1857-01-15-New York Tribune-The Mormons and their Leader
The Mormons and their Leader
New York Tribune, 15 January 1857, p. 5
A small but appreciative audience assembled on Tuesday evening in Clinton Hall, Astor place, to listen to a lecture announced to be delivered, under the auspices of the Mercantile Library Association, on "The Mormons and their Leader," by Josiah Quincy, jr., of Boston.
The lecturer began his discourse by adverting to the topographical and geographical peculiarities of Utah, the present home of the Mormons. He then sketched succinctly the chief points connected with the course of the Mormons, from the time of their expulsion from Illinois until their arrival at Salt Lake, their sufferings on the route, and their progress in building up the city of their rest, the rise of their civil and religious institutions, with the prospective certainty of the admission of Utah into the Union of the States. The lecturer next gave a brief outline of the history and doctrines of Mormonism. The sect claimed to be the only true church on earth, and theonly true salvation was through the Melchisedek priesthood. Mr. Quincy related the story of Joe Smith and his story of the Reformed Egyptian book, and the miraculous translating spectacles which did it into excellent English; and the various revelations which he occasionally received, of which this is a sample: "It is important that my servant Joseph Smith, jr., should have a house built in which he may live and translate." One of these special revelations directed the building of a boarding-house, and contained a provision that "Joseph Smith should have a place there free from expense, from generation to generation." Such a church as this now numbered its adherents by hundreds of thousands, and would probably be th prevailing religion of one of our States. The authorship of the Book of Mormon the lecturer attributed to the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, of Pittsburgh, who, in 1812, for the purpose of amusement, wrote, in the peculiar phraseology of the Scriptures, an imaginary history of the wanderings of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This manuscript work subsequently fell into the hands of Sidney Rigdon, subsequently an active cooperator with Joe Smith in the propagation of the Mormon doctrines. An extract from it described the water proof barges "like unto a dish," in top, bottom, sides and ends, with only a hole in the top and bottom, in which the voyage was made across the Pacific. The power of the Mormon religion lay in the priesthood. Joe Smith was the only Yankee who had attempted to do the prophet and he had succeeded most admirably. He deceived by his apparent openness. The lecturer then stated the details of an interview which he had with Joe Smith, at Nauvoo, in 1844. He was received in front of a tavern in the place by the landlord, Mayor, General, President and Prophet—the civil, religious and military head of the community. Smith, in stating the causes of their expulsion from Missouri, said it was the jealousy of the people surrounding them of their growing prosperity; though the gentile version of the matter was that the Mormons, professing to believe that the earth was the Lord's, for the benefit of the Saints, often anticipated the realization of the millennium by taking immediate possession for themselves. Mob law turned against them, and they were driven from the State. Ignorant, helpless, and stripped of all their possessions, the Mormons turned to their prophet and he proved equal to the occasion. Joe Smith bought the land at Nauvoo, and the rise of the land made the proprietors comparatively rich. To build his temple, he exacted from his followers a tenth of their earnings, a tenth of their income and a tenth of their time. The Mormons held the balance of political power in the State, and consequently obtained a charter for his city, and a military organization of all his men, drawing their arms from the United States and subject to him as Lieut. General. He was thus military, civil and religious Governor. The manner of driving off Mormons weak in the faith, or who refused to pay tithes, was next described. Three or four men—Yankees, generally—seated themselves before his house with jack-knives and began whittling pieces of wood. If the obnoxious member came out they followed him whittling, and when he came into his house they would again seat themselves before his door and continue their whittling, and generally three or four days was sufficient to cause the individual to "cut stick" himself. He spent the day in his company, and it was curious to see how he maintained his prophethood to his followers, while he talked like a fellow-man to the lecturer. His followers according to him the gift of translating from all tongues, he steadfastly maintained this, and often made quotations from Oriental tongues, but studiously avoiding an allusion to the Latin and Greek whenever and person was present whom he suspected of any knowledge of those tongues. His modes of bending Scripture to sustain his points and of meeting the arguments of his adversaries were often ingenious, and were eagerly accepted as profound wisdom by his cupee. On one occasion he discoursed upon the limits of Christian forebearance. He said it was true that if a man "smite thee on the right cheek," the Christian should "turn to him his left;" Christian duty has then been performed, and if he then smites thee on thy left cheek, you may pitch into him as quick as you are a mind to. To give additional plausibility to the supposition of his prophetic omniscience, Smith had obtained three mummies which he had unrolled. Some pieces of Egyptian manuscripts he showed to the lecturer. One, he said, was in the handwriting of Moses, another in that of Abraham, and a picture of the rude figures of a man, a woman and a long-legged crocodile, which he said were Adam, Eve and the serpent. The lecturer objected to the probability of the correctness of the representation, as the serpent had legs. Smith, with a ready ingenuity, replied that before the fall the snakes went about on legs, like chickens; and that afterward his legs were taken from him, so that he was compelled to crawl upon his belly as the punishment of his iniquities. The lecturer then gave an interesting statement of the facts which resulted in the murder of Joe Smith and his brother Hyrum, at Carthage, forty days subsequent to his visit. Shortly after, and organized mob drove them away, homeless and without resource. Their exodus across the desert to Salt Lake was one of the strangest events since the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness. What was to be the end of this delusion? The Mormons found great resemblance between their present country and that of the Jews; they had to pass through a desert to their promised land, and they found a new Dead Sea in their Salt Lake. They told of miracles—birds coming to devour the grasshoppers, which were just on the point of producing a famine, by devouring every green herb. The birds, however, were only a species of gulls, and the wonder was how they Mormons could be so completely gulled as they had been by them. They boasted that they had not a single loafer, vagabond or gentleman among them. When gold was discovered in California, their prophet said that the true use of gold was to pave streets and to make culinary utensils, and when they had farms and fields enough they might go and dig as much as they needed. So they staid to clear up farms and build cities, although the land of gold was but just beyond the mountains. Like the Jesuits, they were ready to start at three days' notice for a seven years' journey, and their missionaries had made converts by tens of thousands in England, Wales, and the North of Europe. From these countries continual accessions were made to their numbers, and to prepare for them, they had vast stores of provisions set apart from the tithes. New towns were planted throughout the country in the expectation that they would soon be connected by farms. Mr. Quincy gave his details of the present condition from Stansbury. The spiritual wife system, although not openly avowed at first, was now in full operation. Polygamy was considered perfectly honorable; it was held that no woman could reach heaven without a husband, and the masculine chances for heaven were increased in proportion to the number of wives. Bachelors might see in this one more proof of the universality of the law of compensation. But a recent sermon by Brigham Young had shown that there was a Woman's Rights movement in Utah; he thought that would ere long overthrow the whole system of polygamy. And although the prophet now made all the nominations, he thought that he would soon find it necessary to nominate only the most available candidates. At present the Mormons were loud in their praises of the Union, but if ever they should be turned against us, it was not impossible that some Tamerlane or Genghis Kahn might cross the Mississippi. The best way with their religion was to let it severely alone. No doubt Utah would soon be admitted into the Union as a State. Archimedes offered to move the world if he had but a place to stand. A religious teacher who could inspire his followers as Joseph Smith had done, had found for mind what Archimides asked for matter a place cut of the world by which he could control all that was in it. He thought this faith could not be permanent unless its victims were persecuted. They could not fail soon to learn that polygamy was as destructive to the happiness of man as it was to the dignity of woman. He hoped that it was only a means of peopling this desert portion of the country. Even in that case the effects of these teachings could not be wholly lost, and when in the history of this country it should be asked what American exerted the greatest influence upon the country in this age, it was not impossible, it was even probable, that Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, would be the true answer. [Applause]
