts have been portrayed with broad and rough strokes, but it is obvious that they are depicted with accuracy and that they are not just imaginations of the mind. For that reason, we deemed them appropriate to bring forth so that Smith’s character could be made known to our readers in a better way than a similar attempt on our part to portray him from our point of view would do. The most obvious aspects of his character were his tendency to say outlandish things, to see the invisible—spirits, hidden treasures, and the like—to pretend that he possessed uncommon powers, to deceive his neighbors, tell lies, to become intoxicated, etc. It appears that he had a natural disposition to deceive men, more so than the others of his family, and that he was chosen as the leader to do that. He was able to see better and further into the earth through the assistance of the miraculous seer stone than anyone else; he could perceive the evil spirits keeping watch over the hidden treasures; he could easily portray the wonders that he saw; and he possessed to perfection that sublime gift which is of so much value in all rascality, namely the power contained in the saying that “A lie well told is as good as the truth.” The impudence of his lies was the kind that would gain ready credence in weak minds, and to cause them to be easily deceived through his subtleties and his cunning. His own story about his discovery of the Golden Bible is a good illustration of this skill, although it is not brought in here for that purpose as much as for the sake of the plausibly correct information that he gives of that great period in the life of Smith and in the Mormon Church—the discovery of that valuable wonder. The account is related in the affidavit of Peter Ingersoll, from which quotations have already been given. He says:
“One day he came and greeted me with a joyful countenance. Upon asking the cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language: ‘As I was passing across the woods yesterday after a heavy shower of rain, I found in a hollow some beautiful white sand that had been washed up by the water. I took off my frock and tied up several quarts of it and then went home. On my entering the house I found the family at the table eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of my frock. At that moment I happened to think of what I had heard about a history found in Canada called the golden Bible; so I very gravely told them it was the golden Bible. To my surprise they were credulous enough to believe what I said. Accordingly, I told them that I had received a commandment to let no one see it; for, says I, no man can see it with the naked eye and live. However, I offered to take out the book and show it to them, but they refused to see it and left the room. . .* [FN—The part left out is the observation of Smith about the scene. It is deemed inappropriate to relate it here because of its profane lowness. {Here are his words left out by the writer: “Now, said Jo, ‘I have got the damned fools fixed, and will carry out the fun.’”} Notwithstanding, he told me he had no such book, and believed there never was any such book, yet, he told me that he actually went to Willard Chase to get him to make a chest in which he might deposit his Golden Bible. But as Chase would not do it, he made a box himself of clap-boards and put it into a pillow case and allowed people only to lift it and feel of it through the case.’”
That he went to Chase, as he reports, which is shown from the testimony of Chase himself.*
[FN—*To be continued.]
Sun, April 1853, pp. 142–45
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The Origin and Growth of Mormonism
Other stories have been told about the efforts Smith made to find the Bible, which happened about the time the sand was found. They are told by Smith and his father. They are different from each other, and needless to say they also differ from the foregoing one as related by Smith to Ingersoll.
Since this fictitious discovery of the golden Bible is the great happening from which Mormonism and all its consequences derive, the various stories given about that event must also be told. In September 1827 Smith asked Mr. Wilford Chase to make a chest, telling him that he expected to get the golden Bible soon, and that he needed a chest in which to lock them up. Mr. Chase told Smith to come to his house within a few days after that and tell him the following story. He said that he arose early on the 22nd of September and that he and his wife went to the hill where the book was hidden. He left his wife in the wagon on the road, and he himself went to the hill which was a little distance from him. He said that he took the book out of the earth at that time and hid it in the hollow of a tree and returned home.
The old man, Smith Sen., told a different and much more wondrous tale in his usual style about this great discovery. In the summer of 1827, according to Chases’s testimony, Smith told him that a few years earlier a spirit had appeared to his son in a vision and informed him that in a certain place there was a record on plates of gold and that he was the person that must obtain them and that he must go to the place the evening of the 22nd of September dressed in black clothes, riding on a black horse with a switch tail, and demand the book in a certain name, and after obtaining it he must go directly away, and neither lay it down nor look behind him. They accordingly fitted out Joseph with a suit of black clothes and borrowed a black horse
No doubt that was the chief objective of the vision. He repaired to the place of deposit and demanded the book but since he feared that someone else might discover the place, he laid the book down to place back the top stone, as he found it; and turning round, to his surprise there was no book in sight. He again opened the box, and it in saw the book, and attempted to take it out, but was hindered. He saw in the box something like a toad, which soon assumed the appearance of a man, and struck him on the side of his head. Not being discouraged by trifles, he again stooped down and strove to take the book, when the spirit struck him again and knocked him three or four rods and hurt him prodigiously. The spirit commanded him to come there again the following year. He did so, and he received a similar commandment again. He went there the third time, and he saw a book and a pair of spectacles, with which he later translated the Book of Mormon. In this interesting part of the story the details escaped the old man, and he could not say whether his son obtained the book or not; but from all appearances he was able to obtain the book and the spectacles at that time, but there is some doubt as to whether he obtained the two items on the third attempt despite the toad and also the hard blow.
In this way Smith came into possession of priestly stock, wondrous in its nature, wondrous in the fake manner in which he received it, and this, together with his wondrous bravery in receiving it, was a wondrous qualification to be able to act on the superstitions of simple and religious men. Consequently, when he obtained enough fools to believe him, which far exceeded his expectations, he began a career of lying at a much greater level than before. He had conversations with God, who revealed to him what to do, which was continually what he himself wished to do and which be for his personal gain. The origin of this book is a topic of undeniable proof, and is explained in a few words, for the manner in which Smith found it is well known on solid foundations.
Solomon Spaulding, who received his education at the college of Dartmouth, and he was ordained a minister. After spending a few years in preaching he gave up the ministry and went to live first in Cherry Valley, New York, and after that in 1809 to Conneaut, Ohio, where he was a merchant. While he was in this last place, he used his hours of leisure to write a fictitious account of the early inhabitants of the country, and he spent several years at this work. Since he intended the source of his work to appear fictitious, as well as his own work, he decided to put it before the public as a book which was found in a cave; and to give the appearance of antiquity to it, he wrote it in the style used in the common translations of the Bible. He finished his book in about 1812 or 1815, and about that time it was announced in the newspapers concerning the recent discovery of the Book of Mormon, containing a history of the lost tribes. Due to some unknown reason, the publication of the book was postponed, and within about fifteen years after that, Smith, who found it through some accident to his good fortune, and he pretended that he had obtained the Book of Mormon on plates of gold in the manner related above, and that he was busy translating it from an unknown language. It appears that he kept the book in the style used by Mr. Spaulding in writing it, by changing the text only through putting in some revelations which Smith himself had received, in which he is portrayed as a prophet, endowed with priestly authority, and that faith in him and obedience to him were received as commandments to the Saints. With this stock, and his unparalleled impudence, he was received by some superstitious men as a prophet. In the state of New York there is a body of people, uneducated in knowledge of the law, who do not appear in courts of law as litigants or lawyers; but since they have to some extent become acquainted with the law and have a considerable talent with oratory, they have appeared as advocates for causes before the justices of the peace. They are called, not in a scornful manner, but here is their name—Pettifoggers. Sidney Rigdon was one of this group. He and Martin Harris were men of some means, and Smith kept company with them in the beginning, and they offered support to him, talents (such as they were), and financial help. These things were of the utmost importance to his success; and after persuading them that the way to make money from the Book of Mormon, which was the primary objective for him and Harris (if not for Rigdon as well), they enthusiastically pursued the task of publishing the Book of Mormon and building a church. With these men and Cowdery, who appeared and worked as scribe of the additions in the Book of Mormon, or as Smith called them, his translation, and Cowdery was the prime minister of the prophet in Fayette, in the western part of New York, in 1830. He met with considerable success at first in his work of prophesying; and after adding to his Church a number of converts, he decided to move to Kirtland, Ohio. Consequently, he published a prophecy for that purpose; and the members of his Church moved to that place, which had the honor of being the seat of the church and the residence of the prophet; and thus, it continued until 1838, although many of the brethren had moved to Missouri a few years earlier. Smith’s deeds in this place can be taken as fair indications of his general intentions. In 1831, soon after their move to Kirtland, a revelation was published to the effect that they should consecrate all their possessions to God (which, naturally, were to be administered by and put in the hands of the prophet). A mercantile house was established by Smith and others, assisted likely by the possessions that had been consecrated in this manner. They had no other means. Some of the chief men were sent to Missouri, and they settled in Independence; and a branch of the Kirtland mercantile house was established there as well. Now Smith had succeeded far beyond his greatest expectations. He joined places with his Church, and in 1833 he published a revelation that his followers were to build a temple. For this purpose, all were directed to donate as much money as they could. This scheme of donating money, however, was not as successful as he hoped; and four years later the Kirtland Banking Society was put into operation by Smith, without being incorporated by the government, and it proved to be a good means of providing the prophet with time when the church possessions and income from other things were extremely low. Within a few months this establishment failed, and the greatest part of the “saints” moved to the state of Missouri.
So great was the growth of the society during the stay in Kirtland that their towns in Missouri and Independence now contained about one thousand male members, not counting those that were in Kirtland and other places.
The origin of the Book of Mormon, as described above, was confirmed by the testimony of eight men on their oath, those who had heard the book being read at various times. Mr. Spaulding died in 1816. His widow confirmed the testimony of the other witnesses regarding the book, and said it had been left at the office of Patterson and Lambdin, printers in Pittsburg, where her husband had lived for two years before finishing his work and before his death. Dr. Bennett, who had once occupied the most important offices in Nauvoo and who had a place among the highest and most secret Mormon officials, said that he had heard that the book had been taken from that office by well known Mormon divines, namely Rigdon, presumably, who refashioned it by adding to it the religious portions (!) and who placed it in the possession of Smith who then proclaimed it to the world. An anecdote about the book while in the hands of the printer I. N. T. Tucker is told. At the time of its publication Mr. Tucker was a printer in the office of Patterson and Lambdin, and he relates the following story:
“We had heard much spoken by Martin Harris, the man who financed the printing and the only one of them who had means, about the strange wisdom of the translators of the secret pages, and we decided to put their wisdom to the test. Thus, we set the type for one page and put it to the side, and we told Harris that it had been lost and that it would be a great imperfection in the book were he not able to bring us a page just like the original one. This troubled the old man greatly, but after he had pondered a few minutes he said that he thought he could get another one. Within two or three weeks another page was found, but it bore no more resemblance to the original one than had it been any other page of paper written by a common school boy after reading, as they had done, the initial and following pages.”
From the foregoing story it appears that the translator had no clear ideas of that which he had been shown. Another event that took place some years later in Missouri is similar. It is told by General J. C. Bennett and based on what George Robinson said, and it is as follows:
“One day Joe the prophet was seriously making ready to write the following revelation. Robinson, according to his custom, wrote down exactly the words divinely spoken by Joe, and in the same order as he heard the last one. He had written for some time when his inspiration began to weaken, and in order to catch his breath he instructed Robinson to read to him what he had written. Robinson did so, and Smith, shaking his head and showing himself greatly confused in his thought, said, ‘That will never do the trick; you must change that part, George.”
The Mormon Bible, as their writings are called, consists of several volumes. The Book of Mormon was printed at the beginning of Smith’s career as prophet. The account of the beginning of this book has been given, and it is likely that Smith’s additions to Spaulding’s book are very numerous, since it cannot be supposed that Smith had formed the same determined scheme at that time. At first the purposes were unclear and limited; more was revealed, and they gradually became clearer. When first he told his father’s family the story of his having found the golden Bible, it does not appear that he had any particular purpose except to amuse himself at the expense of their credulity. When he saw that the story was believed, he expanded his purpose in order to raise a little money. He succeeded in this also, and he had Martin Harris’s money at his disposal. But Harris’s purpose, like Smith’s, was to make money, and it became necessary to broaden the plan and expand the field of labor in order for the schemer and the financier to make the greatest profit they could from the undertaking. Consequently, the services of Rigdon were employed. The Book of Mormon was printed, additions were made from the revelation of the will of God, in which it was made known that Smith was his prophet, and that he possessed every power and right to be obeyed. In a revelation given at the same time, April 6, 1830, the same day that the Church gathered six members in Fayette, Smith was called “seer, translator, prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, and the elder of the Church.” It was made known that he had been “inspired by the Holy Ghost to establish the foundation of the Church, and that its members were in the most holy faith.” It is said further, “the Church will give ear to all his words and his commandments that he gives to you; for you must receive his word as if from my own mouth in all forbearance and faith.” He is to govern over all the Church and to be like unto Moses, the seer, the revelator, the translator, the prophet, since he has all the gifts that God imparts to the head of the Church. In a revelation that followed, given in February 1831, his deification gives only to him the right to receive and to set out commandments from the Lord, and also power to appoint his successor, and the Church is commanded to sustain whoever is appointed by him; and to furnish property, sustenance, and clothing, and whatsoever things he is in need of to fulfill his work, and threats are given for those who disobey. In a revelation given in September 1831, all Smith’s honors and titles are given him for life. And about the same time it was made known by revelation that Smith had no strength to go forward with his work; and because of that, the Church was commanded to sustain him.
Sun, June 1853, pp. 207–09
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The Origin and Growth of Mormonism
1833 is the publication date for the Book of Commandments, which constitutes the second book of the Mormon Scriptures; or rather it can be said that it is the first, since its predecessor had been written by other hands, with different intentions, and published with fewer additions, before the establishment of the four associates as a church, and before the purposes of the prophet were fully formed. The Book of Commandments, like the Book of Mormon, contains only a very few of the revelations of the will of the prophet. Smith had a growing will. He was a man of growth, and it became necessary to have frequent revelations, and new volumes to keep up with the new requests of his will. In 1835 a new printing of the Book of Commandments was published. In the first printing of this work Smith was commanded to pretend to no other gift except the one to translate; and it says definitely “that no other gift will be granted to him.” The second printing adds the following words to this: “until my purpose is fulfilled in this. For I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.” Oddly enough, the prophet appears to have looked over some of the commissions and his great powers, or we must doubt that he had given them up, or that they had been called back, for remember that in 1832, at the establishment of the church in Fayette, he had been established as “Seer, Prophet, Apostle of Jesus Christ, Elder of the Church, and Revelator,” in addition to the office of Translator; and in a revelation the following year it is explained that his divineness gives him the power of receiving and publishing commandments, and also of appointing his successor. In 1831 all his titles and his honors are given him throughout his life. It appears that lack of memory is something that pertains to all liars. Smith showed the same weakness at other times; and perhaps the limits of his powers in the Book of Commandments are a result of this forgetfulness. It is obvious that he has also forgotten another role he served in frequently, that of changer by which revelations were changed from time to time by him. About the time of the second printing of the Book of Commandments, or in 1835, the Book of Doctrine and Covenants received approval by the general council. This was about the time that the changes of the prophet were increasing rapidly. He had become the owner of great treasure by virtue of his office of president of the church, the members of which had been commanded to give all their possessions “to the Lord.” He was about to build the temple in Kirtland, and by revelation he had commanded the Saints to donate all the money they could for that. In this last volume, there is another way revealed as to how to come to own possessions, which outside the Mormon Church, as it is often called, which is “lledratta:”
Behold, it is said in my laws, or forbidden, to get in debt to thine enemies; but behold, it is not said at any time that the Lord should not take when he please and pay as seemeth him good. Wherefore, as ye are agents, ye are on the Lord’s errand; and whatever ye do according to the will of the Lord is the Lord’s business. And he hath set you to provide for his saints, etc. (Book of Doctrine and Covenants, page 147.)
The revelation mentioned before is a commandment for the Saints to donate that which they can of money, and this last one, which was a better and second thought, were the two main ways to raise the church’s revenue, which was spent mainly in two ways: the first and most important part was to provide a living for the president of the church, and the second was to build the temple. The third way to assist in getting the necessary revenue was to establish a bank in Kirtland and the business mentioned earlier. The bank was established without a charter, except for the one that originated from the will of the prophet in 1837. But, in any event, the bank and also the business failed in 1838, and since the neighborhood of Kirtland was not an advantageous place, according to the last revelation to the Saints, the prophet and a large number of the members moved to Far West in Missouri. Until the time of this move, the eight years of prophesying had been a period of success beyond every expectation. As an undertaking it had turned out to much more advantageous than digging for gold in the hills of Palmyra, and it had provided the temporal needs of the prophet, which were of no small means, and it also brought to him a name and no small religious success. Consequently, every day he was looking for more possessions, he was extending his vision over broader fields, and revealing new powers, authority, and privileges for himself; and, indeed, it appears that this was the primary objective of all the revelations. The stay in Missouri was for a short period of time. The Saints stayed there for about a year; but since committing thefts and rapes, and giving more zealous obedience to the commandments of the prophet than to the laws of the Missourians were more advantageous to them, they were driven out by an armed force, and they had to flee out of the state for safety. The moved to Illinois in the spring of 1839, and they settled in Nauvoo, named by them, where great hosts came to them, mainly from England, and it is said that, within three years, those who gathered to that place numbered ten thousand.
For the settlement in Nauvoo a large piece of land was purchased, containing hundreds of acres. The land was purchased, of course, by Smith, who, in addition to his other offices, was the treasurer of the society. The thousand or two who came from Missouri had the right to shares of the land. The eight or ten thousand who came after that, mainly from England, had the right to shares of the land only by submitting themselves to the condition given to all and imparting of their possessions to the Lord. “If thou lovest me, thou shalt keep all my commandments, and thou wilt consecrate all thy properties to me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken.” This revelation was given in Kirtland, in the first or second year of the church, and was published in the Book of Commandments, and after that in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, which was adopted by the body in 1835. “It is wisdom in me that my servant Maratin Harris should be an example unto the church, in laying his moneys before the bishop of the church. And also, this is a law unto every man that cometh unto this land to receive an inheritance; and he shall do with his moneys according as the law directs.” A large sum was paid to the treasury, all of which was under the supervision of Smith, and the greatest amount was used to pay his expenses, according to the revelation mentioned before, for he had not the strength to work and needed to be supported. The revelations for this purpose are more numerous than any of the others, and the faithful Mormon naturally needed to consider this as the most sacred of his duties. “Provide for him (Smith) food and raiment, and whatsoever thing he needeth.” (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 126.) “Let the bishop appoint a storehouse unto this church; and let all things both in money and in meat, which are more than is needful for the wants of this people, be kept in the hands of the bishop. And let him also reserve unto himself for his own wants, and for the wants of his family, as he shall be employed in doing this business.” “It is meet that my servant Joseph Smith should have a house built, in which to live and translate.” (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 189.) “And now I say unto you, as pertaining to my boarding house which I have commanded you to build for the boarding of strangers, let it be built unto my name, and let my name be named upon it, and let my servant Joseph and his house have place therein, from generation to generation.” This last revelation was given after the move to Nauvoo; and added to it was, “Let the name of that house be called Nauvoo House.” The house was built, and according to the common knowledge in that part of the country, the prophet and his revelator kept a tavern in it that was as good as any of the taverns in that part of the country. It turned out to be a business of great profit.
By now, perhaps some of our readers are ready to ask, what are the religious beliefs of the Mormons? That is a question that is much easier to ask than it is to answer satisfactorily. Smith himself, the founder of the church—if it is not profane to call this gathering by such a name—did not have a single determined, religious belief, or the ability to explain one, apart from, perhaps, Rigdon. They did not have in any fashion a chief object to contain any faith or make a religious profession. Smith was a prophet beneath a mystery. He was careful to keep his Golden Bible out of sight, under the penalty of instant death to anyone who dared to look at it. It can be supposed that the same deathly clarity pertains to the doctrines and the articles of faith the prophet professed as those connected to the Golden Bible, for we believe it to be a fact that the one and the other are equally unknown to this day. The few statements put down as belief and direction of the church are contained in the revelations delivered from time to time by Smith in accordance with what would answer his purposes over time. He did not have a single established design or system of belief. For the most part the revelations are directive and pertain especially to monetary topics. The church was directed to give its money to the Lord, to deliver them from the gentiles, in the name of the Lord, and to contribute to the support of Smith. These directions, and other similar ones, compose the substance of the revelations. The revelations go on to assert the inspiration of the books, and the holy character of Smith, to whom they were to give obedience in all things, as revelator of the will of God. Inspiration and the gift of working miracles were imparted to the Saints also. The following, in this manner, is one of the revelations:
“And as I said unto mine apostles, even so I say unto you, for you are mine apostles; therefore, as I said unto mine apostles I say unto you again, that every soul who believeth on your words, and is baptized by water for the remission of sins, shall receive the Holy Ghost. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall heal the sick, they shall open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf; and if any man shall administer poison unto them it shall not hurt them.” (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 92.)
There was also a series of revelations pertaining to the coming secular authority of the Mormon Church. Among these are the following:
“But verily I say unto you that in time ye shall have no king nor ruler, for I will be your king and watch over you, and ye shall have no laws but my laws when I come. (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 119.)
“Assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.” (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 194.)
“Therefore, get ye straightway unto my land; break down the walls of mine enemies; throw down their tower, and scatter their watchmen. Avenge me of mine enemies, that by and by I may come and possess the land.” (Doctrine and Covenants, p. 239.)
Sun, June 1853, pp. 230–31
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Mormonism
Or a Treatise on the sect called “The Latter-day Saints,” by the Rev. F. B. Ashley. Translated into Welsh by the Rev. G. C. Harries, A. C., Scholar of Jesus College Cambridge: and Curate of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan. (St. Mary”s, Brecon.) Merthyr Tydfil: Printed by M. W. White. 1853.
Wales which is called by the “once illiterate Welsh,” “an enlightened land, a land of privilege, a land of Bibles, a land where religion and freedom dwell.” Wales, I say, continually gives birth to new factions and adopts the most loathsome heresies. The Catholic beast has had a place to set down its foot, and to settle in Wales. It has a College, a nursery to foster darkness, apart from several chapels and school houses in Wales. Among the latest novelties being offered to the changing taste of the Welshman, behold the bait of Mormonism catching and holding the people. And why should Mormonism not be received by the ignorant as well as any other self-made sect? All the other “denominations” have prepared the way for the people to receive every such heresy. Every preacher, every man among the innumerable factions, boasts that he is completely turning his back on the old paths and the good old ways, and the old creeds of the holy Gospel, which were professed by our forefathers, and by the ancient fathers of the Church, and were respected by them as so many barriers to prevent uneducated men from falling into errors and false interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. But the blind teachers of the people say, “we are not bound by any rule or creed but the Bible.” This is precisely what the dissolute Mormon says while holding God’s Word in his filthy hands. “All the denominations are heretical; I shall prove them to be so from the Word of truth.”
This is how the blind lead the blind, and the Word of God is considered untruthful among them. Thousands of foolish Welsh people are misled either to give credence to their lies or else to doubt and atheism in the end. The people’s words are, “Come let us adhere to the reformed religion of Mormonism. We have heard the Mormon proving from the Bible that it is his religion that is correct.” “Of all the religions, we choose the newest and the best.” I heard an old believer saying, “Well, we are not prejudiced, we will go again to listen to the Mormon; he is as good as any other preacher, for he preaches from the Bible and we heard him say, like our own, that the Bible is his foundation; he prays from the heart, and has no Liturgies as does the old Church of England.” The Welsh Mormon has not yet emerged in his true color, for he knows that the Book of Mormon will not be instantly accepted by the Welsh, so he hides the Book of Mormon out of sight, and he drags in irrelevant verses to distort in his addresses. So, by just having the sound of sufficient words and sentences from the Bible, he charms thousands of fools into believing that Mormonism is only the latest and most reformed religious sect. And since the sect is new, it is like some new item of new-fashioned clothing, more acceptable than an old one in Wales. The readers of the Sun should be very grateful to you, Mr. Editor, for giving space to the excellent article on Mormonism. The eyes of the people cannot be opened too widely to see from afar the tribulation that Mormonism has in store for them. We are bound to recognize the labor and expense of the Rev. G. C. F. Harries, the Curate of Brecon, in bringing out an inexpensive treatise on Mormonism in the Welsh language. Let the Welshman who can read this, read it, and he who cannot read, let him ask someone to read it to him, and he will thoroughly discover the deceit of Mormonism. Mr. Harries is one who loves our nation, and wishes us success and happiness, so he has undertaken the expense of translating and publishing this treatise very cheaply, so that the poorest may possess it. Thirty-four pages of good paper and printing are given for a penny halfpenny. We would advise Priests and others who wish the good of their parishioners to buy a few hundred directly for distribution. The language is fluent and comprehensible. The appearance of this treatise is timely; in a month or two from now, the Mormon tribe will begin to crawl out like snakes, and other poisonous vermin, from the coal pits and underground holes and cellars of Glamorgan, and they will appear on Sundays, and fine days, in swarms across the country, along the hedgerows, on bridges, and in villages, and in the houses of lascivious women; in a word they will be teeming like the frogs in Egypt. They will climb up and come into thine House, oh Welshman, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and upon the bed of thy wife, and thy daughter, and thy servant girl; and into the remains of thy food. Buy this treatise on Mormonism, and keep it in the house, and it will be enough of a spell to keep away the awful disease and plague.
Llan
Hywel
Sun, October 1853, p. 363
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Robyn Ddu Eryri has gone to the Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons, as they are sometimes called, and many of the Independents are scolding him frightfully. May that be between Robyn and his Mormonism, but the following is a fact. When Robyn was a de facto member among the Independents, and lecturing in favor of temperance, many of the chapels of the Independents were closed against him. He was denied the use of the chapel of the Independents in Cardiff to preach or to lecture; but when Robyn was in Cardiff editing the Dawn, being neither member nor preacher, or even associated with the Independents or anyone else, he was invited by the Independents in Cardiff to deliver a lecture in their chapel in order to collect money to pay the debt of the chapel. The use of Ebenezer, the chapel of the Independents, was denied to Robyn when he was a member and a preacher with the Independents; but when he was neither the one nor the other the chapel of Ebenezer was given to him for lecture in order to collect funds for any Independent chapel in the town! This is the consistency of the Independents relating to Robyn Ddu, and this fact speaks glowingly; and it is not this which speaks much about independence for them.
Sun, October 1854, p. 337
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Mormonism
The following letter is the one we promised to publish in our present number:
New Orleans. June 10, 1854
My dear parents,
I was very pleased to hear that my letter had caused a stir in your area about the Mormons. Father, I want you to send the names of the two Mormons who came to you about my letter, and where they come from; I am very anxious to know who the two ——s are who doubt whether or not I am telling the truth; I shall endeavor to see the two Saints to settle with them. I shall put enough salt on their tails; I am going to show them the way to ride the Black Maria.
I told Margaret from Aberystwyth about your letter. It is true that the Mormons wrote home to her mother, but she was not allowed to see the letter; or write herself; what the d——s put in it she knows not. Margaret has told me to write to her mother, and tell her that she is very sorry that she did not act on her advice instead of that of Will Phillips, the Mormon. They took nearly all of Margaret’s clothes, and they tied her to the bed post to prevent her from going with us; and when she was coming away from the boat with us, three other girls were trying to run away, and the Mormons were holding them and carrying them back to the boat, and tying them hand and foot. Mr. Morgan Griffiths, Llanddewibrefi, who will be with you there about the 15th of August, will testify to the truth of the matter; and if some of the Mormons want to talk to him tell them that when he is there, Griffiths will give them the satisfaction they want. Not one of the Mormons there knows as much about Joe Smith as I do.
[The following paragraph is in English.]
Last year there was a young girl of 15 years that came out here with the Mormons. She was a native of South Wales. She had a sister living here; she was also a Mormon. On the Atlantic coming over, the leader of the Mormons wanted the young woman to marry an old shoemaker with one leg, but she refused. But for three days they tried to coax her to marry, but she would not. On the 4th day the chief compelled her to marry the wooden leg shoemaker, and the villain even with his own hands laid her in bed against her will with the old clump. So much for the Mormon religion. Her own sister living here told me herself. Show this to my uncle, Rev. H. Davies, Cenarth, and he can send it to be published.
I am, my dear parents, your obedient son,
Rees Davies.
Sun, September 1855, p. 299—item 1
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The Mormons
The New York Herald says that the Mormons in the Salt Lake Valley are being threatened with a frightful famine. It appears that crickets, locusts, and grasshoppers have destroyed and are destroying the country’s entire crop. It is said that the Mormon settlement there will be completely broken, and in all likelihood thousands will starve to death. What will Brigham Young do with his wives? It is said that he has about ninety of them.
Sun, September 1855, p. 299—item 2
Success of Mormonism
Twenty-five years after the thing called the Mormon Church was formed by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Presently, there are three main officials in the territory of Utah; seven apostles; 2026 seventies; 715 high priests; 994 elders; 514 priests; 471 teachers; 227 deacons; and 48 missionaries in various countries. Is it not very strange that this strange deceit has succeeded?
Sun, September 1856, pp. 291–92
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Mormonism
Some of the Mormon preachers have recently been very busy in the Cardigan area spreading the poisonous seeds of their beliefs. One afternoon, when two of them were preaching, distorting the Scriptures shamefully, while trying to give an attractive appearance to their heretical tenets, a young man, a student from St. David’s College, came by—(Mr. Jenkins). After listening to them intently, and taking careful note of what they said, he went forward in public, and completely disproved their unfounded assertions, with verses from the Holy Scripture, so much so that they had nothing to say in answer to his questions. First, he asked whether they believed in the Scriptures, and they answered affirmatively; then he went through the quotations which they had been considering, questioning them, until, in front of the crowd which was listening to them, they flatly denied what they asserted in their sermons. It is probable that some would have been uncertain about the truth of their beliefs had the young man not taken the subject in hand. To his credit, he was instrumental in sending these tricksters out of the town, and that by fair reasons from the Scriptures, which they could not withstand. It is dreadful to think how much influence the Mormons have had and do have on many in our country, yes, in our enlightened country, where there is so much preaching, and so many Sunday schools. It is everyone’s duty to put a stop to deceit on every occasion, in whatever form it may be, but the fact that so many of our countrymen have been enticed to the Salt Lake Valley by the Mormon deceivers, and the treatment they have received there, make it imperative that we show the country what Mormonism really is.
Dafydd
Sun, July 1857, p. 221
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Mormonism
There is no limit to the gullibility of men; otherwise, Mormonism would not be able to catch so many in its snares, and get them to bow under the yoke, thus making a man less than a man in order to follow it. Mormonism, as a system of religion, is unreasonable, inconsistent, deceitful, superstitious, impudent, and corrupt to the extreme degree. Its settlement in the Salt Lake is a boiling pot of every abomination and corruption. Polygamy is a topic which is preached publicly and spread among the people, and it is truly a common practice. The more wives, the greater the blessing they have. It is now said that the North American Government has begun a serious undertaking with regard to the Mormons in California by sending troops there to oust that great corrupt beast known by the name of Brigham Young, together with bringing the people to some sort of order. It is said that the state of morals in the Mormon settlement is as low as it can possibly be.
Sun, September 1857, pp. 270–74
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Mormonism
The great antiquity of any of the religious sects cannot be debated, but one can appropriately call Mormonism, and rightly so, a new religion, for it is not yet fifty years old. Its founder was one Joseph Smith, who lived in the state of New York, in North America, where he was known as a man inclined to wickedness. He pretended to have discovered a New Bible, or a part of the Bible, which is known as the Book of Mormon; and there are many people in the world, although bearing the name of Christians, who are shamefully ignorant about the contents of the Holy Scriptures! Joseph Smith found several who were ready to believe his tale, to pretend that they believed him, and they considered the Book of Mormon to be a new revelation from heaven.
It is a great surprise that hundreds in Wales have embraced this religious deceit; yes, a deceit that immediately attacks the revealed religion of the Old and the New Testaments. Some men are more imprudent with religion than they are with anything else: evidence of this is seen whenever some new sect proclaims its opinions in an area.
Now, if Mormon doctrines are not in agreement with the Word of the Lord and opposes it, then Mormonism is nothing more than a very low fraud, derived not from God, the Father of Light, but from the devil, the father of darkness. What does Mormonism teach us? It teaches us that the eternal blessed God is not Spirit, but a corporeal being who has a body like a man’s body! This religion must be deceitful, since it, united with the pagans, lowers the immortal and invisible Great King to the level of mortal men, the dust of the earth!
The Mormon religion also teaches that a man can take as many women at the same time as he can support; together with many other suppositions, full of every corruption, which are taught by the impostors to their blind followers. This abomination is horrifying to consider! It is enough to frighten all sincere Christians to even think about! The whoredoms and immorality of the Mormons in Utah are beyond everything that we can imagine! Also one of the points of doctrine of Mormonism is that baptism administered by the Mormons ensures salvation! It is so sad to think that a polluted religion such as this one could have acceptance in the last part of the nineteenth century! Who would think that there could be men so superstitious and ignorant as to receive such dreadful and frightful deceit as their religion. Mormon deceit teaches this bit of wisdom especially to us: that it is our duty to stay close to the Word of Truth, which is a lantern to our feet, and a light to our paths; for this is the light, and this is the truth which will lead us and guide us to his sanctuary, and to the mount of his Holiness.
Perhaps the following quote from the American Welshman about Mormonism will be well received by the readers of the Sun:
Seventh Degree of the Temple
An hour of inaction (with no good end in view) in a darkened room well-furnished with couches, succeeded our nuptials; and this was followed by a grand chorus of many voices, in some other place, singing the following stanzas:—
“You have left the center of the world,
Full of darkness and blatant lies,
In the hand of the servant of Heaven himself;
Enter, enter, Mormons wise!
And with the fiends you’ve striven,
You have driven Satan, old and strong
Away back to his infernal den;
Enter, enter, Mormons bold.
At the oath you never trembled,
You made a promise to hold your ground,
Without casting a doubtful glance;
Enter, enter, Mormons true.
You need not be alarmed henceforth,
But honor the oath of your faith still;
Sin no more has power to harm you:
Enter, enter, and be blessed.”
On the conclusion of the song, immense doors were thrown open, and behold a splendid great hall, in a style of grandeur, opened before us. The whole place glittered with gold, silver, mirrors, silks, and every kind of pictures and adornments, showing the rise and progress of Mormonism; the carpet was like a beautiful prairie in full blossom; and the lofty vault painted to represent the summer, the clouds in motion, and the sun in the center. At one extremity of the hall there was a magnificent throne (seated on which was the arch prophet) of gold and scarlet, supported on the backs of four winged lions; at the other end was spread a delicious banquet. The spacious place was filled with the most lovely aromas, and we heard occasional strains of such pleasant music as though they were proceeding from angels’ harps. The whole scene and all its circumstances were beautiful and exciting beyond description; and it left such a vivid picture on my memory which the hand of time can never efface.
This hall was crowded with a gay and sparkling company, whom the uninitiated would have never supposed to be the grave and cynical Mormons as seen in their everyday life. Their dresses were of the loose Turkish fashion, highly becoming, and inflamed the passions, for which they were doubtlessly intended. We all were furnished with the same costumes, and we were received into their midst. And on the whole, the women were handsome, and the men more than passable; but there appeared to be no moral beauty in the one or the other. And how could such a thing be expected, when we consider that all those persons were accepted saints and chosen pillars of the church, and that immorality is the cornerstone of the Mormon faith? The freedom of their conduct, however, even exceeded the bounds which the warmest imagination might ascribe to it, and exhibited the spiritual wife system in a light altogether too glaring for exposure to the public eye. Suffice it to say, that they indulged in the license afforded them by their matrimonial laws up to its most extreme extent; yes, and even above it as Joe Smith himself proves, who had sixty wives—spiritual and otherwise—instead of limiting himself to one for each of his ribs. And the females also, almost without exception, had changed the law in their own favor, on this subject. And thus the entire Mormon population, or at least that portion of it which had taken the seven degrees, was so mixed up in matrimonial cross-quarterings, that there was probably no so much as one of them could say what relationship he or she had to the others.
But here I must pause; for I find that I cannot write on so dangerous a subject without running the risk of giving offense. In fact, I dare not describe a tithe of the mysteries of the seventh degree. I will merely add, that they had lowered themselves to feasting and carousing and exceeded all limits in speech and behavior, and since there were male and female, there was such a scene there that was probably never paralleled outside the walls of the great Mormon Temple.
In connection with the foregoing description of the Degrees of the Temple by Mr. White, we shall place here the strange ceremonies of the reception into the order of the system called Spiritual Wifery, as it was administered to over twelve thousand men and women in the Nauvoo Temple, in the year of 1846, which
testimony is given by a man and wife by the name of John and Maria Van Dusen, who were brought up in the State of New York; they accepted the Mormon religion; they went to Nauvoo, and lived there for three years. They were received into the secrets of the Temple. They left the Mormons because of a strong conviction and a troubled conscience, upon perceiving the wickedness of the elders of this sect. They published the following testimony in order to warn their fellow men of this frightful danger.
The reader will see that we have had to limit the boundaries of taste and modesty in the following pages: this is not an easy task for us; but we cannot desist from doing justice to the topic.
Spiritual Wifery
RECEIVING MALES AND FEMALES INTO THE ORDER,
In which is concealed a conspiracy against the liberties of this country.
The order of initiation is as follows:—A gentleman and lady pass through a narrow hall in the attic of the Temple, at the opposite end of which is a man stationed, whose duty it is to guard the door, and admit proper persons only. Then they are separated; he passes the gentleman through a door to the right, and the doorman leads the lady through a door to the left, to an unfurnished room, with the exception of a few chairs. There another conductor meets her, and questions her to know who she is, where she came from, &c.; then she is divested of all her outside apparel, and taken to a rather small room, a considerable distance from there, and she is presented to yet another conductor, who is to administer the strange ceremonies of the initiation, who divests her of the remainder of her clothing, until she is completely naked. The conductor takes her into a bath of water, and washes her from head to foot, reciting the following purposes going forward:—I wash your eyes, that you may behold the glory of God; your mouth, that you may speak forth his praise; your breasts, that you may give suck to a numerous posterity; your bowels, that you may bring forth spiritual sons and daughters; your * * * * * * * and so down to the feet, that you may be swift to run the race set before you.
She is now pronounced clean, and is taken out of the water, and a hornful of perfumed oil is poured on the top of her head, and the conductor anoints her with his hand over her entire body. Then she is seated, and ordained to be a queen from this time forth and forever. Then she is presented with a kind of light undergarment, in one piece, similar to a chemise and drawers in one, which forms a tight fit on her. There were two particular marks cut on the garment, one on the breast and the other on the knee: the first to represent protection, I think, and the other to signify willingness to bow to the Lord. She is told that this garment represents the white stone spoken of in the scripture, in which was a new name given, which no man knew but him which received it. Then the conductor whispers a name in her ear, which she was never to reveal, except to a certain individual (B. Young), on a particular occasion. The meaning of this will be revealed to her by Brigham when he meets her at the Veil, as it is called. After being furnished with white stockings and a nightgown, she is conducted to another part of the Temple, where she is left on her own for a short time, to have the opportunity to reflect on the scenes she has just passed through. She had been there for two hours already, with her mind under so much excitement that she doubted whether the whole thing had been a dream; but after a little rest she comes to the conclusion that it was reality; and she has only now to wait the final result of this strange procedure.
The object of this unheard of initiation, and the woman’s being left here alone, in this peculiar dress and situation, will be fully realized by the reader after knowing about the initiation of the gentleman who was separated from her. He was taken by another conductor, questioned, and divested of his outside clothes, and taken to another conductor, who removed the remainder of his clothing from him, which left him perfectly naked, and he washed him in a bath of water, performing on him ceremonies similar to those of the woman, with some exceptions. After being rolled and tumbled about in the bath, he is pronounced clean, taken out of the water, and the perfumed oil is poured on his head, and he is anointed in detail over his entire body. Then he is seated on a chair and proclaimed to be a king for time and eternity. In this his pride is pampered. After this he is clothed with a light-weight garment which is a tight fit, over which is put a common shirt. In this fix he is conducted into another apartment, and after being placed in a certain position on the floor, he is left alone. Here now are the man and the woman in separate apartments, unbeknown to each other, and having passed through the similar, strange ceremonies. All is now silent, and a perfect silence pervades the whole Temple. The silence is broken by a commotion in a distant part of the building, and afterwards voices are heard speaking of the propriety of organizing matter, worlds, &c., when Brigham Young commences, in a grave tone of voice, first by speaking the world into existence; after that darkness prevails, and he says, “Let there be light; let the light be divided from the darkness; let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; let the firmament be called heaven; let the waters under the firmament be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; let the dry land be called earth, and the gathering together of the waters seas; let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind.” He then adds, “All things which I have now made are very good; but there is not a man to till the ground, or to have dominion over all that we have made, which walks and moves on the face of the earth. Now let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
While he is uttering these words, he goes in the room to the man, puts his hands on him, pretending to form him from the dust, and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Next Brigham puts the man into a feigned sleep, and acts out this scripture—“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and he closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and he brought her unto the man.”
After going through a ceremony as if in the act of taking the rib, he goes to the apartment where the woman was, and he forms her from it. The particular manner in which this is done I will not explain; in any event, it is not very long before he returns with the woman by the hand to the man who was in a profound feigned sleep. Then Brigham calls out, “Adam, here is thy companion that I give to thee; what wilt thou call her?”
The man arose and saluted the woman, saying, “This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.”
Brigham next orders his Adam and his Eve to follow him to a large room, all nicely decorated with flowers, plants, and fruit trees, with a lovely path through them, which characterized the Garden of Eden; in it also were the tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the flaming sword, &c. In all this Brigham assumes to personate the Lord. He leads them around, showing them the beauties of his creation: “This is a beautiful place,” he says, “everything to delight the eye, the ear, and the taste. Of all these things you may freely partake; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (pointing to it), of this you may not partake, for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”
After giving strict charge of all the particulars of the garden, Brigham leaves his Adam and his Eve alone in the garden, to amuse themselves as seemeth them good.
Now, the serpent, who was Orson Hyde (who acted the part of the devil in this ceremony, which part was well sustained, he being more than half devil himself,) who was more cunning than all the creatures which Brigham made, came to the garden, and disturbed the happiness of the blessed couple, saying, “Did not the Lord (Brigham) say, You may not eat from every tree of the garden?” And the woman said to the devil (Orson Hyde), “Of the fruit of every tree in the garden we could eat; but of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, the Lord (Brigham) said we should not eat, or touch it, lest we die.” And the devil said to the woman, “You shall not surely die!” (for he knows that Brigham Young will succeed in the day you eat of that tree in causing you to believe that the strange plan that he and his accomplices have concocted is a revelation from God, and that he has received a commandment to make you in this manner, and that it is a reward from God for building this temple: and then you will be incapable of judging between God’s truth and Brigham’s lies. After that he can easily make you believe that God has given you to him and his accomplices as a spiritual wife, to populate the Mormon city, in the Salt Lake Valley, California, for the purpose of fulfilling his evil designs). The devil (Orson Hyde) succeeded in getting the woman to partake of the fruit, and he had her give it to her husband, and they did eat. Soon thereafter the voice of Brigham was heard coming to the garden, and they hid themselves. After looking around him, he called out, “Adam, where art thou?” Adam answered, “I heard thy voice, and I was afraid; for I was naked, and I hid myself.” And Brigham said, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” And the man said, “The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” And Brigham said to the woman, “What is this that thou hast done?” And the woman answered, “The serpent (Orson Hyde) beguiled me, and I did eat.”
And Brigham said to the devil, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field, and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” (After Orson received the curse from Brigham, he fell on his belly on the floor, and crawled on the floor for a while, and thus he exited.) “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” Unto the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow; thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy (spiritual) husband, and he shall rule over thee.” And to the man he said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,” &c., “cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life,” &c. (And you shall not have a wife, for I choose to take her for myself, spiritually, for I see that she is young, fair, and desirable.)
Now Brigham Young turns to his accomplices, Parley Pratt, Orson Pratt, Heber C. Kimble, Orson Hyde, Wilford Woodruff, and several elders who are involved in this great scheme. “Behold! through our clever designs we have succeeded in deceiving the people. And now, lest any of them go out and reveal the secret, and expose us and destroy our scheme, let us administer a solemn oath, and let us connect it to the most cruel punishment.” The man and the woman are placed to kneel before the altar, on which is the Bible. They place their hands on the Bible while the following oath is administered.
The Oath
You do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, his holy angels, and these witnesses, that you will avenge the blood of Joseph Smith on this nation, and teach the same to your children; and that you will, from this time henceforth and forever, begin and carry out hostilities against the nation, and to keep the same intent a profound secret, now and forever. So help you God.
They are here instructed in a variety of signs and tokens that they are to use among themselves. All are here told—that the killing of Joseph Smith in Illinois is a national offense, that it has angered God, and that God has ordered this secret organization to overthrow the whole nation.
After a great variety of similar instruction, they are conducted to another part of the Temple, where the present world is represented, especially in a religious capacity, where the leaders of all the churches are brought to view and mocked. Orson Hyde here also acts the part of the devil; he enters in caricature fixings and cries out, “Good morning, brethren, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Universalists, the Quakers, the Baptists, the Catholics, we have done well this winter; we have had good revivals—the world is nearly prepared for the millennium; but now this Joe Smith’s doctrine is making rapid progress in the world, and we must be on the lookout; otherwise, they will overthrow us in our long established plans.” After a long and laughable conversation between the devil (Orson) and all the sects, represented by several of the leaders of the Mormons, the devil fellowship with them all. Brigham Young next comes in as the Lord, and commands the devil to let the deceived sects alone, for the time has come when they are all to be converted to the true faith (Mormonism); and in token of this, those who have represented them are dressed in white clothing; and then they are conducted into another room, which represents the future time between the present condition of man and his final rest, or the kingdom of heaven. On the center of this floor is an altar, where the man and the woman are requested to kneel, and enter into the most solemn covenant with their hands on the Bible, that they will carry out Brigham’s purposes in the future, right or wrong.
After a variety of ceremonies, a female conductor takes the man and leads him to what is called the veil, which separates the holy from the most holy place. There were several marks on the veil (which consisted of thin cloth) which were explained by Young who stood on the other side of it: after that the man is conducted through a door to the left, to the most holy place. Brigham next explains the marks on the veil to the woman, and he tells her she must have corresponding marks in some special place of her under garment, and that it is his duty to make them. After doing so, she is taken through the door after her husband, who takes her to the celestial kingdom, where they are crowned king and queen. Here also Brigham Young reveals to them all the mysteries of the kingdom—the plurality of wives system, and the like; when the women are seduced and led into all manner of abominable and licentious practices; in short, everything which is of such a character that it cannot be made public, is here taught and practiced. And this is the object, no doubt, of this wonderful initiation, to restrain the mind from revealing them—which it has a tendency to do, so that, in case those abominable principles should be disbelieved by some, no one can affirm them, or tell them, by reason of the penalty.
Although strange and foolish as this procedure may appear, the greater part of those who go into it under the circumstances described, believe that it is a revelation from God. And we, having providentially our eyes opened, and having escaped the dire consequences of following these designing leaders, feel anxious to prevent others going after them; which important object we shall no doubt accomplish, to a greater or lesser extent, by an extensive circulation of this work, which will be read by many of foreign nations as well as this; and we hope that all who love truth, and hate religious imposition, will assist in its circulation.
John Van Dusen, and
Maria van Dusen, his wife.
New York.
The above couple gives the names of several respected persons in New York at the end of the pamphlet as References.
OMICRON.
Sun, August 1858, pp. 241–43
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The Mormons
There is a time for all things, and so it has happened to the Mormons, the filthiest and most corrupt sect which has ever named itself under the name of Christianity. This sect has been very successful in several places of the Principality; and its unlearned preachers are in swarms along the country, deceiving ignoramuses, and captivating their thoughts to the most detestable system which has ever taken shape in the minds of corrupt men. But it is quite likely that the day of the success of Mormonism is about to end, and that its sun is about to set for all eternity.
It has been expected for a considerable time that important news would be heard from Salt Lake City, for the army of the United States started on its way there quite some time ago in order to compel the Mormons to obey the government. Brigham Young had been conducting business according to his own will, and it was once said that he had armed the Mormons in order to fight against the Americans; and before taking up their arms they had proclaimed victory over the forces of the United States. But hardly had winter ended before the main body of the Mormons had left Salt Lake, taking up a long and arduous pilgrimage south to Sonora, in Mexico. The United States soldiers had been delayed by the snow in the mountains, but threatening and ready to descend in the spring in order to force them to obey the laws. Governor Cumming arrived in the territory as the appointed official of the United States, and he was received by the Mormons with every appearance of submission, even by their great prophet, namely Brigham Young. But when Cumming received the office of Brigham, the leading throng of the Mormons had already left to go south, that being the fourth exodus of the Mormons, but perhaps it is not the last. If they have gone toward Sonora, the great Colorado River is on their way, and more and more dangers await them. They will have to climb rocky mountains, and it is not unlikely that they will meet up with tribes of Indians who have shown them no mercy, but rather they have killed them mercilessly and have taken their women captive.
It is noteworthy that Mormonism cannot exist or live near a Christian civilization, and that is the reason the Mormons retreat from among men and establish themselves on their own. They cannot live except in darkness with which their accursed system is covered. Not only is Mormonism a kind of God-lead king, and an independent government of the priesthood, but it is much worse. The high priest and his subordinate officials have been endowed with such remarkable authority that they can break the closest association in order to satisfy their lusts, and thus make the country that is under their authority a kind of great brothel. There is nothing too sacred to them but what they can place their filthy hands on, for their entire system is full of corruption throughout. What they have received from Joseph is nothing but an ungodly and sensual creed which shreds all societal relationships and lowers men to the same level as animals. The first settlement of the Mormons was effected under the leadership of Joseph Smith in the state of Missouri. They purchased land, they set up shops, they built towns, and soon they made themselves disreputable. Their chief transgression in the slave state of Missouri was to side with the slaves, and this was the most notable Mormon trait; and they attracted to themselves the disfavor of the people; and they were ordered to leave. They disobeyed this order, and they took legal action against their opponents. But since the laws of America were not very strong in the slave states, the people took the matter into their own hands, and against the decree of the Governor, the Mormons were turned away to another state. Then again, because they proclaimed their opposition to slavery, they stirred up the anger of the people against them; but this time conditions were offered to them. By then the Mormons had increased greatly in number, and they took legal action against the people. The result of this was continual contention and quarrels with the people, and sometimes it was necessary to call for the militia. By this time Joseph Smith was seeking to be like Muhammad, and in order to realize his ambition he formed packs of thieves which he called Danites. The Governor of Missouri, in an official document, accused the Mormons of being guilty of practically every known transgression, and he angrily ordered them to leave the state or else they would be exterminated. Joseph Smith, having threatened that if he were not left alone he would be a second Muhammad to this generation and would make it a lake of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, and that his motto would be “Joseph, or the sword.” He then retreated and settled in Illinois. To this point, action against the Mormons was unjust, but their course from then on in Illinois and Utah would be frightful to think about.
In Illinois the Mormons were at first considered to be the targets of persecution by the slave traders, and they were treated kindly and gently; and new adepts enlisted under their banner. They settled in a bend of the Mississippi River, and there they built the city of Nauvoo. Here Mormonism flourished, and it appeared as though it would become a great power in the Union. Here Joseph Smith received two remarkable revelations. One was to prepare to build a temple to the Lord, which as a result was built. The other revelation was different, for through this one it was shown him that he should build a tavern and that he should take his stance there: “Therefore, let my servant Joseph Smith, and his seed after him”—such is the language of the revelation—“have place in that house, from generation to generation, forever and ever, saith the Lord. And let the name of that house be called Nauvoo House; and let it be a delightful habitation for man, and a resting-place for the weary traveler.” Joseph Smith received the protection of the government in this place, and he was permitted to form an army of four thousand men in number. Here also he received a revelation that plural marriage was an institution from the Lord, and the purpose of this revelation was to hide Joseph Smith’s own sins. But although the Mormon system greatly flourished in Nauvoo for a short time, the elements of its destruction were implanted in it; for it was a pool of corruption—to this city every kind of evil doers ran and escaped; here all stolen goods were received; and plural marriage and other evils were revealed. The law went to contend with Joseph Smith, but Joseph refused to recognize the lawful authority of the State; and consequently he was caught; and instead of being sent to a penitentiary by a Judge, he was brutally murdered by a frenzied mob. The transgressions of Smith were many and great; but if he deserved punishment, this punishment should have been administered by the law and not by the mob. The death of Joseph, and the anger of the people toward Mormonism, made their remaining in Nauvoo any longer too dangerous; and Brigham Young, the next prophet, led them a thousand miles away, in search of a resting place in the remoteness of the West. Brigham’s hopes were that he would be outside the boundaries of the United States; but the Mexicans sold that territory to the United States, and thus they found themselves again in the clutches of the authorities.
The Mormons have lived in the vicinity of the Salt Lake for about ten years, and their settlement has become very large. Brigham and the elders have as many wives as they wish, like unto the Turks. To all appearances, they were under the laws of the United States; but eventually they did not recognize any law except for the Mormon law only, namely the law of Brigham Young, who carried with him in full bloom all the corrupt traditions of Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was nothing more than the representative of the most corrupt goods associated with human nature; and in its sum total Mormonism is nothing more than the representative of human nature in its entire corruption and squalor.
Sun, October 1859, p. 318
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The Middle of the Way Is What Is Best
Catholicism forbids their priests to marry; and Mormonism allows their priests to marry as many as they wish. Brigham Young gives a new explanation to the words, “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” “Yes,” says Brigham, in debating with Horace Greeley, “yes, the husband of one wife at least; but the more wives the better.
