Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/851

 MORMONS 833 of the Nephites, in sight of all the people, whom he exhibited his wounded side and the prints of the nails in his hands and feet. He remained among them 40 days, instructing them in Christianity and instituting Christian churches. The Christians of America, unlike their brethren in the old world, immediately adopted the Christian era for their chronologi- cal computations; and according to the rec- ord, in the four following centuries the wars between them and the heathen Lamanites con- tinued to rage, with great destruction of the Christians, whose populous and civilized cities, which were very numerous throughout North America, were gradually captured and de- stroyed. In the year 384 the Christians made their final stand on the hill Cumorah, in west- ern New York, where in a great battle 230,- 000 of them were slain. Moroni, one of the survivors, after wandering a fugitive till A. D. 420, sealed up the golden plates on which all these things were written, and hid them in the hill where they were found by Joseph Smith. One of the books in the collection, the book of Ether, gives an account of an earlier settlement of America than that of Lehi, by a colony from the tower of Babel, soon after the deluge, which was led by Jared, and in time became a great nation, which was destroyed for its sins before the arrival of the colony from Jerusalem. The religious teachings of the "Book of Mormon" relate in great part to doctrinal questions that were rife in the villages of western New York about 1830. Calvinism, TJniversalism, Metho- dism, Millenarianism, Roman Catholicism, and other modern forms of belief, are discussed. Infant baptism is warmly condemned, and po- lygamy is repeatedly denounced. According to the opponents of Mormonism, from inves- tigations made soon after the appearance of the " Book of Mormon," the fact is fully es- tablished that the real author of the work was Solomon Spalding, who was born in Ashford, Conn., in 1761, graduated at Dartmouth col- lege in 1785, was ordained, and preached for three or four years. Relinquishing the minis- try, he engaged in mercantile business at Cher- ry Valley, N. Y., whence in 1809 he removed to Conneaut, Ohio. In 1812 he removed to Pittsburgh, and thence in 1814 to Amity, Pa., where he died in 1816. He wrote several novels, which he was in the habit of reading to his friends in manuscript, as they were so worthless that he could find no publisher for them, while his poverty prevented him from issuing them at his own expense. During I his residence in Ohio in 1810-'12 he wrote a romance to account for the peopling of America by deriving the Indians from the Hebrews, in accordance with a notion then prevalent in some parts of the country that the American Indians were descended from the lost tribes of Israel. As early as 1813 this work was announced in the newspapers as forthcoming, and as containing a translation of the "Book of Mormon." Spalding entitled his book "Manuscript Found," and intended to publish with it by way of preface or adver- tisement a fictitious account of its discovery in a cave in Ohio. His widow published a state- ment in the "Boston Journal," May 18, 1839, declaring that in 1812 he placed his manuscript in a printing office at Pittsburgh, with which Sidney Rigdon was connected. Rigdon, she says, copied the manuscript ; and his possession of a copy was known to all in the printing office, and was often mentioned by himself. Subsequently the original manuscript was re- turned to the author, who soon after died. His widow preserved it till after the publication of the "Book of Mormon," when she sent it to Conneaut, where a public meeting, com- posed in part of persons who remembered Spalding's work, had requested her to send the manuscript that it might be publicly com- pared with the " Book of Mormon." She says in conclusion : "I am sure that nothing would grieve iny husband more, were he living, than the use which has been made of his work. The air of antiquity which was thrown about the composition doubtless suggested the idea of converting it to the purposes of delusion. Thus, a historical romance, with the addition of a few pious expressions, and extracts from the sacred Scriptures, has been constructed into a new Bible, and palmed off upon a company of poor deluded fanatics as divine." Sidney Rig- don was born in St. Clair township, Allegheny co., Pa., Feb. 19, 1793. Soon after getting possession of a copy of Spalding's manuscript, he quitted the printing office and became a preacher of doctrines peculiar to himself, and very similar to those afterward incorporated into the " Book of Mormon." He had a small body of converts to his notions when about 1829 he became associated with Joseph Smith, who was then endeavoring to gain believers to his tale of the golden plates and stone specta- cles. It is asserted that through Rigdon's agency Smith became possessed of a copy of Spalding's manuscript, which he read from behind the blanket to his amanuensis Oliver Cowdery, with such additions as suited the views and purposes of Rigdon and himself. Immediately on its publication, the " Book of Mormon " was recognized not only by Spal- ding's widow but by many of his friends as his long lost work. The printing of the " Book of Mormon " was done at the expense of Martin Harris, who had some property, and was per- suaded that he could make money by the speculation. "While the work was in progress, this man called upon Prof. Anthon of New York with a transcript on paper which Smith had given him of the characters on one of the golden plates. "This paper," Prof. Anthon says in a letter dated New York, Feb. 17, 1834, " was in fact a singular scroll. It con- sisted of all kinds of crooked characters, dis- posed in columns, and had evidently been pre- pared by some person who had before him at