THE MORMON PROPHET'S TRAGEDY

A REVIEW

Orson F. Whitney

A review of an Article by the late John Hay,

published originally in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1869,

and republished in the Saints Herald of June 21, 1905.

The Reviewer

Orson F. Whitney

Author of

Whitney's History of Utah, and Assistant Historian

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1905

Introductory.

"The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid."-Isaiah 29: 14.

I have often pondered over the fulfillment of these prophetic words, with reference to the lofty and the learned and their relations to what the world terms "Mormonism." Why is it that men and women, intelligent, educated, and even profound, cannot see in this great social and religious phenomenon something more than a topic to be treated in a light and flippant vein, or in a spirit of harshness and intolerance? Giants in intellect as to other things, when they deal with the history, doctrines, aims and motives of the Latter-day Saints, they seem suddenly changed into dwarfs, mere children, as powerless to cope with the mighty problem as were the learned rabbis in the Temple with the youthful and divine Son of God. Especially is this the case with those who approach it in a captious spirit, determined to find fault, to attack and ridicule rather than to fairly investigate. They cannot analyze it, cannot even grasp it, and are incapable of forming any just or proper conclusion in relation to it.

To those who understand the subject, even in part, it presents the most beautiful and most attractive phases. It is truly "a marvelous work and a wonder." Nothing in the whole wide realm of thought, in the universal domain of reason, science, poetry and philosophy, compares with it in sublimity and loveliness.

Why, then, do "the wise and prudent," as they are called, pass it by as a thing of naught, or pause only long enough to smile, sneer, or cast a stick or a stone with a view to injuring and defacing it? To the uninitiated, even if fair and tolerant, there appears to be little in "Mormonism" that reasonable men and women should desire; at best it is but one among many creeds and systems with which the world is filled. While to those who have embraced it, and have partaken of its spirit, it stands alone, unique, all-comprehending-the sum of eternal truth, the glorified record of God's dealings with man in all dispensations.

Why this difference? Why do not all intelligent minds recognize in "Mormonism" what its votaries recognize? Are the Gentiles all philosophers, and the Mormons (who were once Gentiles) all fools? Is all wisdom outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? I think not. There must be a better explanation. What is it?

I shall not attempt to answer the question at the present time; though I could do so, I believe, to the satisfaction of at least the Latter-day Saints. I prefer that my readers, Mormon and non-Mormon, should answer it for themselves. My duty here is to present a review of a public utterance, upon a portion of the Mormon theme, of one of the world's wise men, who, while possessing every advantage that intelligence and culture could give, failed utterly to recognize the truth, to comprehend the mightiest problem of the ages.

ORSON F. WHITNEY.

Salt Lake City, October, 1905.

"The Mormon Prophet's Tragedy."

Under the above caption, the "Saints' Herald," a paper edited and published by Joseph Smith and associates, at Lamoni, Iowa, and proclaiming itself to be the "official publication of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," gave space in its issue of June 21, 1905, to the reproduction of an article purporting to be an account of events leading up to and culminating in the murder of the Prophet and the Patriarch, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, at Carthage, Illinois, June 27, 1844. The article was written by Colonel John Hay, American poet and statesman, many years before he became Secretary of State, though not before he had risen to prominence in the field of diplomacy.

Had not the Lamoni publishers seen fit to reprint this rather ancient piece of literature, the subjoined review of it probably would never have appeared. They doubtless thought that the so-called "Tragedy" would make good and appropriate reading for the anniversary month of the Prophet's martyrdom. Their only comment in connection with it is this brief introduction: "The 'Atlantic Monthly' for December, 1869, published the following article from the pen of John Hay, now Secretary of State, Washington. As an account from the standpoint of a non-member, it will be of interest to our readers."

The wisdom of resurrecting such a mass of misstatements, written in a spirit of rank prejudice, flippant in style, heartless in tone, and worthy only of the oblivion to which the sure years had consigned them, might well be questioned; but I do not care to dwell upon that point at this time. The responsibility must rest where it belongs. Wisdom was never a characteristic of those bent upon popularizing the truth by emasculating it. The duty devolving upon the present writer is to point out the errors which the article contains, and counteract so far as can now be done, the ill effects of their dissemination. This is the purpose, rather than to find fault with the Lamoni editors, or with the eminent scholar and statesman who has now passed to his final account.

The sudden death of Secretary Hay, only ten days after the issuance of that particular imprint of the paper in question, was of course unforeseen by the publishers; nor is it desired that the event should cut any figure in the case as presented by this review. I would much rather Mr. Hay were alive than dead. Our country needs the services of such men as he, one of the wisest of her diplomats, one of the ablest of her civic servants. I am sorry that he could not have perused the contents of this pamphlet. He might have profited thereby. Possibly it would have induced him to revise himself, if indeed he had not done so already. I cannot resist the impression that John Hay, Secretary of State, would not have written the article penned by John Hay, politician and journalist. Men grow some in thirty-six years, and this man grew remarkably during his last two decades. Had he produced his "Tragedy" in 1905, instead of 1869, I doubt that he would have made himself an apologist for mobs and murder; that he would have treated in a lightsome, humorous vein, a theme so serious, so essentially solemn and awful, as the killing of innocent men, revered by hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens as veritable prophets of God. It was altogether unworthy of a great man, or of one who wished to be considered fair and impartial.

In the hope that it may assist the great men of our land now living, or who may yet live, as well as the public at large, to a better understanding of the subject than was possessed by Mr. Hay when he wrote "The Mormon Prophet's Tragedy," this answer is indicted and sent forth. May the Spirit of Truth prepare the way for its acceptance by the honest in heart!

"Old Joe Smith."

The first thing in the article under review that strikes the reader unpleasantly, is the flippant, almost jocular mood in which it is written; a feature foreign to the true spirit of history (to say nothing of poesy), and quite unbecoming a Christian scholar in the treatment of a tragic theme. At the very opening of the satirical onslaught, the would-be funny author refers to his subject as "the prophet Joe Smith," and then proceeds to ridicule him, and to blacken his character in advance of the main narrative; the evident purpose being to prejudice the public mind against the founder of "Mormonism," with a view to palliating if not justifying "the deep damnation of his taking off."

The contemptuous nicknaming of the Prophet, if excusable at all, must be upon the ground that it was common among politicians of that period to abbreviate the given names of men, even the most eminent; a practice not yet obsolete, though only in favor with the vulgar. Thus we have such familiar titles as "Abe" Lincoln, "Steve" Douglass, et al., in the political nomenclature of the State of Illinois. But I submit that it would have been in better taste for a scholarly writer, a Christian gentleman, one who would hardly have tolerated such a disrespectful allusion to the murdered President Lincoln, and might even have felt nettled had he himself been referred to as "Jack" Hay, to have refrained from this exhibition of discourtesy to the dead, this all but ribald reference to one regarded by a great and growing people as a prophet and a martyr to a sacred cause.

True, such nicknames are not always used ill naturedly. In the backwoods they might indicate a sort of rude affection for the persons to whom they are given. But it is not so in this instance, and even if it were, it would still be an impropriety. It may be said, however, in further extenuation of this breach of literary etiquette and Christian charity, that the sectarian churches, almost from the beginning of Mormon history, had stigmatized the youthful revelator of the unpopular religion, as "Old Joe Smith;" and as Mr. Hay was reared among such influences it is not surprising that he should have adopted the prevailing mode and incorporated the epithet into his religious and political creed.

Joseph Smith himself once reproved a Methodist minister for neglecting to observe the amenities toward him in this respect. The incident is related by Josiah Quincy, who was a guest of the Prophet at his home in Nauvoo, only a few weeks before the martyrdom. The reverend gentleman, who was also visiting the City of the Saints, had remarked, "Why, I told my congregation the other Sunday that they might as well believe Joe Smith as such theology as that!" "Did you say Joe Smith in a sermon?" inquired the person to whom the title had been applied. "Of course I did. Why not?" Says Mr. Quincy, "the Prophet's reply was given with a quiet superiority that was overwhelming: 'Considering only the day and the place, it would have been more respectful to have said Lieutenant-General Joseph Smith.' Clearly the worthy minister was no match for the head of the Mormon Church."

The "Tragedy" Opens.

Now let us see what Mr. Hay has to present. "As early as 1838," he writes, "the prophet Joe Smith seems to have adopted that fascinating theory 'that all pretty women have the right to charm us, and the wife's claim of mere priority should not injure the just pretensions of others to our admiration.' Joseph never read Moliere,-nor anybody else,-and so he did not copy either the language or manner of the irresistible Signor Tenorio. His lover's mood was 'more condoling', but not less effective for the flavor of cant there was in it. His weapons were direct revelations and promises of mansions in the sky. His wooing prospered in spite of the buxom and protesting Emma, his lawful wife, who exhibited a natural though purely eclectic scepticism in regard to those special revelations."

And with this precious piece of scandal for a prelude, the "Tragedy" opens. Then follows an equally showy and even more defamatory declaration:

"In the spring of 1844, in Nauvoo, the prophet saw the wife of Doctor Foster, admired her, and, led by his evil genius, marched to conquest and found defeat. Her reception of him was what Jomini would call 'defensive, with offensive return.' She supplemented Lucretia with Xantippe, and her husband, the doctor, found that something must be done. He talked the thing over with Mr. Law, whose placens luxor had received and declined the same saintly overtures, and they came to the eminently American conclusion that the light should be turned upon such an iniquity. They bought press and types, and appealed to that court of final resort for all Anglo-Saxon blood,-printer's ink."

Allusion is here made to the founding of the paper called the "Nauvoo Expositor," concerning which and the other matters mentioned in this somewhat pedantic presentation, more will be said hereafter.

A Blunted Arrow.

The would-be-witty dart that "Joseph never read Moliere,-nor anybody else," falls to the ground from a shield of well known facts covering the object of this cynical attack. I am in a position to inform the uninformed-of which class our cultured author seems to have been a most conspicuous example so far as Mormon subjects are concerned -that Joseph Smith, although he had begun his career, like other great Americans, an illiterate boy, was nevertheless a lover of learning, and as a man had become a founder of schools in Ohio, in Missouri, and in Illinois. He had read much, and was well versed in history, theology, languages, law, and even poetry. He was likewise a patron of the drama, and though he may never have "read Moliere," it was not because he was unwilling to read, but because he had healthier literature with which to store his mind. "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning even by study and also by faith," was the Prophet's injunction to his people. He taught that "the glory of God is intelligence;" that "a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge;" and that those who attain to most intelligence in this life will have just that much the advantage in the world to come. Joseph Smith was a thorough scriptorian; he knew the Bible from beginning to end, and profited by his reading of it. He was naturally merciful and magnanimous, and did not bear false witness against his neighbor. Colonel Hay thus continues:

Liars and Hypocrites."

"Mr. Hepworth Dixon, who has the convenient faculty of believing everything that is picturesque, and rejecting unmanageable evidence with an airy tant pis pour les fairs, represents the system of polygamy as an emanation of the political genius of Brigham Young, invented as a means of government, and accepted with blind faith by the pure-minded elders of Utah. He says: 'Who shall say they are insincere? Young told me that in the early days of this strange institution he was much opposed to plural households, and I am confident that he speaks the truth. Among the Mormon presidents and apostles, we have not seen one face on which liar and hypocrite were written. Though we daily meet with fanatics, we have not seen a single man whom we can call a rogue.' It is inconsistent with Mr. Dixon's theory of Smith's mystic fanaticism to admit the stories of his robust profligacy. So he simply denies them. But no fact is more notorious than that Smith's daily life had established polygamy in Nauvoo long before Rigdon had invented his jargon of spiritual wives, or Hiram received his revelation to justify it. The elders of the Church, Brigham and others, clamored rebelliously against the prophet's exclusive license, and together they began cautiously to lay the foundation of the new doctrine, which, properly arranged, should prove a strength instead of weakness to the Church. Begging Mr. Dixon's pardon,-they were 'liars and hypocrites.' In the great hierarchy at Nauvoo there were no fanatics; the flocks were sheep, but the keepers were wolves. This doctrine of spiritual wives was the result, not the cause, of the lewd lives of Smith, Young and their fellow blackguards, and was invented to justify the immoralities which the ignorance and credulity of their female worshipers rendered so easy, to serve in the future as a bait for the rascal few, and to blind the eyes of the honest and stupid mass."

Begging nobody's pardon, I denounce as wickedly and totally false what is here said of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and their associates. Happily for some men-thanks to "Mormonism," which they so hate and villify-there is a chance for repentance beyond the grave. The only thing that saves the author of "The Mormon Prophet's Tragedy" from the full condemnation to be visited upon those who "love and make a lie," is the fact that this particular lie was made long before he uttered it. He had no personal knowledge of the matter. He was imposed upon by second-hand dealers in falsehoods manufactured by such foul and corrupt characters as John C. Bennett, who, in May, 1842, was expelled from the Mormon Church for his adulteries and rascalities. John Hay repeats John C. Bennett's falsehoods, and those of others almost equally untrustworthy. Let him answer at the Judgment Seat whether he repeated them because he loved them. A man who could deliberately, upon such testimony, defame the good and great, brand them as "liars and hypocrites," and in the same breath refer to their red-handed murderers as "good citizens, educated and irreproachable," living to "enjoy the respect and esteem of all who know them," will have something to answer for at the righteous tribunal of a just God.

In reply to his reply to Hepworth Dixon, who visited Brigham Young in Utah, and mingled freely with the Mormon leaders and their followers, not contenting himself with the malicious tales told by their religious and political enemies, I have simply this to say: "Liars and hypocrites" do not lay down their lives, as did Joseph and Hyrum Smith, for their convictions; "profligates," robust or otherwise, do not make the sacrifices made by Brigham Young and his fellow pilgrims into a savage wilderness, a desert transformed into an Eden by their moral and frugal industry. The Mormon leaders, no less than the Mormon people, have proved beyond all cavil, to every honest and unprejudiced mind, their absolute sincerity. They may have had their faults, but these were fewer and far less serious than those of their calumniators. They never slandered the dead, never justified the murder of the innocent. Joseph Smith was not of that self-seeking, calculating class who pander to the passions of the mob. He braved public opinion, stemming the stiff current of prejudice, and never drifting with the tide.

"Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,-

They were souls who stood alone,

While the men they agonized for,

Hurled the contumelious stone;

Stood serene, and down the future

Saw the golden beam incline

To the side of perfect justice,

Mastered by their faith divine,

By one man's plain truth to manhood

And to God's supreme design."

How Joseph Smith Impressed Men.

Hepworth Dixon was not the only fair-minded Gentile who saw something to commend in the Mormon people and their leaders. Here are a few un-solicited testimonials, selected from many of the same sort, which show how Joseph Smith impressed honest men with whom he came in contact.

A member of Congress, after meeting him in the City of Washington, whither he went in 1839, to petition the general government for redress of grievances growing out of the wrongs suffered by him and his people in Missouri, wrote thus respecting the Prophet:

"Everything he says is said in a manner to leave an impression that he is sincere. There is no levity, no fanaticism, no want of dignity in his deportment. He is apparently from forty to forty-five years of age [Joseph was then about thirty-four], rather above middle stature, and what the ladies would call a very good-looking man. In his garb there are no peculiarities, his dress being that of a plain, unpretending citizen. He is by profession a farmer, but is evidently well read. * * * Throughout his whole address he displayed strongly a spirit of charity and forbearance."

Joseph Smith was a free mason, and the Masonic Grand Master, in Illinois, wrote of him to the "Advocate" as follows:

"Having recently had occasion to visit the City of Nauvoo, I cannot permit the opportunity to pass without expressing the agreeable disappointment that awaited me there. I had supposed, from what I had previously heard, that I should witness an impoverished, ignorant and bigoted population, completely priest-ridden and tyrannized over by Joseph Smith, the great prophet of these people.

"On the contrary, to my surprise, I saw a people apparently happy, prosperous and intelligent. Every man appeared to be employed in some business or occupation. I saw no idleness, no intemperance, no noise, no riot; all appeared to be contented, with no desire to trouble themselves with anything except their own affairs. With the religion of this people I have nothing to do; if they can be satisfied with the doctrines of their new revelation, they have a right to be so. The constitution of the country guarantees to them the right of worshiping God according to the dictates of their own conscience, and if they can be so easily satisfied, why should we, who differ with them, complain? * * * *

"During my stay of three days I became well acquainted with their principal men, and more particularly with their Prophet. I found them hospitable, polite, well-informed and liberal. With Joseph Smith, the hospitality of whose house I kindly received, I was well pleased. Of course, on the subject of religion we widely differed, but he appeared to be quite as willing to permit me to enjoy my right of opinion as I think we all ought to be to let the Mormons enjoy theirs. But instead of the ignorant and tyrannical upstart, judge my surprise at finding him a sensible, intelligent companion and gentlemanly man. In frequent conversations with him he gave me every information that I desired, and appeared to be only pleased at being able to do so. He appears to be much respected by all the people about him, and has their entire confidence."

A Methodist preacher named Prior, who visited Nauvoo to hear a Sabbath sermon by the Prophet, recorded the result in these words:

"I will not attempt to describe the various feelings of my bosom as I took my seat in a conspicuous place in the congregation, who were waiting in breathless silence for his appearance. While he tarried, I had plenty of time to revolve in my mind the character and common report of that truly singular personage. I fancied that I should behold a countenance sad and sorrowful, yet containing the fiery marks of rage and exasperation. I supposed that I should be enabled to discover in him some of those thoughtful and reserved features, those mystic and sarcastic glances, which I had fancied the ancient sages to possess. I expected to see that fearful, faltering look of conscious shame which, from what I had heard of him, he might be expected to evince. He appeared at last; but how was I disappointed when, instead of the heads and horns of the beast and false prophet, I beheld only the appearance of a common man, of tolerably large proportions. I was sadly disappointed, and thought that although his appearance could not be wrested to indicate anything against him, yet he would manifest all I had heard of him, when he began to preach. I sat uneasily, and watched him closely. He commenced preaching, not from the Book of Mormon, however, but from the Bible; the first chapter of the first of Peter was his text. He commenced calmly, and continued dispassionately to pursue his subject, while I sat in breathless silence, waiting to hear that foul aspersion of the other sects, that diabolical disposition of revenge, and to hear that rancorous denunciation of every individual but a Mormon. I waited in vain; I listened with surprise; I sat uneasy in my seat, and could hardly persuade myself but that he had been apprised of my presence, and so ordered his discourse on my account, that I might not be able to find fault with it; for instead of a jumbled jargon of half-connected sentences, and a volley of imprecations, and diabolical and malignant denunciations, heaped upon the heads of all who differed from him, and the dreadful twisting and wresting of the Scriptures to suit his own particular views, and attempt to weave a web of dark and mystic sophistry around the gospel truths, which I had anticipated, he glided along through a very interesting and elaborate discourse, with all the care and happy facility of one who was well aware of his important station, and his duty to God and man."

An English traveler, who visited Nauvoo in 1843, had this to say in the course of a newspaper letter widely copied at the time:

"Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, is a singular character; he lives at the 'Nauvoo Mansion House,' which is, I understand, intended to become a home for the stranger and traveler, and I think, from my own personal observation, that it will be deserving of the name. The Prophet is a kind, cheerful, sociable companion. I believe that he has the good-will of the community at large, and that he is ever ready to stand by and defend them in any extremity; and as I saw the Prophet and his brother Hyrum conversing together one day, I thought I beheld two of the greatest men of the nineteenth century. I have witnessed the Mormons in their assemblies on a Sunday, and I know not where a similar scene could be effected or produced. With respect to the teachings of the Prophet, I must say that there are some things hard to be understood: but he invariably supports himself from our good old Bible. Peace and harmony reign in the city. The drunkard is scarcely ever seen, as in other cities, neither does the awful imprecation or profane oath strike upon your ear, but, while all is storm and tempest and confusion abroad respecting the Mormons, all is peace and harmony at home."

But John Hay saw nothing of this. A mere child when the Prophet was murdered, he was still but an urchin when the Mormon community, expelled from Illinois, made its enforced pilgrimage to the Rocky Mountains. True, he once lived at Warsaw, from which town the mob went forth that murdered the helpless prisoners in Carthage jail; but he was then less than six years old, having been born October 8, 1838, at Salem, Indiana. All that he knew about the Mormons, or cared to remember and reproduce concerning them, were the stories told or written by their enemies. As a youth he studied law at Springfield, the capital of Illinois, and it was there, in all probability, that he formed the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, the future President, whose private secretary he became during the period of the Civil War. A pity he could not have imbibed, through close association with that great man, some of his innate charity. Lincoln was never unfriendly to the Mormons, nor to any other people.

It is plainly apparent that Mr. Hay, when he prepared his article for the "Atlantic Monthly," had little or no use for the records in the case, except such as were unfavorable to the objects of his criticism, and some of those he failed to interpret aright. He has scarcely a sentence that does not contain some inaccuracy. His prejudice against everything Mormon, and his sympathy with everything anti-Mormon, makes him a most unreliable historian. The article was intended to be "well-written;" one need not read two lines of it in order to feel that the author's mind was less upon what he was saying than upon how he was saying it; a practice as fatal in literature as in oratory. Well written it might have been,-Mr. Hay wielded a master pen,-had he chosen a more appropriate theme upon which to vent his ill-timed satire.

While perfectly familiar with the spirit and tactics of those who deem it their mission to destroy or injure Mormonism; well acquainted as I am with their stock arguments, and with the blunders that they commonly commit, I must confess to my surprise, almost wonderment, at the following statement made by Mr. Hay in the course of his answer to Hepworth Dixon:

Polygamy, or the "Spiritual Wife" Doctrine.

"No fact is more notorious than that Smith's daily life had established polygamy in Nauvoo long before Rigdon had invented his jargon of spiritual wives, or Hiram received his revelation to justify it. * * * In all Smith's curious history there is no fact more clearly established than this effort to legalize and consecrate his immoral life. It formed the first link of that chain of circumstances which within a few days dragged him to his doom."

And nowhere, Mr. Hay, in all your curious comment upon that history, is your ignorance of Mormonism and the Mormons more clearly shown. Not content with taking the untenable ground that the doctrine of plural marriage-"the jargon of spiritual wives"-was introduced into the Church to consecrate the immoralities of its leaders, you make the astounding assertion that Sidney Rigdon invented it, and that Hyrum Smith received the revelation to justify it. All of which is stupidly and ridiculously false. The revelation on plural marriage came through the Prophet, Seer and Revelator at the head of the Church-Joseph Smith, Jr., the original teacher of this doctrine. Sidney Rigdon had nothing to do with it, any more than he had to do with the origin of the Book of Mormon, which he was accused of writing, but in reality never saw until six months after its publication. Moreover, he was one of the recalcitrants who refused to receive the plural-wife doctrine. How dare anyone having the least regard for his literary or historical reputation be so reckless as to assert that Sidney Rigdon was the author of it?

Let some friend of Mr. Hay's answer, if he can, the following statement by Sidney Rigdon himself, contained in a communication to the "Messenger and Advocate," published at Greencastle, Pennsylvania, in June, 1846. Speaking of the exiled Mormons, who were then on the Iowa frontier, moving westward under the leadership of President Brigham Young, Mr. Rigdon says:

"We are well aware that the leaders of this people introduced many corruptions among them. * * * They introduced a base system of polygamy. * * * This system of corruption brought a train of evils with it, which has terminated in their entire ruin. * * * This system was introduced by the Smiths some time before their death, and was the thing which put them into the power of their enemies, and was the immediate cause of their death. * * * We warned Joseph Smith and his family of the ruin that was coming on them, and of the certain destruction which awaited them for their iniquity. * * * From them we received like treatment as we did from the Twelve and their followers. * * * The Smiths have fallen before their enemies, as the Lord said they would, and their families are sunk into everlasting shame and disgrace, until their very name is a reproach; and must remain so for ever."

Does this sound as if Sidney Rigdon was in sympathy with plural marriage; that he was the "inventor" of the "jargon of spiritual wives?"

Equally preposterous is the assertion that Hyrum Smith received the revelation justifying the practice of plural marriage. Every boy in Utah knows that it was Joseph Smith, not Hyrum Smith, nor any other of the Prophet's subordinates, who claimed to have received from God the revelation justifying, or rather, authorizing that practice. Every tyro in the study of Mormonism knows this to be the channel through which it would have to come in order to commend it to the Latter-day Saints as a divine revelation. So sacredly guarded is the right to receive revelations for the guidance of the Church, that only one man upon the earth, at a time, is recognized as holding the keys of such communications. That man, at the time of which I write, was Joseph Smith, not Hyrum Smith, not Sidney Rigdon, nor any other person. But John Hay, blinded by prejudice or misled by false information, attempts to account for polygamy in his own way.

"In the year 1844," he says, "the attempt was made to ingraft this abomination upon the creed of the Church. The affidavits of William Law and his wife and of Austin Cowles, published in the 'Expositor,' established the fact that Hiram Smith had read to them a pretended revelation of the dogma of "a plurality of wives," and * * * in the case of Sister Law, the revelation was strengthened by the assurances of damnation to any woman who objected to her husband's embracing the new doctrine.

"It is true that Joe Smith, after the publication of these affidavits, took fright at the storm of disgust they produced, and desisted from the attempt to inculcate the new doctrine. But he never distinctly denied the authenticity of the revelation. On the contrary, during one of those singular trials in his own municipal court, he stated squarely, 'Brother Hiram is a prophet of the Lord; and when the Lord speaks let the earth tremble,'"

Let me lead our author out of the maze in which he is wandering, and put the reader in possession of the facts. The revelation read by Hyrum Smith to William Law and Austin Cowles, and referred to in their affidavits printed in the "Expositor," was the revelation received and originally uttered by Joseph Smith, commanding him and those to whom he should communicate the principle of plural marriage to practice it under penalty of damnation. This reading of the document took place in the presence of the High Council, of which body Austin Cowles was a member; William Law being at the same time one of the First Presidency of the Church. The inference drawn by Mr. Hay that the revelation had been "received" by Hyrum Smith, that he was the source or original oracle of the same, is not warranted even by the wording of the affidavits he cites. It is simply a jumped-at conclusion-purely an invention of his own. As to what the revelation contained, there need be no quibble. Let it speak for itself. Here it is in extenso :

How and When Plural Marriage Was Established.

The date of this document, it will be observed, is July 12, 1843. But the principle embodied therein had been revealed to the Prophet many years before, even prior to 1838, the time set by Mr. Hay as a starting point for the alleged immoralities of the Mormon leader. As early as 1831, while the Church was at Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith received revelations respecting plural marriage, but did not commit them to writing. Neither did he practice the principle, nor permit its practice in the Church at that time. He mentioned it, however, to some of his trusted friends, predicted its eventual establishment, and gradually prepared the way for its introduction.

Kirtland was the cradle of the Church. As an infant, less than a year old, it was carried there from its birthplace, Fayette, Seneca County, New York. In 1838 it made its headquarters at Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri, to which State it had previously sent a colony to "buildup Zion" and gather scattered Israel, preparatory to the coming of the Lord. From Jackson County-the chosen site of the New Jerusalem-these colonists were expelled with violence in the autumn of 1833; and during the winter of 1838-9, the entire Mormon community, numbering about fifteen thousand souls, were driven out of Missouri, under the exterminating order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs. They found a refuge in Hancock County, Illinois, where they built the City of Nauvoo, and it was there that the revelation on plural marriage was first committed to writing. Uttered by Joseph, the Prophet, it was taken down by William Clayton, his scribe.

In obedience to this divine command,-for such he declared it to be,-and several years before the revelation was thus recorded, Joseph Smith married plural wives, and taught the principle to others, who also practiced it. But this was done privately, owing to the great opposition foreseen. Let no one think that it was not a trial to those called upon to introduce it. Hepworth Dixon was right. Brigham Young told the truth when he said he was opposed originally to "plural households." Instead of "a bait," it was a cross, to men as well as women, and these so-called "profligates" had the fiercest kinds of struggles with themselves before they could conquer their native prejudices and accept a principle so foreign to their Anglo-Saxon traditions and Puritanic training. However divine it might be, it was a startling innovation, this restored marriage system of the Hebrew patriarchs; and though designed for physical and moral regeneration here and eternal exaltation hereafter, it was with heavy hearts that these heroic men and women took up the burden. Mormon plural marriage, practiced from the days of Nauvoo down to the time of the prohibitory "Manifesto" of 1890, was not a system of licentiousness; it was designed to correct and abolish such evils. It enjoined strict purity of life, imposed obligations, involved trials, and demanded from husbands and wives sacrifices of which those who never lived in it never dreamed. Only the best of men and women were considered worthy to live this higher law; and indeed only the best and noblest were capable of living it aright. These were called to be the pioneers in its establishment.

Emma Smith, the Prophet's wife, over whose particular case Mr. Hay makes merry, was among those who obeyed the commandment. She fulfilled "the law of Sarah" and gave wives to her husband; but like Sarah she was not equal to a sustained effort in that direction, and so fell away, repudiated the principle, and is said to have gone so far as to declare that Joseph never practiced it. She maintained, it is alleged, that Brigham Young (whom she disliked) or iginated the doctrine after the Prophet's death. But the evidence of Joseph's origination, or first utterance of the revelation, and Emma's acceptance thereof, is too voluminous and too conclusive to admit of doubt. It was Joseph Smith, not Brigham Young, who introduced and established plural marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Upon some of the points touched in the preceding paragraphs, we have the following statement from the late Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, whose father, Heber C. Kimball, was one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church, and her mother, Vilate Murray Kimball, a first wife who gave other wives to her husband.

Mrs. Whitney'S Statement.

"My mother often told me that she could not doubt that the plural order of marriage was of God, for the Lord had revealed it to her in answer to prayer. "In Nauvoo, shortly after his return from England [July, 1841], my father, among others of his brethren, was taught the plural wife doctrine, and was told by Joseph the Prophet, three times, to go and take a certain woman as his wife; but not till he commanded him in the name of the Lord did he obey. At the same time Joseph told him not to divulge this secret, not even to my mother, for fear that she would not receive it; for his life was in constant jeopardy, not only from outside influences and enemies who were seeking some plea to take him back to Missouri, but from false brethren who had crept like snakes into his bosom and then betrayed him.

"My father realized the situation fully, and the love and reverence he bore the Prophet were so great that he would sooner have laid down his life than have betrayed him. This was one of the greatest tests of his faith he had ever experienced. The thought of deceiving the kind and faithful wife of his youth, whom he loved with all his heart, and who with him had borne so patiently their separations, and all the trials and sacrifices they had been called to endure, was more than he felt able to bear.

"He realized not only the addition of trouble and perplexity that such a step must bring upon him, but his sorrow and misery were increased by the thought of my mother's hearing of it from some other source, which would no doubt separate them, and he shrank from the thought of such a thing, or of causing her any unhappiness. Finally he was so tried that he went to Joseph and told him how he felt-that he was fearful if he took such a step he could not stand, but would be overcome. The Prophet, full of sympathy for him, went and inquired of the Lord. His answer was, 'Tell him to go and do as he has been commanded, and if I see that there is any danger of his apostatizing, I will take him to myself.'

"The fact that he had to be commanded three times to do this thing shows that the trial must have been extraordinary, for he was a man who, from the first, had yielded implicit obedience to every requirement of the Prophet.

"When first hearing the principle taught, believing that he would be called upon to enter into it, he had thought of two elderly ladies named Pitkin, great friends of my mother's, who, he believed, would cause her little if any unhappiness. But the woman he was commanded to take was an English lady named Sarah Noon, nearer my mother's age, who came over with the company of Saints in the same ship in which father and Brother Brigham returned from Europe. She had been married and was the mother of two little girls, but left her husband on account of his drunken and dissolute habits. Father was told to take her as his wife and provide for her and her children, and he did so.

"My mother had noticed a change in his manner and appearance, and when she inquired the cause, he tried to evade her questions. At last he promised he would tell her after a while, if she would only wait. This trouble so worked upon his mind that his anxious and haggard looks betrayed him daily and hourly, and finally his misery became so unbearable that it was impossible to control his feelings. He became sick in body, but his mental wretchedness was too great to allow of his retiring, and he would walk the floor till nearly morning, and sometimes the agony of his mind was so terrible that he would wring his hands and weep like a child, and beseech the Lord to be merciful and reveal to her this principle, for he himself could not break his vow of secrecy.

"The anguish of their hearts was indescribable, and when she found it was useless to beseech him longer, she retired to her room and bowed before the Lord and poured out her soul in prayer to Him who hath said: 'If any lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.' My father's heart was raised at the same time in supplication. While pleading as one would plead for life, the vision of her mind was opened, and as darkness flees before the morning sun, so did her sorrow and the groveling things of earth vanish away.

"Before her was illustrated the order of celestial marriage, in all its beauty and glory, together with the great exaltation and honor it would confer upon her in that immortal and celestial sphere, if she would accept it and stand in her place by her husband's side. She also saw the woman he had taken to wife, and contemplated with joy the vast and boundless love and union which this order would bring about, as well as the increase of her husband's kingdoms, and the power and glory extending throughout the eternities, worlds without end.

"With a countenance beaming with joy, for she was filled with the Spirit of God, she returned to my father, saying: 'Heber, what you kept from me the Lord has shown me.' She told me she never saw so happy a man as father was when she described the vision and told him she was satisfied and knew it was from God.

"She covenanted to stand by him and honor the principle, which covenant she faithfully kept, and though her trials were often heavy and grievous to bear, she knew that father was also being tried, and her integrity was unflinching to the end. She gave my father many wives, and they always found in my mother a faithful friend."

A Living Widow of the Prophet.

Up to within a few years there resided in Utah several of the widows of the Prophet Joseph Smith; and they were among the most refined, most virtuous, most intelligent women in the community. After Joseph's death they remarried, some of them as plural wives. One of these ladies is still living. She is known as Mrs. Lucy Walker Kimball, and her home is at No. 332 East Fourth South Street, Salt Lake City. Mrs. Kimball is personally cognizant of the fact that Emma Smith gave wives to her husband and helped to protect him in the practice of plural marriage.

John C. Bennett'S Romances and Rascalities.

It was John C. Bennett who set afloat the falsehood that Joseph Smith sanctioned illicit relations between the sexes. A more consummate villain never practiced upon the patience of a community than this man Bennett; if man he may be called. He was more fiend than man, an Iago in real life, a Machiavellian of the worst type. Governor Thomas Ford, in his history of Illinois, refers to him as "probably the greatest scamp in the western country." He had associated himself with the Mormon people soon after their cruel expulsion from Missouri. Professing great sympathy for the persecuted Saints, he was apparently a sincere convert to their faith. At that time he held the office of Quarter-master General of Illinois. Educated, and considerable of a diplomat, he assisted to secure from the Legislature the charter of the City of Nauvoo. He was known from the first as egotistical and vain, but that he was corrupt and unprincipled did not immediately appear. He was rewarded for his services in working for the charter, with the mayoralty of the city. He also became Chancellor of the University and Major-General of the Legion, at Nauvoo.

In May, 1842, Bennett's treachery and rascality became known to his benefactor, Joseph Smith, whose life, it seems, he had basely attempted. Soon afterward he was convicted of the crime of seduction and severed from the Church. Vindictive in the extreme, he invented all sorts of stories to bring trouble upon his former friends. Some of these he circulated before his excommunication; notably the canard in relation to the Prophet's licentiousness. Affecting deep contrition after his exposure, he voluntarily made affidavit that Joseph Smith had never taught him anything contrary to the principles of truth and virtue, and so far as he knew the Prophet's private life was above reproach. Finding that he could not regain the confidence of the community, he withdrew from Nauvoo and became for a time the head and front of an anti-Mormon movement. He wrote and published a book, a pretended expose of Mormonism, in which he revived the false story of the "Danites, or "Destroying Angels," originally told by Dr. Avard, another apostate, in Missouri. Bennett declared that these "Danites" (Mormon avengers) were following him, to put him out of the way. He alleged that Joseph Smith was about to make himself a king; that he was planning the overthrow of the American republic, and the founding of a despotic empire upon its ruins; that he even then kept a seraglio, like an oriental monarch, and if permitted to gain the power he coveted would gratify to the full upon the persons and properties of his Mormon and non-Mormon subjects, his lustful passions and tyrannical instincts.

It was Bennett who invented the jargon of "spiritual wives." I mean that the phrase was his, but it was never the accepted title of the principle it pretended to describe. This and his other jargons about "cyprian saints," "chambered sisters of charity," "consecratees of the cloister," etc., were invented to cover up his own iniquity, and to wreak revenge upon the Prophet, who had repudiated him and his villainies. Bennett was guilty of all the sexual sins, amours, seductions, attempted and in some cases consummated, that he falsely charged upon Joseph Smith.

The intelligent and reputable anti-Mormons,- whose casus belli against the Prophet and his people was their alleged political solidarity,-despised Bennett and distrusted his sensational story; but some were simple enough to give the vile wretch, whose innate wickedness shows on every page of his book, the unmerited credence that he craved; accepting holus bolus the assertion of this liar and hypocrite, that his motive for becoming a Mormon had been to acquaint himself with the Prophet's treasonable designs (which he had before suspected), in order that he might be the savior of his country! He fully exemplified the truth of bluff old Dr. Johnson's proverb: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Bennett had as his coadjutors the worst elements of the anti-Mormon party, which rallied to its standard, not only some very respectable persons, but every ruffian having a grudge or grievance against the unpopular Church or any of its members. He was also in league with a ring of apostates at Nauvoo, who secretly aided him in the preparation of his so-called expose. A double-headed conspiracy existed, the object of which was the overthrow of the Mormon power, religiously and politically; the destruction of the leaders, and the extermination, if need be, of their followers. This is no exaggeration. Out of their own mouths shall the guilty be judged.

Joseph Smith a Presidential Candidate.

To show at a glance how groundless was the charge that Joseph Smith proposed making himself a king, it is but needful to cite the fact that the opening of 1844, the year of the martyrdom, witnessed his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States. An ardent lover of liberty, a descendant of pilgrims and patriots who had helped to found the nation; the first man on earth to declare that the American government came by inspiration from God; he, of all men, to be accused of plotting for its overthrow! His mind, at this very period, was wrought upon by the most patriotic impulses, looking to the still greater glory and grandeur of his country. He favored "the extension of the Union, with the consent of the red man, from sea to sea;" "the annexation of Texas, if she petitioned for it, and of Canada and Mexico, whenever they should desire to enter the Union;" also the abolition of slavery, though upon the basis of a just and proper remuneration of the slave-holders by the general government. Said he: "We have had Democratic Presidents, Whig Presidents, a pseudo-Democratic-Whig President; and now it is time to have a President of the United States." These were among his pronounced political views. Do they savor of kingcraft and tyranny? Again he said: "I feel it to be my right and privilege to obtain what influence and power I can, lawfully, in the United States, for the protection of injured innocence; and if I lose my life in a good cause, I am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and truth, in maintaining the laws and Constitution of the United States, if need be, for the general good of mankind." A courageous spirit, truly; a cosmopolitan spirit; but not the spirit of disloyalty.

To promulgate these views through the Eastern, Northern, and Southern States, and work for the Prophet in the campaign, went forth from Nauvoo, in the spring of that memorable year, such men as Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley and Orson Pratt, George A. Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and other Mormon stalwarts. Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch of the Church; Willard Richards, its historian; John Taylor, editor of the "Times and Seasons" and the "Nauvoo Neighbor," with other prominent Elders, remained with the Prophet in Illinois.

The Nauvoo Expositor.

It was just at this juncture that the "Nauvoo Expositor" made its appearance. The publishers of that paper were William and Wilson Law, Charles Ivins, Francis M. and Chauncey L. Higbee, Robert D. and Charles A. Foster. Most of these were apostate Mormons, who looked upon Joseph Smith as "a fallen prophet," though they still professed faith in the doctrines originally taught by him. They had set up a church of their own, with William Law at its head. He had been Joseph's second counselor in the First Presidency, but had found, like Sidney Rigdon, the first counselor, a stumbling block in plural marriage. President Rigdon, by the way, had left Nauvoo and was living at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, at this crisis in the affairs of the Church. Subsequently he laid claim to the leadership, but was rejected by the vote of the members, who sustained Brigham Young, the senior of the Twelve Apostles, as the rightful successor to President Joseph Smith. William Law was presumably the "Mr. Law" referred to by Colonel Hay, as having purchased, in connection with one "Doctor Foster," a press and types, with the intention of turning the light upon the alleged "iniquity" of the Mormon leader. William Law was naturally a good and upright man, but had fallen under an influence inimical to the Prophet, and was now much embittered against him. His brother, Wilson Law, the successor to John C. Bennett as Major-General of the Nauvoo Legion, had been cashiered for dishonesty and had resigned. Robert D. Foster, the "Doctor Foster" of the Hay narrative, had been sharply reprimanded by the Prophet, for an act bordering on immorality. In Bennett's book he is referred to by one of his own party, George W. Robinson, as "that notable liar, scoundrel and villain." A Similar cloud rested upon others of the little coterie of backsliders.

It is hardly necessary to say that the charges of unchastity made against Joseph Smith, all grew out of the practice of plural marriage, a thing very easily misunderstood, and very liable to be misrepresented, especially in those days, when it had not been openly avowed, and was practiced only in private. Upon a complaint signed by William Law, charging him with polygamy, the Prophet stood indicted at Carthage, the county seat of Hancock County, at the time of the issuance of the "Nauvoo Expositor."

The avowed purpose of this publication, as announced in its prospectus, dated May 10th, 1844, was to advocate "the unconditional repeal of the Nauvoo City Charter," efforts to which end had already been made in the Illinois legislature. A further design, as shown by the first and final number of the paper, which made its appearance on the 7th of June, was to libel the Mormon leaders, and bring upon them and their people the terrible power of the mob. The main target, as a matter of course, was the Prophet at the head of the Church.

"It was clear," says Mr. Hay, "that a crisis had arisen in his fortunes. A clearer-headed man than he might well have hesitated as to the course most expedient to pursue. To disregard this sudden and vigorous attack might prove fatal to his prestige. We may smile at the lame grammar and turgid rhetoric of the Expositor, but it was a better paper than Smith's organ, the Neighbor. Parmi les aveuqles le borgne est roi. A little brains went farther in Nauvoo than anywhere else on earth. Contemptible as the Expositor was, Smith could not despise it. To resort to violence might lead to bloody reprisals. But his rowdy instincts decided the question. He procured from his corrupt and servile municipal court an order declaring the new journal a public nuisance. A party of his myrmidons destroyed the press and pied the offending types.

"This act was Smith's death-warrant. Thereafter the mob could say to the prophet, The villainy you teach me I will execute."

A luminous sample, this, of our learned author's logic. The abatement of a libelous newspaper, officially condemned as a public nuisance under the provisions of a duly enacted municipal ordinance; a peaceable, orderly proceeding, done by the regular police, under the direction of the Mayor and City Council, Mr. Hay considers an act of lawlessness, and virtually pleads it in extenuation of the violence of the mob which retaliated by murdering Joseph and Hyrum Smith. In a land of Bibles and churches, of laws and of courts, with the Mormons in the minority, the only way to get even with them, for an act of alleged riot, in which no blood was spilt, and no personal injury inflicted, was to treacherously imprison and foully murder their leaders! Was it by dint of such powerful reasoning as this that John Hay rose to eminence? His narrative goes on:

"Smith's official paper, the Neighbor, gave a full account of the proceeding. The article ends in these words, which bear a curious family likeness to the protests for ever made by slaveholders and other enemies of the human race, against the reprisals of law and justice. They want nothing more than to be let alone. 'And in the name of freemen, and in the name of God, we beseech all men who have the spirit of honor in them to cease from persecuting us collectively or individually. Let us enjoy our religion, rights, and peace, like the rest of mankind. Why start presses to destroy rights and privileges, and bring upon us mobs to plunder and murder? We ask no more than what belongs to us-the rights of Americans.'"

The attempt to parallel the case of the Mormons with that of "slaveholders and other enemies of the human race," and to dignify the deeds of mobs into "the reprisals of law and justice," is another argumental absurdity. Where premises are wrong, conclusions are apt to be illegitimate. The Mormons were neither slaveholders nor enemies of the human race. They were what they claimed to be, Americans, loyal and law-abiding. As such, they had the right "to be let alone," even by Mr. Hay and his illogical criticisms. But let him proceed:

"Foster and Law fled, like the vanquished Marius, to Carthage. Although the county authorities, who had been elected on the Democratic ticket and had received the solid Mormon vote, were disposed to deal as gently as possible with the autocrat of Nauvoo, they could not refuse the warrants of arrest for which the fugitives applied. These were granted against Joseph and Hiram Smith and sixteen others of the rioters. But when the deputy sheriff went to Nauvoo the Mormons smiled at his simplicity, and went through the form of arrest, habeas corpus, trial, and acquittal before that singular municipal court of which the prophet was judge, jury, counsel, and prisoner, with a promptness and celerity that astonished the officer. They then sent him back to Carthage, with significant admonitions.

The Spirit of Murder Rampant.

"These occurrences gave rise to an excitement in the county which one, regarding the matter calmly from this distance, finds it difficult to account for. Public meetings were held in every precinct. Volunteer companies sprang up everywhere at the tap of a drum. There was drilling on every common, and hoarse eloquence in all the school houses. Expresses were riding on all the roads with imperfectly defined purposes. The brigadier-general commanding the militia ordered a levy en masse in the adjoining counties. The newspapers of the county grew hysterical with exclamation points and 'display type.' The Warsaw Signal, published at the headquarters of the anti-Mormons by Mr. Thomas C. Sharp, was simply frantic in its issue of the 12th of June. Here is an extract. I regret not to be able to give the eccentricities of lettering by which the words seem to shriek on the page. A letter from Foster relates the destruction of the Expositor press. The Signal adds: "We have only to state that this is sufficient! War and extermination is inevitable! CITIZENS ARISE, ONE and ALL!!! Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them? We have no time to comment: every man will make his own. Let it be made with POWDER and BALL!!!'"

Accounting for the Unaccountable.

Then follows a labored effort to account for the unwarrantable agitation, to excuse the bloody deed resulting from this direct incitement to murder. It is made to appear that at a public meeting held in Nauvoo the day before, "Joe Smith alluded darkly to other sinners that might tempt his wrath too far," and "denounced the ultimate pains upon all who were not willing to wade knee deep in blood to do his bidding;" also that Hyrum Smith covertly threatened "long-nosed Sharp" with "a pinch of snuff that would make him sneeze." Mr. Hay then tells how for four years the entire County of Hancock had been kept in a state of unwholesome excitement by "these people" (the Mormons), the large majority of whom were "ignorant, honest, hard-working folk," "harmless and peaceable," and yet, according to his peculiar logic, "bad neighbors." The Mormon vote was "invariably cast for the Democratic ticket." (Mr. Hay was a Republican). "Thieves and vagrants were in Nauvoo patronized and protected." "The City Charter, granted by the Legislature in a sordid subserviency, gave to the municipal court a wide jurisdiction," and "the accused Mormon, appealing to this court for protection against the persecuting Gentile, always got off scott free." The Mayor and common council at Nauvoo treated with high-handed contempt the laws of the State, and sworn officers of the law, elected by the solid Mormon vote, connived at such proceedings. The Prophet, "intoxicated with so abnormal a power," began to develop royal vices; appropriated the exclusive right to deal in real estate, to sell liquor, to marry and to give in marriage, and finally (crime of crimes!) became a presidential candidate, and "went so far as to have views and to publish them." Some minor charges are made, and Mr. Hay then sums up the case as follows:

"It was this arrogant sense of his own power that at last destroyed him. At first he treated the sheriff's warrant with contempt. At the second summons, he told the officer he would go the next day with him to Carthage. He did not keep his appointment. The officer went back to Carthage alone. But a day or two afterwards, the Smiths came riding into Carthage unattended, except by their common council and others accused of riot, and gave themselves up to the county authorities."

Governor Ford's Version.

The inner history of that transaction,-the attempt to arrest the Prophet and carry him to Carthage, not to be tried, but to be murdered,-is given by Governor Ford as follows:

"Upon the arrival of the constable and guard (at Nauvoo), the Mayor and common council at once signified their willingness to surrender, and stated their readiness to proceed to Carthage next morning at eight o'clock. Martial law had previously been abolished. The hour of eight o'clock came, and the accused failed to make their appearance. The constable and his escort returned. The constable made no effort to arrest any of them, nor would he or the guard delay their departure one minute beyond the time, to see whether an arrest could be made. Upon their return, they reported that they had been informed that the accused had fled and could not be found.

"I immediately proposed to a council of officers to march into Nauvoo with a small force then under my command, but the officers were of opinion that it was too small, and many of them insisted upon a further call of the militia. Upon reflection I was of opinion that the officers were right in the estimate of our force, and the project for immediate action was abandoned. I was soon informed, however, of the conduct of the constable and guard, and then I was perfectly satisfied that a most base fraud had been attempted; that, in fact, it was feared that the Mormons would submit, and thereby entitle themselves to the protection of the law. It was very apparent that many of the bustling, active spirits were afraid that there would be no occasion for calling out an overwhelming militia force, for marching it into Nauvoo, for probable mutiny when there, and for the extermination of the Mormon race. It appeared that the constable and the escort were fully in the secret and acted well their part to promote the conspiracy."

"I gradually learned," says the Governor, "to my entire satisfaction, that there was a plan to get the troops into Nauvoo and then begin the war, probably by some of our own party, or some of the seceding Mormons, taking advantage of the night to fire on our own force, and then laying it on the Mormons. I was satisfied that there were those among us fully capable of such an act, hoping that in the alarm, bustle and confusion of a militia camp, the truth could not be discovered, and that it might lead to the desired collision."

Governor Ford's attitude in this and in other matters, with the language employed by him to describe the acts and aims of the radical members of his party, makes clear that he was not in sympathy with those citizens of Illinois, and particularly of Hancock County, who had made up their minds to emulate Governor Boggs and his Missourians, and "exterminate the Mormon people or drive them from the State." I do not mean to say that all the non-Mormon residents of Hancock County were united upon this outrageous proposition. Far from it. According to Mr. Thomas Gregg, the historian of that county, there were three classes of citizens there, in addition to the Mormons themselves. These he names as follows: (1) "Jack-Mormons," (a term used to designate those who for any reason were friendly to the unpopular people); (2) "old citizens who were anti-Mormons at heart, but who refused to countenance any but lawful measures for redress of grievances;" and (3) "anti-Mormons, who, now that the crisis had come, advocated 'war and extermination.'"

How Thieves Were "Patronized and Protected."

The best answer to Mr. Hay's assertion that thieves and vagrants were patronized and protected in Nauvoo, is the following proclamation, issued by the Prophet, as Mayor of the City, March 25, 1843:

"Whereas, it is reported that there now exists a band of desperadoes, bound by oaths of secrecy, under severe penalties in case any member of the combination divulges their plans of stealing and conveying properties from station to station up and down the Mississippi and other routes: And:

"Whereas it is reported that the fear of the execution of the pains and penalties of their secret oaths on their persons prevents some members of said secret association (who have, through falsehood and deceit, been drawn into their snares,) from divulging the same to the legally constituted authorities of the land:

"Know ye, therefore, that I, Joseph Smith, Mayor of the city of Nauvoo, will grant and insure protection against all personal mob violence, to each and every citizen of this city, who will come before me and truly make known the names of all such abominable characters as are engaged in said secret combination for stealing, or are accessory thereto in any manner. And I respectfully solicit the co-operation of all ministers of justice in this and the neighboring states to ferret out a band of thievish outlaws from our midst."

The Solid Mormon Vote."

The charge of political solidarity, even if true, would not justify murder and extermination. But it is not true that the Mormon vote in Illinois was an absolutely solid vote, or that it was cast invariably for the Democratic ticket. That is simply a politician's partisan fling. He wanted to say something hard about the Democrats, and the situation at Nauvoo, as imagined and described by him, gave the opportunity. Here is the reference in full: "The Mormon vote, being always cast solid, was all powerful in the county and of no slight importance in the State. It was invariably cast for the Democratic ticket, as is the Fenian vote today. And, like the Fenian vote, it had a demoralizing influence upon both parties; the one making dishonorable advances to gain it, and the other making humiliating concessions to retain it. By this means the Mormons ruled the county." It is not true, I repeat, that the Mormon vote was "always cast solid," or that it was invariably thrown to the Democratic side. In 1840, the year of the famous "log cabin" campaign, the Mormons as a majority voted for the Whig electors and helped to make General Harrison President of the United States. This was probably due to the position of the Democratic presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren, on the Mormon question. Regarding the Missouri persecutions, he had said to Joseph Smith, at Washington: "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you; if I take up for you, I shall lose the vote of Missouri." In 1843 Nauvoo went Democratic, helping to elect Joseph P. Hoge to Congress, over Cyrus Walker, the Whig candidate, for whom, however, Joseph Smith cast his individual vote. At the same election, the Mormons in Adams County gave their ballots to O. H. Browning, the Whig candidate in that district. Most of the Mormons were traditionally Democrats, but that they voted for their friends, instead of their enemies, and used their power, such as it was, to put whom they considered the best men in office, regardless at times of party affiliations, is conceded. Other people have done the same, and have not been slaughtered for it, nor even threatened with annihilation by their irritated fellow citizens. Why should the Mormons have been?

Against the unsupported assertion that the authorities at Nauvoo treated with high-handed contempt the laws of the State, I place an emphatic denial, and as no case in point is cited, I do not feel called upon to prove a negative. The same answer will suffice for the allegation as to the Prophet's threat of "ultimate pains" upon all who would not "wade knee-deep in blood to do his bidding." Joseph Smith never said it. Such of the remaining charges as are at all consequential, will be answered in due course.

The Nauvoo Charter.

The Nauvoo Charter, under which the famous Municipal Court, and the no less noted Legion had been organized, was one of the most liberal grants of power ever bestowed by a legislature upon a municipality. The date of the passage of this act, which incorporated the City of Nauvoo, was February 1st, 1841. Among the legislators who voted for it was the great Lincoln himself, who is said to have warmly congratulated the Mormons upon its passage. Was his motive one of "sordid subserviency," Mr. Hay? The Charter had been planned as the Prophet, its framer, said, "on principles so broad that any honest man might dwell secure under its protective influence." Under its benign provisions, Nauvoo had been made a temperance city-the sale of liquor at retail being strictly prohibited-and a free city, where the rights of all sects and parties were guaranteed and jealously guarded. The Nauvoo Charter, whatever may be said of "wide jurisdictions," and the "privileges" accorded alike to Mormon and non-Mormon citizens, was the bulwark of their rights and liberties against the aggressions of lawless and murderous foes. The Municipal Court and the habeas corpus was all that kept the Prophet and his friends from being kidnapped and carried back to their cruel and illegal imprisonment in Missouri, a fate worse than death, from which they had escaped soon after the terrible midwinter expulsion of their people. The mailed arm of the Legion-an all but independent body of troops, officered by Mormons, but recognized as a part of the regular militia -interposed to prevent a repetition of the sanguinary scenes of Haun's Mill and Far West. This Charter annulled, this rock of defense swept away, and what calamities might not come, what evils flourish unchecked, in the midst of the peaceable, moral, and well-meaning community? Yet this was the issue proposed by the "Nauvoo Expositor," and by those in sympathy with the movement of which it was the mouthpiece.

The Expositor Abatement.

The principal charges made by that paper against the Prophet and his associates, were polygamy, polytheism, and the union of Church and State. In addition to these allegations, there were various dark hints as to certain, or uncertain, criminal acts said to have been committed by them, and more libels of the same kind were promised in the future. In the light of later events, and the superhuman patience manifested by the Mormon people toward hostile and abusive publications, one almost marvels how so much indignation could have been aroused by the comparatively tame and feeble tone of the "Nauvoo Expositor." But this was the beginning of their experience in such matters, before the much-maligned community had learned to bear and forbear to the extent that they have since endured.

It was not only the Mormons, however, who were provoked at the course begun and threatened by the "Expositor." Peace-loving people of all parties and persuasions felt indignant. Many wished to take the law into their own hands and level the offending printing office to the ground. But the Mormon leaders, the heads of the municipality, would not sanction such proceedings. Legal measures, instead of lawless force, were employed. At sessions of the City Council, held on Saturday and Monday, the 8th and 10th of June, the character, aims, and objects of the libelous sheet and its publishers were fully ventilated, and by an almost unanimous vote,-Counselor Benjamin Warrington alone dissenting-the "Expositor" was declared a public nuisance, and the Mayor instructed to have it abated without delay. Mr. Warrington, who was not a Mormon, only opposed summary action. He considered the paper libelous, and was in favor of heavily fining its publishers. On the evening of the 10th, by order of Mayor Smith, a force of police under City Marshal John P. Greene, destroyed the printing press, pied the type, and burned the published sheets found upon the premises in the streets of Nauvoo. The editors and publishers immediately left the city.

The Prophet's Arrest and Liberation.

Two days later, upon a complaint sworn to by Francis M. Higbee, Constable David Bettisworth came from Carthage to Nauvoo and arrested for "riot," Joseph Smith, Samuel Bennett, John Taylor, William W. Phelps, Hyrum Smith, John P. Greene, Stephen Perry, Dimick B. Huntington, Jonathan Dunham, Stephen Markham, William Edwards, Jonathan Harmon, Jesse P. Harmon, John Lytle, Joseph W. Coolidge, Harvey D. Redfield, Orrin Porter Rockwell and Levi Richards. The warrants required that the accused be brought before Justice Thomas Morrison, at Carthage, "or some other justice of the peace in Hancock County." In view of this alternative, they requested the privilege of going before one of the justices of Nauvoo; but the constable insisted upon taking them to Carthage. Thereupon they sued out writs of habeas corpus, went before the Municipal Court, which claimed jurisdiction in such cases, and after a hearing were discharged. Subsequently, by advice of Judge Jesse B. Thomas, who was visiting Nauvoo, Mayor Smith and his friends underwent examination before Justice Daniel H. Wells, a non-Mormon, and were again discharged; it appearing that their cause in relation to the "Expositor," while summary, was strictly legal under the charter and ordinances of the city. Squire Wells, foreseeing that not even this would satisfy the opposition, advised the Prophet to be tried at Carthage. [This was before the mob had gathered in force at that point]. But the latter did not feel that his life would be safe there, and the sequel justified the conclusion.

(Orson F. Whitney, The Mormon Prophet's Tragedy: A Review [Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1905], .)Martial Law at Nauvoo.

On the 16th of June Mayor Smith issued a proclamation, stating why the act of abatement had been deemed necessary, and declaring that the city authorities were willing to appear, whenever the Governor should require it, before any high court in the State, and answer for the correctness of their conduct. He also warned the lawless element, now gathering against Nauvoo, not to interfere in the affairs of that city. Governor Ford had previously been informed of the situation, but no reply had come from him. The excitement throughout the county was intense. Armed men were taking the field in deadly earnest. Carthage and Warsaw, the neighboring towns, wore the look of military camps. A large body of Missourians were said to have joined the Warsaw forces, and five pieces of cannon and other arms had been forwarded to that point from Quincy and other places. The "Warsaw Signal" advocated the massacre of the whole Mormon community, and both at Warsaw and Carthage resolutions to that effect were passed by acclamation .

The situation became so serious that the Prophet felt compelled to take effectual means to prevent the threatened assault and massacre. On the 18th of June, in his capacity of Mayor, he proclaimed Nauvoo under martial law, and called out the Legion to defend the city. In his last address to the soldiers and his fellow citizens, the lion-hearted Lieutenant-General said: "I call God and angels to witness that I have unsheathed my sword with a firm and unalterable determination that this people shall have their legal rights, and be protected from mob violence, or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground like water, and my body consigned to the silent tomb. While I live I will never tamely submit to the dominion of cursed mobocracy."

Up to June 21st, no word was received at Nauvoo from Governor Ford, though he had been appealed to for advice and assistance at the very beginning of the trouble. The placing of the city under martial law-an act construed as "treason"- was a dernier ressort which the Governor had advised in view of just such an emergency as had now arisen. Doubtless Ford thought of this when, as an historian, he penned the following lines, disposing of the question of treason as relating to the Mormon leaders: "Their actual guiltiness of the charge would depend upon circumstances. If their opponents had been seeking to put the law in force in good faith, and nothing more, then an array of military force in open resistance to the posse comitatus and the militia of the State, most probably would have amounted to treason. But if these opponents merely intended to use the powers of the law, the militia of the State, and the posse comitatus as cat's-paws to compass the possession of their persons for the purpose of murdering them afterwards, as the sequel demonstrated the fact to be, it might well be doubted whether they were guilty of treason."

To this be it added that the leaders at Nauvoo did not array their military force against the powers of the County and the State, but against an armed mob that was threatening the massacre of an entire community. Just so soon as the Governor arrived on the scene and took command of the troops concentrated at Carthage, the aspect of affairs underwent a complete transformation, theoretically, and the Mormons loyally changed front in conformity thereto. The Governor demanded that martial law at Nauvoo be abolished, and was immediately obeyed. He also required that the Mayor, the members of the City Council, and all persons concerned in the destruction of the "Expositor" press, come to Carthage to be tried. This demand was likewise complied with, though not quite so promptly. For a few hours the Prophet hesitated; life was still dear to him, and he felt, as he had felt all along, that if he went to Carthage he would never return alive. On the night of the 22nd he and his brother Hyrum, with a few friends, crossed the Mississippi and started for the Rocky Mountains; but a message from home intercepted him, inducing his return. Said he: "We are going back to be butchered," and resigned himself to his fate.

The Prophet Surrenders and Goes to Carthage.

Having delivered up, at the Governor's demand, the arms of the Nauvoo Legion, the Prophet and the Patriarch, with sixteen others, on the evening of the 24th set out for Carthage. They arrived there about midnight,-the distance was eighteen miles,-and were immediately surrounded by armed ruffians, yelling like demons in their exultation over the peaceable surrender of their intended victims. Some of the soldiers-notably the Carthage Greys-were very abusive and threatened to shoot the unoffending prisoners. Such was the character and morale of the posse comitatus, which the Nauvoo authorities were charged with "resisting." Governor Ford pacified the would-be assassins and the threatened murder was postponed. To the Prophet and his fellow captives he pledged his honor and the faith of the State of Illinois, that they should be protected from violence and given a fair trial.

On the afternoon of the 25th the defendants were arraigned before Justice Robert F. Smith, a captain in the Carthage Greys. All were admitted to bail,- not "discharged," as Mr. Hay asserts. This was on the charge of "riot." Almost immediately Joseph and Hyrum Smith were arrested for "treason," and thrust into Carthage jail. John Taylor, Willard Richards and a few other friends were allowed to accompany them to prison. It was the beginning of the end. The plot was fast consummating. "The law cannot reach them," said their conspiring murderers, "but powder and ball shall."

"The prospect was still not bad for them," remarks Mr. Hay, with a covert sneer. "The sheriff was their friend. They were sure of a favorable jury. The Governor-a man of the best intentions, that accomplished nothing but patching the infernal pavement-had come over to Hancock County to preserve law and order. The Smiths were sure of a speedy trial and acquittal. And the whole tiresome play was to begin again. There was only one way of getting out of the groove. The Deus ex Machina, who alone could settle matters, was the mob." This much frankness is refreshing.

Governor Ford's Broken Pledge.

Next morning-June 26th-Governor Ford granted an interview to the Prophet, coming to the prison for that purpose. During the conversation Joseph charged him with knowing positively that he and his brother were innocent of treason, and declared that the Governor had advised him to use the Legion just as he had done, in the event of a threatened mobocratic assault upon Nauvoo. As to the "Expositor" affair, Mayor Smith stated that he was perfectly willing to be tried again, and if found guilty to make suitable reparation. That was a matter for courts to decide, not for mobs to settle. The Governor, at parting, renewed his promise that the prisoners should be protected, and pledged his word that if he went to Nauvoo, as he contemplated, he would take the Prophet with him.

The promise was not kept. Governor Ford, though a well-meaning man, like Pilate of old, was weak and vacillating; insomuch that he was a mere tool, without intending to be, in the hands of those who were plotting murder. He did go to Nauvoo, the next day, but did not take the Prophet with him, being persuaded by a council of his officers, that it "would be highly inexpedient and dangerous." It was while the Governor was at Nauvoo, haranguing the citizens, that the Carthage jail crime was committed.

Last Hours of the Prophet.

On the afternoon of the 26th the Prophet and the Patriarch were arraigned before Justice Smith at the Court House, on the charge of treason. Their request for time to obtain witnesses was reluctantly granted, and the court then adjourned until noon of the 27th. Subsequently the military justice, without notifying the prisoners, postponed the trial until the 29th. The last night of the brothers Joseph and Hyrum on earth, was passed in the society of their friends John Taylor, Willard Richards, John S. Fullmer, Stephen Markham and Dan Jones.

Next day-the fatal 27th-Messrs. Fulmer, Markham and Jones were excluded from the jail, and the four leaders selected for the sacrifice were left alone. One of these, Willard Richards, was not even charged with crime, yet he, too, was marked for death. The captives cheered each other with sacred songs, and by preaching in turn to the guards, some of whom were softened in their hearts, and were promptly relieved from duty, sterner men being put in their place. During the day Cyrus H. Wheelock was permitted to enter the prison, and before leaving he managed secretly to slip a small pistol-a pepper-box revolver-into Joseph's pocket. This weapon and a single-barreled pistol left by Mr. Fullmer, with two stout walking canes, were their only means of defense against the horde of armed assassins that soon after descended upon the jail.

The Murderers and Their Crime.

I will let Mr. Hay disclose the identity of the murderers, and tell the story of the crime:

"There was a large body of militia at Carthage, and a small regiment at Warsaw. The Governor, not knowing how to employ their idle hands, ordered them to rendezvous at Golden's Point. He sent Singleton to Nauvoo to take command of the legion raised by Smith. Singleton, on his arrival, found two thousand men armed and equipped. Though a little dismayed by the apparition, he inspected them and reported to the Governor.

"During this day or two the Governor seemed plagued by the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He changed his mind every hour, with the best intentions. When the troops had started for Golden's Point, he began to doubt, as he well might. They were going to Nauvoo to search for 'bougs' (a noun which in that day was used to denote an ingenious imitation of the current coin, manufactured in the city of the Saints), and to overawe the Mormons by a calm display of force. What if they searched for other things, and did not content themselves with a calm display? These thoughts so agitated Governor Ford, that he wrote an order on the 27th, countermanding former orders, and disbanding the militia. He then mounted his horse and rode to Nauvoo, to deliver a firm and paternal address to the Mormons. All this was done with the best intentions.

"On the morning of the 27th of June, the regiment of Colonel Levi Williams started from Warsaw in obedience to the call of the Governor to rendezvous at Golden's Point, a settlement in the vicinity of Nauvoo. They went out in high glee, fully expecting to march to the city of the Saints, and not doubting that before they left it, some occasion would arise which would make it necessary to remove this standing scandal from the face of the earth. There were none but words of law and order on their lips; but every man clearly understood that Nauvoo was to be destroyed before they returned. A public meeting in Warsaw had unanimously 'Resolved, that we will forthwith proceed to Nauvoo and exterminate the city and its people;' a manifesto which seemed too peppery even for the palate of Mr. Sharp, editor of the Signal, who, when he published it, added the saving clause, 'if necessary.' 'Of course it will be necessary,' said these law-abiding militia-men, as they marched out of Warsaw on the Nauvoo road.

"Order reigned in Warsaw-for the men were all gone. The whole male adult population, with trifling exceptions, were in Williams' regiment. Among the captains were William N. Grover, afterwards a distinguished lawyer of St Louis, and United States attorney for Missouri-an eminently respectable and conservative man; Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Signal, who also on this day sowed the last of his wild oats, and was afterwards principal of the public school, and greatly esteemed as county judge; Jacob C. Davis, then State Senator, afterwards member of Congress from that district.

"They arrived near noon at some deserted shanties, about seven miles from Warsaw, that had been built and abandoned in that flurry and collapse of internal improvement that passed over the State in 1838. There they were met by Mr. David Matthews, a well-known citizen of Warsaw, who had ridden rapidly from Carthage with an order from the Governor, disbanding the regiment. The Governor, fearing he could not control the inflammable material he had gathered together, had determined to scatter it again.

"Colonel Williams read the Governor's order. Some of the anti-Mormon warriors, blessed with robust western appetites, looked at the sun, and concluded that they could get home by dinner time, and under the influence of this inspiring idea started off at quick-step. Captain Grover soon found himself without a company. Captain Aldrich essayed a speech calling for volunteers for Carthage. 'He did not make a fair start,' says the chronicle, 'and Sharp came up and took it off his hands.' Sharp, being a spirited and impressive talker, soon had a respectable squad about him. Captain Davis, on the contrary, was sorely perplexed. It was heavy weather for him. He was a professional politician, and dearly loved both Mormon and anti-Mormon votes. He was so backward in coming forward that his company left him in disgust, and followed the fiery Grover, whose company had gone home to dinner. Davis still could not make up his mind to go home, but 'got into Calvin Cole's wagon and followed the boys at a distance;' so that he had at last the luck to be in at the closing scene, and the honor to be indicted with the rest. The speeches of Grover and Sharp were rather vague; the purpose of murder does not seem to have been hinted. They protested against 'being made the tools and puppets of Tommy Ford.' They were going to Carthage to see the boys, and talk things over. Some of the cooler heads, such as Dr. Hay, surgeon of the regiment, denounced the proceeding and went at once back to Warsaw.

"While they were waiting at the shanties, a courier came in from the Carthage Grays. It is impossible at this day to declare exactly the purport of his message. It is usually reported and believed that he brought an assurance from the officers of his company that they would be found on guard at the jail where the Smiths were confined; that they would make no real resistance,-merely enough to save appearances.

"This message was not communicated to the men. They followed their leaders off on the road to Carthage, with rather vague intentions. They were annoyed at the prospect of their picnic coming so readily to a close, at losing the fun of sacking Nauvoo, at having to go home without material for a single romance. Nearly one hundred and fifty started with their captains, but they gradually dwindled in number to seventy-five. These trudged along under the fierce summer sun of the prairies towards the town where the cause of all the trouble and confussion of the last few years awaited them. They sang on the way a rude parody of a camp-meeting hymn called in the West the 'Hebrew children:'

"Where now is the Prophet Joseph?

Where now is the Prophet Joseph?

Where now is the Prophet Joseph?

Safe in Carthage jail."

The farther they walked the more the idea impressed itself upon them that now was the time to finish the matter totally. The unavowed design of the leaders communicated itself magnetically to the men, until the entire company became fused into one mass of bloodthirsty energy. By an excess of precaution, they did not go directly into the town, but made a long detour, so as to come in by the road leading from Nauvoo.

"The jail where the Smiths were confined is situated at the extreme northwestern edge of the dismal village, at the end of a long, ill-kept street whose middle is a dusty road, and whose sides are gay with stramonium and dog-fennel. As the avengers came in sight of the mean-looking building that held their prey, the sleeping tiger that lurks in every human heart sprang up in theirs, and they quickened their pace to a run. There was no need of orders,-no possibility of checking them now. The guards were hustled away from the door, good-naturedly resisting until they were carefully disarmed. Their commander, Lieutenant Frank Worrell, afterwards gave this testimony on the trial, which we copy for its curious and cynical bonhomie:

"I was one of the guards at the jail. Saw Smith when he was killed. Saw none of the defendants at the jail! Suppose there were one or two hundred there. They stayed three or four minutes. They formed in front of the jail and made a rush. Knew none that came up. * * Saw Smith die,-was within ten feet of him.* * * Perhaps a minute after he fell I saw him die. * * I was pushed and shoved some fifty feet. * * * Did not see Sharp, Grover, or Davis. It was so crowded I could not see much. I know about one third of the men in the county, but none at the jail. I might have been some scared."

"It would be difficult to imagine anything cooler than this quiet perjury to screen a murder. Yet the strangest part of this strange story is that Frank Worrell was a generous young fellow, and the men with whom he carried out the ghastly comedy of attack and resistance at the door of the prison-Sharp and Grover-were good citizens, educated and irreproachable, who still live to enjoy the respect and esteem of all who know them. There is but one force mighty enough in the world to twist such minds and consciences so fearfully awry, and that is the wild suspicion bred of civil strife. A few months of this minature war in Hancock County had sufficed to possess many of the prominent actors with the spirit of demons; and in the mind of any anti-Mormon there was nothing more criminal in the shooting of Smith than in the slaying of a wolf or panther.

"This jolly, good-natured Worrell was himself murdered by Mormon assassins not long after. He was riding with a friend. A shot was heard from a thicket. 'That was a rifle,' said the friend. 'Yes, and I've got it,' said Worrell, coolly. He fell from his horse and died. I have seen, as a child, his grave at Warsaw. A rude, wooden head-board, bearing this legend: 'He who is without enemies is unworthy of friends,'-not very orthodox, but perhaps as true as most epitaphs.

"While Worrell, little thinking of his tombstone, was struggling with his friendly assailants, as many as the narrow entry would hold had rushed into the open door and up the cramped little stairs. Smith and his brother had been that day removed from their cells and given comparative liberty in a large, airy room on the first floor above. This afternoon they were receiving the visits of two Mormon brethren, Richards and Taylor. They heard the row at the door and the rush on the stairs, and instinctively barred their door by pressing their weight against it. The mob fired at the door. Hyrum Smith fell, exclaiming, 'I'm a dead man.' Taylor crawled under the bed, with a bullet in the calf of his leg. Richards hid himself behind the opening door, in mortal terror. He afterwards lied terribly about the affair, saying he stood calmly in the center of the room, warding off the bullets with a consecrated wand.

"Joe Smith died bravely. He stood by the jamb of the door and fired four shots, bringing his man down every time. He shot an Irishman named Wills, who was in the affair from his congenital love of a brawl, in the arm; Gallagher, a Southerner from the Mississippi Bottom, in the face; Voorhees, a half-grown hobbledehoy from Bear Creek, in the shoulder; and another gentleman, whose name I will not mention, as he is prepared to prove an alibi, and besides stands six feet two in his moccasins.

"Smith had two loaded six-barrelled revolvers in his room. How a man on trial for capital offenses came to be supplied with such luxuries is a mystery that perhaps only one man could fully have solved; and as General Deming, the Jack-Mormon sheriff, died soon after, and left no explanation of the matter, investigation is effectually baffled. But the four shots which I have chronicled, and the two which had no bullet, exhausted one pistol, and the enemy gave Smith no time to use the other. Severely wounded as he was, he ran to the window, which was open to receive the fresh June air, and half leaped, half fell, into the jail yard below. With his last dying energies he gathered himself up, and leaned in a sitting posture against the rude stone well-curb. His stricken condition, his vague wandering glances, excited no pity in the mob thirsting for his life. They had not seen the handsome fight he had made in the jail; there was no appeal to chivalry (there is chivalry on the borders, as in all semi-barbarous regions). A squad of Missourians who were standing by the fence levelled their pieces at him, and, before they could see him again for the smoke they made, Joe Smith was dead.

"Meanwhile, the Carthage Greys were approaching. They had been called out half an hour before, and formed on the Court-house square, by Captain Robert Smith, with great precision and deliberation that give rise, under the circumstances, to somewhat wide conjecture. Captain Smith had not previously been regarded as a martinet, but this afternoon he could have given points to a Potsdam corporal. He stopped his company half a dozen times, to remonstrate against defects in their alignment; and it was owing to his extreme conscientiousness about discipline that they arrived at the jail when all was over. Let me add that Captain Smith (for it seemed fated that everyone connected with this affair should have greatness thrust upon him) became in the great war General Robert F. Smith, and marched his troops from Hancock County to the Atlantic with more speed, if less science, than he displayed in leading his squad that day from the Court-house to the jail.

"The moment the work was done, the calmness of horror succeeded the fever of fanatical rage. The assassins hurried away from the jail, and took the road to Warsaw in silence and haste. They went home at a killing pace over the wide, dusty prairie. Warsaw is eighteen miles from Carthage; the Smiths were killed at half-past five: at a quarter before eight the returning crowd began to drag their weary limbs through the main street of Warsaw,-at such an astounding rate of speed had the lash of their own thoughts driven them.

"The town was instantly put in such attitude of defense as its limited means permitted. The women and children were ferried across the river to a village on the Missouri shore. The men kept guard night and day in the hazel thickets around the town. Everybody expected sudden and exemplary vengeance from the Mormons.

"Nothing of the kind took place. The appalling disaster that had fallen upon the Church gave rise to no spirit of revenge. It was long before the Mormons recovered from the stupor of their terror and despair. A delegation went to Carthage to receive their dead. They brought them home and buried them with honors becoming the generals of the legion. The seceders, panic-stricken, fled from Nauvoo and never returned."

Aside from the flippant heartlessness of the foregoing narrative, the spirit and style of which would better become the description of a picnic than of the terrible tragedy here chronicled, I have little fault to find with the story in the main. Some of the statements are open to criticism, but the accuracy of the general account I will not question. Let me ask, however, what Mr. Hay would have thought, if some cultured, Christian author, south of Mason and Dixon's line, on a certain sad morning in April, 1865, had written thus of the assassination of the President of the United States: "Abe Lincoln was killed at Ford's Theatre, last night; he died bravely; his murderers are good citizens, educated and irreproachable, who still live to enjoy the respect and esteem of all who know them."

The admiration expressed for the "jolly, good-natured Worrell," that "generous young fellow," who, with the murderous-minded Sharp and other "irreproachables," there "sowed his wild oats," irrigating them with the blood of innocent men, speaks for itself, without any comment of mine. Worrell was not killed by assassins, as claimed. He lost his life in an encounter between a mob and a sheriff's posse, the latter summoned from Nauvoo (after the posse comitatus had failed to respond to the call of that officer) to put down rioters who were pillaging and burning Mormon homes. Worrell was shot by order of Sheriff Backenstos, a non-Mormon, who commanded one of the posse to fire upon him.

Mr. Hay omits to mention that the mob which assaulted Carthage jail had previously blackened their faces, in order to conceal their identity. His gratuitous fling at Sheriff Deming (who furnished no weapons to the prisoners) is as unjust as his slighting reference to Willard Richards, whom he accuses of cowardice and falsehood in connection with the massacre. Who it was that misrepresented the affair will be evident to the reader after perusing Dr. Richards' terse, graphic, and withal modest narrative, written at the time upon the scene of the tragedy, and published originally in the "Times and Seasons" at Nauvoo. It is entitled

Two Minutes in Jail"

"A shower of musket balls were thrown up the stairway against the door of the prison in the second story, followed by many rapid footsteps.

"While Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Mr. Taylor and myself, who were in the front chamber, closed the door of our room against the entry at the head of the stairs, and placed ourselves against it, there being no lock on the door, and no catch that was useable.

"The door is a common panel, and as soon as we heard the feet at the stairs head, a ball was sent through the door, which passed between us, and showed that our enemies were desperadoes, and we must change our position.

"General Joseph Smith, Mr. Taylor and myself, sprang back to the front part of the room, and General Hyrum Smith retreated two-thirds across the chamber, in front of and facing the door.

"A ball was sent through the door, which hit Hyrum on the side of the nose, when he fell backwards, extended at length, without moving his feet.

"From the holes in his vest (the day was warm, and none had their coats on but myself), pantaloons, drawers and shirt, it appears evident that a ball must have been thrown from without, through the window, which entered his back on the right side, and passing through lodged against his watch, which was in his right vest pocket, completely pulverizing the crystal and face, tearing off the hands, and mashing the whole body of the watch. At the same time the ball from the door entered his nose.

"As he struck the floor he exclaimed emphatically, 'I'm a dead man.' Joseph looked towards him and responded, 'Oh, dear, Brother Hyrum!' and opening the door two or three inches with his left hand, discharged one barrel of a six shooter (pistol) at random in the entry, from whence a ball grazed Hyrum's breast and entering his throat passed into his head, while the other muskets were aimed at him, and some balls hit him.

"Joseph continued snapping his revolver round the casing of the door into the space as before, three barrels of which missed fire; while Mr. Taylor, with a walking stick stood, by his side, and knocked down the bayonets and muskets which were constantly discharging through the doorway, while I stood by him ready to lend any assistance, with another stick, but could not come within striking distance without going directly before the muzzles of the guns.

"When the revolver failed, we had no more firearms, and expected an immediate rush of the mob, and the doorway full of muskets half way in the room, and no hope but instant death from within.

"Mr. Taylor rushed into the window, which is some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. When his body was nearly on a balance, a ball from the door within entered his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch, a patent lever, in his vest pocket, near the left breast, and smashed it into 'pie,' leaving the hands standing at 5 o'clock, 16 minutes and 26 seconds; the force of which ball threw him back on the floor, and he rolled under the bed which stood by his side, where he lay motionless, the mob continuing to fire upon him, cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a man's hand, and were hindered only by my knocking down muzzles with a stick, while they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left-handed, and aimed their discharges so far round as almost to reach us in the corner of the room, to where we retreated and dodged, and then I recommenced the attack with my stick.

"Joseph attempted, as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered the right breast from without, and he fell outward, exclaiming, 'O Lord, my God!' As his feet went out of the window, my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side, a dead man.

"At this instant the cry was raised, 'He's leaped the window!' and the mob on the stairs and in the entry ran out.

"I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around General Smith's body.

"Not satisfied with this I again reached my head out of the window, and watched some seconds to see if there were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see the end of him I loved. Being fully satisfied that he was dead, with a hundred men near the body and more coming round the corner of the jail, and expecting a return to our room, I rushed towards the prison door, at the head of the stairs, and through the entry from whence the firing had proceeded, to learn if the doors into the prison were open.

"When near the entry, Mr. Taylor cried out, 'Take me.' I pressed my way until I found all the doors unbarred; returning instantly, I caught Mr. Taylor under my arm, and rushed by the stairs into the dungeon, or inner prison, stretched him on the floor and covered him with a bed in such a manner as not likely to be perceived, expecting an immediate return of the mob.

"I said to Mr. Taylor, 'This is a hard case to lay you on the floor, but if your wounds are not fatal, I want you to live to tell the story.' I expected to be shot the next moment, and stood before the door awaiting the onset."

Nothing is said here of "warding off the bullets with a consecrated wand." Willard Richards never made such a statement, nor did any friend of his ever make it in his behalf. It is a fair sample of anti-Mormon unfairness; one of the hearsays adopted by Mr. Hay as a fact; one of the fictions with which his narrative is filled.

What Dr. Richards expected and awaited almost happened. While the heroically cool and self-possessed man was caring for his wounded friend in the inner part of the prison, a portion of the mob again rushed up stairs to finish the fiendish work already more than half done. Finding only the dead body of Hyrum Smith in the front apartment, and supposing the other prisoners to have escaped, they were again descending the stairs when a loud cry was heard, 'The Mormons are coming!' Thinking the inhabitants of Nauvoo were upon them to avenge the murder of the Prophet, the whole band of assassins broke and fled, seeking refuge in the neighboring forest. Their grotesque fear was shared by the people of Carthage in general, who abandoned their homes and fled pell mell, terrified by the vain thought of a wrathful visitation from the City of the Saints.

Equally groundless with the assertion relative to Dr. Richards, is the one attributing "terror and despair" to the betrayed and stricken community at Nauvoo. There was no terror; there was no despair. It was a God-fearing people, possessing their souls with characteristic patience and resignation, leaving vengeance to Him who has said, "I will repay." Had the Mormons wanted blood for blood,- though a hecatomb of such lives as had robbed them of their Prophet and their Patriarch would have been no compensation,-the murderous wretches would have bit the dust, though it had taken the whole power of the dreaded Legion to bring them low. Had there been any "Danites," they would have done their destructive work then and there. If the Mormons had been the "bad neighbors," turbulent and troublesome, that they were falsely represented as being, all Hancock County would have been devastated by them in a reckless fury of retaliation. But as Mr. Hay says, "nothing of the kind took place. The appalling disaster that had fallen upon the Church gave rise to no spirit of revenge." And there is nothing that so successfully confutes the lying stories of the rascally banditti who slandered the Church and its leaders in order to make more easy the horrid murder they had planned, than the god-like self-control exhibited by the Latter-day Saints in that supreme hour of trial.

Just here will be a good place to insert another paragraph from Ford's History of Illinois, in which the author speaks of the cunning tactics of the villainous conspirators, who found it necessary to blacken the fair fame of the Mormon people, as a prelude to the assassination of their Prophet.

"A system of excitement and agitation was artfully planned and executed with tact. It consisted in spreading reports and rumors of the most fearful character. As examples:-On the morning before my arrival at Carthage, I was awakened at an early hour by the frightful report, which was asserted with confidence and apparent consternation, that the Mormons had already commenced the work of burning, destruction and murder; and that every man capable of bearing arms was instantly wanted at Carthage, for the protection of the county. We lost no time in starting; but when we arrived at Carthage we could hear no more concerning this story. Again: During the few days that the militia were encamped at Carthage, frequent applications were made to me to send a force here and a force there, and a force all about the country, to prevent murders, robberies, and larcenies, which, it was said, were threatened by the Mormons. No such forces were sent; nor were any such offenses committed at that time, except the stealing of some provisions, and there was never the least proof that this was done by a Mormon. Again: On my late visit to Hancock County, I was informed by some of their violent enemies, that the larcenies of the Mormons had become unusually numerous and insufferable. They indeed admitted that but little had been done in this way in their immediate vicinity. But they insisted that sixteen horses had been stolen by the Mormons in one night, near Lima, in the County of Adams. At the close of the expedition, I called at this same town of Lima, and upon inquiry was told that no horses had been stolen in that neighborhood, but that sixteen horses had been stolen in one night in Hancock County. This last informant, being told of the Hancock story, again changed the venue to another distant settlement, in the northern edge of Adams."

Trial and Acquittal of the Murderers.

"The reaction now began." (I am again quoting from Mr. Hay.) "At the August elections the Jack-Mormon ticket, as it was called, bearing candidates favorable to the Mormons, was chosen by an unexampled majority. The press of the State was unanimous in its condemnation of the Warsaw men, with a few exceptions, when special correspondents had visited the county. These were almost invariably apologists of the killing. It is curious to note the sudden change of the anti-Mormon journals from the fierce and aggressive tone which they held the week before, to the sullen attitude of self-defense they assumed the week after the Carthage tragedy. Here is an extract from an article by Sharp in the 'Signal,' which may show how much easier it is to kill a man than to justify the killing:

"'The St. Louis 'Gazette' says that the men that killed the Smiths were a pack of cowards. Now our view of the matter is, that instead of cowardice, they exhibited foolhardy courage, for they must have known or thought that they would bring down on themselves the vengeance of the Mormons. True, the act of an armed body going to the jail and killing prisoners does appear at first sight dastardly, but we look at it as though these men were the executioners of justice; and their act is no more cowardly than is the act of the hangman in stretching up a defenseless convict who is incapable of resistance. If any other mode could have been devised, or any other time selected, it would have been better; but, as we have heard others say, we are satisfied that it is done, and care not to philosophize on the modus operandi.'

"It was impossible that the matter should be allowed to pass entirely unnoticed by the law. Besides, Governor Ford, who considered the murder a personal disrespect to himself, was really anxious to bring the perpetrators to justice. Bills of indictment were found at the October term of court against Levi Williams, Mark Aldrich, Jacob C. Davis, William N. Grover, Thomas C. Sharp, John Wills, William Voorhees, William Gallagher and one Allen. They were based on the testimony of two idle youths, named Brackenbury and Daniels, who had accompanied the expedition from Warsaw to Carthage on the 27th of June, and had seen the whole affair."

"The next May, all the defendants appeared, according to agreement, to stand their trial. They began by filing their affidavit that the county commissioners who selected the array of jurors for the week were prejudiced against them; that the sheriff and his deputies were unfitted by prejudice to select the talesmen that might be required. They therefore entered a motion to quash the array of jurors, to set aside the sheriff and his deputies, and to appoint elisors to select a jury for the case. After argument, this was done. The elisors presented ninety-six men, before twelve were found ignorant enough and indifferent enough to act as jurors.

"A large number of witnesses were examined, but nothing was elicited against the accused from any except Brackenbury, Daniels, and a girl named Eliza Jane Graham."

These witnesses, according to the narrator, were not considered credible. Messrs. Brackenbury and Daniels contradicted each other, he claims. Moreover, they had committed the unpardonable sin of joining the Mormon Church pending the delivery of their testimony in court. "The evidence of Miss Graham," he continues, ironically, "delivered with the impetuosity of her sex, was all that could be desired-and more, too. She had assisted in feeding the hungry mob at the Warsaw House, as they came straggling in from Carthage, and she could remember where every man sat, and what he said, and how he said it. Unfortunately, she remembered too much. No one accused her of willful perjury. But her nervous and sensitive character had been powerfully impressed by the influence of Smith, and, brooding constantly upon his death, she came at last to regard her own fancies and suspicions as positive occurrences. A few alibis so discredited her evidence, that it was held to prove nothing more than her own honest and half insane zeal.

"The case was closed. There was not a man on the jury, in the court, in the county, that did not know the defendants had done murder. But it was not proven, and the verdict of not guilty was right in law.

"And you cannot find in this generation an original inhabitant of Hancock County who will not stoutly sustain the verdict."

This comment upon the original inhabitants of Hancock County is sufficiently severe, without further criticism. It has but one fault-it is not true. But let that pass. There are some facts connected with that gross miscarriage of justice which Mr. Hay fails to chronicle. The trial took place at Carthage, beginning on the 19th of May, 1845. Sixty names had been presented to the Grand Jury of the Circuit Court, as being implicated in the crime, but only nine men had been indicted. These nine have been named. One of them, Levi Williams, the leader of the mob, was not only a Colonel of militia, he was also a Baptist preacher, and, of course, an "eminently respectable and conservative" man. Judge Richard M. Young presided at the trial, and James H. Ralston and Josiah Lamborn conducted the prosecution. The defense was represented by William A. Richardson, O. H. Browning, Calvin A. Warren, Archibald Williams, O. C. Skinner, and Thomas Morrison. The panel of the trial jury was as follows: Jesse Griffits, Joseph Jones, William Robertson, William Smith, Joseph Massey, Silas Griffits, Jonathan Foy, Solomon J. Hill, James Gittings, F. M. Walton, Jabez A. Beebe, and Gilmore Callison. The trial lasted until the 30th of May. During its progress, Mr. Warren, of counsel for the defense, argued, it is said, in the course of his plea, that if the prisoners were guilty of murder, then he himself was guilty; that it was the public opinion that the Smiths ought to be killed, and public opinion made the law; consequently it was not murder to kill them. Evidently this wretched piece of sophistry had weight with the jury in making up their verdict.

Regarding the rightfulness of that verdict, there appears to be a marked variance of opinion between Mr. Hay and Governor Ford. The latter says: "The Judge was compelled to admit the presence of armed bands, to browbeat and overawe the administration of justice." "The Judge himself was in duress, and informed me that he did not consider his life secure any part of the time. The consequence was that the crowd had everything their own way." In the light of such statements as these, the verdict is easily explained. The jury may have been "ignorant enough and indifferent enough" in the first place, as alleged; but they doubtless became well enough informed as to the fate that would befall them if their findings failed to please the mob, and were sufficiently interested to provide against the perilous contingency.

The perjured testimony of such witnesses as Lieutenant Worrell (given, as Mr. Hay admits, for the purpose of "screening a murder,") indicates some of the means employed to "prove" the requisite number of "alibis," by which the damaging testimony of the girl Graham was "discredited." Possibly some of the witnesses were as prudent as Mr. Hay confesses himself to be, when tempted to mention the name of a "gentleman" murderer who was "prepared to prove an alibi" and stood "six feet two in his moccasins."

The Mormon Exodus.

Emboldened by the outcome of the trial, the anti-Mormons pressed hard their advantage. Already was the Nauvoo Charter repealed, and the lawless and oppressive acts that followed vindicated the foresight which had decreed the abatement of the libelous, mob-inciting "Expositor." The plotters continued trumping up charges against the heads of the Church, notably President Brigham Young, and supplemented these vexatious proceedings with a deliberate system of pillaging and house-burning; the victims of these dastardly outrages being the Mormon residents of Hancock County, no longer protected by their Legion, which had been disbanded. Thomas Gregg, the anti-Mormon historian, whom no one will accuse of partiality for the other side, candidly admits that these acts were absolutely unjustifiable; "acts," says he, "which had no warrant in law or order, and which cannot be reconciled with any correct principles of reasoning, and which we then thought, and still think, were condemned by every consideration looking to good government; acts which had for their object, and which finally resulted in, the forcible expulsion of the Mormon people from the County."

How different this fair and dignified comment from most of the statements here made by Mr. Hay, whose reckless bias charges upon "Mormon assassins" the justifiable killing of the man Worrell, one of the ring-leaders of those robbers and house-burners. But Mr. Gregg lived among the scenes and the people whom he describes, and was old enough to comprehend the situation. He did not confine his researches as a historian to reading "as a child," inscriptions on the tombstones of dead mobocrats, or listening to self-justifying stories from the lips of mobocrats still living.

Mr. Gregg's impartial view was shared by other "original inhabitants of Hancock County," and by many citizens in various parts of the State. Hon. Josiah Lamborn, Attorney-General of Illinois, writing to President Young, soon after the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter in January, 1845, says: "I have always considered that your enemies have been prompted by political and religious prejudices, and by a desire for plunder and blood, more than for the common good. By the repeal of your Charter, and by refusing all amendments and modifications, our Legislature has given a kind of sanction to the barbarous manner in which you have been treated. * * * It is truly a melancholy spectacle to witness the law-makers of a sovereign State condescending to pander to the vices, ignorance, and malevolence of a class of people who are at all times ready for riot, murder, and rebellion."

Governor Ford, in a letter to President Young, dated April 8, 1845, made the following suggestion: "If you can get off by yourselves, you may enjoy peace; but, surrounded by such neighbors, I confess that I do not see the time when you will be permitted to enjoy quiet. I was informed by General Joseph Smith last summer, that he contemplated a removal West; and from what I learned from him and others at that time, I think if he had lived he would have begun to move in the matter before this time. I would be willing to exert all my feeble abilities and influence to further your views in this respect, if it was the wish of your people." The Governor advised a Mormon conquest of California, and the setting up of an independent government upon what was then Mexican soil. But Brigham Young and his confreres had already decided upon their course. The Mormon people were about to undertake another exodus, this time into an all but untrodden wilderness, thus fulfilling a prediction made by their Prophet in August, 1842. Joseph Smith had then declared that the Latter-day Saints would be driven westward, and would "become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains."

It is nearly time to ring down the curtain upon John Hay and his "Tragedy,"-I had almost said travesty; for a more palpable burlesque upon history was never palmed upon the public by an American writer. Toward the murderers of the Prophet and the Patriarch he is generosity itself; but toward the victims of the cowardly and cruel massacre at Carthage, he shows not a spark of magnanimity, nor of common Christian charity. Yes, one; he admits that "Joe Smith died bravely;" but he excuses the murderers of the heroic and innocent man, appreciates their characters, and all but approves their damnable deed. To him, as to them, this Prophet of God was evidently little better than a wild beast, worthy only to be hunted down and slain. Speaking of those who aspired to "the Prophet's mantle," he says, in concluding his article:

"The coolest and most unbelieving of them all succeeded to the autocracy. Brigham Young, whether guided by instinct or reason I do not know, avoided the fatal mistake of Smith, who turned back from Missouri to Illinois, and the crazy fantasy of Rigdon, who would have gone from Illinois to Pennsylvania. Tribes and religions cannot travel against the sun. Young, during the troubled year that followed, exerted himself to gather all the reins of government into his own hands; and there was not in all the slavish East a despot more absolute than he when at last he started, with his wives and his servants and his cattle, to lead his people into the vast tolerant wilderness."

Brigham Young's name and fame will survive all such aspersions upon his life and character. And as to the martyred founder of the faith which numbered the great pioneer and state-builder among its sincerest believers and most earnest advocates, a bigger and a better man than the author of the "Tragedy" of the "Mormon Prophet," has recorded imperishably, from a non-Mormon point of view, his impressions of Joseph the Seer; recorded them not from hearsay and tradition, but from personal contact and communion with the one whom he describes; recorded them in words that will breathe and burn when all that John Hay ever wrote is mouldering dust-covered in the limbo of forgetfulness. I refer to Josiah Quincy, and the following remarkable forecast from his philosophic and prophetic pen.

Josiah Quincy on Joseph Smith.

"It is by no means improbable that some future text-book, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may thus be written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is to day accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High,-such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. Fanatic, imposter, charlatan, he may have been; but these hard names furnish no solution to the problem he presents to us. Fanatics and imposters are living and dying every day, and their memory is buried with them; but the wonderful influence which this founder of a religion exerted and still exerts throws him into relief before us, not as a rogue to be criminated, but as a phenomenon to be explained. * *

"The most vital questions Americans are asking each other today have to do with this man and what he has left us. A generation other than mine must deal with these questions. Burning questions they are, which must give a prominent place in the history of the country to that sturdy self-asserter whom I visited at Nauvoo. Joseph Smith, claiming to be an inspired teacher, faced adversity such as few men have been called to meet, enjoyed a brief season of prosperity such as few men have ever attained, and, finally, forty-three days after I saw him, went cheerfully to a martyr's death."

As a fitting close to this review, I present this splendid portrait of the Prophet, drawn by the master mind and hand of Parley P. Pratt, one of his early friends and associates:

Parley P. Pratt's Description of the Prophet.

"President Joseph Smith was in person tall and well built, strong and active; of a light complexion, light hair, blue eyes, very little beard, and of an expression peculiar to himself, on which the eye naturally rested with interest, and was never weary of beholding. His countenance was ever mild, affable, beaming with intelligence and benevolence; mingled with a look of interest and an unconscious smile or cheerfulness, and entirely free from all restraint or affectation of gravity: and there was something connected with the serene and steady penetrating glance of his eye, as if he would probe the deepest abyss of the human heart, gaze into eternity, penetrate the heavens, and comprehend all worlds.

"He possessed a noble boldness and independence of character; his manner was easy and familiar; his rebuke terrible as the lion; his benevolence unbounded as the ocean; his intelligence universal, and his language abounding in original eloquence peculiar to himself-not polished-not studied-not smoothed and softened by education and refined by art; but flowing forth in its own native simplicity, and profusely abounding in variety of subject and manner. He interested and edified, while, at the same time, he amused and entertained his audience; and none listened to him that were ever weary with his discourse. I have even known him to retain a congregation of willing and anxious listeners for many hours together, in the midst of cold or sunshine, rain or wind, while they were laughing at one moment and weeping the next. Even his most bitter enemies were generally overcome, if he could once get their ears.

"I have known him, when chained and surrounded with armed murderers and assassins who were heaping upon him every possible insult and abuse, to rise up in the majesty of a son of God and rebuke them in the name of Jesus Christ, till they quailed before him, dropped their weapons, and on their knees begged his pardon, and ceased their abuse.

"In short, in him the characters of a Daniel and a Cyrus were wonderfully blended. The gifts, wisdom and devotion of a Daniel were united with the boldness, courage, temperance, perseverance and generosity of a Cyrus. And had he been spared a martyr's fate till mature manhood and age, he was certainly endued with powers and ability to have revolutionized the world in many respects, and to have transmitted to posterity a name associated with more brilliant and glorious acts than has yet fallen to the lot of mortal. As it is, his works will live to endless ages, and unnumbered millions yet unborn will mention his name with honor, as a noble instrument in the hands of God, who, during his short and youthful career, laid the foundation of that kingdom spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, which should break in pieces all other kingdoms and stand forever."

end