Show the mormon im posture j in n ol 01 old d number of lvida living mgt we e fin find d the following account of bf the origin of the mormon church v and u k founders we trust that the I 1 k jaws views ov of the writer expressed in abour h n 8 thi he T i s n ii nd and roily folly 1 c as nr far removed in the future now ZI as as wh en i lieR ocl ester dwian publish edithe eg the following foli owing from a forthcoming liffe bym r turner entitled a his lory of philip and Gorbar Gorham fiss si pur 1 ehase though nut not entirely new it its is suc succinct cinc aad and communicates some rome acts at coan coming within the authors author per knowledge know redge ed ge As we are now at the home of the lilyin sia sight of monnon aill ill a brief pioneer history will e looked for far of the strange and fl angularly ngul arly successful religious sect sect babu ithe Mormon sand brief it ii must be 0 merely stat starling ling itin it in its t carbert car career eert and leaving it to io theia especial es bistor sta to cetha trace them to kirtland nau nall aft ato beaver island and utah or the alike je AI joseph v ph smith tha father fa iller of the et joeph smith jr wa from we me Nei river N H he jn n or near Palmyra vil nl as M ear early lilis as 1819 was the occupant u it wone e new laud land on I staf ard rd street arthe town of manchester 9 ne ner r the line lindi of Pait palmyra nyra mormon ormon Hill isicar the plank toad lead about half balf way wa between the villages il laffe ofT of palmyra almyra and manchester t ith had bad been a t dt A A was a good deal of a in in scriptural knowledge ledge but the seed of revelation was sown on weal weak gound ground he e was a great babbler credulous not es especially industrious a motley di darger dj I 1 er pro prone aie to the a and od withal a little given to difficulties with heigh neighbors bors and petty lawsuits not a very avery propitious account of the father of a prophet the founder of a tate taie but there was aai a tomania woman in the case mrs smith was a woman of strong uncultivated intellect artful and cunning imbued with an ill regulated religious en husia sm the incipient hints the firs i givings out that a prophet was to spring from her humble household came from her and when matters mailers were maturin maturing gior for denouement the she gave out oat that such and suh ones always fixing upon those who had both money and cm dulity were to be instruments in some ireat great work of new revelation the old man was vas rather her faithful worker coworker co or executive exponent their son ilvah alvah wit was origin originally 1 alik intended or designated by fireside fiedl consultations and column 01 and ild mysterious iny rious out dobr hints as the he fahr forthcoming aiming prophet the mother and the be father said he was the chosen choden one but alvah however spiritual pi ritual he be way may have been be en had a varnal famal appetite ate too many green turn turnips ps sickened lc and died thustle thus the world lo 10 lost st a prophet and mormonism Monnon ism a leader the designs impi bously and rid wickedly attributed to provi providence ence were defeated and all in consequence of a surfeit of raw turnip who will talk of the cackling geese of rome or any other small sma and annb innocent causes of mighty events after af t this the mantle of the prophet s rj 9 be and one oliver cowdery 0 ow e v had wove be of it fell upon their I 1 next neit eldest son joseph smith jr and a most unpromising recipient reci plent of such a trust wai was this same joseph afterwards jo smith he was lounging idle not to say v vicious cloud i and possessed of less than ordinary intellect Theauthor the athora au hora own sown recollections of him are distinct he used to come into the village of palmyra with little jagson as of wood froni his i backwoods back woods home some sometimes times i pat r roni 0 a village too freeh sometimes finding an odd job to do 0 about the store of Seymore Scovell and once a week he would stroll into the office of the old palmyra register foi his fathers paper how impious in in us young dar dared devils vils to once in a while blacken the face of the then meddling inquisitive lounger but afterwards prophet with the old fashioned balls when he h used to 10 put himself in the way of the working of the old fashioned ramage press the editor of the cultivator at albany esteemed este emea as he may justly consider himself for his subsequent enterprise and usefulness may mayth think fak with co contrition niri tion and repentance that he once helped thus to disfigure the face of a prophet and remotely the founder of a state but joseph had a lit little de ambition and an d some very laudable aspirations the mothers intellect occasionally shone out in i him feebly especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of niora 1 or political ethics in in our juvenile debiting clubs club which we moved fionn to the old red schoolhouse school house ot on durfee street to get rid of the annoyance of critic critics that used to drop in upon us s iii 10 the tie villa village me abd subsequently kiy after catching a spir spark bof of methodism in the ca camp m away down in the woods onute vienna road he be was ft as i a vir vary y passably passable exhorter horter ei in e even ening meetings I 1 legends of hidden treasure had long designated mormon hill as the repository old joseph had dug there and young joseph jol h had not only heard his hief father and smother mother relate tho ine marvellous marcellous marv ellous tales isles of buried ealah h but ut had acco accompanied a a 1 e d his father in the midnight mid dight ale lr and andin incantations canta bof of the spirits itt that guarded it i if a buried bened rei revelation elation atas was IS id be exhumed how natural was wash it that thai the smith sinith family with h their ie sedulity dulity and their assumed presentiment that prophet was to come from theia household s should tie be reconnected connic connected ted wit it and that mormon hillet hill wis was the place where it would be found it is believed i by those thosa illo tho were wert b best est acquainted i v aith ith th the e E S I 1 a in ily and most conversant with v all the gold bible movements movements th thai a there is no ho foundation for the statement that their original manuscript wa written by a mr spaulding ou ofphy ahio 0 A supplement to the G gold old B ble i ae e the book of commandments in all probability was written written by Higdon rigdon and he may have been aided dings manuscript but the ak itself is without doubt doubts a eliod octia of the aided by aliw r cowdry who was school tea teacher cheron on stif stafford street an intimate of tie tp smith family and identified withie with 4 be whole matter the production asdall as all will conclude who ao have read it if tr r even given it a cursory review idiot that of an educated man or won the bungling attempt to thea the style of the scriptures th e intermix ture lure of modern phraseology the ignorance of chronology and geography its utter rudeness crudeness and as a whole stamp its char character litter and clearly exhibit its vulgar origin it is a strange medley of scripture romance and bad compositions the primitive design cf mrs smith her husband jo and cowdery was moneymaking money makin making ba ei d with which perhaps ww was a L deairs I 1 F ri for n notoriety 0 tori ety to be obtained by il i c cheat eat a and rid fraud th ulca act of being the founders of anew a new seh sect was an after thought kg b 10 ta they aided by other fi tS iSit ir ing destitute of ni means hansfor for carrying out their plans a victim was selected to obviate that imbat difficulty martin harris was a farmer of palmyra the owners owner of a good farm and an honest worthy citizen but especially given to religious enthusiasm new creeds the more extravagant the better a monomaniac in fact i joseph smith upon whom the mantle of prophecy had fallen after the sad ai began to make inake demonsi demonstrations rations he inform informed edI Harris larris of the great discovery and that it had been revealed to him that he be harris vas a chosen instrument to aid in the great work of surprising the with a new revelation they had hit upon the right man he mor mortgaged aged his fine farm to pay for brining the book assumed a grave rn mysterious and unearthly deportment md made here and there among his ic acquaintances inces solemn annunciation s of the geat great event that was tra irani n irino his is version of the discover descove T as c communicated m munica ted to him by b y the prophet joseph himself is well vell by several respect respectable ab e citizen of palmyra to whom be hamade made jarly farly disclosures htwa it was in substance subs taice as follows I 1 the prophet joseph wal direct directed ei by an angel where to finds find J by ecca v atiqi n at th t h elace aate aft eways ids called mormon H hill i 11 the gold cold bites and wis nas compel I 1 ed by the anal an 1 much against his w will ill to be the itter interpreter preter of odthe the sac ed record they untamed on tamed and publish it if to uie 1116 word woid that the plates contained a of the ancient inhabitants of this country engraved by Mormon the on n of ne pin thai tha on afi b be top 0 the box c containing aft plates a pa par of large were wera found the atones ur or glass set in which were to all but bu t the prophet that bep ed to mormon the engmar of the ia plates and without them he plates could nat not be read harrs assumed that himself and cowery cowdery were the chosen amanuenses ati ad that the prophet joseph joiseph curtained from the world i and rid themi them with hii spectacles read from the gold plates ahat they committed to paper hrris exhibited t to 0 an informant of the author the title page op it was d vile biety and bunglingly concentric circles b between e above and below which were characters with little resemblance to letters apparently a miserable imitation of hieroglyphics the writer may may somewhere have hare seen to guard guara against profane curiosity the prophet prop het las ins given out that no one but himself bot even his chosen operators cooperators co must be permitted to see them on pain of instant death harris had bad never seen the plates but the glowing account of their massive richness ix ex cited other oiher t than ill ll 11 spiritual hopes and he upon one occasion occasion got 0 t a village silversmith to help him estimate their balue taking as a basis the ibe prophets account of their dimensions it was a blending of the spiritual and utilitarian that threw a shadow of doubt upon martins sincerity this and some anticipations be indulged in as to the profits that would arise arise from the sale of the gold bible made made it then as it is now a mooted question whether hether i he was vias altogether a dupe the wife 0 of f harris was as a rank infidel and heretic touching the whole thing and decidedly opposed to her husbands participation in it with sacrilegious hands she seized over a hundred of the manuscript pages of the ahe new revelation and burned or secreted them it ms vi as agreed by smith smith and family cowdery ind and harris Harr not to transcribe scrib e these again but to let so much of the new revelation drop out as the evil spirit would get gat up a story that tha t the s second e cond translation did not agree with the first A very ingenious method of guilding guir guarding ding against the possibility that mrs harris ris had preserved the manisc pt with which they might be confronted con ante should they attempt a in an i imitation a 0 0 cheit awn ly ic ip patch P 0 rk k pophet d did d not not t let t af ye u 0 or r the t e household ue ouse hold of the impostors were in fault after he had bad told his story in his absence sence ethe the rest of the family made a new version of it wone toone of their neighbors they showed him such a pebble as may any day be picked up on the shore of lake ontario the common hornblende horil blende carefully wrapped in cotton and kept in a mysterious box said it was by looking at this stone in in a hat the light excluded that joseph discovered the plates elates this it will pe be observed diners differs mal ma l serially teri ally from josephs story of the angel it was the same stone the smiths had used in money digging and in in some pretended discoveries of 0 stolen property long before the gold bible demonstration the smith family bad wih some sinister object in in view view whispered e d another h r f fraud d in the ears of the t the h e c credulous r ed ua s athey they pretended that in digging for money at mormon hill they came across a chest three by two feet in in size covered with a dark colored stone in the center of the stone nasa was a white spot about the size size of sixpence enlarging the spot increased td the size of a awen ty four pound shot and then e exploded 1 I dod with a terrible noise noise the ch chest est vanished and all lasutter was wa utter sutter darkness it may be safely presumed umed that in no other instance have prophets and the chosen and designated of angels been quite as calculating and worldly as were i ere those of Staf stafford Tord street Mormon Hilland palmyra the only business contract veritable instrument rn nt in writing that was ever ex exe by spiritual agents has been preserved and should be among the archives of the new state of utah it is signed by the prophet joseph him himself elf and witnessed by oliver cowdery and secures to martin harris harais one half of f the proceeds of the sale of the gold bible until he was fully reimbursed in the sum of 2500 the cost of printing print ilig the afterthought after thought which has been alluded to the enlarging of original intentions was at the suggestion of S rigdon of ohio who made his appearance and blended himself uni self with t the he poorly devised scheme of imposture about the time the book was is enad from the th press H ly 1 bore bo e the side title of a baptist st elder but b had hr ad by some 0 me previous freak if the author is rightly informed forfeited his standi standing n g with that able religious denomination d e n omi nation D designing ambitious and dishonest under the semblance of sanctity and assumed spirituality he was just the tha man fc for r the use of the smith household and their half d dupe and half balf de signing abettors abet tors and they were just the fit instruments to be desired he became at once the hamlet or more appropriately perhaps the af the play under the auspices of rigdon a new sect seat the cormons mormons Mor Alor mons was projected prophecies dejl thick and fast from the lips of joseph old mrs smith riss umed all the airs of a mother of a prophet that particular family of smiths were singled out and became exalted above 1001 e all their legion of namesakes name sakes the bald baid clumsy cheat found here and there an all enthusiast a monomaniac or a i knave in and around its primitive locality to help it u upon pon its start and soon like another scheme of imposture that had bad a littleox little litt leof of dignity and plausibility in in it 1 it had its it or flight to la kirtland then to nauvoo then to a short resting place in missouri and ad then on and over the rocky mountains to utah or the salt lake banks printing nd og offices ceste temples m pies citie sand finally a slate state have arisen under iti auspices converts have bave multiplied to 1 teisa tens of thousands in several of the aun countries of europe there are preachers and organized organised sed sects of cormons mormons Mor mons bg ii heiers ievers in ill the di divere ine assion ni assion of joseph smith ca and here the subject must la 6 dismissed IT if it it has been treated bight ly with a h is lie lei 01 jit J it of no other oilier treatment anere T nere is is no dignity about the whole |