The scenes at Kirtland during the first winter of the church there reached the limit of religious enthusiasm. The younger members outdid the elder in manifesting their belief. They saw wonderful lights in the air, and constantly received visions. Mounting stumps in the field, they preached to imaginary congregations, and, picking up stones, they would read on them words which they said disappeared as soon as known. At the evening prayer-meetings the laying on of hands would be followed by a sort of fit, in which the enthusiasts would fall apparently lifeless on the floor, or contort their faces, creep on their hands or knees, imitate the Indian process of killing and scalping, and chase balls of fire through the fields.*
Some of the young men announced that they had received "commissions" to teach and preach, written on parchment, which came to them from the sky, and which they reached by jumping into the air. Howe reproduces one of these, the conclusion of which, with the seal, follows:—
"That you had a messenger tell you to go and get the other night, you must not show to any son of Adam. Obey this, and I will stand by you in all cases. My servants, obey my commandments in all cases, and I will provide.
"Be ye always ready, Be ye always ready, Whenever I shall call, Be ye always ready, My seal.
"There shall be something of great importance revealed when I shall call you to go: My servants, be faithful over a few things, and I will make you a ruler over many. Amen, Amen, Amen."
Foolishly extravagant as these manifestations appear (Corrill says that comparatively few members indulged in them), there was nothing in them peculiar to the Mormon belief. The meetings of the Disciples, in the year of Smith's arrival in Ohio and later, when men like Campbell and Scott spoke, were swayed with the most intense religious enthusiasm. A description of the effect of Campbell's preaching at a grove meeting in the Cuyahoga Valley in 1831 says:—
"The woods were full of horses and carriages, and the hundreds already there were rapidly swelled to many thousands; all were of one race—the Yankee; all of one calling, or nearly, the farmer.... When Campbell closed, low murmurs broke and ran through the awed crowd; men and women from all parts of the vast assembly with streaming eyes came forward; young men who had climbed into small trees from curiosity, came down from conviction, and went forward for baptism."*
It is easy to cite very "orthodox" precedents for such manifestations. One of these we find in the accounts of what were called "the jerks," which accompanied a great revival in 1803, brought about by the preaching of the Rev. Joseph Badger, a Yale graduate and a Congregationalist, who was the first missionary to the Western Reserve. J. S. C. Abbott, in his history of Ohio, describing the "jerks," says:—
"The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward, and from side to side, with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity.... All were impressed with a conviction that there was something supernatural in these convulsions, and that it was opposing the spirit of God to resist them."
The most extravagant enthusiasm of the Kirtland converts, and the most extravagant claims of the Mormon leaders at that time, were exceeded by the manifestations of converts in the early days of Methodism, and the miraculous occurrences testified to by Wesley himself,*—a cloud tempering the sun in answer to his prayer; his horse cured of lameness by faith; the case of a blind Catholic girl who saw plainly when her eyes rested on the New Testament, but became blind again when she took up the Mass Book.
These Mormon enthusiasts were only suffering from a manifestation to which man is subject; and we can agree with a Mormon elder who, although he left the church disgusted with its extravagances, afterward remarked, "The man of religious feeling will know how to pity rather than upbraid that zeal without knowledge which leads a man to fancy that he has found the ladder of Jacob, and that he sees the angel of the Lord ascending and descending before his eyes."
When Smith and Rigdon reached Kirtland they found the new church in a state of chaos because of these wild excitements, and of an attempt to establish a community of possessions, growing out of Rigdon's previous teachings. These communists held that what belonged to one belonged to all, and that they could even use any one's clothes or other personal property without asking permission. Many of the flock resented this, and anything but a condition of brotherly love resulted. Smith, in his account of the situation as they found it, says that the members were striving to do the will of God, "though some had strange notions, and false spirits had crept in among them. With a little caution and some wisdom, I soon assisted the brothers and sisters to overcome them. The plan of 'common stock,' which had existed in what was called 'the family,' whose members generally had embraced the Everlasting Gospel, was readily abandoned for the more perfect law of the Lord,"*—which the prophet at once expounded.
Smith announced that the Lord had informed him that the ravings of the converts were of the devil, and this had a deterring effect; but at an important meeting of elders to receive an endowment, some three months later, conducted by Smith himself, the spirits got hold of some of the elders. "It threw one from his seat to the floor," says Corrill. "It bound another so that for some time he could not use his limbs or speak; and some other curious effects were experienced. But by a mighty exertion, in the name of the Lord, it was exposed and shown to be of an evil source."
In order not to interrupt the story of the Mormons' experiences in Ohio, leaving the first steps taken in Missouri to be treated in connection with the regular course of events in that state, it will be sufficient to say here that Cowdery, Pratt, and their two companions continued their journey as far as the western border of Missouri, in the winter of 1830 and 1831, making their headquarters at Independence, Jackson County; that, on receipt of their reports about that country, Smith and Rigdon, with others, made a trip there in June, 1831, during which the corner-stones of the City of Zion and the Temple were laid, and officers were appointed to receive money for the purchase of the land for the Saints, its division; etc. Smith and Rigdon returned to Kirtland on August 27, 1831.
The growth of the church in Ohio was rapid. In two or three weeks after the arrival of the four pioneer missionaries, 127 persons had been baptized, and by the spring of 1831 the number of converts had increased to 1000. Almost all the male converts were honored with the title of elder. By a "revelation" dated February 9, 1831 (Sec. 42), all of these elders, except Smith and Rigdon, were directed to "go forth in the power of my spirit, preaching my Gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the voice of a trump." This was the beginning of that extensive system of proselyting which was soon extended to Europe, which was so instrumental in augmenting the membership of the church in its earlier days, and which is still carried on with the utmost zeal and persistence. The early missionaries travelled north into Canada and through almost all the states, causing alarm even in New England by the success of their work. One man there, in 1832, reprinted at his own expense Alexander Campbell's pamphlet exposing the ridiculous features of the Mormon Bible, for distribution as an offset to the arguments of the elders. Women of means were among those who moved to Kirtland from Massachusetts. In three years after Smith and Rigdon met in Palmyra, Mormon congregations had been established in nearly all the Northern and Middle states and in some of the Southern, with baptisms of from 30 to 130 in a place.*
Smith had relaxed none of his determination to be the one head of the church. As soon as he arrived in Kirtland he put forth a long "revelation" (Sec. 43) which left Rigdon no doubt of the prophet's intentions. It declared to the elders that "there is none other but Smith appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken," and that "none else shall be appointed unto his gift except it be through him." Not only was Smith's spiritual power thus intrenched, but his temporal welfare was looked after. "And again I say unto you," continues this mouthpiece of the Lord, "if ye desire the mysteries of the Kingdom, provide for him food and raiment and whatsoever he needeth to accomplish the work wherewith I have commanded him." In the same month came another declaration, saying (Sec. 41) "is meet that my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., should have a house built, in which to live and translate" (the Scriptures). With a streak of generosity it was added, "It is meet that my servant Sidney Rigdon should live as seemeth him good."
The iron hand with which Smith repressed Rigdon from the date of their arrival in Ohio affords strong proof of Rigdon's complicity in the Bible plot, and of Smith's realization of the fact that he stood to his accomplice in the relation of a burglar to his mate, where the burglar has both the boodle and the secret in his possession. An illustration of this occurred during their first trip to Missouri. Rigdon and Smith did not agree about the desirability of western Missouri as a permanent abiding-place for the church. The Rev. Ezra Booth, after leaving the Mormons, contributed a series of letters on his experience with Smith to the Ohio Star of Ravenna.* In the first of these he said: "On our arrival in the western part of the state of Missouri we discovered that prophecy and visions had failed, or rather had proved false. This fact was so notorious that Mr. Rigdon himself says that 'Joseph's vision was a bad thing.'" Smith nevertheless directed Rigdon to write a description of that promised land, and, when the production did not suit him, he represented the Lord as censuring Rigdon in a "revelation" (Sec. 63):—
"And now behold, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, am not pleased with my servant Sidney Rigdon; he exalteth himself in his heart, and receiveth not counsel, but grieveth the spirit. Wherefore his writing is not acceptable unto the Lord; and he shall make another, and if the Lord receiveth it not, behold he standeth no longer in the office which I have appointed him."
That the proud-minded, educated preacher, who refused to allow Campbell to claim the foundership of the Disciples' church, should take such a rebuke and threat of dismissal in silence from Joe Smith of Palmyra, and continue under his leadership, certainly indicates some wonderful hold that the prophet had upon him.
While the travelling elders were doing successful work in adding new converts to the fold, there was beginning to manifest itself at Kirtland that "apostasy" which lost the church so many members of influence, and was continued in Missouri so far that Mayor Grant said, in Salt Lake City, in 1856, that "one-half at least of the Yankee members of this church have apostatized."* The secession of men like Booth and Ryder, and their public exposure of Smith's methods, coupled with rumors of immoral practices in the fold, were followed by the tarring and feathering of Smith and Rigdon on the night of Saturday, March 25, 1832. The story of this outrage is told in Smith's autobiography, and the details there given may be in the main accepted.
Smith and his wife were living at the house of a farmer named Johnson in Hiram township, while he and Rigdon were translating the Scriptures. Mrs. Smith had taken two infant twins to bring up, and on the night in question she and her husband were taking turns sitting up with these babies, who were just recovering from the measles. While Smith was sleeping, his wife heard a tapping on the window, but gave it no attention. The mob, believing that all within were asleep, then burst in the door, seized Smith as he lay partly dressed on a trundle bed, and rushed him out of doors, his wife crying "murder." Smith struggled as best he could, but they carried him around the house, choking him until he became unconscious. Some thirty yards from the house he saw Rigdon, "stretched out on the ground, whither they had dragged him by the heels." When they had carried Smith some thirty yards farther, some of the mob meantime asking, "Ain't ye going to kill him?" a council was held and some one asked, "Simmons, where's the tarbucket?" When the bucket was brought up they tried to force the "tarpaddle" into Smith's mouth, and also, he says, to force a phial between his teeth. He adds:
"All my clothes were torn off me except my shirt collar, and one man fell on me and scratched my body with his nails like a mad cat. They then left me, and I attempted to rise, but fell again. I pulled the tar away from my lips, etc., so that I could breathe more freely, and after a while I began to recover, and raised myself up, when I saw two lights. I made my way toward one of them, and found it was father Johnson's. When I had come to the door I was naked, and the tar made me look as though I had been covered with blood; and when my wife saw me she thought I was all smashed to pieces, and fainted. During the affray abroad, the sisters of the neighborhood collected at my room. I called for a blanket; they threw me one and shut the door; I wrapped it around me and went in.... My friends spent the night in scraping and removing the tar and washing and cleansing my body, so that by morning I was ready to be clothed again.... With my flesh all scarified and defaced, I preached [that morning] to the congregation as usual, and in the afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals."
Rigdon's treatment is described as still more severe. He was not only dragged over the ground by the heels, but was well covered with tar and feathers; and when Smith called on him the next day he found him delirious, and calling for a razor with which to kill his wife.
All Mormon accounts of this, as well as later persecutions, attempt to make the ground of attack hostility to the Mormon religious beliefs, presenting them entirely in the light of outrages on liberty of opinion. Symonds Ryder (whom Smith accuses of being one of the mob), says that the attack had this origin: The people of Hiram had the reputation of being very receptive and liberal in their religious views. The Mormons therefore preached to them, and seemed in a fair way to win a decided success, when the leaders made their first trip to Missouri. Papers which they left behind outlining the internal system of the new church fell into the hands of some of the converts, and revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith, the Prophet.... Some who had been the dupes of this deception determined not to let it pass with impunity; and, accordingly, a company was formed of citizens from Shalersville, Garretsville, and Hiram, and took Smith and Rigdon from their beds and tarred and feathered them.*
This manifestation of hostility to the leaders of the new church was only a more pronounced form of that which showed itself against Smith before he left New York State. When a man of his character and previous history assumes the right to baptize and administer the sacrament, he is certain to arouse the animosity, not only of orthodox church members, but of members of the community who are lax in their church duties. Goldsmith illustrates this kind of feeling when, in "She Stoops to Conquer," he makes one of the "several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco" in the alehouse say, "I loves to hear him, the squire sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low," and another responds, "O, damn anything that's low." The Anti-Mormon feeling was intensified and broadened by the aggressiveness with which the Mormons sought for converts in the orthodox flocks.
Beliefs radically different from those accepted by any of the orthodox denominations have escaped hostile opposition in this country, even when they have outraged generally accepted social customs. The Harmonists, in a body of 600, emigrated to Pennsylvania to escape the persecution to which they were subjected in Germany, purchased 5000 acres of land and organized a town; moved later to Indiana, where they purchased 25,000 acres; and ten years afterward returned to Pennsylvania, and bought 5000 acres in another place,—all the time holding to their belief in a community of goods and a speedy coming of Christ, as well as the duty of practicing celibacy,—without exciting their neighbors or arousing their enmity. The Wallingford Community in Connecticut, and the Oneida Community in New York State, practised free love among themselves without persecution, until their organizations died from natural causes. The leaders in these and other independent sects were clean men within their own rules, honest in their dealings with their neighbors, never seeking political power, and never pressing their opinions upon outsiders. An old resident of Wallingford writes to me, "The Community were, in a way, very generally respected for their high standard of integrity in all their business transactions."
As we follow the career of the Mormons from Ohio to Missouri, and thence to Illinois, we shall read their own testimony about the character of their leading men, and about their view of the rights of others in each of their neighborhoods. When Horace Greeley asked Brigham Young in Salt Lake City for an explanation of the "persecutions" of the Mormons, his reply was that there was "no other explanation than is afforded by the crucifixion of Christ and the kindred treatment of God's ministers, prophets, and saints in all ages"; which led Greeley to observe that, while a new sect is always decried and traduced,—naming the Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, and Universalists,—he could not remember "that either of them was ever generally represented and regarded by the other sects of their early days as thieves, robbers, and murderers."*
Another attempt by Rigdon to assert his independence of Smith occurred while the latter was still at Mr. Johnson's house and Rigdon was in Kirtland. The fullest account of this is found in Mother Smith's "History," pp. 204-206. She says that Rigdon came in late to a prayer-meeting, much agitated, and, instead of taking the platform, paced backward and forward on the floor. Joseph's father told him they would like to hear a discourse from him, but he replied, "The keys of the Kingdom are rent from the church, and there shall not be a prayer put up in this house this day." This caused considerable excitement, and Smith's brother Hyrum left the house, saying, "I'll put a stop to this fuss pretty quick," and, mounting a horse, set out for Johnson's and brought the prophet back with him. On his arrival, a meeting of the brethren was held, and Joseph declared to them, "I myself hold the keys of this Last Dispensation, and will forever hold them, both in time and eternity, so set your hearts at rest upon that point. All is right." The next day Rigdon was tried before a council for having "lied in the name of the Lord," and was "delivered over to the buffetings of Satan," and deprived of his license, Smith telling him that "the less priesthood he had, the better it would be for him." Rigdon, Mrs. Smith says, according to his own account, "was dragged out of bed by the devil three times in one night by the heels," and, while she does not accept this literally, she declares that "his contrition was as great as a man could well live through." After awhile he got another license.
In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of tongues," and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet.* Under the new system, Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, would call on some brother, or sister, saying, "Father A., if you will rise in the name of Jesus Christ you can speak in tongues." The rule which persons thus called on were to follow was thus explained, "Arise upon your feet, speak or make some sound, continue to make sounds of some kind, and the Lord will make a language of it." It was not necessary that the words should be understood by the congregation; some other Mormon would undertake their interpretation. Much ridicule was incurred by the church because of this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman "speaking in tongues" pronounced "meliar, meli, melee," it was at once translated by a young wag, "my leg, my thigh, my knee," and, when he was called before the Council charged with irreverence, he persisted in his translation, but got off with an admonition.** At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years a doubting convert delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a woman jumped up and offered as a translation an account of the glories of the new Temple.
At the conference of June 4, 1831, Smith ordained Elder Wright to the high priesthood for service among the Indians, with the gift of tongues, healing the sick, etc. Wright at once declared that he saw the Saviour. At one of the sessions at Kirtland at this time, as described by an eye-witness, Smith announced that the day would come when no man would be permitted to preach unless he had seen the Lord face to face. Then, addressing Rigdon, he asked, "Sidney, have you seen the Lord?" The obedient Sidney made reply, "I saw the image of a man pass before my face, whose locks were white, and whose countenance was exceedingly fair, even surpassing all beauty that I ever beheld." Smith at once rebuked him by telling him that he would have seen more but for his unbelief.
Almost simultaneously with Smith's first announcement of his prophetic powers, while working his "peek-stone" in Pennsylvania and New York, he, as we have seen, claimed ability to perform miracles, and he announced that he had cast out a devil at Colesville in 1830.* The performance of miracles became an essential part of the church work at Kirtland, and had a great effect on the superstitious converts. The elders, who in the early days labored in England, laid great stress on their miraculous power, and there were some amusing exposures of their pretences. The Millennial Star printed a long list of successful miracles dating from 1839 to 1850, including the deaf made to hear, the blind to see, dislocated bones put in place, leprosy and cholera cured, and fevers rebuked. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery took a leading part in this work at Kirtland.** To a man nearly dead with consumption Rigdon gave assurance that he would recover "as sure as there is a God in heaven." The man's death soon followed. When a child, whose parents had been persuaded to trust its case to Mormon prayers instead of calling a physician,*** died, Smith and Rigdon promised that it would rise from the dead, and they went through certain ceremonies to accomplish that object.****
The lengths to which Smith dared go in his pretensions are well illustrated in an incident of these days. Among the curiosities of a travelling showman who passed through Kirtland were some Egyptian mummies. As the golden plates from which the Mormon Bible was translated were written in "reformed Egyptian," the translator of those plates was interested in all things coming from Egypt, and at his suggestion the mummies were purchased by and for the church. On them were found some papyri which Joseph, with the assistance of Phelps and Cowdery, set about "translating." Their success was great, and Smith was able to announce: "We found that one of these rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph.* Truly we could see that the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of truth." That there might be no question about the accuracy of Smith's translation, he exhibited a certificate signed by the proprietor of the show, saying that he had exhibited the "hieroglyphic characters" to the most learned men in many cities, "and from all the information that I could ever learn or meet with, I find that of Joseph Smith, Jr., to correspond in the most minute matters." * When the papyri were shown to Josiah Quincy and Charles Francis Adams, on the occasion of their visit to Nauvoo in 1844, Joseph Smith, pointing out the inscriptions, said: "That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful. This is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest account of the creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of Genesis."—"Figures of the Past," p. 386.
Smith's autobiography contains this memorandum: "October 1, 1835. This afternoon I labored on the Egyptian alphabet in company with Brother O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, and during the research the principals of astronomy, as understood by Father Abraham and the Ancients, unfolded to our understanding." When he was in the height of his power in Nauvoo, Smith printed in the Times and Seasons a reproduction of these hieroglyphics accompanied by this alleged translation, of what he called "the Book of Abraham," and they were also printed in the Millennial Star.* The translation was a meaningless jumble of words after this fashion:—
"In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my father, I, Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence, and finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the Fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same, having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring to be one also who possessed great knowledge, and to possess greater knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness."
Remy submitted a reproduction of these hieroglyphics to Theodule Deveria, of the Museum of the Louvre, in Paris, who found, of course, that Smith's purported translation was wholly fraudulent. For instance, his Abraham fastened on an altar was a representation of Osiris coming to life on his funeral couch, his officiating priest was the god Anubis, and what Smith represents to indicate an angel of the Lord is "the soul of Osiris, under the form of a hawk."* Smith's whole career offered no more brazen illustration of his impostures than this.
A visitor to the Kirtland Temple some years later paid Joseph's father half a dollar in order to see the Egyptian curios, which were kept in the attic of that structure.
A well-authenticated anecdote, giving another illustration of Smith's professed knowledge of the Egyptian language is told by the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who, after holding the Professorship of Divinity in Kemper College, in Missouri, became vicar of a church in England. Mr. Caswall, on the occasion of a visit to Nauvoo in 1842, having heard of Smith's Egyptian lore, took with him an ancient Greek manuscript of the Psalter, on parchment, with which to test the prophet's scholarship. The belief of Smith's followers in his powers was shown by their eagerness to have him see this manuscript, and their persistence in urging Mr. Caswall to wait a day for Smith's return from Carthage that he might submit it to the prophet. Mr. Caswall the next day handed the manuscript to Smith and asked him to explain its contents. After a brief examination, Smith explained: "It ain't Greek at all, except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics. These figures (pointing to the capitals) is Egyptian hieroglyphics written in the reformed Egyptian. These characters are like the letters that were engraved on the golden plates."*
When Rigdon returned to Ohio with Smith in January, 1831, it seems to have been his intention to make Kirtland the permanent headquarters of the new church. He had written to his people from Palmyra, "Be it known to you, brethren, that you are dwelling on your eternal inheritance." When Cowdery and his associates arrived in Ohio on their first trip, they announced as the boundaries of the Promised Land the township of Kirtland on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Within two months of his arrival at Kirtland Smith gave out a "revelation" (Sec. 45), in which the Lord commanded the elders to go forth into the western countries and buildup churches, and they were told of a City of Refuge for the church, to be called the New Jerusalem. No definite location of this city was given, and the faithful were warned to "keep these things from going abroad unto the world." Another "revelation" of the same month (Sec. 48) announced that it was necessary for all to remain for the present in their places of abode, and directed those who had lands "to impart to the eastern brethren," and the others to buy lands, and all to save money "to purchase lands for an inheritance, even the city."
The reports of those who first went to Missouri induced Smith and Rigdon, before they made their first trip to that state, to announce that the Saints would pass one more winter in Ohio. But when they had visited the Missouri frontier and realized its distance from even the Ohio border line, and the actual privations to which settlers there must submit, their zeal weakened, and they declared, "It will be many years before we come here, for the Lord has a great work for us to do in Ohio." The building of the Temple at Kirtland, and the investments in lots and in business enterprises there showed that a permanent settlement in Ohio was then decided on.
Smith's first business enterprise for the church in Ohio was a general store which he opened in Hiram. This establishment has been described as "a poorly furnished country store where commerce looks starvation in the face."* The difficulty of combining the positions of prophet, head of the church, and retail merchant was naturally great. The result of the combination has been graphically pictured by no less an authority than Brigham Young. In a discourse in Salt Lake City, explaining why the church did not maintain a store there, Young said:—
"You that have lived in Nauvoo, in Missouri, in Kirtland, Ohio, can you assign a reason why Joseph could not keep a store and be a merchant? Let me just give you a few reasons; and there are men here who know just how matters went in those days. Joseph goes to New York and buys $20,000 worth of goods, comes into Kirtland and commences to trade. In comes one of the brethren. Brother Joseph, let me have a frock pattern for my wife: What if Joseph says, 'No, I cannot without money.' The consequence would be, 'He is no Prophet,' says James. Pretty soon Thomas walks in. 'Brother Joseph, will you trust me for a pair of boots?' 'No, I cannot let them go without money.' 'Well,' says Thomas, 'Brother Joseph is no Prophet; I have found THAT out and I am glad of it.' After a while in comes Bill and Sister Susan. Says Bill, 'Brother Joseph, I want a shawl. I have not got any money, but I wish you to trust me a week or a fortnight.' Well, Brother Joseph thinks the others have gone and apostatized, and he don't know but these goods will make the whole church do the same, so he lets Bill have a shawl. Bill walks of with it and meets a brother. 'Well,' says he, 'what do you think of Brother Joseph?' 'O, he is a first rate man, and I fully believe he is a Prophet. He has trusted me with this shawl.' Richard says, 'I think I will go down and see if he won't trust me some.' In walks Richard. Brother Joseph, I want to trade about $20.' 'Well,'says Joseph, 'these goods will make the people apostatize, so over they go; they are of less value than the people.' Richard gets his goods. Another comes in the same way to make a trade of $25, and so it goes. Joseph was a first rate fellow with them all the time, provided he never would ask them to pay him. And so you may trace it down through the history of this people."*
If this analysis of the flock which Smith gathered in Ohio, and which formed the nucleus of the settlements in Missouri, was not permanently recorded in an official church record, its authenticity would be vigorously assailed.
Later enterprises at Kirtland, undertaken under the auspices of the church, included a steam sawmill and a tannery, both of which were losing concerns. But the speculation to which later Mormon authorities attributed the principal financial disasters of the church at Kirtland was the purchase of land and its sale as town lots.* The craze for land speculation in those days was not confined, however, to the Mormons. That was the period when the purchase of public lands of the United States seemed likely to reach no limit. These sales, which amounted to $2,300,000 in 1830, and to $4,800,000 in 1834, lumped to $14,757,600 in 1835, and to $24,877,179 in 1836. The government deposits (then made in the state banks) increased from $10,000,000 on January 1, 1835, to $41,500,000 on June 1, 1836, the increase coming from receipts from land sales. This led to that bank expansion which was measured by the growth of bank capital in this country from $61,000,000 to $200,000,000 between 1830 and 1834, with a further advance to $251,000,000.
The Mormon leaders and their people were peculiarly liable to be led into disaster when sharing in this speculators' fever. They were, however, quick to take advantage of the spirit of the times. The Zion of Missouri lost its attractiveness to them, and on February 23, 1833, the Presidency decided to purchase land at Kirtland, and to establish there on a permanent Stake of Zion. The land purchases of the church began at once, and we find a record of one Council meeting, on March 23, 1833, at which it was decided to buy three farms costing respectively $4000, $2100, and $5000. Kirtland was laid out (on paper) with 32 streets, cutting one another at right angles, each four rods wide. This provided for 225 blocks of 20 lots each. Twenty-nine of the streets were named after Mormons. Joseph and his family appear many times in the list of conveyors of these lots. The original map of the city, as described in Smith's autobiography, provided for 24 public buildings temples, schools, etc.; no lot to contain more than one house, and that not to be nearer than 25 feet from the street, with a prohibition against erecting a stable on a house lot.*
Of course this Mormon capital must have a grand church edifice, to meet Smith's views, and he called a council to decide about the character of the new meeting-house. A few of the speakers favored a modest frame building, but a majority thought a log one better suited to their means. Joseph rebuked the latter, asking, "Shall we, brethren, build a house for our God of logs?" and he straightway led them to the corner of a wheat field, where the trench for the foundation was at once begun.* No greater exhibition of business folly could have been given than the undertaking of the costly building then planned on so slender a financial foundation.
The corner-stone was laid on July 23, 1833, and the Temple was not dedicated until March 27, 1836. Mormon devotion certainly showed itself while this work was going on. Every male member was expected to give one-seventh of his time to the building without pay, and those who worked on it at day's wages had, in most instances, no other income, and often lived on nothing but corn meal. The women, as their share, knit and wove garments for the workmen.
The Temple, which is of stone covered with a cement stucco (it is still in use), measures 60 by 80 feet on the ground, is 123 feet in height to the top of the spire, and contains two stories and an attic.
The cost of this Temple was $40,000, and, notwithstanding the sacrifices made by the Saints in assisting its construction, and the schemes of the church officers to secure funds, a debt of from $15,000 to $20,000 remained upon it. That the church was financially embarrassed at the very beginning of the work is shown by a letter addressed to the brethren in Zion, Missouri, by Smith, Rigdon, and Williams, dated June 25, 1833, in which they said, "Say to Brother Gilbert that we have no power to assist him in a pecuniary point, as we know not the hour when we shall be sued for debts which we have contracted ourselves in New York."*
To understand the business crash and scandals which compelled Smith and his associates to flee from Ohio, it is necessary to explain the business system adopted by the church under them. This system began with a rule about the consecration of property. As originally published in the Evening and Morning Star, and in chapter xliv of the "Book of Commandments," this rule declared, "Thou shalt consecrate all thy properties, that which thou hast, unto me, with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken," with a provision that the Bishop, after he had received such an irrevocable deed, should appoint every man a steward over so much of his property as would be sufficient for himself and family. In the later edition of the "Doctrine and Covenants" this was changed to read, "And behold, thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate thy properties for their support," etc.
By a "revelation" given out while the heads of the church were in Jackson County, Missouri, in April, 1832 (Sec. 82), a sort of firm was appointed, including Smith, Rigdon, Cowdery, Harris, and N. K. Whitney, "to manage the affairs of the poor, and all things pertaining to the bishopric," both in Ohio and Missouri. This firm thus assumed control of the property which "revelation" had placed in the hands of the Bishop. This arrangement was known as The Order of Enoch. Next came a "revelation" dated April 23, 1834. (Sec. 104), by which the properties of the Order were divided, Rigdon getting the place in which he was living in Kirtland, and the tannery; Harris a lot, with a command to "devote his monies for the proclaiming of my words"; Cowdery and Williams, the printing-office, with some extra lots to Cowdery; and Smith, the lot designed for the Temple, and "the inheritance on which his father resides." The building of the Temple having brought the Mormon leaders into debt, this "revelation," was designed to help them out, and it contained these further directions, in the voice of the Lord, be it remembered: "The covenants being broken through transgression, by covetousness and feigned words, therefore you are dissolved as a United Order with your brethren, that you are not bound only up to this hour unto them, only on this wise, as I said, by loan as shall be agreed by this Order in council, as your circumstances will admit, and the voice of the council direct.....
"And again verily I say unto you, concerning your debts, behold it is my will that you should pay all your debts; and it is my will that you should humble yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your diligence and humility and the prayer of faith; and inasmuch as you are diligent and humble, and exercise the prayer of faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance.... I give you a promise that you shall be delivered this once out of your bondage; inasmuch as you obtained a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands even until you shall loan enough [meaning borrow] to deliver yourselves from bondage, it is your privilege; and pledge the properties which I have put into your hands this once.... The master will not suffer his house to be broken up. Even so. Amen."
It does not appear that the Mormon leaders took advantage of this authorization to borrow money on Kirtland real estate, if they could; but in 1835 they set up several mercantile establishments, finding firms in Cleveland, Buffalo, and farther east who would take their notes on six months' time. "A great part of the goods of these houses," says William Harris, "went to pay the workmen on the Temple, and many were sold on credit, so that when the notes became due the houses were not able to meet them."
Smith's autobiography relates part of one story of an effort of his to secure money at this trying time, the complete details of which have been since supplied. He simply says that on July 25, 1836, in company with his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery, he started on a trip which brought them to Salem, Massachusetts, where "we hired a house and occupied the same during the month, teaching the people from house to house."* The Mormon of to-day, in reading his "Doctrine and Covenants," finds Section 111 very perplexing. No place of its reception is given, but it goes on to say:—