Episodes

4.1—Dan Jones responds to “The Profession of Faith of the Latter-day Saints”

4.2—After a blind man is baptized, he attacks the Church—Dan Jones responds

4.3—John S. Davis’s article is refused publication in Star of Gomer

4.4—Dan Jones proves the “Hater of Deceit” to be a “Lover of Deceit”

4.5—Was the reverend’s claim because of untruthfulness or a faulty memory?

4.6—The Reverend E. Roberts fails to “kill Mormonism and bury it by Christmas”

4.7—Dan Jones declares the “Proclamation of the Latter-day Saints” blasphemy

4.8—The “jabbering woman” in Newmarket is not a Latter-day Saint

4.9—Should the Baptists rebaptize a repentant Latter-day Saint, or not?

4.10—Did James Strang really perform a miracle, or was it just phosphorus?

Salient Events

• January 1847. John Taylor speaks at the conference held in Merthyr Tydfil on 3 and 4 January, the first Apostle to visit the Welsh Saints. It appears that summaries in Welsh were presented following the talks given in English.[1]
• January 1847. In The Prophet of the Jubilee, Jones reports there are 979 members of the Church in Wales on January 1847, p. 17.
• January 1847. The following assignments are given to missionaries:[2]
  • John Morris to Pembrokeshire
  • Thomas Pugh, Evan Rees, David Matthews, and Thomas John to Cwmbychan
  • Hopkin Matthews to Treforris
  • Benjamin Jones to Carmarthen
  • Abel Evans to North Wales
  • John Phillips and Dafydd Rees to Cyfyng, near Ystradgynlais
  • William Hughes to Llanelli
  • William Henshaw to Garway Conference
  • Jacob Watkins and John Carver to Garway Conference
  • William Evans “and others with him” to Pontypridd
  • Ebenezer Morris to Llantrisant
• Before April 1847. The publication of a pamphlet entitled The Correct Image Wherein the Deception of the Mormons or the “Latter-day Saints” Can Be Perceived Clearly. The author of this pamphlet is Daniel Jones, the blind man who had been baptized on 7 July 1846 and who believed he had been deceived by Dan Jones.[3]
• April 1847. The publication of “Haman” hanging from his own gallows! or Daniel Jones [the blind man] and his booklet proving the truth of Mormonism!! by Dan Jones, in which he contests the allegation of the blind man.[4]
• 21 June 1847. Dan Jones reports in his letter to Brigham Young about his publishing activities: “Making in all, without one scratch of another’s pen but my own nearly one million pages.”
• July 1847. Dan Jones reports in his periodical the publication of his 102-page History of the Latter-day Saints, the first comprehensive history of the Church to be published.[5]
• 2 September 1847. The Reverend Edward Roberts presents a lecture against the Latter-day Saints in the Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais, the chapel of the Reverend W. R. Davies. See Episode 4.6.
• October 1847. Dan Jones publishes A Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, a forty-page pamphlet in answer to Edward Roberts.[6]
• Early November 1847. After reading A Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, William Howells walks four miles to converse with its author and is baptized that same night.[7]
• December 1847. The Merthyr Tydfil branch reports nearly six hundred members, making it the largest branch in all of Britain.[8]

Commentary

Episode 4.1

Start: Dan Responds to “The Profession of Faith of the Latter-day Saints”

1846: June, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury). “The Profession of Faith of the Latter-day Saints.”

This particular issue of the Congregationalist Treasury is missing from the online collection of the National Library of Wales, but the article it carried is mentioned in the August issue of the periodical. (See below.)

1846: August, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), wrapper, p. 2 (70 words). “To Our Distributors and our Subscribers.”

We have received correspondence from one D. Jones, about that profession of faith by the Mormons, alias the Latter-day Saints, which appeared in our June issue. Let it be known by that D. Jones, that it is contrary to the principles of the Treasury to publish anything that may be personal and discourteous even from the Saints. His article contains blasphemy.

This brief note of explanation came as no surprise to Dan Jones, since he had received similar treatment from the editor of Star of Gomer as well. But when “The Profession” reappeared in the January 1847 issue of The Baptist, Dan Jones decided to respond.

1847: January, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), pp. 11–12 (925 words). “The Profession of Faith of the Latter-day Saints.”

This list of ten supposed beliefs of the Latter-day Saints was first published six months earlier in the June issue of the Congregationalist Treasury. The writer, “A Southerner,” then submitted a copy of “The Profession” to the editor of The Baptist, citing two witnesses—Thomas Hopkins and Evan Davies—as his sources. This “Profession” contains ten itemized, basic beliefs of the Latter-day Saints; a detailed account, related by one of the Latter-day Saints, of casting out a devil; and also a description of a Latter-
day Saint woman who was dead for two hours but whose spirit then returned to her body.

1847: February, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 28–30 (1,500 words). “Defense of the Mormons.”

By the time “The Profession” appeared for the second time, Dan Jones had his own periodical through which he could accomplish two objectives. He could print his response to the editor of The Baptist, and he could also print the letter he had sent to the uncooperative editor of the Congregationalist Treasury. Jones makes the following observation about the two editors who saw fit to publish “The Profession” in their respective periodicals:

A short time ago these two “reverend” Editors and their factions were at loggerheads with each other; but now, here is an excellent way of removing the barrier between them, and mutually reconcile themselves to persecute the Saints, and that which one accuses will be verified by the other.[9]

Because the Congregationalist Treasury had published very little against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before the June 1846 article, Dan Jones used a very conciliatory tone in his letter to the editor of that publication:

We do not wish your correspondent and his witnesses to think that I am accusing them of deliberate misrepresentation; and yet, I am sure that either they have received a misrepresentation, or they have greatly misunderstood, and it is not impossible that that “Profession” is the fruit of the one and the other.[10]

Regarding the editor of The Baptist, however, Dan Jones’s tone was anything but conciliatory:

As for the Editor of The Baptist, we did not intend to lower ourselves any more to take notice of his odiferous rubbish; but for yet one more time, we shall take a glance at his unfairness. He had refused a defense one time, but after delivering his lies about us, he shouted that he would have nothing to do with us, and he promised to leave us in peace, but he discharged the filthy story that appeared in the next issue; then he closed his press against any defense.

And in his final paragraph, Jones pleads with his readers and fellow Latter-day Saints not to give heed to their detractors:

Do not believe them, lest you be deprived of the truth. It is obvious that they do not want their readers to understand our principles; otherwise, they would use that which we believe from our own books. Is it we, or rather our enemies, who can explain our tenets most correctly, I wonder? If we believed the aforementioned “Profession,” would there be any reason for us to deny it publicly?[11]

End: Dan Jones responds to “The Profession of Faith of the Latter-day Saints”

1847: January, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 16–17 (595 words). “The Mormons.”

The editor of this periodical explains that this modest bit of information about the Latter-day Saints would be useful to his readers. His conclusion is a warning concerning the Latter-day Saints’ message:

As they preach, the teachers of the Saints do not mention the Book of Mormon, nor the revelations of Joe Smith; but their primary purpose is to persuade men to believe that they are able to work miracles, and that there are no godly people who cannot work miracles; once they have convinced men who are sufficiently daft to believe that, they will then be able to get them to believe in the godliness of Joe very easily. But knowing the history of this superstition from its beginning to the present, is sufficient remedy against it. “Be ye not deceived.”[12]

1847: 9 January, Monmouthshire Beacon, p. 4 (205 words).

Report of a large group assembled at the Delph (near Manchester) for a baptismal service for the Latter-day Saints. It was necessary to break the ice in the canal.

Episode 4.2

Start: After a blind man is baptized, he attacks the Church—Dan Jones responds

1846: Millennial Star, vol. 8, pp. 40–42. “Letter to the President.”

In this 24 July letter Dan Jones presents an account of the baptism of a blind man in Llanybydder on 7 July 1846. Jones suspected the man’s lack of integrity and decided to have a public baptism in an effort to frustrate any insidious plans of those who were associated with the blind man and who wanted to show the Church in a negative light. He preached a long sermon preceding the baptism:

I showed them that our religion was true, whether the blind man got his sight or not; it was true before the blind man was heard of, that it would remain as true when he was dead and forgotten, and that it is eternally true, and I knew it.

He then describes the events following the baptism:

While walking up to the house to be confirmed, it was amusing to hear the remarks as the crowd followed, crossing and re-crossing to peep at his eyes, to see whether his sight was restored; some said it was, some that he was blinder than before, and that was difficult. . . . I confirmed the man, anointed and laid hands on him, and he shouted for joy in the presence of all, and testified that while hands were on his head he could “see the candle in the candlestick on the table; that he was more than satisfied.”

Later, witnesses testified to having heard Jones admit that he had agreed to the baptism as a “prepared Judas,” who would then reject the Church because of the Saints’ inability to heal him of his blindness.

1847: January, Y Drych Cywir, lle y gellir canfod yn eglur Twyll Mormoniaid, neu “Seintiau y Dyddiau Diweddaf,” mewn dull o Holiadau ac Atebion, rhwng Daniel a’i Gyfaill (The Correct Image, Wherein One Can Perceive Clearly the Deceit of the Mormons, or the “Latter-day Saints,” in the Form of Questions and Answers, between Daniel and His Friend), pamphlet, 12 pages.

The Correct Image begins with a poem of eight four-line stanzas. Here are the second and eighth stanzas:

They travel throughout Wales,

And bitterly they announce,

That all are lost

Unless they join with them.

And now I must testify,

That the Saints only deceive,

If you buy this you will have the full story,

Of the way I was charmed.

In this pamphlet, a series of questions and answers between the blind man and the Reverend Josiah Thomas Jones, the blind man recalls the incident:

It is true that I thought and believed I would regain my sight, indeed, I believed so strongly that at one time I thought I could see, and I shouted at them to continue, that I was beginning to see.[13]

The blind man attended only two meetings with his new coreligionists following his baptism. He confesses that he was unable to “receive the Spirit” in the same way others in the meetings did. Consequently, he did not attend any more meetings and eventually concluded that the members of the Church were “lying deceivers.”

1847: February, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), pp. 47–48 (975 words). “Press Review.”

A writer, who calls himself “The Welshman,” presents some lengthy quotes from the blind man’s pamphlet about his experience with the Latter-day Saints, following a scathing introduction:

It was impossible for Daniel to better serve his nation than by revealing the treachery of these deceitful atheists; we would advise everyone to buy it, so that they may find in the Image, an accurate portrayal of such a pack of rapacious wolves, who scatter their destructive heresies the length and breadth of Wales in general, until they charm some of the superstitious and weak-headed in our country into believing such false doctrines as are published by the Mormons.

1847: February, “Haman” yn hongian ar ei grogbren ei hun! neu Daniel Jones (ddall) a’i lyfr yn profi gwirionedd Mormoniaeth!! (“Haman” Hanging from His Own Gallows! Or Daniel Jones (the Blind) Proving the Truth of Mormonism!!) pamphlet, 8 pages.

Captain Jones’s reaction to the blind man’s pamphlet was an eight-page pamphlet of his own—“Haman” hanging from his own gallows! —describing the details of the baptism, the momentary restoration of the blind man’s sight, and the testimony of various witnesses.

In a chance meeting in October 1846, Dan Jones had warned the blind man that if he continued his campaign against the Saints, the hand of God would be on him and his fate would be hotter than that of Kora, Dathan, and Abiram, the three who were swallowed up in the earth after fighting against Moses. In spite of the warning, the blind man was persuaded to publish a pamphlet about his experience and thus warn the Welsh of the Mormons’ deceit.

1847: Millennial Star, vol. 9, p. 218.

In his report of a conference held on 25 April 1847, Dan Jones recounts the fulfillment of his October 1846 prophetic warning:

No sooner was the reply [The Correct Image] out of press, than on the old blind man it came, hot and heavy. He cried out that he was burning up alive; his friends poured cold water on him night and day in vain! He would rush out from them to a pool that was by, and there he would roll, and wallow, and yelp until he terrified the passersby. . . . Yes, he died a monument of the displeasure of a just God for hypocrisy, is the admission of many besides Saints.[14]

1848: November, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 170–72. “The Blind Man and His Book.”

In this letter, Thomas Jeremy reports that the twelve-page pamphlet published by the blind man had been reprinted and that “those who sell it say that its author is not yet dead!”

It is a strange thing that men who were fashioned in the image of the truthful God should so succumb to the influences of the father of lies as to claim that he (Daniel Jones) is still alive. If he is alive, he must have taken part in the first resurrection.

Jeremy describes what happened to the blind man after receiving the stern warning from Dan Jones:

He was taken very ill, so that he felt his intestines on fire inside him: he drank a lot of cold water to stop the supposed fire inside him, and also he ran out of the house to wallow in water in order to cool down; but all in vain. He died in this painful condition; although I was not present, I heard about him. I live about three miles from the place where he died. I have been with Mr. James Evans, the Registrar, who has registered the death of Daniel Jones, and he is willing to give a copy to anyone who wishes, if they pay 2s. 6c. and the postage.

End: After a blind man is baptized, he attacks the Church—Dan Jones responds

1847: April, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 120 (240 words). “Persecution of the Mormons.”

A borrowed article from “one of the newspapers of America.” The article briefly recounts the efforts of “a great number of wretches [who] had formed an alliance to cause the Mormons to leave their country and their property.” In consequence of their persecutors, the Latter-day Saints in America “are now poor and needy wanderers in the inaccessible wilds of the new world, with hundreds of them dying of fatigue and hunger!” Of the articles to appear in the Welsh press, this article is one of the very few that had a tone of compassion for the Latter-day Saints.

1847: May, Y Drysorfa (Treasury), p. 160 (380 words). “The Latter-day Saints.”

This brief article appeared in The Treasury, a Welsh-language Calvinistic Methodist periodical published in Chester, England—not to be confused with Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregationalist Treasury), which was published in Swansea, Wales. This article is simply an account of a Latter-day Saint missionary, whom the author refers to as “a fluent and gifted speaker . . . well versed in the Scriptures,” who had recently visited the town of Mold in North Wales. During a conversation with a local resident, the missionary quoted Mark 16:18, which refers to the signs that would be given to believers of the apostles’ message. The resident then asked the missionary whether the members of his church had the miraculous gifts mentioned in the scripture. When the missionary responded in the affirmative the resident provided the missionary with a drink with arsenic in it and asked him to drink it as proof that the “deadly thing” would not hurt him. The article ends with this statement:

The apostle turned a pale-blue, and without uttering a word he was off as soon as he could, showing by the haste of his departure that he was glad to see the door. There is no need to say that the ministry of the false apostle has come to an end in Mold in this visit with our friend, as he was never heard from again.

Episode 4.3

Start: John S. Davis’s article is refused publication in Star of Gomer

1847: June, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 173–74 (1,070 words). “Speaking with Tongues.”

Nowhere in this article is any reference made to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The writer discusses the Apostle Paul’s ideas about speaking with tongues, brings up examples from the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Acts and from the fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, and concludes the following:

This, and all other things, show clearly, then, that speaking with tongues and the interpretations were only for the edifying of the church, and that such was done when the spirit of God was resting on those who were speaking.[15]

The article is signed “J. D.” and was written by John S. Davis.[16]

1847: September, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 258 (80 words). “Part of the Jewish Statute-book as a Path to the Christian Statute-book,” by “H. Tegai.”

Following the article is this postscript which is directed to “J. D.”:

P. S. I saw in the June STAR, an article by one J. D., on “Speaking with Tongues.” If J. D. wishes to come forward to defend Mormonism, let him come to the root of the debate immediately, by [answering], 1. Did Christ and his apostles work public miracles? If they did, 2, Do the Mormons do so in the same way? Let J. D. answer however he wishes, and then I will have a word to say to him.

1847: December, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 181–85 (2,670 words). “‘Speaking with Tongues’ of the New Testament, and Mormonism!”

Davis wrote a response to H. Tegai’s questions and fully expected that it would be printed in Star of Gomer. When the response was refused publication in that periodical, Davis submitted the response to Dan Jones, who was pleased to publish it in this issue of Prophet of the Jubilee. Davis explains the article’s trajectory in an introductory paragraph addressed to Dan Jones:

Some questions were directed at me in the September Star, by one Independent Reverend from the North, and I wrote an answer for them, being sure in my mind that I would receive the same fair play that the inquirer received; but to my disappointment, I was told that it was too poor, that there was none of the “cleverness” in this article that I had shown on other occasions, and that the aforementioned Reverend would take no notice of it. The only thing I shall say is, that I did my best. Now, I set my cause before you, and begging the fair play that was denied me in the place where it should have been received.[17]

Davis has a much more argumentative tone in this article than he used in his three articles that were allowed to appear in Star of Gomer for October 1846, January 1847, and June 1848. Addressing the editor of the periodical, he responds to the accusation that he had “come forth to defend Mormonism”:

About last February when I sent you an article on “Speaking with Tongues,” which appeared in the Star for June, little did I think that anyone would be so perceptive as to see that it was defending Mormonism; for it was nothing more than an investigation into the New Testament to know what is to be understood by “speaking with tongues.”[18]

To Tegai’s statement, “Let J. D. answer as he may, and then I shall have a word to say to him,” Davis writes:

This thing looks like a trap or a net; and if the words are taken “spiritually,” they mean, in my opinion, that Mr. Tegai has determined beforehand what he will say; yes, even if I were to convince him of the complete opposite. But that makes no difference, for I hope, that when our friend lifts his net, that a miracle will take place (as in the time of Christ), and instead of capturing me, he will have captured the truth, and that as it is in Christ. Amen.[19]

End: John S. Davis’s article is refused publication in Star of Gomer

Episode 4.4

Start: Dan Jones proves the “Hater of Deceit” to be a “Lover of Deceit”

1847: May, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), pp. 144–46 (1,370 words). “The Deceiving Mormons.”

The writer declares himself to be from Blackwood and signs himself “A Hater of Deceit.” He says that he has been an eyewitness to failed healings of the sick, unfulfilled prophecies, and bogus speaking in tongues by members of this new religion in his area. “And since it is in secret that they introduce their destructive heresies,” he writes, “I think it is high time for everyone to wake up, and strive to root out these secrets, and steadfastly proclaim them clearly.”

1847: May, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 69–75 (3,930 words). “The ‘Hater of Deceit’ Proved a Lover, a Maker, and a Publisher, of ‘Deceit’ Himself.”

In a written defense three times the size of the attack, Jones dissects each point of Hater’s argument and discusses the flaws as he proceeds to make a mockery of the entire article. With the Prophet of the Jubilee as his battering ram, Jones confidently counters Hater’s accusations:

Although for any thoughtful man the writing throughout contains sufficient proofs that its author is deserving of the character we have given him, still we shall glean some of the ears of corn from his labor, to show more clearly the kind of harvest that one can expect, together with the filth of the field that produces such cabbages.[20]

1847: June, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 90–93 (1,760 words). “The ‘Hater of Deceit’ Proved a Lover, a Maker, and a Publisher, of ‘Deceit’ Himself.”

The continuation and conclusion of the Prophet of the Jubilee May article. Here is his final sentence:

Let Mr. Rees also take a few of these pills with you; yes, let all our persecutors swallow their dose so the filth may be purged from their stomachs, for their good, and bring them to love truth instead of loving lies is our desire, that’s all.[21]

1847: July, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), pp. 212–13 (1,430 words).

The Hater of Deceit responds aggressively to Dan Jones. Unlike Hater’s previous article, in this one Hater focuses his defense on the teachings and practices of “Mormonism . . . the most innocuous little thing we have ever seen.” He refers to Joseph Smith as “that deceptive monster” and sounds the alarm for all Welsh people:

Dear Wales! can you sleep while seeing your fellowmen turning away from the truth; and while seeing, perhaps, your closest relatives charmed by their lightness, to gallop towards the land of woe? Awake for the sake of your souls, and stand firm by the principles of the true religion. Show courage against the false prophets, and strive to persecute false prophesies to annihilation.

1847: September, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 137–141 (2,770 words). “The ‘Hater of Deceit’ Proving himself a False Prophet Again!!”

Dan Jones fires back at the Hater of Deceit:

Listen, reader, to another example of our persecutor’s madness, and we are surprised that he was able to get a place in any publication! “But I thank him (he says, that is, he thanks us for whipping him ‘quite harshly’ as he says); my only wish was to get him to oppose me,” and so, poor fellow, here you are not only having got your wish like everyone else who opposes our dear religion with lies, but also hanging yourself again with your own words.[22]

Jones then rails at his accuser for not revealing his identity:

Poor fellow, you want to get us to oppose you, do you, only to threaten and falsely accuse us. No wonder you refuse to reveal your name just like every deceiver or slanderer. Oh, evil man, hiding in his black hole like the fox, gnashing his teeth from there at those who go by; is this fair? Give your name to the world, so that they understand who deserves the whip, and who are our accusers. We are never ashamed to own our names in public under what we publish in support of the truth, as you are ashamed to own up to your ridiculous lies![23]

1847: September, Yr Haul (Sun), pp. 299–300 (510 words). “Attack of the Editor of The Revivalist on the Mormons.”

Jones was not the only person to have negative opinions and comments about the Hater of Deceit. David Owen, a former Baptist minister who had converted to the Church of England a few years earlier, decided to weigh in on the fierce battle between Dan Jones and his vociferous opponent. Owen was also the editor of the Welsh-language Anglican Church periodical Yr Haul (The Sun) at the time he saw the vicious article by the Hater of Deceit in The Revivalist. Owen declares the author of the articles in The Revivalist to be David Rees, who was the editor of the periodical and was also a Congregationalist minister. Owen explains in his own periodical that Rees pretends to have received a letter from a correspondent in Blackwood to make himself look more important. Owen adds:

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.

Owen opines that Rees’s letter is “one of the clumsiest letters ever to appear in print,” and he also declares Mormonism to be “a snake, generated by the extremes of Nonconformity” which will “certainly be poisoned to death.”

Dan Jones must have enjoyed himself immensely as he read the harsh criticisms leveled against a Congregationalist minister by an Anglican vicar who had no affinity for any of the Nonconformists nor for the Latter-day Saints.

1847: September, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), pp. 286–87 (1,170 words). “The False Prophets—Who Are They?”

This is yet another article condemning Dan Jones and his religion, in which the author presents himself as the arbiter of the polemic between the Hater of Deceit and Dan Jones, calling himself the “Prover of Deceit.” Since the article appears in the September issue of The Revivalist, the editor had probably not seen the September 1847 issue of The Sun and thus offered no response to David Owen’s criticism. The Prover of Deceit ends this September article with the following:

Now, I must end, and reveal my name. Did I say, my name? An unknown name, to be sure; for what if Mr. Hater of Deceit should get hold of me, and take me for a “deceiver!” It could be dangerous, for often he is a sniper through the hedges.

It is very likely that Prover of Deceit and Hater of Deceit are one and the same person—i.e., David Rees, the editor of The Revivalist, as accused by David Owen, the editor of The Sun.

End: Dan Jones proves the “Hater of Deceit” to be a “Lover of Deceit”

1847: 11 June, The Welshman, p. 3 (85 words).

Residents of Pembroke Dock are warned that Latter-day Saint missionaries are preaching in the area. Two Wesleyan Methodist ministers preached against them in the open air.

1847: July, Catecism (Catechism) [non-extant].

This publication by the Reverend W. R. Davies has not been identified by title, nor are there any details available other than those revealed by Dan Jones in his ferocious attack on the publication in the August [24] and September [25] issues of the 1847 Prophet of the Jubilee.

Since I reviewed his treatise [The Latter Saints. The Substance of a Sermon which was delivered on the miracles, March, 1846] in such detail, and answered everything that merited attention [1846 Prophet of the Jubilee for September, October, November, and December], and as his Catechism is only a revamping of that, having had done to it what some ladies do to their bonnets, or the dandies to their old coats, that is to turn them and bring them out in some new fashion, we will not be expected to review his Catechism here until he offers to refute our previous review; yet, let us take note of the above accusations to see if it is he, or we who merit them at all.[26]

Here is an example of the many accusations Jones brings forth about Davies:

This man accuses the Saints of trying to “Entice the uneducated and the unbalanced, for the purpose of attracting their money, and living in idleness at the expense of the weak-headed ones who believe them,” says he. This would be considered a very weighty accusation if it came from any mouth but the soiled lips of Mr. Davies of Dowlais; yes, one who needs strong proofs before he would be believed: but it is vain to expect any sort of proof, example, or reason from him to prove it, any more than he provides for anything else; otherwise, it would long ago have been out in public. Is it Mr. Davies who brings this accusation! From how many chapels does he himself receive his salary, I wonder? Who lives in such idleness at the expense of his devotees, and electioneers so much for money, money, all the time as our accuser? . . . Living in idleness at the expense of others, is it? Which of them prove themselves guilty of this by building new houses, etc.? Who was the man who was off for three months without preaching once in any of his chapels, and on his return got £50 from his devotees at home! [27]

1847, August, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), p. 234 (70 words).

Following an article about the Ascension of Christ is this footnote:

It is claimed by the delusional and arrogant people who call themselves Latter-day Saints, that they now receive the Spirit in its miraculous gifts, but there is as much truth in that as there is in that prophecy of theirs that the town of Abergavenny would sink on a day appointed by them, the day came and went, and the town still remains unshaken to this day.

1847: 6 August, The Welshman, p. 4 (30 words).

It is stated in an Illinois journal, that the famous Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, has been sold for a Roman Catholic church at the large price of 75,000 dollars.

1847: 7 August, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 1 (30 words).

It is stated in an Illinois journal, that the famous Mormon Temple, at Nauvoo, has been sold for a Roman Catholic church for the large price of 75,000.

1847: 21 August, Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, p. 3 (85 words).

Street Oratory. Public lectures are getting frequent; and crowds of people are often in the neighborhoods of Market-square and George Town, listening to open-air orators upon Teetotalism, and upon the truths or errors of Mormonism—subjects upon which the speakers get impassioned, and sometimes quarrelsome. It is amusing, on Sunday evenings, in the neighborhood of the Dynevor’s Arms, to find three speakers within hearing of each other expressing their sentiments, upon distinct subjects, at the same time; and these scenes sometimes end in very hot discussions.

1847: September, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), p. 141–43. “To the One who Calls Himself ‘The Traveler of Nantyglo, or William Williams.’”

See Chapter 5 for commentary.

Episode 4.5

Start: Was the reverend’s claim because of untruthfulness or a faulty memory?

1847: September, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 199–201 (1,970 words). “The Mormons.”

This article is signed “Tobit ger y Bont” (Tobit by the Bridge), a nom de plume previously used by the Reverend W. R. Davies. By this time, Dan Jones was certainly sufficiently familiar with Davies’s writings that he could recognize them, regardless of the name used, but such a high recognition was probably not the case with the general reading public. So perhaps Davies elected to use a variety of noms de plume to promote the idea that many writers were greatly concerned about the doctrines and growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales and were willing to preach against the Church from the pulpit as well as through the press.

In the opening paragraph of the article, Davies declares his wish to “place before the public my reasons for calling the creatures under observation ‘Satanists of the nineteenth century’ and not ‘Saints of the Latter Days,’ as they arrogantly call themselves.” He proposes to do so on three bases:

1. “I shall prove that they are devilish men with their own mouth, by the manner in which they profess to cast out devils.” Davies then uses some twisted logic to explain that the Latter-day Saints cast out devils from people who differed from the kinds of people from whom Christ and his apostles cast out devils.
2. “Satanists of the nineteenth century,” and not “Saints of the latter days.” Davies explains that since the latter days had not yet arrived and since the “Saints” are really “Satanists” that they should be called “Satanists of the nineteenth century.”
3. “The King of Zion has given a rule for his saints to follow without exception while in the world, namely the way in which they are to behave toward their enemies when they are persecuted and killed.” Davies quotes from Dan Jones’s History of the Latter-day Saints, published recently in Rhydybont on his brother’s press, that the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo killed some of their enemies when under attack.[28] He then quotes the Savior—“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves”—as proof that the Latter-day Saints sinned by defending themselves.[29]

Davies rails at Dan Jones for claiming that miracles had been wrought among the Saints and challenges him to offer proof that even one miracle has occurred. Davies ends his lengthy harangue with the following:

I hear that they are boasting throughout the country, that many members of the Baptists in Caersalem have joined them. I myself can assure you that that is not true, except for one old woman.[30]

1848: September, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), p. 132 (1,020 words). “Testimony of Rees Price, Dowlais.”

As proof of Davies’s untruthfulness, or perhaps his faulty memory, here is the statement of Rees Price, a former parishioner of W. R. Davies. After hearing the Saints, Price began to search the scriptures for truth:

While engaged in this careful search, in obedience to the scripture that says, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good,” news of it reached the ears of Mr. Davies, namely that I was inclined toward a judgment and in danger of joining with the Saints; because of this I was publicly disciplined, under the accusation that I had neglected my meeting attendance; but in reality, I say, that I was diligently searching for the truth. When Mr. Roberts came from Rhymney to Dowlais to lecture against the Saints, the meanness of his stories, the illogic of his allegations, his deceit, and his unfairness, convinced me more and more that the religion of the sufferers was better than the religion that caused the attackers to abuse them, to persecute them, and to falsely accuse them as these did.

Price explains the repercussions that occurred when he and his wife left the Baptists:

Also my beloved wife, who was formerly a zealous member with Mr. Davies, Dowlais, has left him and obeyed the order of God; and she also is greatly rejoicing in the privileges of the church of God. We are more content in our family and in every other consideration than ever before, although we are subject to pointing fingers and mocking laughter along the streets, and our old brethren and our old pastor scorn us, treat us like slime, and falsely accuse us publicly. Poor things; let that be between them and the gracious God they kick against.

1848: December, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 187–88 (480 words). “Letter to the Editor.”

And here is the statement of Job Rowland, a former Baptist in Davies’s chapel in Dowlais, who received his baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 13 January 1847—several months earlier than the date of Davies’s assertion that only “one old woman” had left his congregation to become a Latter-day Saint:

As soon as the Saints came to these areas our teachers, especially Mr. W. R. Davies, began to persecute them and hate them, saying all manner of evil against them. Mr. Davies said one time in our house that his desire was to do the same with their elders as was done to Joseph Smith, that is to kill them. That, together with many other things, prompted me to look into their principles; and after having the honor of associating with the Saints, I saw that they were not the way Mr. Davies and others had described them.

End: Was the reverend’s claim because of untruthfulness or a faulty memory?

Episode 4.6

Start: The Reverend E. Roberts fails to “kill Mormonism and bury it by Christmas”

Dan Jones did not respond in Prophet of the Jubilee, according to his normal pattern, to the assault by Tobit ger y Bont (W. R. Davies) that appeared in the September 1847 issue of the Apostolic Witness.[31] The reason was very probably because of Jones’s shift of attention to a highly publicized lecture on “The Deceit of Mormonism” presented in the Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais by the Reverend Edward Roberts on the second of September. Caersalem Chapel was W. R. Davies’s chapel, and Davies had invited his colleague of the cloth, a Baptist minister in Rhymney, to deliver a powerful blow against the religion they both hated and persecuted.

Roberts’s lecture was announced for the evening of 2 September 1847 at the Caersalem Chapel in Dowlais. Dan Jones endeavored to steal the Baptists’ thunder by beginning a series of lectures of his own about the Book of Mormon on 21 August 1847 in Dowlais, about two weeks before Roberts’s scheduled presentation. Handbills were circulated to announce these lectures and Jones’s rebuttal to Roberts’s lecture. The rebuttal was to be on the evening of 3 September 1847.

1847: October, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 318 (1,260 words). “Lectures on Mormonism.”

This report, by one who calls himself “A Listener,” is a contrast to Dan Jones’s reaction to Roberts’s performance. The Listener writes the following:

To give an account of the detail and excellent composition of this lecture would be too long by far in an article like this; it is enough to say that, although it lasted for a few minutes less than two hours, all the listeners stayed attentive till the end, showing their approval in endless cheers while the speaker continued. A better meeting was never had in Dowlais, according to the evidence of everyone who was there, except one or two Mormons who were there, and ready to chew their fingers in anger, at the terrible treatment their evil and deceitful principles received.

The Listener ends his report with an appeal:

The fervent wish of the thousands who listened to Mr. Roberts both nights, is that he would send the skillful and necessary lectures to be printed in the Star; and hopefully he will, for the sake of stopping the weak among the people throughout all Wales from being bewitched by such rubbish.

1847: October, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 224–25 (820 words). “Lectures on Mormonism.”

Here is W. Jones’s very enthusiastic reaction to the Reverend Edward Roberts’s lecture:

After the meeting was begun by Mr. W. Jones, Llansanan, Mr. E. Roberts, Rhymney was called to deliver his lecture. After that, he went ahead and delivered one of the most eloquent and well-crafted lectures we have ever heard, to a numerous crowd of listeners who were stretching their necks to listen as if for their lives; indicating at the same time, through several signs, the greatest satisfaction for that which they heard. The meeting was carried forward in a peaceful and civil manner; and everyone left after being completely satisfied, except for a few of the “Saints,” who insisted that they had not been convinced, nor had they heard the truth.[32]

1847: October, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 151–54 (2,170 words). “Review of the Lecture of the Rev. D. Jones, Cardiff, on ‘The Excellence of the Christian Religion.’”

This review is the first part of a two-part series about this lecture. The Rev. D. Jones presented his lecture immediately following the Rev. E. Roberts’s lecture the night of 3 September 1847. Since Dan Jones could not be present that night, he assigned others to take notes for him. After reading the notes, Dan Jones reacted to the lecture by writing the following in his periodical:

The first thing that came from his mouth was the cruel sentence that follows: “My brother [E. Roberts] has shown quite clearly that Mormonism is deceit, and only deceit;” when at the same time his brother had not disproved any principle that belongs to “Mormonism,” but made horrible hobgoblins out of his own work, and that of others of the same taste, and torturing them alternately.[33]

Dan Jones then systematically responds to several statements made by the Reverend D. Jones. The responses were so numerous that Dan Jones extended them into the following issue of Prophet of the Jubilee.

1847: November, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 165–68 (2,290 words). “Review of the Lecture of the Rev. D. Jones, Cardiff, on ‘The Excellence of the Christian Religion.’”

The second part of Dan Jones’s response to what he considered erroneous statements made by the Rev. D. Jones.

1847: Adolygiad ar ddarlithoedd y Parch. E. Roberts, (Gweinidog y Bedyddwyr yn Rymni,) yn erbyn Mormoniaeth, pa rai a draddododd yn Nghaersalem, Medi yr Ail, ac yn Bethania (Capel yr Annibynwyr,) Medi y Trydydd, yn Nowlais (A Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, [a Baptist minister in Rhymni,] against Mormonism, Which Were Delivered in Caersalem, September the Second, and in Bethania [a Congregational chapel], September the Second, and in Bethania [a Congregational chapel], September the Third, in Dowlais), pamphlet, 40 pages.[34]

Dan Jones responds to the September second and the September third lectures given by Edward Roberts. Jones’s forty-page pamphlet has the date of 18 October 1847 in the preface. In true polemic fashion, Jones ridicules Roberts’s points of argument one by one. Jones accuses Roberts of raising money for a Baptist chapel by preaching lies. With respect to Roberts’s observation about Joseph Smith’s big hands, Jones replies, “You workers of Dowlais, remember to keep your hands hidden from this preacher lest you be condemned as badly as Joseph Smith.”[35] Jones laments that Roberts had resorted to fantasies and stories about Mormonism instead of dealing with principles and doctrines. Over one-third of the pamphlet considers the charge that Joseph Smith had borrowed from Solomon Spaulding’s manuscript in writing the Book of Mormon. This segment is essentially a translation of Benjamin Winchester’s 1840 pamphlet on the same topic.[36]

Jones declares in the preface how opposition serves as a catalyst for the work to move forward:

The bulls and the anathemas of the Pope, and the conspiracies of the papist friars regarding the life of Luther, were better for the spreading of his reformation than all the previous peace and sufferance. And the blasphemies and unfounded claims of Mr. Davies of Dowlais, and Mr. Roberts of Rhymney; yes, the public blasphemies on the streets made by their followers are better for the spread of Mormonism than the stillness to be found in some other places; and while persecution and shame, although falling on myself and my brethren, are a means of spreading the truth in my dear country—welcome persecution! Welcome pain! Welcome shame! Behold the bodies, the characters and the feelings that suffer them are happy, even though they flow from men who should know better.[37]

1847: Millennial Star, vol. 9, pp. 318–19. “Letter to Elder Orson Spencer.”

Dan Jones begins this letter, dated 29 September 1847, with the following:

Dear President Spencer, Having but just retreated for a few hours from the battleground, while my guns are cooling for another broadside, I will report to you the progress of the war.[38]

Jones describes the atmosphere the night of 2 September in the Caersalem Baptist Chapel in Dowlais, where the Reverend E. Roberts was about to present “the funeral sermon of Mormonism”:

The scene was truly picturesque, which presented the first of this crusade! It was in a Baptist chapel, one of their collegians being the hero. The big seat was crowded with reverends, etc., from far and near, and although they exacted sixpence for admission, yet the chapel was crowded with anxious listeners, who, with opened mouths, eagerly anticipated to hear the funeral sermon of Mormonism. I seated myself in front, and took notes of his topics, and were you to see the fingers and eyes that evidently marked me as a gone case, you would have thought that I had seven horns, if not as many heads, and every time that the harlequin would strike the pulpit with his paw, and cry, “Down with Mormonism!” etc., in the mist of the echo of cheers, I had time and opportunity to inspect nearly all eyes in the place.[39]

Jones then describes the scene at the end of Roberts’s lecture:

I had sent one of my placards (publishing that I should reply the following evening, and admission by buying a shilling book for sixpence, and thereby paying them sixpence for coming, which contained the history of the church, Joseph Smith, and refutations to most of those charges, etc.) to the chairman, with a request for him to read it at the close, but he refused to read it, and when one of the Saints asked him, I was replied to in the negative by one of them jumping on top of the seat in front of me, and in front of a seatful of the reverend divines, with his fist in my face, and gnashing his teeth, and in the attitude of sending me to judgment, apparently, if I said a word: and instead of allowing his hearers to come and hear both sides, as an honest man would do, behold, he published that he would deliver another lecture the following night gratis! And thus showing the white feather in his tail. However, I fulfilled my appointment, and sent reporters to his second lecture, and from that time I have been lecturing there to crowded audiences of eager hearers, almost without cessation, and many believing the gospel.[40]

1847: November, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 171–73 (1,380 words). “The Persecution of Dowlais, and the Good It Has Done.”

Dan Jones reports to his readers:

But, the truth is, instead of the Saints being a “blasphemy and a curse,” as [the Rev. W. R.] Davies says, and instead of some leaving them in Dowlais, not so much as one has left them since this last persecution began! And furthermore, let the world understand that there has been more success and growth among the Saints, even in Dowlais, since that than ever before![41]

1848: February, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 23–24 (730 words). “Praise for the Review of Capt. Jones on the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, Rhymni, and His supporters, against Mormonism.”

As might be expected, Jones’s Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts fared extremely well in Prophet of the Jubilee. One Daniel ab Iago from Rhymney even wrote a poem in praise of the pamphlet and the author. He declares that the Review is “brilliant” and that it is well worth reading. Here are the first and fourth stanzas of the nine-stanza poem:

He raises his head no more a Captain—joyful

Sovereign—praiseworthy;

Though their tempest was terrible,

A giant of strength, he beat them.

You shattered all their castles—vile things,

Without making mischief;

You revealed and pulled down

In dreadful shame their odiousness.

Daniel ab Iago explains what motivated him to compose his poem:

An impartial consideration of the disgraceful behavior of some of the preachers of the age (especially the Baptists) towards the Latter-day Saints, compelled me to compose the above, and to offer it for your public use, and I hope it will be convincing to many of the devotees of the said persecutors, so that they are not misled by their fabricated tales. What but Satan is stirring them up so that they do not leave their innocent and conscientious neighbors in peace to worship God as they please?

1847: Millennial Star, vol. 9, pp. 363–64. “Extracts from Elder Dan Jones’s Letters to Orson Spencer.”

In this 3 November 1847 letter to Dan Jones’s file leader in Liverpool, concerning the forty-page pamphlet Jones had recently published about the lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, Jones exults:

Last evening, I baptized a gentleman who is now, and has been, a Baptist minister for the last eighteen years: he preached to his flock last Sunday, and has an appointment for the successive Sunday. He came four miles purposely to be baptized, though he had never heard a sermon, only reading my publications; especially my last reply (of which I sent you a copy—a pamphlet of forty pages) finished him entirely, and he came in as good a spirit as anyone that I ever saw, and has just returned on his way rejoicing. He is a wealthy man of great influence, and, as he said, he feared that he was not a servant of God, because he heard every person universally praising him, whereas the scripture says, “Wo unto you when all men speak well of you.”[42]

The “gentleman” of whom Dan Jones writes is William Howells, a lay Baptist preacher from Aberdare. Howells was later the first missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve in France. And within a year after his conversion, William Howells had been instrumental in bringing over one hundred relatives, former parishioners, and neighbors into the gospel family.

1849: May, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), pp. 93–97 (2,015 words). “Letter to Brother J. Davis.”

A recent convert by the name of William Howells writes this letter in answer to a question posed by John S. Davis in the April 1849 issue of Zion’s Trumpet. Here is the question:

How much good did Roberts [the Rev. Edward Roberts] of Rhymney and Davies [the Rev. W. R. Davies] of Dowlais do by preaching against the Saints? Is it possible to name anyone the Saints lost as a result? Or, is it not possible to prove that there are scores in Merthyr and Dowlais who today testify that the above two were instrumental in opening their eyes to perceive the truth of the Saints’ religion?[43]

In his 10 May 1849 letter to John S. Davis, William Howells answers Davis’s question by recounting the events that led to Howells’s baptism by Dan Jones in early November 1847:

Much good, I say, in many ways and means. Together with the scores in Merthyr and Dowlais who can testify that the above two were instruments in opening their eyes to perceive the truth of the Saints, there are several in Aberdare, among which, with grateful spirit, I count myself; and I can testify boldly in the day of judgment that it was the Review of brother Capt. D. Jones, on the Lecture of Roberts from Rhymney, that was the means of convincing me of the deceit of the religion that I professed, and, like Saul, which I followed with great zeal. I knew practically nothing about the Saints, or their religion, until the Rev. W. R. Davies came to Aberdare, to show their deceit; but to the surprise of my mind, the more he shouted, pounding the Bible and the pulpit, “Great deceit, infernal hypocrisy, and pitiful darkness of the Latter-day Satanists,” all the greater shone the principles of the Saints, like rays of godly truth, until I was caused to begin to believe, that if these men were Satanic, that his satanic majesty had more of the godly truth of the Bible, than did the religion that I professed.[44]

1847: November, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), p. 256 (335 words).

In a 7 October 1847 letter to the editor, The Reverend E. Roberts explains the delay in the publication of his pamphlet:

In the issue of The Witness for last month, I saw the account of my Lectures on Mormonism in Dowlais. You wished for a written report of them for the Witness, but I must disappoint you in that for the time being—for my friend, Mr. W. Roberts, Blaenau, Gwent, is busy working to gather an account of the Mormons from their beginning to the present, with the intent of publishing it all in one low-priced Booklet, so that all the Welsh may come to know of them to the greatest detail.

1847: November, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 347 (390 words). “Lectures on Mormonism.”

This is also a letter from Edward Roberts explaining the delay in the publication of his pamphlet.

1847: December, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 374–75 (965 words). “A Lecture on Mormonism.”

Dafydd Lewis describes the 2 November 1847 lecture by Edward Roberts:

Mr. Roberts, with exceptional skill, brought this absurd patchwork to the attention of the respectable audience which was before him, showing the weakness of the system, that had no strong defense for its assertions than what was in that dull and idiotic book [a reference to Dan Jones’s forty-page Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts]; not to mention the weakness of its reasoning (?), that it was offensive to Welsh as a language, in which it was—and calumny against the common sense of the Welsh that such rubbish is being brought to their attention. Pay attention—IT WAS PRINTED ON THE RHYDYBONT PRESS; no other press could be obtained that is enough of a prostitute to give birth to such a monster!

Lewis describes those in attendance:

The Chapel of Ebenezer was too small to hold the listeners who wished to be present; and in the audience that was inside we found our town’s most respectable inhabitants from amongst all the religious denominations—Calvinists—Wesleyans—Independents—Baptists—and the Anglican Church—even priests.

And he ends his review with a sixteen-line poem by Twm o’r Nant, a well-known Welsh poet. Here are the first four lines:

“There is only deceit and trickery,

Going on in this business,

Because of asking and enquiring to understand the squares,

Like the fortune-tellers, it pays.

1848: January, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 21–22 (855 words).

Lewis’s Star of Gomer[45] article was also printed one month later in the Apostolic Witness, minus his comments on the press at Rhydybont and minus the sixteen-line poem printed at the end of the Star of Gomer version.

1848: February, Twyll Mormoniaeth. Darlith a draddodwyd gan y Parch E. Roberts, Gweinidog y Bedyddwyr, Rhymney (Deceit of Mormonism. A Lecture Delivered by the Rev. E. Roberts, Minister of the Baptists, Rhymney), pamphlet, 23 pages.

The long-awaited pamphlet, Deceit of Mormonism, was available in February 1848 for sixpence, the same price charged for admission to Roberts’s first lecture. The date in the preface is 4 February 1848. The contents are a Welsh translation of materials taken from the writings of Eber D. Howe, John C. Bennett, and Henry Caswall.

On 29 November 1847, Roberts lectured once more against Dan Jones and the Latter-day Saint religion while in North Wales. No further mention was made of Roberts in Prophet of the Jubilee or Zion’s Trumpet until 1850, when a note was inserted in the January Zion’s Trumpet: “He [Roberts] was thrown from Rhymney to North Wales, and from North Wales to Liverpool where he now earns his living hawking tea, having been excommunicated from the Baptists for transgressions we do not wish to bring to mind.”[46]

1848: Adolygiad ar ddarlith olaf y Parch. E. Roberts, Rymni, yn erbyn “Mormoniaeth” (A Review of the Last Lecture of the Rev. E. Roberts, Rhymni, against “Mormonism”), pamphlet, 12 pages.

Dan Jones’s forty-page Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts did little to discourage the determined Baptist minister of Rhymney. On the evening of 2 November 1847, two months following Roberts’s first two lectures in Dowlais, Roberts delivered yet another lecture against the Latter-day Saints, this time at the Ebenezer Chapel in Merthyr Tydfil. Before Roberts’s third lecture, Dan Jones sent a copy of his forty-page Review to Roberts so that the Baptist minister would have “the advantage of seeing his false ideas.”[47]

The following week, on 10 November 1847, Dan Jones delivered a lecture at the White Lion Inn in Merthyr Tydfil to review Roberts’s latest presentation. He enumerated and condemned over thirty of Roberts’s accusations and contradictions and said it was obvious that those in attendance “loathed the slanderous, disgraceful and unwarranted attack” which Roberts had launched against the Latter-day Saints. Jones’s comments are in his twelve-page pamphlet entitled A Review of the Last Lecture of the Rev. E. Roberts, Rhymney, against “Mormonism.” [48] Jones also announces that Roberts and others can spare themselves the trouble of preparing their elegies and funeral sermons for Mormonism, and then Jones makes this prophecy: “There will be a call for the funeral sermons for Mr. Davies, from Dowlais, Roberts from Rhymney, Dafydd Lewis and the Editor of Star of Gomer, together with all her persecutors before she [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] dies; yea, before there is even one sign of illness!”[49] Review of the Last Lecture appears to have been published in February 1848. Jones declares on page 2 of this second Review that he had delayed its publication because he was awaiting the appearance of a pamphlet by Roberts.

Jones also declared in his Review of the Last Lecture that Roberts had done nothing more than single out two minor details: (1) the use of the formal you in place of the familiar thou in addressing the reader, and (2) the use of the word debate where no official challenge to a debate had ever been issued. This nitpicking, observed Jones, hardly represented the “unusual dexterity” which Lewis claimed for Roberts.[50]

1848: April, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 96–97 (515 words). “Deceit of Mormonism.”

An unsigned review of the twenty-three-page pamphlet which the Reverend E. Roberts published following his lecture on November 2 the previous year in Rhymney. Roberts dated the preface of this twenty-three-page pamphlet as 4 February 1848 and signed it with his nom de plume “Iorwerth Glan Aled,” the translation of which is “Handsome lord from the banks of the River Aled” (a river in North Wales). The writer of the review, probably William Williams, the editor of the Apostolic Witness at that time, observed:

I think the publisher should have done a better job, but the author is not responsible for that. Iorwerth did his part very well; he did a considerable amount of research on the history of the Saints, as they are called, and he put the result before us in a compact, clear and very powerful manner.

The reviewer praises Roberts for shedding light on “the remarkable and superstitious proceedings and actions of the Mormons” and declares the “splendid lecture of Mr. Roberts . . . an excellent means of keeping the Saints from progressing further.” Roberts had promised that he would “kill Mormonism in Rhymney on Christmas day and bury it the next.”[51] The reviewer concludes:

We would advise any of our readers who wish to know the history of this rabble to purchase the lecture of Mr. R. The name of the lecturer, together with the high approval he received from such a number of people in several places, is sufficient praise for it.

1848: May, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 142–43 (2020 words). “Deceit of Mormonism.”

Effusive praise to the pamphlet recently published by the Rev. E. Roberts. This review of the pamphlet is much longer than the one in the Apostolic Witness[52] and contains several lengthy quotations from the pamphlet itself. Like the review in the Apostolic Witness, this one in Star of Gomer is also unsigned, an indication that the author is most likely Samuel Evans, the editor of Star of Gomer. Evans’s opening paragraph expresses complete confidence that the lecture, now in pamphlet form, will accomplish the stated objective of the Baptist reverend from Rhymney:

And we have no doubt but what it fully answers the aim that the honorable and eloquent author had in mind—that is, to deal the death blow to the deceit of Mormonism.[53]

The editor’s closing paragraph declares his belief that Edward Roberts has “performed an act of mercy” that will benefit all who read the pamphlet and who might otherwise have been bewitched by the deceitful “Mormons,”

[B]y the delivering and publication of this splendid lecture, since it fully explains the whole deceit, so that, in our opinion, no Mormon could ever raise his head again having read it. We now present it confidently for the attention of our fellow countrymen, and hope that everyone will do his best to distribute it, particularly in the places where Mormonism has started to show its arrogance.[54]

1847: November, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), p. 342 (280 words).

A discussion of whether a minister—the Reverend J. Jones, Llangollen—should be allowed to print bad books.

End: The Rev. E. Roberts fails to “kill Mormonism and bury it by Christmas”

Episode 4.7

Start: Dan Jones declares the “Proclamation of the Latter-day Saints” blasphemy

1847: November, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 341 (515 words). “Proclamation of the Latter-day Saints to their Compatriots.”

This poem, authored by “One Who Would Wish to See Every Man and Woman a Saint,” consists of fourteen six-line stanzas. The “narrator” of the poem pretends to be a Latter-day Saint. Here is the fourteenth stanza:

We have secrets,

Which no one knows but Saints,

Of the most expert in our midst,

Where fake miracles are wrought,

So that we may exploit the innocent,

And eliminate further dispute.

1847: December, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 189–90 (580 words). “The Star of Gomer and Its Religious Blasphemy!”

Dan Jones vents his outrage in the final issue of his periodical for 1847:

What reasonable man can find worthy words to show the atrocity, the slander, and the sinfulness of that article that appeared in the Star of Gomer for November, under the title of “Proclamation of the Latter-day Saints to their Compatriots!” Was it not bad enough to publish lies about us under pseudonyms, and no names at all, and then this latest and ungodly deed of forging our names? Having the audacity to publish such slanderous rubbish in our own names!! That has really done it.[55]

End: Dan Jones declares the “Proclamation of the Latter-day Saints” blasphemy

Episode 4.8

Start: The “jabbering woman” in Newmarket is not a Latter-day Saint

1847: 4 November, Yr Amserau (Times), p. 3 (220 words).

The writer of this brief article begins with these two sentences:

The Mormons pay frequent visits to this place [Newmarket, Flintshire]. It shows that the disciples of Joe Smith have a great liking for the place, and more of a desire to get the inhabitants of Newmarket from the reach of the destruction of the world to safe California, than to get the inhabitants of any other neighborhood in these parts.

The next two sentences had no connection to the previous sentences:

A woman was jabbering some nonsense here on Monday night. The application of soap and water on her skin and clothes would not have been out of place, as she had great need of it.

And the only connection the writer makes with the next sentence is that the man who attacked a young girl is the woman’s husband:

The following Tuesday night this woman’s husband attacked a young girl in an isolated spot about a mile-and-a-half from the village.

The remaining sentences have to do with the woman’s husband and his attempt to have his way with the girl:

Very fortunately for the girl, someone happened to come past in the meantime, and so she was spared. He was followed and caught in a tavern. It is said that he had on him several sharp weapons and plasters. He tried to put plaster on the girl’s mouth to keep her from screaming, and in the struggle he missed the mark, and he put it on her cheek. He is now in the Flint jail “suffering persecution.” It will be seen whether the family of miracles succeed in getting an angel to open the doors of that jail, and to lead this “saint” out.

1847: December, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 185–89 (2,025 words). “The ‘Times’ and Its Lying Slime on the Saints Again! Again!!”

In Jones’s response to the “jabbering woman” account, in which no connection is established between the jailed man and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Dan Jones unleashes his understandable outrage at the editor for his obvious implication that there was a connection. Jones explains the grave injustice the editor had committed against the Latter-day Saint religion. Jones quotes the few lines the editor printed about a defense he had received from John Parry, a missionary in North Wales who was present at the time the woman was “jabbering some nonsense”:

No space can be given in The Times for the long letter of Mr. J. P. in defense of the Mormons, or the “Latter-day Saints;” for there would never be an end to the debate on such a subject. Our correspondent can have his article, if he calls at our office.

Adding to Dan Jones’s frustration was yet another comment that appeared in the following issue of The Times (18 November 1847):

William Smith, the Mormon prophet or patriarch, is now about to be tried for odious immorality.

In Jones’s attempt to set the record straight by explaining that William Smith had been excommunicated two years earlier from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jones addresses the editor as “Mr. Slanderer.” But Jones’s best efforts to defend his beloved religion against the constant stream of opposition did little to stem the tide. Even though the attention such attacks drew to the Church would at times have positive results, as in the case of William Howell—the minister in Aberdare who, after hearing the venom against the Church, became converted by reading one of Dan Jones’s pamphlets—the hostility continued unabated.

1847: December, Y Drysorfa (Treasury), p. 391 (180 words). “Latter-day Saints.”

This brief account also deals with the woman who was “jabbering some nonsense” in Newmarket, as reported by The Times. But the writer specifically states that she “professed the principles of the ‘Latter-day Saints.’” Dan Jones makes no mention of this article in his response to the one in The Times, so either he was not aware of the article or he chose to ignore it.

End: The “jabbering woman” in Newmarket is not a Latter-day Saint

1847: November, Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (Wesleyan Treasury), p. 352 (270 words). “Latter-day Saints.”

This brief report is of a Thomas Richard’s court appearance for being drunk and disorderly while preaching on the streets of Cardiff. He confessed that the charge was accurate. The mayor ordered him not to preach until after living “three years in temperance.” The final sentence is as follows: “Then the offender left the court greatly ashamed of himself.” Except for the title of the article, there is no indication that Thomas Richard was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nor did Dan Jones print any reaction to the incident in Prophet of the Jubilee.

1847: December, Y Dysgedydd (Instructor), pp. 365–66 (940 words). “The Mormons, or the Latter-day Saints.”

Using the nom de plume Eta Delta, the Reverend Evan Davies presents the “foundational topics” of this religion as they appear in the March 1847 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee.[56] He declares that the Saints have “a very narrow, low, and erroneous view of the entire Bible” and then concludes the following:

In short, it appears that they are well known for insisting, challenging, arguing, maligning, and rebuking everyone who differs from them as they explain the Bible. They scorn education and scholars, and all books except their own.[57]

Finally, he laments the Saints’ claims of success:

They say they are having notable success in Merthyr Tydfil, Dowlais, Nantyglo, Tredegar, Penycae, Sirhowy, Coed-duon, Abersychan, Cwmbach, Llwyni, Rhymney, Cardiff, etc. Is this true? Are the people in South Wales so ready to reject the Bible, and accept the Book of Mormon, and the dreams of the late Joseph Smith from America? I do not think so ill of them.[58]

1847: December, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 375–76 (935 words). “A Warning to the Welsh—Religious and Non-religious.”

The warning that the Reverend W. R. Davies sends to his compatriots is to beware of “a swarm of idle, characterless, and lazy little men . . . walking all through the different counties of Wales, pretending to preach the gospel freely.” He claims that they “hawk certain old, senseless, worthless books and pamphlets full of lies” and that they are the “chief refuse of Merthyr.” The men to which Davies refers, of course, are converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints endeavoring to proselytize the Welsh. Davies uses much of the article to answer charges made about him by Dan Jones in the August [59] and September [60] issues of Prophet of the Jubilee. Jones had accused Davies of being “off for three months without preaching once in any of his chapels, and on his return got £50 from his devotees at home.” A very frustrated Davies responds as follows:

Although it is seen by the writer that I am the man who was off. I was off more than a year ago, visiting my relations, etc. “Three months” was it? No, six weeks and three days. There are certain limits to lies in ordinary people; but concerning the lies of the “Satanists”, they are like the ocean. “Received £50.” Pooh, why didn’t they say £500? That would be just as true.[61]

After venting his anger, Davies declares the following:

And following my thoughts now, I shall not pay any attention to them ever again, but let them alone in peace to die in their filth.

Davies, however, did not keep his promise. The written battle between him and the Latter-day Saints continued until his death of cholera in September 1849.

Episode 4.9

Start: Should the Baptists rebaptize a repentant Latter-day Saint, or not?

1847: December, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 368 (700 words). “Questions to the Rev. Daniel Jones, Minister of the Baptists, Felinfoel.”

This open letter from the Reverend W. R. Davies to a fellow Baptist minister consists of several observations about the “Satanists,” i.e., “the followers of that evil, deranged, hypocritical, and lying wretch, Joe Smith.” The question that Davies poses to his colleague has to do with members of the Baptist faith who have converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Does the Church of God have some way, or is it possible on the basis of the Bible, to receive these persons back into the unity and communion of the saints and the family of God?”[62]

1847: December, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), p. 268 (700 words). “Questions to the Rev. Daniel Jones, Minister of the Baptists, Felinfoel.”[63]

1848: January, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 18–19 (1,620 words). “To Mr. William R. Davies.”

Although the two letters of the Reverend W. R. Davies to the Rev. Daniel Jones are very similar,[64] the two very lengthy responses of Reverend Daniel Jones to Reverend W. R. Davies are quite different. The objective of both missives is to point out the numerous flaws of the Latter-day Saints in doctrine and procedure and to eventually answer Davies’s basic question as to readmission to the Baptist faith by rebaptism for those returning after receiving baptism from the Latter-day Saints.

My earnest and determined thought, with respect to receiving them back, is that we ought to recognize the difference between some and others.

The Reverend Daniel Jones then gives an illustration of some who might be readmitted:

As for one who was enticed to them by his wife or her husband, after having the excuse of a transgression in the church and being excluded from communion, and went to the [Satanists] S-t-n-ts in tribulation, what I think is that there is a difference between the two to be carefully considered by the church of God.[65]

As for those who wish to leave the Latter-day Saints after being baptized by them but who had not ever been baptized by the Baptists, here are Daniel Jones’s thoughts:

Regarding those who had not been baptized prior to joining with them [the Latter-day Saints], and then leaving them and returning to the church of Christ, there is no need to doubt if their profession of faith and their life are satisfactory, whether they should, without hesitation, be baptized in the strict sense of the word, for the thing they received under the name of baptism, is nothing more than a vile forgery.[66]

1848: January, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 19–20 (1,685 words). “To the Rev. W. R. Davies, Dowlais.”

This response from the Rev. Daniel Jones is considerably different from the one in the Apostolic Witness in its phraseology; however, his basic premise is that the doctrine and the people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are evil. As to Davies’s fundamental question about rebaptism into the Baptist faith, the Reverend Daniel Jones words his response in the following manner:

If someone who was baptized conventionally, and went to this wretched crew, were to return to the church of God, can he be taken back, because he was admitted to the church on profession of his own faith, etc.—I think we should be very cautious; that is how I shall be until the next Star, and I trust that I shall satisfy you then.[67]

A search in the 1848 issues of Star of Gomer for further clarification about the readmission and rebaptism of errant Baptists yielded no results.

1848: February, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), p. 40 (165 words). “To Mr. W. R. Davies.”

One who calls himself “A Lover of Order” poses the following question to W. R. Davies:

If one of these men who call themselves saints, without having professed with the Baptists previously, received his baptism from the apostle, and then confesses his foolishness and their deceit, and during his repentance puts himself before the church and is received, would you immerse such a one again?

1848: March, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 69–70 (760 words). “Answer to Lover of Order.”

W. R. Davies was prompt to answer the question in the very next issue of the Apostolic Witness. It is entirely possible that Davies himself wrote as A Lover of Order so that he could set up his answer in the March issue of the periodical. He refers to the answer which the Reverend Daniel Jones gave to the same question in the January 1848 issue of the Apostolic Witness:

In the first place, I direct you to the review of Mr. Daniel Jones, in the Witness for January, page 19; I am of completely the same opinion as he. Every evangelical ordinance is administered according to rules, and in consultation with the church of God, and with worthy and appointed persons; were it not so, they would not be ordinances of Christ. The low, ungodly, and arrogant manner in which the satanic fiends take upon them to administer baptism, as they do with every other thing they have, is frightening.[68]

The answer Daniel Jones gives on page 19 of his article is as follows:

Regarding those who had not been baptized prior to joining with them, and then leaving them and returning to the church of Christ, there is no need to doubt, if their profession of faith and their life are satisfactory, whether they should, without hesitation, be baptized in the strict sense of the word, for the thing they received under the name of baptism, is nothing more than a vile forgery. Worse in my opinion than children immersing each other in the summer while playing; their imitation of baptism was a useless illusion to satisfy the conscience.

But Davies openly admits to having baptized one who had, in fact, been baptized by the vile “Mormons”:

I baptized one from them lately, in Caersalem to the Christian faith, who, said he, had been baptized in the middle of the night by a man who all those acquainted with him knew (though at the time was a priest in the Melchizedek order) that he had the same amount of grace in his heart as did Judas Iscariot.[69]

Apparently, at least according to Davies, it was permissible to “rebaptize” such a person. But in the strict sense of the word it would not be a “rebaptism” since the first experience could not be called a “baptism” because it had been performed by someone without the proper authority.

Davies then presents four reasons for condemning all baptisms performed by any members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

1. Since they baptize at night there may not be witnesses to ascertain total immersion.
2. It cannot be a Christian baptism since they do not customarily use the names of godly persons when they baptize.
3. They give too much respect to the ordinance, claiming that they go down into the water as sinners and rise up perfectly clean.
4. The ministers are “the lowest characters in all knowledge and behavior, having not one sign of common courtesy or morality.”

“In short,” he concludes, “their baptism is nothing more than deceit, and the greatest infernal presumption that the heart has ever imagined. . . . it is nothing more than infernal mockery and insult to the ordinance of great Jesus.”[70]

Davies’s final sentence in the article has this statement:

No one but one woman from Caersalem went to them from the beginning until now.[71]

This, of course, is the same assertion he had made in the September 1847 issue of the Apostolic Witness.[72] But, as pointed out in the previous chapter of this commentary, one of his former parishioners by the name of Job Rowland claimed to have received his baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 13 January 1847. Rowland’s mother and his two brothers, presumably from that same congregation, also converted and were passengers on the Buena Vista in 1849.[73]

1848: March, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), p. 37 (355 words). “Return of the Prodigals.”

Regarding the return of faithful converts to The Church of Jesus Christ to their former religious beliefs and requesting a rebaptism, Dan Jones had a much different view from that of the Baptists. In this article, Jones reports the sad experience of Herbert Walters, “the only one from the midst of all the Saints who turned to them”:

O! if they could hear him now telling of his bitter experience, from the sufferings of a guilty conscience day and night because of what he had done. . . . He earnestly wishes for the forgiveness of the Saints for that which he did against them, and for a part in their prayers for God to forgive him and keep him in the face of all temptation ever again.[74]

1848: May, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), p. 76 (455 words). “What Is to Be Done with the Editor of the Star of Gomer?”

With tongue in cheek, a Latter-day Saint in the town of Carmarthen directs this question to the Reverend Daniel Jones, Felinfoel, in order to make sport of the Reverend W. R. Davies, who had asked the same Reverend Jones regarding the rebaptism of errant Baptists who had received baptism at the hands of the Latter-day Saints. Benjamin Jones, the writer, mockingly asks Daniel Jones concerning the fate of Samuel Evans, the editor of Star of Gomer, who had recently been excommunicated from the Baptist church in Carmarthen.

1848: May, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), p. 188 (155 words).

This is a request from Edward Williams for the editor to print the good news of the arrival of the Reverend H. W. Hughes in Maesteg (twenty-four miles to the southeast of Swansea). Williams reported that the new minister had baptized eleven in a short period of time, a number that included two “who had been very zealous with the Latter-day Saints.”

The editor responds in a footnote:

We do not consider it an honor for the church to receive anyone who has been so insane as to be with the Mormons. We would have the same doubt in receiving some from the insane asylum as in receiving them.

1848: June, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 88–90 (1,690 words). “The Baptists Baptize ‘Satanists and Demons!!’”

After attempting to shame “that meek servant of God who preaches the gospel of peace of the Baptists in Dowlais” (i.e., the Reverend W. R. Davies) for teaching “the children of his God to shout ‘Satanists and demons’ after their neighbors along the streets,” Dan Jones declares:

But an even greater surprise is the readiness of the Baptists, and their great eagerness, to baptize those whom they would call “Satanists and demons!” Yes, they strive in every way, by saying puffed-up words of futility, and the appearance of humility in religious will, to entice back the occasional weak woman who is new in the faith, who had escaped once from their heresies to the way of truth; and at last the Baptist screams through its screeching trumpet the victorious news that two women who had been with the Saints have been baptized by the Baptists in Llwyni, namely two she-Satanists or she-demons, of course! Good gracious! here are the Baptists baptizing “Satanists and demons,” namely those whom they themselves call such!

Jones ends his lengthy harangue at Davies and the Baptists by concluding:

Baptizing “Satanists and demons,” is it! Good heavens! who knows how long it will be before hell itself becomes all Baptists!

End: Should the Baptists rebaptize a repentant Latter-day Saint, or not?

Episode 4.10

Start: Did James Strang really perform a miracle, or was it just phosphorus?

1847: December, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), p. 391 (235 words). “Mormon Miracle.”

This piece is taken from a brief article carried by the Ottawa Free Trader, and the editor declares the newspaper’s “assurance of its truth.” The article has to do with a “miracle” performed by James Strang, one of the many who sought to lead The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints following the martyrdom. Strang had promised to his followers that he would show them an “uncommon gift” if they would build a house for him and his family. After the house was built, he anointed their heads with a mixture of oil and phosphorus and then took them to a dark room where their heads shone “as if with the brightness of the sun.” When one of his followers accused him of deceit, Strang admitted the deceit and explained that it was all to prove that “all the miracles of Moses and Jesus Christ were accomplished the same way.”

1848: January, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 3–6 (2,105 words). “Mormon Miracle.”

In response to David Rees, the editor of The Revivalist, Dan Jones points out that James Strang had been excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints long before his “miracle” and that he was no longer a “Mormon.” Jones also takes issue with the phrase “assurance of its truth,” and then presents the Welsh translation of a letter of Elder William Atholl McMaster in which McMaster describes some true miracles which had occurred in Scotland through the anointing with oil and the laying on of hands—speech was restored to one sister and sight was restored to two brothers.

1847: 5 November, The Welshman, p. 1 (320 words).

A brief account of “the prophet Strang” and his miracle with phosphorus.

1847: 6 November, Monmouthshire Beacon, p. 4 (320 words). “A Mormon Miracle.”

A brief account of James Strang performing a miracle with phosphorus.

1847: 13 November, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 4 (120 words). “A Mormon Miracle.”

A brief account of “Stacey” [Strang] and his miracle with phosphorus.

1848: January, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), pp. 16–17 (910 words).

Reverend W. R. Davies sent two items to be published by The Baptist. The first article is about the reward offered by Governor Reynolds for the apprehension of O. P. Rockwell, and the second is the Ottawa Free Trader article that has to do with James Strang and his miracle.

1848: January, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregationalist Treasury), pp. 31–32 (305 words).

A slightly different version of the Ottawa Free Trader article about James Strang and his miracle.

1848: February, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol(The Congregationalist Treasury), pp. 37–38 (935 words).

This is the same article, with only minor variations, as is in the January 1848 issue of The Baptist,[75] also submitted by W. R. Davies.

End: Did James Strang really perform a miracle, or was it just phosphorus?

1847: December 24, The Cambrian (785 words). “Latter-day Saints.”

This article consists of a letter sent to the editor by one of his subscribers. It is actually the English translation of an article taken from Yr Amserau (The Times), and it features some of the Latter-day Saints in the neighborhood of Ystradgunlais. The article says that “the wife of one of the Saints became deaf in consequence of fever.” Her husband declared that she was “possessed of a devil.” His efforts to cast out the devil drew the attention of neighbors late at night. Three “Elders” of the couple’s new church were called when one of their children sprained an ankle. The blessing pronounced by the couple’s coreligionists was ineffective, as was a blessing given to one of the couple’s other children who was “sick of fever.” Later a child in the family fell down and sprained his ankle. The efforts of three elders were not successful to heal him. The writer offered a suggestion to his compatriots:

Welshmen! Many are your privileges and numerous are your advantages. How long will you be blinded and seek after errors of this kind? Let us rise as one man to expose the Saints’ deceit, that they may not gull the ignorant multitude any longer with their fanaticism.

Notes

[1] Prophet of the Jubilee, January 1847, 16–18.

[2] Prophet of the Jubilee, January 1847, 36.

[3] The facsimile translation is in Section 2.

[4] The facsimile translation is in Defending the Faith: Early Welsh Missionary Publications, item J10.

[5] See Welsh Mormon Writings, 54–57.

[6] The facsimile translation is in Defending the Faith: Early Welsh Missionary Publications, item J13.

[7] The biography of William Howells is posted on the Welsh Saints Project.

[8] Prophet of the Jubilee, December 1847, 192.

[9] Prophet of the Jubilee, February 1847, 30.

[10] Ibid., 28.

[11] Ibid., 30.

[12] The Apostolic Witness, January 1847, 17.

[13] J. T. Jones, The Correct Image, Wherein One Can Perceive Clearly the Deceit of the Mormons, of the “Latter-day Saints,” in the Form of Questions and Answers, between Daniel and His Friend, January 1847, 8.

[14] 15 July 1847, 219.

[15] Translation in Section 3.

[16] Davis revealed his identity in the 1847 volume of Prophet of the Jubilee, 181, in his response to “H. Tegai.”

[17] Prophet of the Jubilee, December 1847, 181–85.

[18] Ibid., 181.

[19] Ibid., 185.

[20] Prophet of the Jubilee, May 1847, 69.

[21] Prophet of the Jubilee, June 1847, 93.

[22] Prophet of the Jubilee, September 1847, 138.

[23] Ibid., 139.

[24] Prophet of the Jubilee, August 1847, 120–23.

[25] Prophet of the Jubilee, September 1847, 134–37.

[26] Prophet of the Jubilee, August 1847, 121.

[27] Ibid., 121–22.

[28] Dan Jones, History of the Latter-day Saints, 95.

[29] The facsimile translation of History of the Latter-day Saints is item J12 in Defending the Saints: Early Welsh Missionary Publications.

[30] Apostolic Witness, September 1847, 201.

[31] Apostolic Witness, September 1847, 199–201.

[32] Apostolic Witness, October 1847, 225.

[33] Prophet of the Jubilee, October 1847, 151.

[34] Facsimile translation in Defending the Faith, item J14.

[35] Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, 5.

[36] The Origin of the Spaulding Story, Philadelphia, Brown, Bicking and Gilbert, 1840.

[37] Review of the Lectures of the Rev. E. Roberts, [2].

[38] Millennial Star, 9:318.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Prophet of the Jubilee, November 1847, 173.

[42] Millennial Star, 9:364.

[43] Zion’s Trumpet, April 1849, 78.

[44] A biography for William Howells is in Supporting Saints, 43–81, BYU Religious Studies Center, Provo, Utah. 1985.

[45] Star of Gomer, December 1847, 374–75.

[46] Zion’s Trumpet, January 1850, 32. Facsimile translation in the “Pamphlets” section.

[47] Dan Jones, A Review of the Last Lecture of the Rev. E. Roberts, Rumney, against “Mormonism,” 1.

[48] Facsimile translation in Defending the Faith: Early Welsh Missionary Publications, item J14.

[49] Ibid., 10.

[50] Ibid., 1, 8.

[51] Prophet of the Jubilee, March 1848, 40.

[52] Apostolic Witness, April 1848, 96–97.

[53] Star of Gomer, May 1848, 142.

[54] Ibid., 143.

[55] Prophet of the Jubilee, December 1847, 189.

[56] Prophet of the Jubilee, March 1847, 37–39.

[57] Instructor, December 1847, 366.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Prophet of the Jubilee, August 1847, 120–23.

[60] Prophet of the Jubilee, September 1847, 134–37.

[61] Star of Gomer, December 1847, 375.

[62] The same article, with minor variations, as in the Apostolic Witness, December 1847, 268.

[63] The same article, with minor variations, as in Star of Gomer, December 1847, 368.

[64] Star of Gomer, December 1847, 368, and the Apostolic Witness, December 1847, 268.

[65] Apostolic Witness, January 1848, 19.

[66] Ibid., 19.

[67] Ibid., 19.

[68] Apostolic Witness, March 1848, 69.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Ibid., 70.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Apostolic Witness, September 1847, 201.

[73] The Call of Zion: the Story of the First Welsh Mormon Emigration, 118.

[74] Prophet of the Jubilee, March 1848, 37.

[75] Baptist, January 1848, 16–17.