Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/21

* MORMONS. nants of the Church of Christ." To add to the confusion of contents, this pamplilet of .5.5 chap- ters has its biographical side. Like its enlarge- ment, the revamped Bool,' of Doctrine and Cov- enants, it comprises "revelations to .Joseph Smith, .Jr., for the building up of the Kingdom of God in the last days." Concerning the origin of these vaticinations, David Whitmer, the thinl witness of the gold plates, asserted that the revelations were given through the stone through which the Book of Mormon was translated, and Parley P. Pratt described how "each sentence was uttered slowlj' and very distinctly." Smith himself was more cautious as to the divine origin of his messages, saying, "We never inquire for special revelation only in ease of there being no previous revelation to suit the ease." The local receptiveness, at that time, to new religious ideas is manifest by the success of other leaders. .Jemima Wilkinson prophesied at Crooked Lake; William Jliller predicted the end of the world at Rocliester; and the Fox si.sters started Spiritualism only ten miles from .Joseph Smith's home. The return ot apostolic gifts was hojied for by the local Quakers, Primitive Baptists, and Restorationists. A half-year later, during the revivalistic meetings of the Mormons at Kirtland, remarkable religious phenomena were reported. The Kirtland revival was the turning point in the life of the infant Church. Because of it there came a "revelation to the churches in New York, commanding them to remove to Ohio." It was now that Sidney Rigdon played his part in the Latter-Day movement. He had been a Bap- tist preacher in Pittsburg, and a minister of the Disciples' Church in Ohio. He organized at Kirtland a branch of Saints of one hundred mem- bers, and in February, 1.S.31, Smith betook hira- .self thither. David Whitmer asserts that Rig- don soon obtained more influence over Smith than any other man living. In exchange for the home- made Mormon Bible, Rigdon gave a foreign framework to the Mormon Church. He got hold of some of the transplanted ideas of Fourier the French collectivist. Nineteen families in Rigdon's neighborhood had already formed them- selves into a common stock company. A reve- lation of February, 1.S31, runs: "Thou shalt con- secrate all thy properties which thou hast to impart unto me with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken ; the bishop shall appoint every man a steward over his own property, inasmucli as is suliicient for himself and family; the resi- due shall be kept in my storehouse, to admin- ister to the poor and needy, and for the purpose of purchasing lands, and the building up of the New .Jerusalem." Smith's Ohio business enterprises brought finan- cial loss. He first opened a general storeat Hiram which failed. Land speculation also brought loss. Three farms at Kirtland, costing over .$11,000, were to be turned into a permanent city of Zion with 32 streets. Like the Church tannery and the Church sawmill, this paper city had no financial foundation. At the same time a $40,000 temple vas begun (the corner-stone was laid .July 23, 1833). and although most of the Saints gave one- seventh of their time to its building without pay, a debt of from .151.5,000 to $20,000 was left upon it. Meanwhile an attempt was made to prevent financial disaster by establishing the Kirtland Safety Society Bank. Reorganized in 1837 as the Kirtland Society Anti-Banking Company and ) MORMONS. uttering at least $200,000 of its notes, the cra.sh came within ten months, and Secretary Rigdon and Treasurer Smith tied to Missouri. As president of the Church in Ohio, Smith's communistic ambitions were mingled with hier- archical schemes. Besides the United Firm and the Safety Bank, in 1833 he dedicated to the Lord the printing ollice of the Latter-Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate. In 1834 he organized the First High Council of the Church of Christ, with himself, Rigdon, and Williams as the First Presidency. In 1835 he chose the Twelve Apostles, among whom were Brigham Young, the Lion of the Lord; Parley Pratt, the Archer of Paradise; and Lyman Wright, the Wild Ram of the Mountain. In 1836 Smith instituted the several quorums or executive bodies of the Church, first the Presidency, then the Twelve, and the Seventy, also the counselors of Kirtland and Zion. .In 1837 he set apart Apostles Kim- ball and Hyde to go on a mission to England, the first foreign mission of the Church. In 1832, as a prophet of woe urging the Saints to sell all they had and flee from the wrath to come. Smith brought the mob upon himself and Rigdon at the town of Hiram. In the great apostasy of 1836 the Church lost some of its pillars. The three witnesses to the Book of Mor- mon were soon cut off. In the bull of excom- munication David Whitmer, the anti-polygamist, was compared to Balaam's ass; Martin Harris was called a negro with a white skin, while all the "dissenters," says the Prophet, "are so far beneath my contempt that to notice any of them would be too great a sacrifice for a gentleman to make." While the Saints were yet in Ohio there is evidence that polygamy was both practiced and sanctioned by those highest in authority. The Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints under the leadership of the Prophet's son, Joseph Smith, 3d, has claimed that the doctrine of 'spiritual wifery' was introduced, not by the Prophet, but by the older men, notably Hurlburt, Bennett, and Rigdon. The real acts of these scapegoats may never be known, for their testimony as to Smith's implication in their practices was de- clared unprintable. Hence what remains of the evidence against the Prophet is merely circum- .stantial, and is to be counterbalanced by his early attempts at ostensible suppression. In October, 1831, Smith admonished William E. McLellin through .a revelation ; "Commit not adultery, a temptation with which thou hast been troubled." In .July, 1833, Smith wrote to the brethren in Zion to "guard against evils which may arise from accounts given of women." In 1835 the Book of Doctrine and Covenants declared; "In- asmuch as this Church of Christ has been re- proached with the crime of fornication, and polyg- amy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman but one husband." The third place of settlement by the Saints was Missouri. Smith's order to Oliver Cowdery to go and est-ablish the Church among the Lamanites brought four Mormon missionaries to .Tacksnn County as early as 1831. The town of Independence was declared the new city of Zion and a site for a temple was chosen there in August. The converts poured in from the ^Middle .Atlantic States and Canada with such rapidity that the non-Mormons were somewhat