Having presented the evidence which shows that the historical part of the Mormon Bible was supplied by the Spaulding manuscript, we may now pay attention to other evidence, which indicates that the entire conception of a revelation of golden plates by an angel was not even original, and also that its suggestor was Rigdon. This is a subject which has been overlooked by investigators of the Mormon Bible.
That the idea of the revelation as described by Smith in his autobiography was not original is shown by the fact that a similar divine message, engraved on plates, was announced to have been received from an angel nearly six hundred years before the alleged visit of an angel to Smith. These original plates were described as of copper, and the recipient was a monk named Cyril, from whom their contents passed into the possession of the Abbot Joachim, whose "Everlasting Gospel," founded thereon, was offered to the church as supplanting the New Testament, just as the New Testament had supplanted the Old, and caused so serious a schism that Pope Alexander IV took the severest measures against it.*
The evidence that the history of the "Everlasting Gospel" of the thirteenth century supplied the idea of the Mormon Bible lies not only in the resemblance between the celestial announcement of both, but in the fact that both were declared to have the same important purport—as a forerunner of the end of the world—and that the name "Everlasting Gospel" was adopted and constantly used in connection with their message by the original leaders in the Mormon church.
If it is asked, How could Rigdon become acquainted with the story of the original "Everlasting Gospel," the answer is that it was just such subjects that would most attract his attention, and that his studies had led him into directions where the story of Cyril's plates would probably have been mentioned. He was a student of every subject out of which he could evolve a sect, from the time of his Pittsburg pastorate. Hepworth Dixon said, "He knew the writings of Maham, Gates, and Boyle, writings in which love and marriage are considered in relation to Gospel liberty and the future life."* H. H. Bancroft, noting his appointment as Professor of Church History in Nauvoo University, speaks of him as "versed in history, belles-lettres, and oratory."** Mrs. James A. Garfield told Mrs. Dickenson that Rigdon taught her father Latin and Greek.*** David Whitmer, who was so intimately acquainted with the early history of the church, testified: "Rigdon was a thorough biblical scholar, a man of fine education and a powerful orator."**** A writer, describing Rigdon while the church was at Nauvoo, said, "There is no divine in the West more learned in biblical literature and the history of the world than he."***** All this indicates that a knowledge of the earlier "Everlasting Gospel" was easily within Rigdon's reach. We may even surmise the exact source of this knowledge. Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern" was at his disposal. Editions of it had appeared in London in 1765, 1768, 1774, 1782, 1790, 1806, 1810, and 1826, and among the abridgments was one published in Philadelphia in 1812. In this work he could have read as follows:—
"About the commencement of this [the thirteenth] century there were handed about in Italy several pretended prophecies of the famous Joachim, abbot of Sora in Calabria, whom the multitude revered as a person divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious prophets of ancient times. The greatest part of these predictions were contained in a certain book entitled, 'The Everlasting Gospel,' and which was also commonly called the Book of Joachim. This Joachim, whether a real or fictitious person we shall not pretend to determine, among many other future events, foretold the destruction of the Church of Rome, whose corruptions he censured with the greatest severity, and the promulgation of a new and more perfect gospel in the age of the Holy Ghost, by a set of poor and austere ministers, whom God was to raise up and employ for that purpose."
Here is a perfect outline of the scheme presented by the original Mormons, with Joseph as the divinely inspired prophet, and an "Everlasting Gospel," the gift of an angel, promulgated by poor men like the travelling Mormon elders.
The original suggestion of an "Everlasting Gospel" is found in Revelation xiv. 6 and 7:—
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water."** "Bisping (after Gerlach) takes Rev. xiv. 6-11 to foretell that three great events at the end of the last world-week are immediately to precede Christ's second advent (1) the announcement of the 'eternal' Gospel to the whole world (Matt. xxiv. 14); (2)the Fall of Babylon; (3)a warning to all who worship the beast.... Burger says this vision can denote nothing but a last admonition and summons to conversion shortly before the end."—Note in "Commentary by Bishops and Other Clergy of the Anglican Church."
This was the angel of Cyril; this the announcement of those "latter days" from which the Mormon church, on Rigdon's motion, soon took its name.
That Rigdon's attention had been attracted to an "Everlasting Gospel" is proved by the constant references made to it in writings of which he had at least the supervision, from the very beginning of the church. Thus, when he preached his first sermon before a Mormon audience—on the occasion of his visit to Smith at Palmyra in 1830—he took as his text a part of the version of Revelation xiv. which he had put into the Mormon Bible (1 Nephi xiii. 40), and in his sermon, as reported by Tucker, who heard it, holding the Scriptures in one hand and the Mormon Bible in the other, he said, "that they were inseparably necessary to complete the everlasting gospel of the Saviour Jesus Christ." In the account, in Smith's autobiography, of the first description of the buried book given to Smith by the angel, its two features are named separately, first, "an account of the former inhabitants of this continent," and then "the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel." That Rigdon never lost sight of the importance, in his view, of an "Everlasting Gospel" may be seen from the following quotation from one of his articles in his Pittsburg organ, the Messenger and Advocate, of June 15, 1845, after his expulsion from Nauvoo: "It is a strict observance of the principles of the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ, as contained in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Book of Covenants, which alone will insure a man an inheritance in the kingdom of our God."
The importance attached to the "Everlasting Gospel" by the founders of the church is seen further in the references to it in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," which it is not necessary to cite,* and further in a pamphlet by Elder Moses of New York (1842), entitled "A Treatise on the Fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, setting forth its First Principles, Promises, and Blessings," in which he argued that the appearance of the angel to Smith was in direct line with the Scriptural teaching, and that the last days were near.
In his accounts to his neighbors of the revelation to him of the golden plates on which the "record" was written, Smith always declared that no person but him could look on those plates and live. But when the printed book came out, it, like all subsequent editions to this day, was preceded by the following "testimonies":—
"THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES
"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shewn unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes, nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honour be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.
"OLIVER COWDERY, DAVID WHITMER, MARTIN HARRIS. "AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF THE EIGHT WITNESSES
"Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shewn unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shewn unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.
"CHRISTIAN WHITMER, HIRAM PAGE, JACOB WHITMER, JOSEPH SMITH, SEN., PETER WHITMER, JUN., HYRUM SMITH, JOHN WHITMER, SAMUEL H. SMITH."
In judging of the value of this testimony, we may first inquire, what the prophet has to say about it, and may then look into the character and qualification of the witnesses.
We find a sufficiently full explanation of Testimony No. 1 in Smith's autobiography and in his "revelations." Nothing could be more natural than that such men as the prophet was dealing with should demand a sight of any plates from which he might be translating. Others besides Harris made such a demand, and Smith repeated the warning that to look on them was death. This might satisfy members of his own family, but it did not quiet his scribes, and he tells us that Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Harris "teased me so much" (these are his own words) that he gave out a "revelation" in March, 1829 (Sec. 5, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which the Lord was represented as saying that the prophet had no power over the plates except as He granted it, but that to his testimony would be added "the testimony of three of my servants, whom I shall call and ordain, unto whom I will show these things, "adding," and to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." The Lord was distrustful of Harris, and commanded him not to be talkative on the subject, but to say nothing about it except, "I have seen them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God."
Smith's own account of the showing of the plates to these three witnesses is so luminous that it may be quoted. After going out into the woods, they had to stand Harris off by himself because of his evil influence. Then:—
"We knelt down again, and had not been many minutes engaged in prayer when presently we beheld a light above us in the air of exceeding brightness; and behold an angel stood before us. In his hands he held the plates which we had been praying for these to have a view of; he turned over the leaves one by one, so that we could see them and discover the engravings thereon distinctly. He then addressed himself to David Whitmer and said, 'David, blessed is the Lord and he that keeps his commandments'; when immediately afterward we heard a voice from out of the bright light above us saying, 'These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them is correct, and I command you to bear record of what you now see and hear.'
"I now left David and Oliver, and went into pursuit of Martin Harris, whom I found at a considerable distance, fervently engaged in prayer. He soon told me, however, that he had not yet prevailed with the Lord, and earnestly requested me to join him in prayer, that he might also realize the same blessings which we had just received. We accordingly joined in prayer, and immediately obtained our desires; for before we had yet finished, the same vision was opened to our view, AT LEAST IT WAS AGAIN TO ME [Joe thus refuses to vouch for Harris's declaration on the subject]; and I once more beheld and heard the same things; whilst, at the same moment, Martin Harris cried out, apparently in ecstasy of joy, 'Tis enough, mine eyes hath beheld,' and, jumping up, he shouted 'Hosannah,' blessing God, and otherwise rejoiced exceedingly."*
If this story taxes the credulity of the reader, his doubts about the value of this "testimony" will increase when he traces the history of the three witnesses. Surely, if any three men in the church should remain steadfast, mighty pillars of support for the prophet in his future troubles, it should be these chosen witnesses to the actual existence of the golden plates. Yet every one of them became an apostate, and every one of them was loaded with all the opprobrium that the church could pile upon him.
Cowdery's reputation was locally bad at the time. "I was personally acquainted with Oliver Cowdery," said Danforth Booth, an old resident of Palmyra, in 1880. "He was a pettifogger; their (the Smiths') cat-paw to do their dirty work."* Smith's trouble with him, which began during the work of translating, continued, and Smith found it necessary to say openly in a "revelation" given out in Ohio in 1831 (Sec. 69), when preparations were making for a trip of some of the brethren to Missouri, "It is not wisdom in me that he should be intrusted with the commandments and the monies which he shall carry unto the land of Zion, except one go with him who will be true and faithful."
By the time Smith took his final departure to Missouri, Cowdery and David and John Whitmer had lost caste entirely, and in June, 1838, they fled to escape the Danites at Far West. The letter of warning addressed to them and signed by more than eighty Mormons, giving them three days in which to depart, contained the following accusations:—
"After Oliver Cowdery had been taken by a state warrant for stealing, and the stolen property found in the house of William W. Phelps; in which nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver Cowdery stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer, and John Whitmer to William W. Phelps; and then the officers of law found it. While in the hands of an officer, and under an arrest for this vile transaction, and, if possible, to hide your shame from the world like criminals (which, indeed, you were), you appealed to our beloved brethren, President Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, men whose characters you had endeavored to destroy by every artifice you could invent, not even the basest lying excepted....
"The Saints in Kirtland having elected Oliver Cowdery to a justice of the peace, he used the power of that office to take their most sacred rights from them, and that contrary to law. He supported a parcel of blacklegs, and in disturbing the worship of the Saints; and when the men whom the church had chosen to preside over their meetings endeavored to put the house to order, he helped (and by the authority of his justice's office too) these wretches to continue their confusion; and threatened the church with a prosecution for trying to put them out of the house; and issued writs against the Saints for endeavoring to sustain their rights; and bound themselves under heavy bonds to appear before his honor; and required bonds which were both inhuman and unlawful; and one of these was the venerable father, who had been appointed by the church to preside—a man of upwards of seventy years of age, and notorious for his peaceable habits.
"Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Lyman E. Johnson, united with a gang of counterfeiters, thieves, liars and blacklegs of the deepest dye, to deceive, cheat and defraud the Saints out of their property, by every art and stratagem which wickedness could invent; using the influence of the vilest persecutions to bring vexatious lawsuits, villainous prosecutions, and even stealing not excepted.... During the full career of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer's bogus money business, it got abroad into the world that they were engaged in it, and several gentlemen were preparing to commence a prosecution against Cowdery; he finding it out, took with him Lyman E. Johnson, and fled to Far West with their families; Cowdery stealing property and bringing it with him, which has been, within a few weeks past, obtained by the owner by means of a search warrant, and he was saved from the penitentiary by the influence of two influential men of the place. He also brought notes with him upon which he had received pay, and made an attempt to sell them to Mr. Arthur of Clay County."*
Rigdon, who was the author of this arraignment, realizing that the enemies of the church would not fail to make use of this aspersion of the character of the witnesses, attempted to "hedge" by saying, in the same document, "We wish to remind you that Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were among the principal of those who were the means of gathering us to this place by their testimony which they gave concerning the plates of the Book of Mormon, that they were shown to them by an angel; which testimony we believe now as much as before you had so scandalously disgraced it." Could affrontery go to greater lengths?
Cowdery and David Whitmer fled to Richmond, Missouri, where Whitmer lived until his death in January, 1888. Cowdery went to Tiffin, Ohio, where, after failing to obtain a position as an editor because of his Mormon reputation, he practised law. While living there he renounced his Mormon views, joined the Methodist church, and became superintendent of a Sunday-school. Later he moved to Wisconsin, but, after being defeated for the legislature there, he recanted his Methodist belief, and rejoined the Saints while they were at Council Bluffs, in October, 1848, after the main body had left for Salt Lake Valley. He addressed a meeting there by invitation, testifying to the truth of the Book of Mormon, and the mission of Smith as a prophet, and saying that he wanted to be rebaptized into the church, not as a leader, but simply as a member.* He did not, however, go to Utah with the Saints, but returned to his old friend Whitmer in Missouri, and died there in 1850. It has been stated that he offered to give a full renunciation of the Mormon faith when he united with the Methodists at Tiffin, if required, but asked to be excused from doing so on the ground that it would invite criticism and bring him into contempt.** One of his Tiffin acquaintances afterward testified that Cowdery confessed to him that, when he signed the "testimony," he "was not one of the best men in the world," using his own expression.*** The Mormons were always grateful to him for his silence under their persecutions, and the Millennial Star, in a notice of his death, expressed satisfaction that in the days of his apostasy "he never, in a single instance, cast the least doubt on his former testimony," adding, "May he rest in peace, to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection into eternal life, is the earnest desire of all Saints."
The Whitmers were a Dutch family, known among their neighbors as believers in witches and in the miraculous generally, as has been shown in Mother Smith's account of their sending for Joseph. A "revelation" to the three witnesses which first promised them a view of the plates (Sec. 17) told them, "It is BY YOUR FAITH you shall obtain a view of them," and directed them to testify concerning the plates, "that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., may not be destroyed." One of the converts who joined the Mormons at Kirtland, Ohio, testified in later years that David Whitmer confessed to her that he never actually saw the plates, explaining his testimony thus: "Suppose that you had a friend whose character was such that you knew it impossible that he could lie; then, if he described a city to you which you had never seen, could you not, by the eye of faith, see the city just as he described it?"*
The Mormons have found consolation in the fact that Whitmer continued to affirm his belief in the authenticity of the Mormon Bible to the day of his death. He declared, however, that Smith and Young had led the flock astray, and, after the open announcement of polygamy in Utah, he announced a church of his own, called "The Church of Christ," refusing to affiliate even with the Reorganized Church because of the latter's adherence to Smith. In his "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon," a pamphlet issued in his eighty-second year, he said, "Now, in 1849 the Lord saw fit to manifest unto John Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and myself nearly all the remaining errors of doctrine into which we had been led by the heads of the church." The reader from all this can form an estimate of the trustworthiness of the second witness on such a subject.
We have already learned a great deal about Martin Harris's mental equipment. A lawyer of standing in Palmyra told Dr. Clark that, after Harris had signed the "testimony," he pressed him with the question: "Did you see the plates with your natural eyes, just as you see this pencil case in my hand? Now say yes or no." Harris replied (in corroboration of Joe's misgiving at the time): "Why, I did not see them as I do that pencil case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith. I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me—though at the time they were covered over with a cloth."*
Harris followed Smith to Ohio and then to Missouri, but was ever a trouble to him, although Smith always found his money useful. In 1831, in Missouri, it required a "revelation" (Sec. 58) to spur him to "lay his monies before the Bishop." As his money grew scarcer, he received less and less recognition from the Mormon leaders, and was finally expelled from the church. Smith thus referred to him in the Elders' Journal, July, 1837, one of his publications in Ohio: "There are negroes who wear white skins as well as black ones, granny Parish, and others who acted as lackeys, such as Martin Harris."
Harris did not appear on the scene during the stay of the Mormons in Illinois, having joined the Shakers and lived with them a year or two. When Strang claimed the leadership of the church after Smith's death, Harris gave him his support, and was sent by him with others to England in 1846 to do missionary work. His arrival there was made the occasion of an attack on him by the Millennial Star, which, among other things, said:—
"We do not feel to warn the Saints against him, for his own unbridled tongue will soon show out specimens of folly enough to give any person a true index to the character of the man; but if the Saints wish to know what the Lord hath said of him, they may turn to the 178th page of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the person there called a WICKED MAN is no other than Martin Harris, and he owned to it then, but probably might not now. It is not the first time the Lord chose a wicked man as a witness. Also on page 193, read the whole revelation given to him, and ask yourselves if the Lord ever talked in that way to a good man. Every one can see that he must have been a wicked man."*
Harris visited Palmyra in 1858. He then said that his property was all gone, that he had declined a restoration to the Mormon church, but that he continued to believe in Mormonism. He thought better of his declination, however, and sought a reunion with the church in Utah in 1870. His backslidings had carried him so far that the church authorities told him it would be necessary for him to be rebaptized. This he consented to with some reluctance, after, as he said, "he had seen his father seeking his aid. He saw his father at the foot of a ladder, striving to get up to him, and he went down to him, taking him by the hand, and helped him up."* He settled in Cache County, Utah, where he died on July 10, 1875, in his ninety-third year. "He bore his testimony to the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon a short time before he departed," wrote his son to an inquirer, "and the last words he uttered, when he could not speak the sentence, were 'Book,' 'Book,' 'Book.'"
The precarious character of Smith's original partners in the Bible business is further illustrated by his statement that, in the summer of 1830, Cowdery sent him word that he had discovered an error in one of Smith's "revelations,"* and that the Whitmer family agreed with him on the subject. Smith was as determined in opposing this questioning of his divine authority as he always was in stemming any opposition to his leadership, and he made them all acknowledge their error. Again, when Smith returned to Fayette from Harmony, in August, 1830 (more than a year after the plates were shown to the witnesses), he found that "Satan had been lying in wait," and that Hiram Page, of the second list of witnesses, had been obtaining revelations through a "peek-stone" of his own, and that, what was more serious, Cowdery and the Whitmer family believed in them. The result of this was an immediate "revelation" (Sec. 28) directing Cowdery to go and preach the Gospel to the Lamanites (Indians) on the western border, and to take along with him Hiram Page, and tell him that the things he had written by means of the "peek-stone" were not of the Lord.
Neither Smith's autobiography nor the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" contains any explanation of the second "testimony." The list of persons who signed it, however, leaves little doubt that the prophet yielded to their "teasing" as he did to that of the original three. The first four signers were members of the Whitmer family. Hiram Page was a root-doctor by calling, and a son-in-law of Peter Whitmer, Sr. The three Smiths were the prophet's father and two of his brothers.*
The favorite Mormon reply to any question as to the value of these "testimonies" is the challenge, "Is there a person on the earth who can prove that these eleven witnesses did not see the plates?" Curiously, the prophet himself can be cited to prove this, in the words of the revelation granting a sight of the plates to the first three, which said, "And to none else will I grant this power, to receive this same testimony among this generation." A footnote to this declaration in the "Doctrine and Covenants" offers, as an explanation of Testimony No. 2; the statement that others "may receive a knowledge by other manifestations." This is well meant but transparent.
Mother Smith in later years added herself to these witnesses. She said to the Rev. Henry Caswall, in Nauvoo, in 1842, "I have myself seen and handled the golden plates." Mr. Caswall adds:—
"While the old woman was thus delivering herself, I fixed my eyes steadily upon her. She faltered and seemed unwilling to meet my glances, but gradually recovered her self-possession. The melancholy thought entered my mind that this poor old creature was not simply a dupe of her son's knavery, but that she had taken an active part in the deception."
Two matters have been cited by Mormon authorities to show that there was nothing so very unusual in the discovery of buried plates containing engraved letters. Announcement was made in 1843 of the discovery near Kinderhook, Illinois, of six plates similar to those described by Smith. The story, as published in the Times and Seasons, with a certificate signed by nine local residents, set forth that a merchant of the place, named Robert Wiley, while digging in a mound, after finding ashes and human bones, came to "a bundle that consisted of six plates of brass, of a bell shape, each having a hole near the small end, and a ring through them all"; and that, when cleared of rust, they were found to be "completely covered with characters that none as yet have been able to read." Hyde, accepting this story, printed a facsimile of one of these plates on the cover of his book, and seems to rest on Wiley's statement his belief that "Smith did have plates of some kind." Stenhouse,* who believed that Smith and his witnesses did not perpetrate in the new Bible an intentional fraud, but thought they had visions and "revelations," referring to the Kinderhook plates, says that they were "actually and unquestionably discovered by one Mr. R. Wiley." Smith himself, after no one else could read the writing on them, declared that he had translated them, and found them to be a history of a descendant of Ham.**
But the true story of the Kinderhook plates was disclosed by an affidavit made by W. Fulgate of Mound Station, Brown County, Illinois, before Jay Brown, Justice of the Peace, on June 30, 1879. In this he stated that the plates were "a humbug, gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and myself. Whitton (who was a blacksmith) cut the plates out of some pieces of copper Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid, and putting it on the plates. When they were finished, we put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with the rust." He describes the burial of the plates and their digging up, among the spectators of the latter being two Mormon elders, Marsh and Sharp. Sharp declared that the Lord had directed them to witness the digging. The plates were borrowed and shown to Smith, and were finally given to one "Professor" McDowell of St. Louis, for his museum.*
In attacking Professor Anthon's statement concerning the alleged hieroglyphics shown to him by Harris, Orson Pratt, in his "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thought that he found substantial support for Smith's hieroglyphics in the fact that "Two years after the Book of Mormon appeared in print, Professor Rafinesque, in his Atlantic journal for 1832, gave to the public a facsimile of American glyphs,* found in Mexico. They are arranged in columns.... By an inspection of the facsimile of these forty-six elementary glyphs, we find all the particulars which Professor Anthon ascribes to the characters which he says 'a plain-looking countryman' presented to him. "These" elementary glyphs of Rafinesque are some of the characters found on the famous "Tablet of the Cross" in the ruins of Palenque, Mexico, since so fully described by Stevens. A facsimile of the entire Tablet may be found on page 355, Vol. IV, Bancroft's "Native Races of the Pacific States." Rafinesque selected these characters from the Tablet, and arranged them in columns alongside of other ancient writings, in order to sustain his argument that they resembled an old Libyan alphabet. Rafinesque was a voluminous writer both on archaeological and botanical subjects, but wholly untrustworthy. Of his Atlantic Journal (of which only eight numbers appeared) his biographer, R. E. Call, says that it had "absolutely no scientific value." Professor Asa Gray, in a review of his botanical writings in Silliman's Journal, Vol. XL, No. 2, 1841, said, "He assumes thirty to one hundred years as the average time required for the production of a new species, and five hundred to one thousand for a new genus." Professor Gray refers to a paper which Rafinesque sent to the editor of a scientific journal describing twelve new species of thunder and lightning. He was very fond of inventing names, and his designation of Palenque as Otolum was only an illustration of this. So much for the 'elementary glyphs.'"
The Mormon Bible,* both in a literary and a theological sense, is just such a production as would be expected to result from handing over to Smith and his fellow-"translators" a mass of Spaulding's material and new doctrinal matter for collation and copying. Not one of these men possessed any literary skill or accurate acquaintance with the Scriptures. David Whitmer, in an interview in Missouri in his later years, said, "So illiterate was Joseph at that time that he didn't know that Jerusalem was a walled city, and he was utterly unable to pronounce many of the names that the magic power of the Urim and Thummim revealed." Chronology, grammar, geography, and Bible history were alike ignored in the work. An effort was made to correct some of these errors in the early days of the church, and Smith speaks of doing some of this work himself at Nauvoo. An edition issued there in 1842 contains on the title-page the words, "Carefully revised by the translator." Such corrections have continued to the present day, and a comparison of the latest Salt Lake edition with the first has shown more than three thousand changes.
The person who for any reason undertakes the reading of this book sets before himself a tedious task. Even the orthodox Mormons have found this to be true, and their Bible has played a very much less considerable part in the church worship than Smith's "revelations" and the discourses of their preachers. Referring to Orson Pratt's* labored writings on this Bible, Stenhouse says, "Of the hundreds of thousands of witnesses to whom God has revealed the truth of the 'Book of Mormon,' Pratt knows full well that comparatively few indeed have ever read that book, know little or nothing intelligently of its contents, and take little interest in it."** An examination of its contents is useful, therefore, rather as a means of proving the fraudulent character of its pretension to divine revelation than as a means of ascertaining what the members of the Mormon church are taught.
The following page presents a facsimile of the title-page of the first edition of this Bible. The editions of to-day substitute "Translated by Joseph Smith, Jun.," for "By Joseph Smith, junior, author and proprietor."
The first edition contains 588 duodecimo pages, and is divided into 15 books which are named as follows: "First Book of Nephi, his reign and ministry," 7 chapters; "Second Book of Nephi," 15 chapters; "Book of Jacob, the Brother of Nephi," 5 chapters; "Book of Enos," 1 chapter; "Book of Jarom," 1 chapter; "Book of Omni," 1 chapter; "Words of Mormon," 1 chapter; "Book of Mosiah," 13 chapters; "Book of Alma, a Son of Alma," 30 chapters; "Book of Helaman," 5 chapters; "Third Book of Nephi, the Son of Nephi, which was the son of Helaman," 14 chapters; "Fourth Book of Nephi, which is the Son of Nephi, one of the Disciples of Jesus Christ," 1 chapter; "Book of Mormon," 4 chapters; "Book of Ether," 6 chapters; "Book of Moroni," 10 chapters. The chapters in the first edition were not divided into verses, that work, with the preparation of the very complete footnote references in the later editions, having been performed by Orson Pratt.
The historical narrative that runs through the book is so disjointedly arranged, mixed up with doctrinal parts, and repeated, that it is not easy to unravel it. The following summary of it is contained in a letter to Colonel John Wentworth of Chicago, signed by Joseph Smith, Jr., which was printed in Wentworth's Chicago newspaper and also in the Mormon Times and Seasons of March 1, 1842:—
"The history of America is unfolded from its first settlement by a colony that came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of languages, to the beginning of the 5th century of the Christian era. We are informed by these records that America in ancient times has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were called Jaredites, and came directly from the Tower of Babel. The second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem about 600 years before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inhabitance of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle toward the close of the fourth century. The remnant are the Indians that now inhabit this country."
This history purports to have been handed down, on metallic plates, from one historian to another, beginning with Nephi, from the time of the departure from Jerusalem. Finally (4 Nephi i. 48, 49*), the people being wicked, Ammaron, by direction of the Holy Ghost, hid these sacred records "that they might come again unto the remnant of the house of Jacob."
To bring the story down to a comparatively recent date, and account for the finding of the plates by Smith, the Book of Mormon was written by the "author." This subdivision is an abridgment of the previous records. It relates that Mormon, a descendant of Nephi, when ten years old, was told by Ammaron that, when about twenty-four years old, he should go to the place where the records were hidden, take only the plates of Nephi, and engrave on them all the things he had observed concerning the people. The next year Mormon was taken by his father, whose name also was Mormon, to the land of Zarahemla, which had become covered with buildings and very populous, but the people were warlike and wicked. Mormon in time, "seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land," took the records from their hiding place. He himself accepted the command of the armies of the Nephites, but they were defeated with great slaughter, the Lamanites laying waste their cities and driving them northward.
Finally Mormon sent a letter to the king of the Lamanites, asking that the Nephites might gather their people "unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we would give them battle." There, in the year 384 A.D., Mormon "made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which have been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were those few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni."* This hill, according to the Mormon teaching, is the hill near Palmyra, New York, where Smith found the plates, just as Mormon had deposited them.