1848

Episodes

5.1—Elder Thomas Harris spends two months in jail for stealing a dictionary

5.2—Four accounts entitled “Baptizing an Apostle” are published

5.3—Benjamin Job Davies writes letter from America—his brother receives baptism

5.4—Dan Jones attacks five periodicals—the Reverend W. R. Davies angrily responds

5.5—“Anthony Fair Play” sinks to a new low—Dan Jones is irate

5.6—Elder Abel Evans defends himself from the allegations of “A Listener”

5.7—Phillip Sykes defends the Church from charges made by the Reverend W. R. Davies

5.8—The Ivorians cause twenty-nine Latter-day Saints to be dismissed from the mine

5.9—John S. Davis explains “Spiritual Gifts” to the “Observer from the North”

5.10—John S. Davis defends against the charges of an excommunicated Baptist

5.11—John S. Davis offers proof of a miracle to the “Hater of Deceit”

Salient Events

January 1848. Elder Thomas Harris is sentenced to two months in jail, without hard labor, for stealing a dictionary. See Episode 5.1.

January 1848. Branches, branch presidents, and numbers of members are reported in the January 1848 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee, pp. 9–10:

Branch	Branch President	Number of Members
Merthyr Tydfil	W. Phillips	606
Penydarren	T. Griffiths	53
Dowlais	Alfred Clark	145
Rhymni	William Davies	58
Cwmbach	John Price	33
Aberdare	J. Davies	30
Hirwaun	Daniel Davies	22
Dihewyd	J. Richards	13
Cardiff	W. Jenkins	38
Llwyni	Samuel Davies	28
Cwmbychan and Bryn	T. Pugh	63
Treboeth	J. Matthews	21
Cyfyng	Wm. Davies	17
Cwmaman	J. Griffiths	12
Pont Yates	H. Williams	39
Llanelli	Wm. Hughes	103
Carmarthen	Ben. Jones	37
Llanybydder	T. Jeremy	29
Brechfa	David Jeremy	30
Monmouthshire Conf.	W. Phillips	262
Pembrokeshire Conf.	J. Morris	40
Throughout the North	[not listed]	109
Throughout Garway	W. Henshaw	145
Total	[n/a]	1933

February 1848. A letter written by Abednego Williams is printed in Prophet of the Jubilee, pp. 27–29. His conscience smitten, Williams writes to Dan Jones to beg forgiveness of all the Saints for having composed a nasty ballad about them, one that had become quite popular in Nantyglo and the surrounding environs. Since composing the ballad, Williams had converted to Mormonism himself and now had to hear his own words against the religion he now espoused being sung on the streets.
March 1848. Dan Jones prints the account of Herbert Walters in the Prophet of the Jubilee, p. 37. Herbert Walters had abandoned his Church membership when he heard the lectures of the Reverend Edward Roberts in Dowlais in September 1847, but soon afterwards he was repentant for having done so and wished to be permitted to come back into the fold. Jones was happy to welcome him back along with others who were repentant for similar reasons. Jones was also happy to call the attention of the Reverend W. R. Davies to this return.
March 1848. Dan Jones taunts the editors of five periodicals. See Prophet of the Jubilee, pp. 37–42, for Jones’s high-spirited response to the Revivalist, the Star of Gomer, the Apostolic Witness, the Instructor, and The Baptist, followed by his assessment of the Reverend Edward Roberts’s attempt to “kill Mormonism.”
March 1848. Phillip Seix (Sykes) is excommunicated. See Episode 5.7.
March 1848. Rees Price, the “right hand man” to the Reverend W. R. Davies, is baptized in Dowlais. See Prophet of the Jubilee, September 1848, pp. 131–33, for Price’s detailed account of his conversion and the crass treatment he and his wife received from Reverend Davies and members of his congregation. Also see Prophet of the Jubilee, March 1848, pp. 45–47, for a detailed update of missionary activity in various parts of Wales.
April 1848. A Latter-day Saint in Pembrokeshire receives a severe beating while simply standing at the door where a Church meeting was being held. See Prophet of the Jubilee, May 1848, pp. 60–61, for Elder John Morris’s letter describing the incident.
April 1848. The broken bones of a young boy are healed after receiving a blessing from the elders. Thomas Rees, one of the earliest converts in Merthyr Tydfil, writes about administering to his eleven-year-old son, who had broken his leg at the Cyfarthfa Colliery. The doctor who set the broken bones stated that the boy’s leg had been broken in two places. The bones knitted together immediately after the father’s priesthood blessing, whereupon the neighbors began to claim that the bones had not been broken. The names of three witnesses who had heard the diagnosis of the doctor are given at the end of the letter. See the account in Prophet of the Jubilee, pp. 61–63.
May 1848. Dan Jones chides the Reverend Edward Roberts for failing, as he had promised, to “kill Mormonism and bury it the next day.” See Prophet of the Jubilee, May 1848, pp. 77–79, for a detailed update of missionary activity in various parts of Wales.
July 1848. The fifth and final segment of the Scriptural Treasury is published, a total of 288 pages. This reworking of Benjamin Winchester’s Synopsis of the Holy Scriptures and Concordance did not turn out to be as popular with the Welsh Saints as Dan Jones had hoped. Six years after its publication, Robert Evans asked Dan Jones about a second edition and was informed that “hundreds of copies” of the first edition had been languishing in stock for years.
September 1848. A branch of Welsh Latter-day Saints is created in Minersville, Pennsylvania. See Prophet of the Jubilee, September 1848, pp. 138–39, for the letter of Thomas Richards about the small branch of Welsh speakers who were working in the mines to obtain money to travel to Utah and join the main body of the Church there.
September 1848. An announcement is made that the first group of Welsh converts are to leave from Liverpool in January or February the following year.
December 1848. Thomas D. Giles, although blind because of a coal mining accident, is called as the president of the Monmouthshire Conference. Over the following six years, various men were called to assist him in carrying out his responsibilities. In 1856, he crossed the plains in the Bunker Handcart Company. Near Fort Bridger, he became seriously ill. After holding back the company for two days, Captain Bunker ordered the camp to move on, leaving two men to bury Giles when he died. It was expected that death would come in a matter of hours. Elder Parley P. Pratt, who was headed east on the trail, came by and gave Giles a blessing in which he promised him that Giles would be instantly healed and arrive safely in the Salt Lake Valley, where he would rear a family and be permitted to live as long as he wished. These blessings were all fulfilled, and he lived another thirty-nine years. He was known as the “Blind Harpist” and made his living playing the harp and singing hymns and popular songs of the day at dances and other events. His profile and journal are on the Welsh Saints Project website.

Commentary

Episode 5.1

Start: Elder Thomas Harris spends two months in jail for stealing a dictionary

1848: 1 January, Monmouthshire Beacon, p. 4 (55 words).

A Latter-day Saint (Thomas Harris) is arrested and taken into custody for stealing a dictionary:

A Latter Day, or Mormon, preacher, has been taken into custody at Bronfre, near Llanayron [Llanerchaeron], on the charge of stealing a Welsh Dictionary from the Crown public house at Llandewi Aberarth. His reverence, who, we are ashamed to confess, is a printer, was preparing his sermon at the time he was apprehended with the book upon him.

1848: 1 January, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 3 (55 words).

Same report as printed in the Monmouthshire Beacon, 1 January 1848, p. 4.

1848: January, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 14–16 (1,330 words). “Announcement.”

Dan Jones reports that Harris had been sentenced to two months in prison on 4 January 1848 and that he had also been excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “not for intentional theft, but because of his neglect for the honor of his religion under these dangerous circumstances, which were known to him.”The “neglect” was that of not returning the book “the minute he realized that another man’s property was in his possession” even though “he did not take the book intentionally.”

1848: February, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 64 (65 words).

A frequent critic of the Latter-day Saints, the editor of Star of Gomer was no doubt elated to report that an LDS elder was punished for stealing a dictionary:

One of the “Latter Saints” by the name of Thomas Harris, who was on a preaching journey through Cardiganshire, was punished in the last Tri-Monthly Court of that county for stealing a dictionary from a house where he was lodging. He said, in his defense, that the “evil one” tempted him. But he was not enough of a “prophet” to foresee the consequences.

1848: February, Y Bedyddiwr (The Baptist), pp. 75–76 (510 words). “The ‘Saint’ Turned Thief.”

The editor of The Baptist had also printed a number of articles portraying the Latter-
day Saints as “Satanists” and here presents a number of details about the Thomas Harris incident not found in the Star of Gomer or the Monmouthshire Beacon—i.e., that Harris had worked as a printer for the Reverend J. Jones of Llangollen, that he had “learned to preach Mormonism” with Dan Jones, and that he eventually confessed that he had stolen the book after first denying it.

The prisoner confessed that he had stolen the book and that it had been in his pocket when he [the book’s owner] had asked him about it. He also confessed that he had scratched out the owner’s name and that he was sorry for that.

1848: May, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 72–74 (1,145 words). “The Saint out of Prison, and his Defense.”

Dan Jones is no doubt happy to announce the release of Thomas Harris from prison. He explains:

After Thomas Harris was released from prison, there was a further inquiry before the Council of the Glamorgan Conference, where it was unanimously permitted that he should have his church membership, on the conditions that he go through the environs where he had been preaching when the unpleasant misfortune had taken place, and to make known there, in order to remove the obstruction out of the way of the honest in heart, the truth of all the aforementioned circumstances.

Also in this issue of the Prophet of the Jubilee is a letter, dated 25 March 1848, written by Harris and William Evans, in which they outline the various places and persons they visited as Harris fulfilled the conditions Jones described for being readmitted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Evans, perhaps as a witness to visits made, describes Harris’s meeting with the owner of the book in question:

After that, we went to Llanddewi Aberarth, where the owner of the book in question lived. We soon told the people what was in our message, and they then took the news to the village, where the people came together joyfully to see Thomas Harris; but no one was more pleased than Mr. Davies, the owner of the book, who gave his hand affectionately to T. H., confessing in the presence of the crowd these words: “I never believed, my dear Harris, that you had stolen the book deliberately; and whatever trouble you have had, I can say that it has not been more than has been on us as a family, because of this circumstance.”

Evans then describes Harris’s own report concerning the book:

Then Thomas Harris gave a report of the way he found the book in his pocket without knowing how it had come to be there. He admitted also that he was at fault for neglecting to return the book at once himself, instead of trusting another to do that, during which the tears were streaming down the cheeks of Mr. Davies, the owner of the book, out of sympathy.

Jones adds to the Evans and Harris letter a postscript describing an inquiry that was held before the Council of the Glamorgan Conference, the members of which voted unanimously to welcome Harris back into the Church. During the meeting, “additional supportive testimonies of the story” were brought forth, testimonies that “demonstrated even more clearly that T. H. had no intention of stealing this book.” Jones then tells of a man who, after Harris’s preaching at Davies’s house, “obstinately argued with” Harris. This same man appeared at the house the next morning and “was the first one to utter a word about the book, to call the attention of the family of the house to it.” He said that he would “guarantee that the Saint had stolen it, and then ran to fetch the policeman with no one asking that of him.” The implication is, of course, that this man had planted the dictionary in Harris’s pocket, where it was found by the policeman.

Jones laments the ceaseless persecution of the “slanderous Editors of our country” against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales and adds:

For example, notice the filthy [periodical the] Baptist, and its “scratched out his name,” “admitted that he had stolen it,” etc., etc., when there was not a syllable of truth in them.

End: Elder Thomas Harris spends two months in jail for stealing a dictionary

1848: Llyfr Cronicl Prophwydi Mormonaidd. Ychydig o hanes Gweithredoedd Twyllodrus, rhai o’r “Seintiau y Dyddiau Diweddaf.” Ynghyd a Melldithion Ofnadwy Duw, ar Gau Brophwydi a’r Rhyfygus (A Chronicle Book of the Mormon Prophet. Some of the Deceitful Deeds of Some of the “Latter-day Saints.” Together with the Frightful Curses of God, on the False and Arrogant Prophets), pamphlet, 12 pages.

The first section of this pamphlet consists of just two pages (pp. 3 and 4) and is labeled “Mormon Deceit.” The writer begins by expressing his disappointment that so many of the people in Wales have been deceived by the Latter-day Saints. He then presents a brief narrative of a failed attempt on the part of two of these “Mormon prophets” to restore life to the daughter of one of the members, who had died:

The manner in which they attempted to do this was by filling her body with oil, and after that by blowing air into her through a tube!!!

But it was all in vain, “for they failed to breathe into this girl the breath of life, and the dead remained dead.” The writer then tells of an old woman who testified that the two “Mormon prophets” had nearly destroyed her feet by anointing them with the oil used in their attempt to restore life to the girl who had died.

The third and final story is that of a Latter-day Saint shopkeeper who was about to travel to Bristol to purchase some shoes to sell in his shop. He was put in a quandary when he received a request to baptize some new disciples—should he respond to the request immediately or take care of his errand first? He knelt down and prayed for guidance, and when he arose, the box he planned to take to Bristol was full of shoes. “Thus, the prophet was able to go to baptize the disciples.”

The other three sections of the pamphlet are entitled “The Judgments of God on False Prophets,” “The Judgments of God on Blasphemers,” and “The Judgments of God on the Breakers of the Sabbath.” None of the random examples presented in these three sections about false prophets, blasphemers, and breakers of the Sabbath bear even a remote connection with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its members. If Dan Jones was ever aware of this very strange pamphlet, he makes no mention of it in any issue of his monthly periodical or in any of his own pamphlets.

1848: 22 January, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 3 (220 words).

In Abersychan, a Latter-day Saint woman felt ill. After receiving a blessing from the elders, she felt “as fresh as a lark.” When her husband said it was all “a fib,” one of the elders shouted at him. The husband then went to the pub, taking the key to the house with him. When his wife asked him for it, he refused, “saying that as she and the saints could do such miraculous things, she had better try her hand without a key.” The woman said “she would wash her hands of the saints, elders, and all, . . . a consummation which has given much satisfaction to her husband.”

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

The Reverend W. R. Davies sent two items to be reprinted in The Baptist. The first item was a notice was taken from the New York American, 10 October 1842:

Governor Reynolds has offered a reward of six hundred dollars for the apprehension of O. P. Rockwell, the Mormon assassin of Governor Boggs, and Joseph Smith as an accessory; or three hundred dollars for each of them. Also a reward of one hundred and fifty dollars for James Bratton, charged with the murder of William Claybrook; and one hundred and fifty dollars for John Taylor, charged with the murder of L. D. Bowen.

To this brief paragraph, the Reverend W. R. Davies adds his own comments:

Dear Welshmen, here are the founders of the pure religion for you! Here’s a shining man for the eternal God to choose to set up his kingdom on earth!! A man, because he helped to kill an American governor, fleeing like Cain long ago, and the government printing handbills and offering rewards for his capture! May hell be surprised! That one Welshman could sink so low and lend an ear to listen to the followers of such a crowd!

Davies obviously treats the information given in the New York American as fact, without bothering to note that Governor Boggs had survived the attack. The second item he sent was an article taken from The Ottawa Free Trader that has to do with James Strang. (See the discussion about The Revivalist, December 1847, p. 391 for details. Dan Jones’s very thorough treatment of the topic is found in Prophet of the Jubilee, January 1848, pp. 5–6.)

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

This is the same article, also submitted by W. R. Davies with only minor variations, as is in the January 1848 issue (pp. 16–17) of The Baptist. It is surprising that a Baptist minister would have his writing printed in a Congregationalist periodical. And even more surprising is that this Congregationalist periodical would actually print a lengthy response from President Dan Jones, the leader of the Latter-day Saints in Wales, in their March 1848 issue (pp. 76–78). See the discussion further down.

1848: February, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), p. 68 (145 words). “Tricks of a Saint.”

According to this brief account by “Dewi” [Davey], a “Saint from Neath” negotiated a contract to dig five hundred tons of ore. Thanks to the efforts of twenty workers, he completed the task but decided to keep all the money for himself. Dewi explains the “Saint’s” justification for doing so:

There was no harm in robbing some rascals who had never before had the opportunity to associate with angels, as he had done a week before that; and that the best way to practice his religion was to remove himself and the money as well and leave the poor workers to ponder about Saintliness.

1848: February, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), p. 76 (63 words). “Mormonizing a Woman.”

This brief article reprinted from the New York Standard has this bit of information:

The New York Standard says that Henry Cobb of Boston has recently divorced his wife Augusta because she has become a spiritual wife according to Mormon doctrine, and has gone to live with Brigham Young, the one who claims his right to be Joe Smith’s successor. (People, you had better beware of the present-day Satanists lest they steal your wives.)

Episode 5.2

Start: Four accounts entitled “Baptizing an Apostle” are published

1848: February, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (The Apostolic Witness), p. 52 (390 words). “Baptizing an Apostle.”

This incident takes place “within one hundred miles of Machynlleth,” in “a pool in the river which is known as Forge Pool.” A salesman of pottery who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as “Apostle, Ned the Pots,” was approached by a young man who requested baptism at his hands. At midnight, a few of the local Church members gathered at the river to observe the baptism. According to the account, here is what transpired:

After a prayer the two of them went down into the water, and, after reaching the intended depth, the young man proved that he was filled with some spirit, for he wrestled the apostle three times head over heels into the water and held him down each time until he was more than half drowned! The Satanists ran away, and left the apostle to work miracles; after freeing himself, he ran for his life, and in his fright and in his confusion he went out of the water to the wrong side, and climbed to a steep wooded hill, and made his way through the thorns and thicket.

The writer of the account observes:

Of everything the Satanists have done from the beginning until this time, this is the thing most similar to a miracle of all: namely to be able to climb such a hill and work his way through such a place.

1848: February, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), p. 75, (385 words). “Baptizing an Apostle.”

This article is very similar to one of the same title in the Apostolic Witness for February 1848, p. 52.

1848: May, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 152, (175 words). “Baptism Battle.”

Someone using the nom de plume “Iorwerth Gwynedd” gives his own version of the baptism in Machynlleth:

One of the great apostles of the Saints one evening immersed some boy, three times over his head in succession, in a pool of water, “to the point that he almost lost his breath!!!” and then he let him go on his way full of the Holy Ghost in his baptism: but the poor boy in his fright, no doubt, ran up some uncommonly steep and high hill.

1848: July, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 203–4 (490 words). “The ‘Baptism Battle.’”

Someone who calls himself “A Correspondent” provides a much more detailed and possibly a much more accurate account of the “Baptism Battle.” Putting the event at “within one hundred miles of Machynlleth” is the first thing he disputes:

It would have been just as correct for him to say, “not a hundred thousand miles from Machynlleth,” or write about some event that happened, and that he knew about than to give an account completely at odds with what happened.

He then explains that a young man from Forge, about a mile and a half from Machynlleth, decided to tell “Tom Ellis, the Post” that he was interested in getting baptized. Tom Ellis, according to the writer, was “one of the main apostles of the sect.” Tom then talked with “Ned the Potter,” and the two of them went to Forge that same night at about eleven o’clock to accompany the young man to the river. The writer then provides the details of the baptism:

Having gone to the riverbank, which was scarcely a hundred yards from the house, the old apostle said some gibberish, and they went into the river; but before the Saint was ready to perform the ritual, the young man kicked up his feet three times, until the Saint was wet from head to toe. The old boy saw by now that the young man had intended to play a trick on him, and that the applicant had not returned to the true faith. He ran full pelt through the river to the other side; but he was unfortunate enough to hit the bank so that he went tumbling over twice. By then a crowd of children had hidden in an old barn nearby, and out they rushed like hunting dogs after the old Saint, and he was chased to the town quicker than he came from there. The old Potter had fled to a nearby hillside, when he saw the old Saint going down for the first time; and thus ended the Baptism Battle.

End: Four accounts entitled “Baptizing an Apostle” are published

Episode 5.3

Start: Benjamin Job Davies writes letter from America—his brother receives baptism

1848: January, Y Diwygiwr (Revivalist), pp. 12–13 (1,275 words). “History of Joseph Smith in a Letter from America.”

This letter is from Benjamin Job Davies in the United States to his brother Thomas Job in Wales. Davies claims to have made the personal acquaintance of Joseph Smith before his death four years earlier. He tells about the Spaulding manuscript as the source for the Book of Mormon and also mentions the apocryphal story of Smith’s attempt to walk on water as well as his dressing up in a large dove costume for baptisms. Three years later, despite his brother’s letter, Job converted to the church established by Smith. No response to Benjamin Job Davies’s letter appeared in Prophet of the Jubilee.

This letter appeared in print, with only minor differences, two more times during 1848: once in the April issue of The Wesleyan Treasury and again in the October issue of the Instructor. The annotated entries immediately below this entry provide information as to the differences in content of each.

1848: April, Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (The Wesleyan Treasury), pp. 113–15 (1,380 words). “History of Joseph Smith, in a Letter from America.”

This is the same letter that appeared in the Revivalist for January 1848, pp. 12–13. This version, however, has a brief note from a David Evans, Tredegar, describing his reason for transcribing the letter of Benjamin Job Davies and submitting it to The Wesleyan Treasury.

1848: October, Y Dysgedydd (The Instructor), pp. 289–91 (1,550 words). “The Mormons. The Story of Joseph Smith, in a Letter from America.”

This is the same letter that appeared in The Revivalist for January in The Wesleyan Treasury for April 1848. This version, however, has a lengthy postscript with details as to how misguided the “Mormons” are in their beliefs. The editor provides a list of certain aspects of their “false doctrine” that was meant to serve as a warning to all his readers to refrain from even talking with those who have been deceived by them.

They are idol worshipers since they believe that man was created in the likeness of God.
They do not understand the scriptures because they claim to have continual revelation.
They claim that there has not been a true religion in the world from the time of the apostles until the calling of Joseph Smith.
The “Mormons” are nothing but shameless and impudent deceivers, and many of them are more dangerous and poisonous than professed atheists.
Those in this country who have embraced their views are completely dark, unprincipled, and weak-minded people.

End: Benjamin Job Davies writes letter from America—his brother receives baptism

1848: March, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 96 (55 words).

Not all the comments about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the religious periodicals in Wales during the 1840s and 1850s are in the form of articles. Some consist of just a few lines that are always negative with the objective of ridiculing them. Here is an example:

Four of the “Saints” went to the Pantmawr, near Llanfynydd [near Brechfa] lately to pretend to preach; but while they were there babbling nonsense, the Musical Choir came past, and all the people ran out to listen to it, and finally the four Saints went out also, to take part in the spree.

Another example follows.

1848: March, Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (The Wesleyan Treasury), p. 95 (85 words). “A Foolish Religion.”

Last Sunday morning, a man by the name of Frederick Weston was found in the yard of Mr. Beard, in Ovingdean, lying in his blood, having cut himself dreadfully. He was carried to the hospital, where he now lies in a sorry state. The man is thirty years old and belongs to the people known as “The Latter-day Saints.” His intention, he says, in doing this was to do justice to God! Strange blindness! He did the greatest injustice to his own soul.

Episode 5.4

Start: Dan Jones attacks five periodicals—the Reverend W. R. Davies angrily responds

1848: March, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 37–42 (3,305 words). “What Is the Matter?”

Dan Jones includes in the March issue of his periodical a taunt of the chief opponents of his religion and their periodicals. He begins with a confident declaration of the failure of his enemies:

The principality is on fire—its usurper is striking up for volunteers—the priests of great Babylon are on its towers blowing their horns, long and loudly, to gather all their armies to do holy sectarian battle against the Saints—their foundations are shaking—their armies are fleeing before the cannons of the truth—the giants of the principality are falling before the two-edged sword of the Spirit, and the others are enraged in the pangs of death—the devil is losing subjects in every battle—the hind parts of the great goddess are being bared—her worshipers are retreating from her temples in shame and enlisting under the banners of the King Jesus—the treacherous tricks of the chief leaders of the usurper are coming into full public view—his crown, and the hope of profit of his priests are about to fail!!

Jones then rails against the various periodicals that continually oppose the religion he represents. He declares that the Times has the horn that “is going to sound loudest in this massive campaign.” He says that The Revivalist has “devoted as much as the enemies of Mormonism wanted of [its] columns to slander it.” For the Star of Gomer, he makes a comparison: “It is like a bellows, blowing wherever there is a spark of the fire of malice, and away it goes until it sets the whole state on fire with all its might.” As for the Apostolic Witness, Jones says, “it is marrow to thy bones, and honey to thy mouth under a pseudonym, like all false apostles and false angels, to show the length of thy filthy tongue against Mormonism forever.” The Instructor has “cannons [which] roar to the point of startling the goatherds and the goats of Cader Idris, and driving them over the cliffs.” Regarding The Baptist, Jones writes, “The last, and the dirtiest also, to come to our attention is Mr. Baptist, and its tasty stories.” Regarding the Reverend Edward Roberts, the man who “promised to kill Mormonism in Rhymney on Christmas day and bury it the next,” Jones says, “Of all the vain men who have been on the field against their common foe, the most stupid, the most impudent, and the most shameless, is that one who blows his strident horn from the Rhymney Valley.”

1848: March, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregationalist Treasury), pp. 76–78 (1,530 words). “Dowlais Reverend and the ‘Satanists.’”

This title has obvious reference to the Reverend W. R. Davies, who lived in Dowlais (a town about two miles from Merthyr Tydfil) and who was the minister of a congregation of Baptists in the Caersalem Chapel. This published letter to the editor is dated 2 February 1848 and is signed “An Observer.”

“An Observer” in all likelihood is Dan Jones, Davies’s favorite target during the previous two years since Jones’s arrival in South Wales to assume the reins of leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for all of Wales. Not only had Davies preached against Jones and his religion from the pulpit, he had also authored numerous articles for a variety of religious periodicals to point out the “heresies” of the “Satanists,” he had published a twenty-page pamphlet against them, he had recently invited his colleague, the Reverend Edward Roberts, to preach against them from the pulpit at Caersalem, and he had even encouraged little children to follow them in the streets and shout after them “Latter-day Satanists.”

Jones had sent letters of response to earlier attacks published in The Baptist and Star of Gomer, two Baptist periodicals, but his letters were refused publication. This article in The Congregationalist Treasury—published in Swansea—appears to be the only writing of Jones ever to appear in any religious periodical in Wales except for Prophet of the Jubilee and Zion’s Trumpet. And even more surprising is that the editor of The Congregationalist Treasury at that time was the Reverend Josiah Thomas Jones, the same minister whom Dan Jones accused of being the force behind the baptism of the blind man in Llanybydder about eighteen months earlier. The reverend, however, placed the following disclaimer at the end of Jones’s spirited response:

We hope that none of those who receive the Treasury will take offense for our having published this one time an article of the foregoing nature, although it is not entirely in keeping with the principles of our publication.—Editor.

Possibly Josiah Jones softened his stance upon reading Dan Jones’s opening statement in his 1,500-word letter to the editor:

Sir,—Since your publication is free to oppose the “Satanists,” it is reasonable to expect it to be free also to put out a word on their side; and because of that I am going to say a little at present.

Or perhaps, as a Congregationalist minister, Josiah Thomas Jones actually relished the vicious attacks in his columns made by Dan Jones against the Baptist minister, W. R. Davies, with whose religious beliefs Josiah Jones had many issues. One is left to wonder.

Dan Jones begins his article with mock disappointment:

It is strange how a man is disappointed. I thought that our fellow countrymen would never again have Mr. Davies’s service in opposing the “Saints” when I saw the following from him in the Star of Gomer for December 1847: “Let me be allowed ONCE and for all, to note the following” (p. 375). “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” (p. 376).

But Davies was certainly not going to retreat from his role as chief critic of those he referred to as the “Latter-day Satanists.” Neither was Dan Jones going to pass up any opportunity to point out the inconsistencies and flaws in Davies’s assaults. In this March 1848 issue of The Congregationalist Treasury, Jones produces a continual stream of cynical observations. Here are a few:

He refers to the Baptist periodical as the “True Baptist.” During 1841, the Reverend John Jones, Dan’s older brother, had published a series of articles offering scriptural evidence and discussion against baptism by immersion. These he bound and named “The Baptist.” In January 1842, a group of Baptists in Cardiff, apparently offended that a Congregationalist minister would use that title in defending baptism by immersion, established a monthly periodical they named The True Baptist, thus delegitimizing Jones’s title for his writings. After two years the word “True” was removed from the title, and the periodical was given the new name of The Baptist, a periodical that continued for many years.
He takes issue with Davies’s citing of the Christian Messenger as proof of one of his claims about Joseph Smith. Jones responds: “I would like to know if the Christian Messenger is as truthful as the Bible, and if one can depend on its testimony as infallible?”
In a similar fashion, he objects to Davies’s recommendation for anyone who doubts the truth of James Strang’s “phosphorus miracle” to read the Weekly Dispatch for 31 October 1847: “What is this publication? Is it an inspired one, I wonder?”
He reacts to the letter from Benjamin Job Davies in the January issue of The Revivalist that contains the claim that Joseph Smith dressed as a large dove to be present at baptisms. Jones makes this sarcastic pun: “I commend the Reverend D. Rees, Llanelli, for publishing it, in order to revive the nineteenth century.”

1848: June, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), pp. 168–70 (2,220 words). “Mormonism.”

In the March (pp. 76–78) article three months earlier, the editor stated that the article of “An Observer” (most likely written by Dan Jones) was “not entirely in keeping with the principles of our publication,” but he had no problem with printing the response by the Reverend W. R. Davies, a 2,200-word response that is overflowing with venom, hatred, and accusations. Davies had obtained a copy of the March 1848 Prophet of the Jubilee which carried Jones’s blistering attack on his adversaries (p. 37–42), mentioning five periodicals by name: The Revivalist, the Star of Gomer, the Apostolic Witness, the Instructor, and The Baptist. Jones’s blitz on his opponents enraged Davies, and he is like a man possessed as he responds to the claims of the “Observer.”

Davies mentions his own February 1848 article in The Congregationalist Treasury and also Jones’s response the following month in the same periodical:

He [Dan Jones] did not dare to deny one of the facts noted in mine of February, but left them as they were. It is hard to struggle against truths as bright as the sun; yet it is clear that the “Observer” has not observed many things.

Davies then proceeds to point out the weakness and inconsistency of the points made by Jones in his March 1848 article, except for some that he considers “not worth noticing.” Here is a list of the issues that Davies either mentions, dismisses, or discusses:

James Strang and the “miracle of phosphorus”
Davies’s promise that he would pay no more attention to the “Satanists”
The dilemma as to whether or not persons should be re-baptized by the Baptists once they have received baptism from the Saints and then wish to return to the Baptists
Contents of the March 1848 issue of the Prophet of the Jubilee that Davies had obtained and read with great bewilderment
Herbert Walters who had left the Saints to rejoin the Baptists and then because of great guilt returned to the Saints once again
Thomas Harris and the stolen dictionary
The excommunication of Philip Sykes from the Saints and the stealing of his money by Captain Jones
Daniel the blind man and the attempt to restore his sight in Llanybydder
The baptism of Davies’s “right hand man” and of others from among Davies’s congregation in Dowlais

To the assertion that Davies’s “right hand man” had become a Latter-day Saint, he responds:

I fear the devil of Nantyglo has taken possession of the man who wrote this brilliant story. The old Satan, father of all the Satans, could not have uttered more hellish lies. Remember that. It is certain that we expelled a man some time ago, and he went to them.

One might fairly ask whether the expulsion occurred before or after the man’s conversion. Job Rowland, the man in question and one of the Reverend Davies’s former parishioners, wrote a letter to the editor of Prophet of the Jubilee in which he explained his reason for leaving Davies and the Baptist faith:

But 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.

Davies concludes his somewhat disjointed and often confusing article with the following declaration about the Welsh converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

There is not so much as one man of substance and influence as a MAN in their midst; NOT ONE in Dowlais, anyway, and they are only the objects of scorn with the irreligious; and objects of pity with every man who fears God.

End: Dan Jones attacks five periodicals—the Reverend W. R. Davies angrily responds

1848: May, Yr Eurgrawn Wesleyaidd (Wesleyan Treasury), p. 147 (160 words).

A reader of The Wesleyan Treasury by the name of Newo Sdrawde [Owen Edwards spelled backwards], writes the following:

Mr. Editor—I shall be highly grateful if you permit me, through means of your Golden Treasury, to express my most loving thanks that I could obtain the history of Joe Smith, confident of getting more of the history of his tricks, and also his virtues (if there be any), from month to month.

The writer no doubt makes reference to Benjamin Job Davies’s letter about Joseph Smith that was published in the previous issue of The Wesleyan Treasury.

Episode 5.5

Start: “Anthony Fair Play” sinks to a new low—Dan Jones is irate

1848: May, Y Bedyddiwr (Baptist), pp. 186–87 (450 words). “Baptisms. Church of Meinciau.”

Using the nom de plume “Anthony Fair Play,” the writer declares his acquaintance with the goings on of the Baptist cause in the little town of Meinciau, about two miles northeast of Kidwelly. He states:

But the most peculiar thing that I am aware of is that the Mormon rascals have sown seeds of lies, by saying far and wide that there are members of Meinciau, that the majority, but not all, have joined them.

He then explains:

We declare that this claim is untrue, because there are only three of the members of Meinciau who have gone to the fraudulent rascals, and that one of these is like the wandering Jew, that is, that he had been with practically every sect of believers that are in our country, before coming to us in Meinciau; and we did not think as we received him as a member with us, that he would be with us more than a few others for long; but as long as he was with us he would grab onto some new sect.

And then he makes this astonishing declaration regarding one of the three converts:

For as for the third, he is good for nothing but the dungheap.

1848: June, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 83–84 (1010 words). “False Accusations of the Baptists against the Saints Again!”

Dan Jones expresses his outrage at “Anthony Fair Play” and his assessment of the recent conversion of some members of the Baptist faith at Meinciau to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Regarding the writer’s shocking conclusion about the third man, Jones responds:

What! a man who was formed in the pure image of his God—a man who possesses an immortal soul—a man who is a member of society—a man who is a subject of the state, and his neighbor—yes, that man is “good for nothing but the dungheap!” Shame on the man who dared to publish such words before men! Who can believe a word of the man who said such a thing?

End: “Anthony Fair Play” sinks to a new low—Dan Jones is irate

Episode 5.6

Start: Elder Abel Evans defends himself from the allegations of “A Listener”

1848: 4 May, Yr Amserau (The Times). “Noteworthy Miracles of the Saints.”

The writer of this article calls himself “A Listener.” Unfortunately, no copy of this issue of the Times has survived to the present, but two persons responded to it in later issues of the Times. The first respondent calls himself “Elias,” and his article appears in the next issue (18 May, p. 7). He asks “A Listener” for the identity of the person referred to in the article as “the prophet.” The second respondent signs his name as Abel Evans, and his article appears in the 15 June 1848 issue (p. 6). “A Listener” then responds to Abel Evans in the 29 June 1848 issue of The Times. Discussions of all three of these “response” articles follow.

1848: 18 May, Yr Amserau (The Times), p. 7 (520 words). “The Spirit of Mary of the White Veil.”

The author of this article is “Elias” from Tanygrisiau (near Blaenau Ffestiniog). In his opening statement, “Elias” refers to the article that had appeared in the 4 May 1848 issue, in which the author, “A Listener,” expressed uncertainty as to the identity of the “prophet” who had lately been preaching in the areas of Ffestiniog. “Elias,” without identifying the “prophet” by name, compares him to “an old woman who lived in Anglesey during the last century who deceived many by saying that she was someone” known as “Mary of the White Veil.” He then compares the “Spirit of Mary of the White Veil” to that of “the prophet” when he was at a special meeting that was held on Easter Sunday (23 April) at the home of David Peters, “near the village of Ffestiniog.” A blessing was given by the “prophet” by the laying on of hands to Owen P. Jones, a thirty-year-old man who had received his baptism a few weeks earlier and who had lost the sight of one eye as a boy. According to the article, Jones lost the sight of the other eye as a result of the blessing and became totally blind. But according to his obituary, Jones had lost his sight in a mine accident. The writer closes his article with the following advice to “the prophet”:

We think, Mr. Editor, that the prophet had best return to his own country, to his own people, and to his own followers, and let him deceive those if he can. Let him leave the innocent people of Ffestiniog alone, and let him never again put his bungling hands on their precious eyesight. How is it that men did not see the deceit and the audacity of these stupid pretenders?

Owen P. Jones emigrated on the Hartley in 1849, settled in Brigham City near the David Peters family, and was a mail carrier for many years before his death on 6 Jan 1894.

1848: 15 June, Yr Amserau (Times), p. 6 (925 words). “Defense of the Saints.”

This is a response written by a Latter-day Saint missionary by the name of Abel Evans who was proselytizing in North Wales at the time. In the 4 May 1848 article in The Times, written by “Elias,” Evans is sarcastically referred to as “the prophet.” The editor of the newspaper gives the following disclaimer just before Evans’s response:

Not all ideas that appear in a publication which contains differing views are consistent with the personal opinions of the Editors; and one should not attribute to them the faults, any more than the virtues, in the style or the language of the correspondents.

Then, one by one, Evans clarifies the “miracles” mentioned by “A Listener” in his accusatory article:

He says that a woman from Criccieth, to whom he apparently gave a blessing by the laying on of hands, “ended up regaining her health.” And he states that her name was Jane Roberts—apparently “A Listener” accused Evans of not providing her name.
He states that the name of the man to whom he gave a blessing in Rhosllanerchrugog was John, better known as “Jack the Tailor.” Here again, “A Listener” accused him of not providing the name.
“A Listener” accused Evans of having claimed to place his hands on an eleven-year-old English boy “until he was so completely filled with the Spirit that he spoke in five languages right then and there.” Evans denies ever having said “any such thing.”
“A Listener” accused Evans of having claimed that “the Saints were baptizing from ten to thirty every week in Merthyr.” Evans clarifies: “The Saints were baptizing nine or ten some weeks in Merthyr, and that I had heard of their baptizing thirty in one week there.”
Apparently “A Listener” had claimed that the “Saints had ceased to exist in Merthyr” when Evans stated that there were over six hundred Saints in the Merthyr branch. Evans reaffirms that the Merthyr branch did in fact have that many members.
Evans takes exception to being called “prophet” by “A Listener” and claims that it was “mocking blasphemy . . . in order to create prejudice against” him.
Evans also objects to the accusation of having claimed “miraculous power.” He emphatically states it is God who works miracles, and not the Saints.

1848: 29 June, Yr Amserau (Times), p. 6 (240 words). “Defense of the Saints.”

In this brief article, “A Listener” reacts to Abel Evans’s “Defense of the Saints.” He takes exception to Evans’s reference to his article as a “distorted piece of writing” and also to Evans’s criticism that “A Listener” did not know the names of the persons on whose heads Evans had placed his hands:

I declare, and if I have life and health, I shall continue to declare, if need be, that I did not know the names of the persons for whom Mr. A. E. says he performed miracles until the previous issue of the Times came to hand.

Then he presents his evaluation of Evans’s entire article:

From start to finish, the “review” is the most slanderous declaration ever before seen. It would be too much respect for its author, a waste of ink, paper, and time, to go into detail about his distorted and deceitful phrases. Mr. A. E. is afraid to deny those things he said, although there are plenty of witnesses to prove that he said them. Now the Mormons are beginning to deny their miraculous power. Truly, it is time for them to do so, to their shame.

“A Listener” than avails himself of the opportunity to give Evans a piece of advice:

For goodness’ sake, Mr. Abel Evans, before putting your hands on either an English person or a Welsh person, do not blame others for reporting your stupidity, and put your hands on your own skull, for it appears to me that your head is quite senseless.

1848: 29 June, Yr Amserau (Times), p. 6 (185 words). “The ‘Saints’ and the Times.”

Also in this issue of The Times is a brief and very sarcastic reaction to Evans’s article by “M—th” in “V. Fawr.” This writer mocks Evans’s disavowal that he was ever a prophet:

I am sorry that the old “earlier” prophet, namely the man who defended his brethren in your previous issue, has been dismissed (for he was once a prophet according to his own words).

Next the writer explains what he would do if Evans still had his prophetic powers:

I would ask him for the proper name of one of his brethren who gave up reading The Times over a year ago, but without yet seeing fit to pay for the issues he had received.

End: Elder Abel Evans defends himself from the allegations of “A Listener”

1848: June, Y Tyst Apostolaidd (Apostolic Witness), pp. 138–40 (1,705 words). “Baptism for the Dead.”

The writer of this article, the Reverend W. R. Davies, in addition to the topic suggested by the title, touches on several other characteristics and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He begins:

Strange are the extremes to which the children of men run in their views, in nature and religion; and of all the idiotic, superstitious religious fanatics who have ever come to the world, at least to Wales, in all of their creeds, the followers of Joe Smith surpass everyone and everything.

Here is a list of issues that Davies discusses in his article:

The manner in which converts describe the feeling of receiving the Holy Ghost.
The very strange practice of baptizing for the dead.
The second baptism of a young couple who stole from a draper before their marriage, were both in jail for “a long term,” and then received baptism again from the “Satanists.”
Dan Jones’s claim of great growth in numbers in Dowlais to the point of needing a bigger hall. Davies says the real reason for the new hall was because the owner of the tavern known as the “Dowlais Inn” no longer allowed them to meet there.
Davies denies the claim of Dan Jones in the March 1848 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee that Davies’s “right hand man” had converted to the religion of “the Saints.”
Dan Jones claimed that “several” of Davies’s congregation in Dowlais had received their baptism from “the Saints.” Davies vigorously disputes such a claim.

1848: June, Y Bedyddiwr (The Baptist), pp. 209–11 (1,705 words).

The same article as in The Apostolic Witness, June 1848, pp. 138–40.

1848: June, Yr Haul (The Sun), pp. 196–97 (475 words). “Dinner for One of the Preachers of the Latter-day Saints.”

David Owen, the editor of The Sun, an Anglican periodical, had at one time been a Baptist. This account was written by “Ioan Ysgythrydd” (John, the Engraver). John relates a story of two women, residents of Kidwelly, who both converted to “the Saints’ way.” At one of their houses, they prepared a meal for one of the missionaries of their new religion. Before the dinner began, the lady of the house sent her husband, a member of the Anglican Church, into the garden because “she did not consider him suitable to sit down to dinner with people as pure and unsoiled as they.” Here is the surprise ending:

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.

The “lady of the house” may well be Elizabeth Lewis, who emigrated in 1849 with her six children on board the Buena Vista.

1848: June, Yr Haul (The Sun), pp. 187–89 (845 words). “The Shepherds of Epynt.”

A regular feature in The Sun was “The Shepherds of Epynt,” a conversation held among a few shepherds who tended their flocks in an area known as Mount Epynt, not far from Llandovery where The Sun was published each month. In the June 1848 issue, the conversation is between Idwal, a Nonconformist, and Ivor, an Anglican. Idwal expresses alarm at the high level of success of the “Mormons”:

We preach against Mormonism, write against Mormonism, and curse Mormonism constantly; but, for all of this, Mormonism succeeds despite us.

Ivor agrees that “Mormonism” is a “deceitful, unreasonable, unscriptural, and blasphemous heresy” and then points out that, while large numbers of Nonconformists have converted to it, practically none of the Anglicans have done so. Idwal acknowledges that such is the case. Ivor questions the effectiveness of Nonconformity in combatting the new religion:

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!

Idwal counters weakly:

Men will go after errors, despite everything; and the most sensible of men are enticed by heresies.

At this point, Ivor presents his closing argument and places the blame for the success of “Mormonism” at the feet of the Nonconformists because they are not rooted in truth:

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.

1848: June, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 180 (1,050 words). “Address to the Mormons, or Satanists, who misname themselves Latter-day Saints.”

The author of this lengthy poem calls himself “A Well-Wisher to the Saints” as well as “E. D. S.” at the end of the poetry following his 170-word postscript.

In Part I of the poem, consisting of fourteen stanzas of four lines each, the writer addresses the followers of Joseph Smith and explains as to how Smith has deceived them. The writer uses a number of epithets throughout to describe Smith—“wicked Joe,” “great moneylender,” “wicked wretch,” “madman,” “servant of Satan,” and “thick-skinned man.” Here is a sample stanza:

An arrogant, sorcerous family—always

At some work for darkness,

From them Jo is sprung—

Sore their appearance as a host will testify.

In Part II of the poem, consisting of twelve stanzas of four lines each, is a plea for the “Satanists” to “flee and run from the offensive swarm.” To those who are planning to go to America to join with the main body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the writer warns them to “watch the bright Captain, over there closely, lest he prove deceitful.” The use of “Captain” is a reference to Dan Jones, their leader in Wales.

A third segment of this poem consists of twenty lines and is entitled “Joe’s Address to His Puppets and His Half-Wits.” The writer, in a mocking tone, has Joseph Smith bear witness of his mission and that of the Book of Mormon.

In his ending paragraph, the writer declares his intention to continue to speak out against the “bewitched people,” pointing out that such is his duty to do his part to put a stop to the “godless scum which gibber under the name of preaching.”

1848: July, Yr Haul (The Sun), pp. 216–19 (2,135 words). “Mormonism.”

The contents of this very lengthy editorial consist mainly of some philosophical considerations rather than any accounts of events in Wales. David Owen, the editor of the Anglican periodical The Sun and a former Baptist, writes:

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.

But in the five years the new Church had begun proselytizing efforts around Merthyr Tydfil, more than three thousand new adepts had received their baptism. Such progress was not only astounding but also worrisome to religious leaders throughout the principality. Owen admitted that the new religion had lofty objectives:

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.

He further opines:

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.

However, despite the positive aspects of the new religion, Owen continues to share the same view as W. R. Davies, Edward Roberts, and numerous other divines:

It is a deceitful, blasphemous, and devilish heresy—a perfect caricature of Christianity!

1848: July, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 221 (160 words). “The Trickery of the Saints.”

This brief report is borrowed from The Silurian, or South Wales General Advertiser, published in Brecon. The writer reports that the “Saints,” while preaching in the little towns of Penmarc and Llancarfan in Glamorganshire, had resorted to fabricated miracles, with one of them pretending to cure his own hand. The writer concludes: “All this work (for it cannot be called religion) appears to be shameful blasphemy; and it has only excited pity and scorn in the minds of all sensible people in these places.”

Episode 5.7

Start: Phillip Sykes defends the Church from charges made by the Rev. W. R. Davies

1848: March, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 92–93 (400 words). “The Madness of One of the Satanists.”

“T. E. J.” reports that the Latter-day Saints have caused Phillip Sykes, one of their recent converts, to lose his money and his senses.

He claimed more than once to have sinned unforgivably, and he is now in the madhouse at the expense of the parish.

The writer says that he has sent this information to appear in the periodical “not to make the unfortunate wretch the object of ridicule, but as a warning to those who have not been bewitched by the accursed mob so far.”

1848: March, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 43–45 (1,380 words). “Excommunication of Phillip Sykes, Blaina, Monmouthshire, from the Church.”

Dan Jones goes to great lengths to explain the reason behind the excommunication of Phillip Sykes, a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in the little mining town of Nantyglo. Jones says it was because of disobedience and not because Church leaders wanted to take Sykes’s money:

We have witnesses who heard him say that no one of the Saints was in his debt, but that he was in their debt. It never cost him a penny for food whenever he came this way, and the reward we have for our generosity to him is to be accused by his enemies, enemies to every good thing, of plundering his belongings, is it! But we shall not tolerate it any longer.

Jones also placed a great deal of blame for Sykes’s difficulties on his being afflicted with an evil spirit. Religious leaders had used the laying on of hands to cast out this evil spirit, but Sykes disobeyed their counsel and the spirit returned. Finally, Sykes’s mental state deteriorated to the point that he had to be institutionalized.

1848: July, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 201–2 (1,685 words). “Satanists Casting Out Satan.”

With this letter to the editor, the Reverend W. R. Davies continues the rage he had expressed in the articles he had published in three different periodicals—The Baptist, The Apostolic Witness, and The Congregationalist Treasury—the previous month. In this lengthy piece, he focuses on the report entitled “Excommunication of Phillip Sykes, Blaina, Monmouthshire, from the Church” printed in the March 1848 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee. Although Davies had already made a few comments about the Sykes episode in his June 1848 article in The Congregationalist Treasury, he had much more to add about it in this piece. He obviously takes delight in mocking the detailed account in Prophet of the Jubilee and showing the absurdity of the various steps the coreligionists of Sykes took to help him come to his senses. First he quotes from Prophet of the Jubilee:

When his religious brethren understood what was troubling him—that it was the influence of the devil, etc., in accordance with the commands of Jesus Christ in such a circumstance (see Mark 16:18), they rebuked that evil spirit from him by the laying on of hands and the prayer of faith.

Then Davies elaborates in his own words regarding the continual failure to resolve Sykes’s distress:

And in accordance with all reason and scripture, was the bedeviled creature restored to his sense forever? Oh, no, hardly! “But he went under similar influences as before.” Is he, poor thing, left like that again? Oh no. “He got salvation again through the same means as before.” Behold, has he now been completely purged, and has the evil one completely left him? No, no: “But again and again he was taken over by the same thing, or worse spirits, afterwards.”

Davies ridicules the Latter-day Saints for their unsuccessful attempts to rid Sykes of the “evil spirit,” which Davies calls “the devil of Nantyglo,” that had possessed him. Referring to his own success in gaining adepts to his Baptist chapel in Dowlais, Davies writes:

We were quite hearty in Dowlais, until we saw “The Star of the Saints” [the Prophet of the Jubilee] that was noted; because when we saw some man or woman with more devilish signs than others, we were always talking about sending them to the Satanists to cast out the spirits. But now here we are up against the wall. What is the point sending anyone to them, lest the devil of Nantyglo be in the people?

Davies ends with an earnest plea to the editor of the Star of Gomer:

Now, Mr. Gomer, I ask you to give a place to this article in some corner of the Star, not because of worthiness of the foolishness it lays bare, but for the sake of our fellow countrymen in general, and the religion of Christ especially: perhaps its frightful blasphemy will be a warning to some innocent and ignorant persons, to keep away from the greedy wolves, and to avoid the philosophies of men and devils.

1849: February, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), pp. 31–32 (540 words). “The Testimony of Phillip Sykes, Blaenau, Monmouth.”

Phillips Sykes writes to John S. Davis, the editor of the periodical, as follows:

I wish to have space in the Trumpet to inform the public with respect to the lies that have been spread about me, about William Phillips, and about Capt. Jones, after I was placed in the insane asylum. I have now come out of that place, and am considered in my right mind, and am fully able to say what I know.

Not only did Sykes wish to realign himself with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he also wished to set the record straight about the behavior of Church leaders toward him:

At present I am not a member with the Saints, although I wish to join with them soon; but, at the same time, I would like to clear the characters of William Phillips and Capt. Jones in the face of the shameful lies told about them.

He closes his letter by removing all blame from his Church leaders and placing it on himself:

I know that the Saints are good men, and that their religion is of God, and that they did their best for me. That which was out of place was not in the Saints, or their religion, but in me.

Davis adds a postscript to Sykes’s letter with the following warning to the Reverend W. R. Davies:

Before finishing, we would like to warn Mr. Davies that the “devil of Nantyglo” is now searching for a place to rest in dry areas; and if he is to avoid him, he should keep his interior, as it usually is, plenty wet.

End: Phillip Sykes defends the Church from charges made by the Rev. W. R. Davies

Episode 5.8

Start: The Ivorians cause twenty-nine Latter-day Saints to be dismissed from the mine

1847: March, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 49–51 (910 words). “The Ivorians Expelling Their Members because of Their Religion!!!”

Dan Jones launches a blistering accusation against the executives of the trade union.

It is quite true that the committee of Lodge 299, Ivor Hael Lodge, Carmarthen Union, Ivorians, have expelled a party of religionists from their society, on the admission that it was because they dared to worship the God of heaven consciously according to the holy scriptures!

According to Jones, the catalyst behind the expulsion was Thomas Evans, a Baptist minister who took exception to the preaching of the Latter-day Saints in the hall of the Yew Tree Inn in the town of Blaina.

[He] stood up to face them; and by doing so he showed his foolishness, bringing the reproach of the crowd on him, and causing the listeners to disregard him; and then he rushed out in shame.

Jones further explains that Evans assembled a committee of a few men of influence within the trade union, called an “Ivorian inquisition” by Jones, and engineered the firing of all the members of Lodge 299 who had any connection with the Latter-day Saints. Jones furnishes the names of all the committee members and asks:

What is the slavery of the most enslaved Negro in comparison to the Ivorite slavery of the fairest Welshman who dares to choose his own religion in his own free country?

1847: September, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 141–44 (1,680 words). “To the One Who Calls Himself ‘The Traveler of Nantyglo, or William Williams.’”

William Williams was a representative of the Ivor Hael Lodge 299 Carmarthen-based trade union located about fourteen miles to the northwest of Merthyr Tydfil. Dan Jones’s first sentence is as follows:

Sir, In a small essay of yours, you accuse Prophet of the Jubilee of containing an article, in which there were the “most impudent and shameless lies that man could possibly imagine.

The “article” appears to refer to the one Dan Jones published in the March 1847 issue in the previous entry, but the “small essay” by William Williams has not been identified. Jones continues:

If we were deceived in the story to which you refer, we plead, we demand, yes, humanity will force you, since you have made that accusation, to bring convincing and fair proofs that this story consists of impudent lies. A reasonable man will not consider “you are lying” as one proof of the matter in a debate. Oh no; nothing less than witnesses, or facts, will satisfy him who seeks the truth.

He also points out Williams’s use of such phrases as “these rogues have a mouth to swear, but no teeth to chew” and “secretive sneaks, despite scorn, slander, and reviling” do little to make a case against Jones and the religion he represents. He invites the men of Lodge 299 to defend themselves from the accusations made against them by their expelled members by sending proofs of their assertion that it is all an “impudent lie.” He then assures them that their response “will have the most prominent place in the columns of the publication that you accuse.”

1848: July, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 202–3 (1,590 words). “The Ivorians and the Saints,” signed “The Traveler from Nantyglo.”

This article is William William’s defense on behalf of the trade union, a defense that Dan Jones had requested ten months earlier in the September 1847 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee. But instead of sending it directly to Dan Jones, Williams elected to send it to the editor of the Star of Gomer with the following greeting:

Mr. Gomer—I beg you once again for space for what follows in your impartial Star, the only publication which is counted thus in our country. The True Ivorians will be most grateful to you for the favor, apart from many others who love for everyone to have the truth.

Then Williams addresses his remarks to “the editor of the Prophet of the Jubilee.” And instead of offering some reason for the long delay, he begins with a very conciliatory tone:

Sir: I have so much respect for you, that I fear you have done something without careful consideration; that is, accusing the Ivorians in a libelous and malicious way in your great zeal for a group of rioters who were expelled from the Lodge of Ivor Hael, the Saint David Union, near the Iron Works of Cwmcelyn and Blaina, of expelling their members (you say) because of their religion.

He then explains in considerable detail that the “group of rioters” were all troublemakers who hurled threatening insults at members of the Lodge such as “If you do not believe our gospel, you shall be damned, and serve you right too” (English in original). Williams concludes that such awful behavior on the part of the “Saints” justified the actions taken against them by the Ivorians.

1848: August, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 115–17 (1,155 words). “The Persecution of the Saints in Cwmbychan and Bryn!—Twenty-nine Saints are turned from the mine because of their religion!!—Sectarian stewards attempt to starve about fifty wives and children of the Saints!!!”

This long title describes the action taken by the stewards of Lodge 299 of the iron works against all of their employees who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article was no doubt triggered by the article in the previous month’s Star of Gomer by William Williams, although Dan Jones does not address Williams directly.

In his opening paragraph, Dan Jones reports that soon after twenty-nine of his coreligionists had been expelled by the stewards of Lodge 299, “the chief Steward was fired from his job by the Company.” In his place was a Mr. Bidelph, who came to the works as the “chief overseer,” and who Jones declared to be “much more charitable than the others mentioned.”

The twenty-nine workers who had been fired because of their religion presented a petition of their grievances addressed to John Bidelph. The petition is quoted in its entirety in the article and contains details of the persecution of the stewards. Here is an example of the consequences the twenty-nine workers and their families suffered without just cause:

And furthermore, those Stewards who turned us away from the mine have decided to drive us out of this country; they sent the Bailiff and the Policeman to turn us out of the houses, and to sell our furniture, if the rent money was not brought forward immediately, and through that depriving us and our families immediately, not only of food, but also of refuge or shelter against the fierce storms of February, and in the land of our birth.

Dan Jones concludes the article with the following observation:

Let the reader consider who is the God, and what is the kind of religion of these oppressors; and their cruelties and their wicked deeds do not prove which cause motivates them, any more obviously than they prove also the divinity of the religion and the godliness of the sufferers, and the truthfulness of the Son of God, namely, “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.”

The only date given in the petition is that of the month of February when the persecution was apparently at its high point. Without further information regarding this episode, one is left to conjecture about the approximate timetable of the events preceding the petition and the consequences that resulted from it. The following are some tentative conclusions:

The “small essay,” written by William Williams after the Prophet of the Jubilee March 1847 article, preceded the September 1847 Prophet of the Jubilee article, since it was mentioned therein.
The only response to Dan Jones’s September 1847 request to William Williams for a defense of the terrible treatment given the Latter-day Saints at the mine is the letter directed at Dan Jones that was sent ten months later to the editor of Star of Gomer to be printed in the July 1848 issue of his periodical.
The more severe treatment meted out to the “Saints” in February, combined with the dismissal of the inimical stewards, prompted the petition to Mr. Bidelph.
The stewards behind the severe treatment were at some point under review by their superiors before the somewhat-conciliatory letter by William Williams was printed in the July 1848 Star of Gomer.
Mr. Bidelph must have taken action against Williams and the other stewards shortly after the July 1848 Star of Gomer article in order for the petition to have appeared in the August 1848 Prophet of the Jubilee.
The only other article having to do with the expulsion of this group of Latter-day Saints from Lodge 299 is in the September 1848 issue of Star of Gomer (see next entry). But the writer, in place of offering any new information about the matter, reflects back on the annual meeting of the Ivorians held in Dowlais a year earlier and the discussion that occurred there. Referring to individuals as “an Ivorian brother,” “one official,” and “one old minister,” he quotes them as agreeing wholeheartedly with the leaders of the Lodge who expelled the “mob of base wretches.” Referring to the letter of William Williams in the Star of Gomer July 1848 article, this “Ivorian and Oddfellow Brother” concludes:

I see, in the letter of the Traveler, that they tried to overturn the Lodge of Ivor Hael; but to the honor of our brothers there, they got what they deserved, that is their expulsion from the union; and it will be seen further, that they tried to persuade the public “that they are being persecuted because of their religion,” when, in truth, they were rejected because of their blasphemy against religion, and their hellish arrogance, as the Traveler notes.

1848: September, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 268–69 (1,025 words). “The Ivorians and the Saints.” This piece is item #6 in the above explanation.

End: The Ivorians cause twenty-nine Latter-day Saints to be dismissed from the mine

1848: August, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 238 (160 words). “An Interpretation of the Dream of T. Hughes, Rhuthin.”

A sarcastic and rather cryptic poem by “Little Davy” of Abercarn. Four years after this publication, “T. Hughes, Rhuthin” presented two lectures in the Town Hall of Rhuthin, which he later printed in two pamphlets (see Pamphlets 12 and 15 in Section 2). Here are eight of the twenty-eight lines of Little Davy’s poem:

John the angel was seen

With the Gospel in his hand,

Which he hid in an old cave

On the land of distant America,

And there it would be kept hidden

Through the ages of the world forever,

Had it not been for the true godliness

Of the great Prophet Joe Smith!

1848: 4 August, Yr Amserau (Times), p. 3 (130 words). “Joseph Smith, the Mormon.”

We believe that Joseph Smith was shot. We understand from one of the publications in London that the full story of this wandering deceiver is at the press.

This very brief article quotes from another paper, the Standard of Freedom. The author then presents a few comments about the origin of the Book of Mormon.

1848: October, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (Congregationalist Treasury), p. 306 (80 words).

Edmund Jones sends a question to someone referred to as “Caerwysion”:

Together with others, I wish for you to be so kind as to give to us through means of the Treasury the Lecture delivered by you lately in Glamorgan, on the beginning of the fall of Mormonism. By doing so you will do me a favor as well as the public in general.

No lecture by “Caerwysion” that fits the above description has been found as yet.

Episode 5.9

Start: John S. Davis explains “Spiritual Gifts” to the “Observer from the North”

1848: October, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 293–96 (5,230 words). “Spiritual Gifts.”

This is the first installment of four by “Observer from the North.” He begins with his concern:

When we consider that there is a great heresy pertaining to the above topic, which has spread throughout South and North Wales; but that there are over two and a half thousand of our fellow men, yes, of our fellow nation, the Welsh, who believe (or profess to believe) that the spiritual gifts are enjoyed now in the church of the “Latter-day Saints,” as they were in the churches in the age of the Apostles of old, it deserves serious consideration.

The writer’s objective is to show evidence that Dan Jones, the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales, is totally misguided and that the church he represents is definitely not what Jones claims it to be. The writer announces that his focus will be on the topic of spiritual gifts as discussed by Dan Jones in his recently published Scriptural Treasury, a scriptural commentary of nearly three hundred pages. What follows is a purely philosophical monologue of over five thousand words on the topic.

1848: November, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 327–29 (3,500 words). “Spiritual Gifts.”

The second installment of the writings of the “Observer from the North.”

1848: December, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 362–66 (6,100 words). “Spiritual Gifts.”

The third installment of the writings of the “Observer from the North.”

1849: February, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 42–46 (5,600 words). “Spiritual Gifts.”

The fourth and final installment of the writings of the “Observer from the North.” The writer indicated following the fourth installment that there would be more. Apparently the editor disagreed, as no further installments appeared in the Star of Gomer.

1849: April, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), p. 67–71 (2,100 words). “The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy,” first installment.

Since at this time Dan Jones was very busy making preparations to lead a group of converts to the United States in February, he likely did not have time to enter into a polemic with “Observer from the North.” John S. Davis, however, elected to write answers to “Observer,” someone he apparently knew personally, probably having worked with him at the Star of Gomer previously. Davis’s writings to “Observer” were refused space in the Star of Gomer. Consequently, he published his answers to “Observer” in Zion’s Trumpet.

He entitled his writings “The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy,” the “Court of the Enemy” being Davis’s label for the Star of Gomer because, in his mind, the periodical was an enemy of the truth.

In this first installment, Davis declared that his publication, Zion’s Trumpet, had insufficient space to review all of “Observer’s” writings. In light of this, he explained what his approach would be:

Therefore, let us pass over the parts where the Observer is snarling and lowering himself to misrepresentation, and let us go directly to the parts where he is as one trying to reason.

Davis then adds another reason why he calls the Star of Gomer the “Court of the Enemy”:

The court of the Star is so different from other courts, that no one is allowed to bring forth anything in favor of the “Spiritual Gifts,” rather everything must be against them.

1849: May, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), pp. 85–93 (3,800 words). “The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy,” second installment.

1849: June, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), pp. 108–13 (2,520 words). “The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy,” third installment.

1849: July, Udgorn Seion (Zion’s Trumpet), pp. 128–31 (1,720 words). “The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy,” fourth and final installment.

1849: July, The Spiritual Gifts in the Court of the Enemy (pamphlet, 24 pages).

Following the printing of the fourth installment of his reply to “Observer,” John S. Davis combined all four installments into a twenty-four-page pamphlet, the preface of which is dated 12 July 1849.

End: John S. Davis explains “Spiritual Gifts” to the “Observer from the North”

1848: 30 September, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 3 (400 words). “Extraordinary Occurrence.”

The account of a young man named Reuben Brinkworth who, after having lost his hearing and his speech “in the midst of a storm of thunder and lightning,” regained both hearing and speech upon being baptized a Latter-day Saint.

1848: September, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 264–65 (2,320 words). “Miracles.”

The author of this very lengthy article gives only his nom de plume, “Iago Silin.” The writer’s opening statement is this:

Strange how sin has brought down the human race to such a deep, damp swamp and the awful quicksand in which they are by nature—all open to the deceit of tricksters going out and about, and many being tricked by them.

He then pinpoints the most recent generation of “tricksters:”

And this generation will not pass without being tempted by the “Latter-day Saints,” or some other Satans. These dreamers and imaginers fancy that they can turn the Almighty, who is without change or any shadow of conversion, from his own order, to operate according to their whim; but may God be truthful and the “Latter-day Saints” false in their words, and deceivers in their actions.

After some rather extensive explication of scriptures having to do with miracles, referring to no specific modern events, the writer then closes by issuing a warning:

Let us not listen to the performers of miracles and advocates of every baseless tradition; but rather follow the inspirational rule in everything, and pray greatly for the Lord to keep all of Wales out of the grasp of these Satanic arch-deceivers who are in our country, and out of the jaws of Capt. Jones, who is like a roaring lion walking about, seeking whomever he can to swallow.

Episode 5.10

Start: John S. Davis defends against the charges of an excommunicated Baptist

1848: August, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 118–22 (2,520 words). “Anti-Mormon Sermon. To the Rev. T. Williams, Ebenezer, near Carmarthen.”

John S. Davis was in the Ebenezer Chapel, Llangynog, on 2 July 1848 when the Reverend T. Williams presented his sermon. A few weeks later, the copious notes Davis took appeared in the August 1848 issue of Prophet of the Jubilee as a harsh critique of the sermon. Davis writes:

I am pleased to announce that you [Williams] preached better, in your manner, than I expected you could.

He then points out a number of what he considers to be erroneous points in the sermon. He also takes issue with Williams’s warning for his listeners not to give any heed to the preachers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose teachings he considered blasphemous. Davis closes with some stern counsel for members of Williams’s own congregation:

You members of Ebenezer, do you know what you are? I ask in all seriousness, do you know that you are “spirits in prison,” and that the Rev. Mr. Williams is preaching to you, and that his intention is to keep you there for a long time? Oh, flee for freedom to the Mormons, “and you shall be truly free.”

No response from Williams to Davis has been identified; however, an excommunicated Baptist and editor of the Star of Gomer did have some pointed observations about Davis’s article, which appeared in the October 1848 issue of his own publication.

1848: October, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 304–5 (1,910 words). “A Review of Mormonism, and the Rev. T. Williams.”

The author, Samuel Evans, had recently been excommunicated from the Baptist faith but continued on as the editor of Star of Gomer. Here he presents his thoughts and opinions about Davis’s article, calling it “worthless and shapeless.” He also declares that “telling lies is one of the most remarkable characteristics of Mormonism.” He had such a low opinion of Latter-day Saints that he even uttered this prophecy regarding Dan Jones and the group of Welsh members of the Church he would be taking to America in a few months’ time:

Having got enough money to get a ship or ships to voyage to California, their Leader will sail to Cuba and sell them as slaves, every man jack of them. That would serve them right for having so little respect for Christ’s book as to give it up for the Book of Mormon.

And having worked for some time as Davis’s boss at the Seren Gomer office in Carmarthen, Evans believed that he should give him some advice:

Seeing some ignorant and selfish dwarf of a man inflate with self-importance is a scandal to humanity. It would be wisdom for J. Davies [Davis] to follow the profession that is most familiar to him, and leave teaching the people to those who have received the gift. It is a beautiful characteristic in everyone that they know their place.

End: John S. Davis defends against the charges of an excommunicated Baptist

1848: October, Yr Haul (The Sun), p. 333 (180 words).

The editor warns his readers of the “Tractarians,” also known as the “Puseyites,” who he claims “are at work day and night spreading the deadly Roman poison in every manner and means they can.” Apparently, some of the vicars of the Anglican Church were open to bringing Catholicism back to England and Wales. The editor fears that if these efforts were made “under the mantle of any kind of Sectarianism” that the Welsh “are ready to receive it.” He adds: “Evidence of this is the success of the Mormons.”

1848: 14 October, Monmouthshire Beacon, p. 4 (13 words).

The great Mormon Temple, at Nauvoo, has been purchased for a Protestant College.

1848: November, Yr Haul (The Sun), pp. 354–55 (185 words). “Llandovery versus Mormonism.”

This is a poem of eight stanzas of four lines each. The poet, “Anti-Mormon,” could well be The Sun’s editor, David Owen. The opening stanza makes it clear that the people of Llandovery are ready to deal with the missionaries who preach in their town:

Mormonism is trying

To extend its dwelling place;

To Llandovery it now has gone,

But it will find no succor there.

The writer makes it clear that the people of Llandovery are self-sufficient and have no need of anything the missionaries might offer them, including speaking in tongues and working miracles. Furthermore,

Nearby is Brutus once more,

Killing evil vipers,

Of every color, and every kind,

And he will kill Mormonism.

“Brutus” is the nom de plume of the Reverend David Owen, and (if Owen is indeed the author) he obviously feels totally competent to deal effectively with any doctrine, practice, or stratagem the missionaries might introduce to his town. He makes clear his position concerning the hated “Mormons”:

Therefore, I shall end now,

Shouting to the utmost,—

Of every trick that has come to the world,

Mormonism is the meanest.

1848: November, Y Cyfaill o’r Hen Wlad yn America (The Friend of the Old Country in America), p. 345 (15 words).

The Mormon temple in Nauvoo burned to the ground on the 9th of last month.

1848: November, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregationalist Treasury), p. 350 (130 words).

A brief report that “one of the Mormon priests” had been put in jail in Carmarthen for debt. The writer poses two questions:

Why do they not work a miracle for this believer, by causing the doors of the prison to open and allow him to go free? Or why did Thomas the Blacksmith, their authorized prophet, not tell him that such a thing could happen to him? . . . We hope that this lesson will teach this creature, when he comes out, to think more about his calling, and not allow himself to be hoodwinked any more by the Mormon sorcerers and their crazy followers.

1848: November, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 348 (225 words). “The Saints.”

“Gwilym” reports that in the Pontypridd area, a recent visit of “their Captain” had caused “quite a commotion.” The writer expresses bewilderment regarding the Latter-day Saints’ baptismal services:

They administer the ordinance of baptism sometimes, and at night as well; but what reason they have for that I do not know; they probably have some reason out of the strange book of Mormon.

The writer states that the “Saints” are not all in agreement regarding miracles, as “some assert that they can perform them, and others to the contrary.” He leaves the readers to judge for themselves after reading the following account:

A meeting of the Saints was held very recently in a house in this area. Before long after they had gathered, the room went dark, and to their surprise a shining light was seen on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. One of the gathering asked what was that light. One of the Saints answered that they were the angels of God!! “Are they really?” said the man, taking hold of them and smashing them to pieces. What were their angels, do you suppose, but rotten old white wood! This is how these deceivers bewitch the ignorant people into believing that angels of God visit them in their meetings!!

1848: 14 November, North Wales Chronicle, p. 1 (520 words). “A Mormon Miracle.”

When asked if he could perform a miracle, Joseph Smith “declared that upon a certain day, he would walk across the broad waters of the Missouri without wetting the soles of his feet.” He then asked a crowd of his followers at the edge of the Mississippi River if they had faith that he could perform the miracle. When they responded in the affirmative, he put his boots back on and walked away, saying that since they had such faith, there was no need for him to perform the miracle.

1848: 16 December, Monmouthshire Beacon, p. 4 (105 words).

Destruction of the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo. The celebrated Mormon Temple, in Nauvoo, has been entirely destroyed by incendiary fire. No effort was made to stop the progress of the flames.

1848: 2 December, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 3 (350 words). “Pious Fraud. Three Mormon Prophets.”

An account of a Latter-day Saint missionary who overnighted somewhere and pretended to be dead when his hosts looked in on him the next morning. Soon afterward, two other missionaries came calling for him. Upon learning that he was “dead,” they claimed to have power to raise the dead. The head of the house then threatened to hit the missionary lying in bed with a cudgel, at which point he leaped from the bed to avoid getting clubbed. This is among the most popular stories told by the enemies of the Latter-day Saints.

1848: 16 December, Monmouthshire Merlin, p. 3 (35 words).

The gang of burglars, which was captured at Cardiff by Sergeant Trewartha, (see our fourth page) was committed for trial on Thursday. James Rodd, one of the prisoners, had been a Mormon prophet.

1848: December, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 373–75 (430 words). “Invitation to California.”

In mid-nineteenth-century Wales, the location of “California” included what is now Utah. At this time, word was circulating in Wales that Dan Jones would soon be taking a group of approximately three hundred of his fellow Welshmen to the “promised land” in America to join with the main body of the Saints in the Rocky Mountains. One who called himself “Little Wren,” from a place located “Near Bogeyman’s Hole,” composed this poem of nine stanzas as a mocking “invitation” to all the Welsh to travel with Captain Jones and find paradise. The opening stanza sets the tone for the remaining eight:

Oh, come to California,

Dear Welshmen, dear Welshmen,

Stand here no longer,

Dear Welshmen;

There are heavens for us there,

We shall have land without rent or taxes,

Prepare to come without delay,

Dear Welshmen, dear Welshmen,

Do not tarry here except for that,

Dear Welshmen.

The following verses promise “bread without baking it,” “vehicles that will run by themselves without horses,” “clothes that come from the clouds,” and other miraculous phenomena. The final stanza alludes to Thomas Jeremy, a Church member and wealthy farmer from Llanybydder who lived at “Glantrenfawr”:

The man of Glantren is about to get under way,

A great prophet, a great prophet,

He is zeal from his feet to the crown of his head,

A great prophet;

He has sold his things,

Already for the journey,

May a fair wind call him to begin,

Great prophet, great prophet,

Until he reaches the land of the Saints,

Great prophet.

Sadly, Thomas and Sarah Jeremy would bury three of their little daughters, all of whom died of cholera, upon reaching the Missouri River.

1848: December, Y Drysorfa Gynnulleidfaol (The Congregationalist Treasury), p. 367 (155 words).

In the Questions and Answers section, David Griffiths provides the answers to questions posed in the previous issue of the periodical by J. Jones, Carmarthen. One of Jones’s questions was “Are the miraculous gifts imparted in the present day, as the Mormons claim?” David Griffiths’s answer is as follows:

No, they are not. First, because there is no example of such gifts with any group of believers at the present time, neither with the Mormons, except for deceit and lies for such gifts. If it were useful, we could note many of their tricks in this regard.

Griffiths adds a second reason, using Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13:8 to substantiate his answer:

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

From these words Griffiths draws this conclusion:

All these things which are to vanish are spiritual gifts, namely those parts of the spiritual gift which the Spirit activated at that time, imparting each one individually as desired. It is better to believe Paul than to give credence to the deceitful assertions of the followers of Joseph Smith.

1848: 14 December, Yr Amserau (The Times), p. 6 (285 words). “A Mormon Miracle.”

Using the nom de plume “T. ab Ieuan,” the writer of this article declares that he knows many who call themselves “Saints” in Monmouthshire. He says he wishes to be fair in presenting what he calls “a miracle.” He tells of a person by the name of “Will from the Dune,” one of the “Saints,” and who claims that modern-day miracles happen. The writer presents an account of the “miraculous” incident:

One day, the venerable gentleman got it into his head to exchange a few rounds with his wife, and he, Mr. Miracles, demonstrated much greater strength than his Eve; and then a neighbor woman took the wife’s side, and she grabbed hold of the Saint’s head, and there ensued a fierce battle between them. He put his backside against her, and she put her backside against him; and then something the most similar to a miracle in this neighborhood took place.

The writer then brings in a witness:

Johnny Cosac (one of the Saints) said that they did many things, but that was the only miracle he was aware of—the saint used arms of the flesh against the woman sinner!

At this point the writer promises to obtain the “whole account of the mysterious deceit of the Mormons, from someone who has been in their midst, and is determined to direct it all to the Times very soon.” One is left to wonder if perhaps a sentence or two of this brief paragraph may have been inadvertently omitted. Any follow-up article that might clarify this supposed miracle remains unidentified.

Episode 5.11

Start: John S. Davis offers proof of a miracle to the “Hater of Deceit”

1848: Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf a Doniau Gwyrthiol: Sef Pregeth a draddodwyd, Dydd Sul y 27ain Awst, 1848, yn Eglwys Sant Dewi, Caerfyrddin, gan y Parch. David Evans, Curad yr Eglwys Hono (The Latter-day Saints and Spiritual Gifts: Namely a Sermon Delivered, Sunday the 27th of August, 1848, at the Church of Saint David, Carmarthen, by the Rev. David Evans, the Curate of that Church), pamphlet, 20 pages.

This pamphlet lacks the vicious language that other antagonists were then using whenever they mentioned The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Evans does, however, severely criticize the defense that the Church offered for a continuation of miracles from the time of Jesus Christ. He presents his ideas in a gentlemanly fashion and concludes that the members of the Church are false prophets and heretics.

1848: December, Yr Haul (The Sun), p. 402 (120 words).

The editor of this Anglican periodical gives his brief assessment of the pamphlet authored by the curate David Evans:

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.

1848: December, Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee), pp. 176–83 (5,700 words). “Observations on a Sermon about ‘The Latter-day Saints and Miraculous Gifts.’”

John S. Davis, in this eight-page response to David Evans’s pamphlet, has a strongly different opinion. He writes:

I thought when I gave my sixpence for this ten-page sermon that I was buying an original product, and one worthy of the order of priesthood; but when I saw that the most particular materials of the product had been in the skull of W. R. Davies, Dowlais, (Baptist) and a host of other heretics in the eyes of the Pure Church, I was tremendously disappointed.

Davis defends the idea that miracles continue to occur in modern times, especially in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He concludes with an invitation to anyone who wishes to have evidence of modern-day miracles to go to Newport and talk with Reuben Brinkworth, a young man who had been deaf and dumb for several years because of the effects of an electric storm while at sea, but who, following his baptism as a Latter-day Saint, had had his speech and hearing restored.

1849: January, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), pp. 16–17 (1,275 words). “Sermon about the Saints.”

The writer, possibly the editor of the periodical, signs himself “Hater of Deceit.” He firmly asserts that the printed sermon of the Reverend David Evans will “serve as a remedy for the mortal poison which [the Latter-day Saints] throw into the minds of the simpletons of this age,” and he, a Baptist, recommends that his readers purchase a copy of the pamphlet by Evans, an Anglican, who, according to John S. Davis, had been brought up in a Presbyterian Academy and also had been an Independent minister.

In his pamphlet, Evans had issued the following challenge:

Let the deaf be shown whose ears have been opened through the power of the Saints. Who of them has loosened the tongue-strings of the mute, causing him to speak the praises of God?

In the Prophet of the Jubilee, John S. Davis had responded to the reverend’s challenge:

We answer that Mr. Evans can see a person who came to hear and speak—yes, speak the praises of God, after being baptized by the Saints, and that recently, and also in Wales. If anyone wants proof, let him go to Newport, and ask for a man, namely Reuben Brinkworth, in the house of Mr. Nash, basket maker, in Market Street; and let him read what the editor of the newspaper there, the Merlin, published in one of the issues for September, 1848.

And in his response, the “Hater of Deceit” discounts the story about Reuben Brinkworth’s hearing and speech being restored, declaring that it was merely “the effect of the electricity of which the air was so full at the time.”

He then presents a brief account of a supposed event that had taken place recently in Wales. According to “Hater,” a woman who had provided lodging to a man knocked lightly on his door the following morning but received no response. A short time later she and her husband went into the room and saw what they thought was a dead man. Just then two other men knocked on the door. “Hater” writes:

As soon as they saw the woman, they said to her, “You have a dead man in the house!” The woman answered that there was; and asked how they knew that? “Oh,” the two men said, “it has been revealed to us by an angel of heaven.” The husband, who was, it seems, a little more cunning than his wife, had been listening silently to this, and said, “Oh, so, certainly; I see through it all now!” Then he took hold of a good cudgel, and having run up to the corpse, he held it over him in such a way that the corpse leaped out of bed, put his clothes on with the greatest of haste, and then ran down the stairs. And having joined his brothers, the prophets, the three went away without delay, without saying to the man and woman of the house so much as, “Good morning to you.”

“Hater” then quotes a long paragraph from Life in the Far West, a book by George Frederick Ruxton (1821–48), a British explorer and travel writer, who wrote articles of the same title for Blackwood’s Magazine using the nom de plume La Bonté. Here is part of that paragraph:

Joe Smith, and other prophets who had recently risen, declared that they were the chosen ones of the Lord; and their general belief was that on the Day of Judgment, he would take his place at the right hand of the throne, and that no one would be allowed to pass into the kingdom of heaven without his touch and seal. One of their main subjects is faith in “spiritual marriage.” Not one woman would be allowed to go to heaven, without having first been “approved” by one of the Saints! To qualify them for this, the woman had first to be received by one of the Mormons as an “earthly wife,” so that they would not approve anyone without having full knowledge about them.

“Hater” concludes,

“There is a description, Mr. Gomer, that is enough to damn the character of the Mormons forever; and I have not heard that they have made any attempt to disprove it.”

1849: January, Seren Gomer (Star of Gomer), p. 17 (375 words). “Greeting to the Doctor of Madness.”

This poem of ten four-line stanzas, authored by “A Small Druid,” is positioned in the periodical immediately after the article authored by the “Hater of Deceit.” One might suspect that the article and the poem might have been penned by the same hand. The poet makes an appeal for “the Doctor” to provide a tonic for an infectious disease then rampant in South Wales that was causing the people to behave insanely—a disease that has been leading people to believe the Book of Mormon and accept the religion it propagates.

It swells their throats so they will not swallow reason,

It brings about weak-headedness; it puts them down terribly;

No Priest or Pope can raise them;

Joe Smith, with his poison, has caused it.

Other indications of the disease are these:

The signs of the Madness are believing the Book of Mormon,

Going with a false teacher, having a dunk in some river,

And speaking, like geese, quite a multitude of languages,

And performing false miracles to deceive the people.

In the ninth stanza, the “Small Druid” makes a fervent appeal:

Please, Doctor of Madness, give the people a tonic,

You will be paid for your trouble from the taxes of the poor.

You will be thanked by many, and you will get a song from me,

If you pull the Madness from the Saints’ cloaks.

End: John S. Davis offers proof of a miracle to the “Hater of Deceit”

On Trial in the Welsh Press

Latter-day Saint Missionaries Declare and Defend the Faith, 1840–1860

Ronald D. Dennis, Editor

1848

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