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President Hamilton then introduced Mr. James H. Kennedy, of New York City, who addressed the association as follows:
THE MORMON EPISODE AT KIRTLAND.
Impartial history will place upon Ohio the responsibility for the formation of the Mormon Church.
It might have existed, even if its young roots had never been set in this good buckeye soil, but would have been
a scrubby growth at best. Joseph Smith planted; Martin Harris and David Whitmer watered, but the increase came
only when Sidney Rigdon and those of his kind furnished a bit of congenial soil out of which came growth and
fruition. The chosen spot was in our neighboring town of Kirtland, where the first stake of Zion was set, some
seventy years ago.
As Joseph Smith was the foundation of Mormonism, and as Brigham Young was its business genius or material side,
so was Rigdon its Evangel. There have been many stories told of the manner in which he and Smith first came
together, but in the brief narrative of today we will hold ourselves closely to the accepted facts.
Joseph Smith had in some manner become possessed of that dreary and clumsy literary and theological contrivance
called The Book of Mormon. Time is too short to permit a consideration of the theories advanced as to where he got
it. Smith's personal story is simple enough. In the fall of 1823 he retired to his bed after a weary day upon the
farm, and soon fell asleep. In the silence of the night an angel came to him, and told him of a book
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written upon golden plates, hidden in a hill there in western New York. When daylight came he had no trouble in
locating the hill, and found the plates, but four years went by before he was permitted to carry them away.
After much labor, and some divine instruction, he translated them. By the aid of a credulous old farmer, named
Martin Harris -- who mortaged his farm and lost it -- he was able to lay this third testament before the world
in the cold reality of print.
Joseph had a brother, Hyrum, who was engaged, one evening, soon after the book was off the press, in driving home
the cows, when he was approached by a young man, who asked where he could find the translator of the Book of
Mormon. "You cannot see him at all," was the answer, "as he is down in Pennsylvania, a hundred miles away."
The stranger then declared himself. He was a preacher of the Word; had seen a copy of this wonderful Gospel; had
read it through, unable to lay it down. The spirit of the Lord had come upon him, and his heart had been filled
with joy.
This was an Ohio man, Parley P. Pratt. He had made for himself a home in the forest, thirty miles west of
Cleveland. Had been stirred and then refreshed by a sermon of Sidney Rigdon's; had abandoned his farm for the
work of the Lord: had fallen upon the Book of Mormon, and at last knew why he had been called forth.
The visitor was baptized and began to preach Mormonism. His younger brother, Orson, joined him, and also preached
it.
It was at Fayette, New York, in September, 1830, that the first step was taken toward carrying the scheme bodily
into Ohio. It was announced through the lips of Joseph, the new-born prophet, that the millenium was not far away,
and a mission was laid upon Peter Whitmer, Parley P. Pratt, Ziba Peterson and Oliver Cowdery, to go west and preach
Mormonism to the Indians, who were declared to be the remnants of the tribe of Joseph. They were permitted to
perform miracles, but for the present these were to be limited to the casting out of devils and the healing of
the sick.
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You see they had their form of mental healing even in those days-- but they called it by another name.
For a full understanding of the things that came about so readily at Kirtland, we must lay our colors upon the
background of that day.
The American people were filled with a religious unrest, a spiritual fervor, and swayed by forms of fanaticism
the like of which had not been seen before.
The time was very close to those fierce revivals aroused by the preaching of Lorenzo Dow. It was the day of the
"jerkings" the "rollings" and the "fallings" by which an emotional form of camp-meeting conversion expressed
itself. John Jay Shipherd and Philo Penfield Stewart were even then formulating their Oberlin Covenant, that
planted a great idea in the woods of Northern Ohio. Dylkes, the Leatherwood God, had but recently mysteriously
appeared in a Southern Ohio camp-meeting; as God he had announced himself, and as such had been accepted and
worshipped.
The Disciples had recently made a great commotion by their coming out of the older churches. Hosea Ballou had
but recently dared orthodoxy by the declaration that all sin received its punishment in this world. The sons and
daughters of Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers, were founding their many settlements. William Miller was preaching the
Second Advent, and his followers were even then dreaming of an Ascension into heaven without death.
Revelations, dreams, prophecies, unrest, a looking for millenial days. All these wore astir in the land, and men
were prepared to believe anything, were it only new.
Thus Joseph Smith and his Golden Bible had a fruitful field prepared for them. Twenty years earlier, or a decade
later, and his seed might have fallen upon stony ground; there might never have been a Mormon Church.
When this commissioned quartette left Buffalo, where they had met a number of Indians and endeavored to persuade
them that they had Jewish ancestors -- that they were the lost ten tribes of Israel, reddened in some way --
they pushed on to Kirtland.
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Their stop there was the critical period in the history of Mormonism, for there they met Sidney Rigdon and secured
all that came by his influence and in the wake of his preaching.
He was a gifted man. He would have been a great one, if nature had given him a little less of self and a
balance-wheel. He was now thirty-seven years of age. He had preached in Warren, where he had taken unto himself
a wife. In Pittsburg, where he had met with great success. Then he retired from the ministry, because he said he
did not feel free to accept the recognized theology of the day. For two years he worked in a tannery. Again took
up his preaching at Bainbridge, where he adopted no formal creed, but leaned in the direction of Alexander
Campbell, the father of the Disciples. He removed to Mentor. At Kirtland, a short distance away, a number of the
members of his church had agreed to live together, and hold all their worldly goods in common.
Here was the field white for the harvest; and Pratt and his mission band -- as the forerunners of Joseph -- lifted
up their eyes in shrewd anticipation, and entered in.
Rigdon's preaching had been for some time along the lines which Mormonism afterwards followed.
He taught the literal interpretation of the prophecies of Scripture. That the Israelites were to gather, to receive
the second coming. The use of miracles in the service of the Church. The literal reign of the saints on earth. We
remember the resolution once passed by a lot of free and easy souls in the West:
"Resolved, That the saints shall inherit the earth.
Resolved, That we are the saints."
This was ever the claim of the Mormon Church.
The four missionaries met Rigdon and argued with him. He carried home a copy of the Book of Mormon with a promise
to read it. At the end of two days he surrendered. He declared that he had asked for a sign and had received it;
the testimony was from God; the Book of Mormon was of divine inspiration.
That settled it. The bell-wether had jumped the fence and
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the rest followed. Some twenty of Rigdon's spiritual flock, his wife, and himself, were baptized into the Mormon
Church.
The life of that church was quickened. The new doctrine had been suddenly lifted into the light. From something
utterly unknown it went before the world of Northern Ohio, with the full approval of a score and more of very
respectable people.
Soon after, Rigdon went to Manchester, New York, and met Smith. Joseph discovered that Sidney was not a man who
could be held in the background. He therefore took him into close partnership and received a special revelation
from heaven, declaring that Rigdon had been accepted, would be blessed, and might accomplish great things.
Thus endorsed from the very headship of the Church, Sidney went back to Kirtland to prepare the way for Joseph and
his family. They arrived in February, 1831. The once unknown village was thenceforward the center and headquarters
of the new faith.
Joseph worked his new machinery with enthusiasm and frequency. He was not sparing in his revelations from on high.
He had achieved 14 in 1829; 20 came in 1830; 37 in 1831; 13 in 1832. These are the larger ones -- those of
sufficient importance for record in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, which began to be built up in that manner.
There were many minor celestial orders received, that were for the day only; these served the purpose of the
moment, and were not counted.
Among these greater revelations, there was one that abolished the community of goods, and another decreeing that
a house should be built, at the general expense, for Joseph. There was, also, one that has been often quoted
against the Church of Brigham Young in the later days -- "thou shalt love thy wife, cleaving unto her, and to none
else." And later: "wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and the twain shall be one flesh." You do
not need to be told that Mormonism preached another Gospel at Salt Lake.
The temporal and spiritual Church grew rapidly. It would
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take a book to relate all that was done. Rigdon preached with fire before the footlights; Smith and his aged
father and his brothers rattled the sheet-iron thunder and pulled the ropes behind the scenes. Elders were
ordained and sent forth as missionaries. Those who were converted and came with goods were required to unload for
the benefit of the Church. A set invasion of the far West was arranged.
After a time Smith removed to the town of Hiram -- perhaps because of the finer literary air to be found there;
for he and Rigdon had now commenced an original translation of the Bible. In 1832, when opposition to the Mormons
had become widespread, Hiram expressed its opinion of these visitors by taking them from their beds at night,
and coating them with tar and feathers. That broke up the translation.
Rigdon hurried back to Kirtland but Joseph was afraid to be seen there. He went to Warren, where he was joined
by Sidney, and the two traveled by way of Cincinnati, to Independence, Missouri, where a second Stake of Zion
had been established. Joseph returned to Kirtland in June.
There was now a mill there, a store and a farm that belonged to the Church. In January, 1833, they introduced
the Scriptural doctrine of the washing of feet, and practiced it. Each elder attended to himself first, and then
Joseph would take a towel and give them all a final polishing off. Money was flowing in and in March they purchased
three more farms. They commenced the building of the temple. They made bricks, and built a tannery. Established
a school of the prophets, for the instruction of those who were to be sent forth as missionaries.
It was also at this time that our old friend E. D. Howe, the pioneer printer of Painesville, published his famous
book "Mormonism Unveiled" which was an outspoken exposure of the things being said and done. A little book, that
has been heard from and was, in itself and because if its effects, one of the most severe blows that Mormonism
has ever received.
It was in this year 1832, that the Church received into membership
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the strongest and ablest man it has ever possessed --a painter and glazier, by the name of Brigham Young.
He was then but thirty-one years of age, was converted by Samuel H. Smith, a brother of the Prophet, and went to
Kirtland to look at things for himself. He was a quiet observer, but he learned much, and made effective use of
it when the troubled days fell upon Nauvoo.
Joseph looked the young man over; made him one of the twelve apostles, and sent him forth to preach.
In view of Brigham's many marriages, I may be permitted to refer here to his first and second. In March, 1834, he
took unto himself his second wife, Mary Ann Angel, his first having died in 1832. I have seen the record at
Chardon. Sidney Rigdon performed the ceremony. When Young applied for the license, he signed his name "BRICKHAM"
and the word "Young" was laboriously commenced with a small "y."
When Young was sued for divorce and alimony by Mrs. Young the Nineteenth, he paid a Geauga County attorney fifty
dollars for furnishing him with an official copy of this certificate. With it he cooly proceeded to show that, as
he was already married to Mary Ann, he could not legally be the husband of Ann Eliza.
The branch of the Church which had been established in Missouri was in trouble, and even engaged in physical
warfare with the populace about it. In the spring of 1834, a little army was organized at Kirtland, for the
purpose of marching westward to the aid of the brethren. They called it Zion's Camp. Its strength consisted of
150 young men, priests, elders, deacons and teachers. They started with twenty wagons, loaded with arms and
supplies, with the Prophet Joseph in the lead.
They reached Missouri in June. There was much talk and many threats: and the outcome of Zion's Camp was like that
of the King of Greece and his twice ten -- thousand men -- after he had marched them up the lull, he marched them
down again.
A clear understanding of all that Mormonism was and implied, even in those days of beginning, could not be reached
without
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an exposure of the supernatural claims that were advanced, the juggling that was introduced and the blind and
fanatical obedience that faith and ignorance were willing to give.
We might hesitate in believing the things related by enemies of the outside world were not even wilder experiences
claimed by leaders of the Mormon Church; miracles wrought, the sick made well, the dead brought back to life.
Scores of these I could show you, in books officially issued from the Salt Lake press.
Let us take a paragraph from Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled :"
"On the conversion of Rigdon, scenes of wild * * * fanaticism ensued. They pretended
that the power of miracles was about to be given to all who embraced the new faith,
and commenced communicating the Holy Spirit by laying their hands upon the heads of
converts, which operation at first produced an instantaneous prostration of the body
and mind.
"Many would fall upon the floor, where they would lie for a long time, apparently
lifeless. They thus continued these enthusiastic exhibitions for several weeks. The
fits usually came on during or after their prayer meetings, which were held nearly
every evening. The young men and women were most subject to this delirium. They would
exhibit all the apish actions imaginable, creeping upon their hands and feet, rolling
upon the frozen ground, go through all the modes of Indian warfare.
"At other times they would run through the fields, get upon the stumps, preach to
imaginary congregations, enter the water, and perform the ceremony of baptizing. Many
would have fits of speaking all the different Indian dialects, which none could
understand. Again, at the dead hour of the night, the young men might be seen running
over the fields and hills in pursuit, as they said, of balls of fire, lights, etc.,
which they saw moving through the atmosphere."
This much on the testimony of Howe.
The prophet Smith moved with due caution in his introduction of miracles. He did not know just how much his
people would stand. When firm in one position, he advanced to another.
Having visible proof that his power for divine things was accepted,
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he added a new phase of belief in January, 1833, when the "Gift of Tongues" was made manifest It was of a nature
to appeal with force to the most ignorant and insignificant of his followers, as it enabled any one of them to
claim direct connection with the powers on high, and to deliver themselves of any jargon of nonsense to which
the imagination might be moved, or might be able to compass.
The manner in which this "gift" was displayed was unique. A meeting would be called, and previous thereto
announcement made that someone would be moved to "speak with tongues." Each believer who attended- carried with
him the solemn possibility of being the chosen mouthpiece of the Most High.
Rigdon or Smith would be present and call upon some one to rise and deliver the message with which he was charged,
saying: "If you will arise in the name of the Lord, you can speak in tongues."
The man indicated would stand up in a startled, half-scared mood, and perhaps say "My faith fails me -- I have
not enough."
"Oh, yes, you have," from the leader, "speak in the name of the Lord, make some sound without further thought,
and God will make it a language."
Then the poor, scared old fellow would mutter some unintelligible sound, and it would be called a tongue. Others
would follow in the same strain, some talking, some singing, and others furnishing a mixture of the two.
All through these earlier days, Smith made a persistent endeavor to repeat the mysteries and even the miracles of
Bible times, and many stories might be related of these. When he met with failure he dismissed the matter. When,
through some happy accident, legerdemain, or the unconscious nervous co-operation of his subject, he was able to
accomplish that which was out of the normal, he gave the credit to divine power, and saw that the fact was duly
heralded to the world.
This reminds me of the manner in which Brigham Young once escaped from a close corner. He was approached by a
believer who had lost a leg, and asked to be made whole.
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"I refuse to do it for your own sake/' said Brigham. "If I give you a new leg, both it and the one you have lost
would be raised in the resurrection of the dead. How would you look going around through all eternity on three
legs?"
The Mormons declare that many of these alleged incidents are the inventions of their enemies. Perhaps so. Let us
turn to the Mormon books for happenings that are officially endorsed.
Wilford Woodruff was the successor of Brigham Young, as president and prophet of the Mormon Church. He received
his primary instruction under Smiih at Kirtland, and was for years an earnest missionary. At a later date, he
wrote a book for the instruction of the Mormon children -- a sort of Utah Sunday School primer.
He made a careful calculation in devils, for the benefit of these little ones.
Each person on this earth, he taught, is individually beset by one hundred devils, actual devils, whose purpose
it is to hang close to him until he shall be betrayed into torment. It is a matter of simple arithmetic. One
hundred billion devils fell to the earth with Lucifer. There are one billion people upon the earth, which gives
one hundred to every man, woman and child.
Well might he add: "Now I want all our girls and boys to reflect upon this, and to see what danger they are in,
and the warfare they are to pass through."
Reflect! The wonder is that the poor little Mormons could sleep at night.
Still, President Woodruff knew what he was talking about. He had seen them, and fought them to a finish. When he
was in London he drove them out of several people, and saw them go.
On one occasion he and Elder George A. Smith had retired to rest upon cots about three feet apart. They had hardly
stretched themselves out when a legion of devils made war upon them, seeking their destruction with venom and fury,
until as Woodruff says, "we were nearly choked to death. But suddenly three angelic visitors, dressed in white,
entered the room, and at that instant the evil spirits disappeared, and were seen no more."
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This little book is a mine of miracles -- I would like to take a day off and read it to you. He was on a mission
in the West. A black bear came out of the forest, sat upon its haunches, saw that he was a real Mormon Elder,
and then ran away. Wolves followed him all night, but kept their distance. When he was told by the spirit to go
and warn a certain scoffer, he was ordered out of the house, and as the man of sin followed him to the road, he
fell dead, and turned back. Woodruff went back, and preached his funeral sermon.
Miracles and spiritual power of the highest order were scattered all along his record. Dreams warned him to flee
when mobs were upon his track. He healed many sick by the laying on of hands. A miraculous fish appeared on the
coast of Maine, and by its wonderful power caused a doubter to be converted.
And finally power came upon the young missionary to raise from the dead. He was leading a handful of weary converts
from Maine, in the dead of the winter, plowing in rude wagons through mud and snow. Many were sick, some had died,
others lost heart and fallen out by the way. Woodruff's wife -- he had but one then -- was taken with brain fever,
and while delirious was jolted onward in the rude cart that was her only home.
He was finally compelled to halt, and claim the hospitality of a farm house by the wayside. She sank gradually,
and then -- "she was dead," says the Elder. "The sisters gathered around her body, weeping, while I stood looking
at her in sorrow.
"The spirit and power of God began to rest upon me until, for the first time during her sickness, faith filled
my soul. I had some oil that was consecrated for my anointing, while in Kirtland. I took and consecrated it again;
then bowed and prayed for the life of my companion, and anointed her body with the oil. I laid my hands upon her,
rebuked the power of death, and the destroyer, and commanded the same to depart from her and the spirit of life
to enter the body.
"Her spirit returned to her body, and from that hour she was made whole."
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The wife afterward declared that her spirit had really departed from its tenement of clay, and had been accosted
by a heavenly messenger who gave her the choice of continuing on to Paradise, or returning to the flesh. When
she looked downward and saw her sorrowing husband and helpless child, her mother heart made the choice of earth,
and with that she returned to her body.
There are other Mormon leaders who have written wonderful things in these books for the infant saints. Thus Elder
Abel Evans tells of a woman who had lost her nose, and by faith he made her a new one -- "not a perfect one," he
regretfully adds, "but a great improvement upon none at all." He also cured a broken leg, and in three minutes
had his man dancing about the house; healed a boy into whose head an iron rod had been run; and broke up an
epidemic upon shipboard with such celerity that the sailors hinted at witchcraft.
A piece of angel financiering is related by Heber Kimball, as befalling himself and Brigham Young, when on a
mission tour.
They started with a purse containing but $13.50; traveled over four hundred miles by stage, for which they paid
from eight to ten cents per mile, had three meals per day and lodging, for each of which they paid fifty cents,
and at the end discovered that they had expended $87.00 out of that purse of $13.50, and Brigham still had one
York shilling left.
"Brother Brigham," says Heber, "often suspected that I put money in his trunk or clothes, but this was not so.
The money could only have been put in his trunk by some heavenly messenger, who thus administered to our
necessities daily as he knew we needed."
I think these illustrations will be sufficient to describe the situation.
It was a great event for Kirtland when the temple was finished -- many of you have seen it, still standing on the
brow of Kirtland hill. It was dedicated on the 27th of March, 1836.
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That occasion may be regarded as the culminating point of Mormon success and influence in Ohio.
Every possible effort was made to raise it above the level of temporal things, and to impress upon it an apparent
stamp of divine acceptance and favor.
There were many ceremonies. The various quorums of the Church officially recognized Joseph Smith as their prophet
and seer. If his word may be taken, there were august visitors in attendance—Moses, Elias and Elisha appeared unto
him, and surrendered into his hands the Keys of the Priesthood. He saw angels, who came down and held converse
with him. Brigham Young was favored with an eloquent outburst of tongues and made an address which neither he nor
his hearers could understand. A pillar of fire was seen above the temple, and supernatural sounds were heard in
the air. The brethren shut themselves in the temple and washed and anointed themselves.
The excitement continued until March 31st. During that time all business of a secular character was suspended and
many spectators were drawn from the neighboring towns and farms.
No such season had been witnessed in Kirtland, even in the early days of spiritual riot; and none was ever again
possible in the times of gloom and trouble that were now closing in from every side.
You will recall the abnormal speculative boom in lands, in banking, in canals, railroads, and everything, that
culminated in the financial panic of 1837. Everybody was rich, on paper. A solid city was to be built on the
lake front from Cleveland to Buffalo.
Our Mormon friends had their share in these speculations. Kirtland lay upon one of the roadways the pioneer had
cut through the forests of Northern Ohio, and Lake Erie could be seen from the temple roof. The core of a large
town seemed to have been formed in the settlement of so many strangers about the temple, and the limits to which
it might grow could be defined only by the future.
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I have also seen upon the books at Chardon, which was then Kirtland's county seat, the proposed plot of a great
city, of which the temple was to be the center. Kirtland City they called it. Thirty-two streets were laid out
at right angles, each four rods wide. The new and the old dispensations were both remembered in the naming of
these thoroughfares. Peter, John and Luke had the first three. One went to Oliver Cowdery, one to Joseph, one
to Parley Pratt, while the rest of the saints, ancient and modern, straggled along in the rear.
They speculated in other things. Bought lands at high prices, and let the mortgages eat them up. Bought merchandise
in New York and elsewhere in excess of their inability to pay. Started a bank, and when Ohio would not give them
a charter, went ahead without it, and issued a cartload of paper money that was never redeemed. As one chronicler
quaintly states it: "They suffered pride to arise in their hearts, and became desirous of fine houses and fine
clothes, and indulged too much in these things, supposing for a few months they were very rich."
Then came the smash. There is a Mormon record in which it is summed up in a few words: "Upon the failure of the
bank, in 1838, Smith and Rigdon went to Missouri, leaving the business in the hands of others to wind up." This
is brief, for the reason that the Mormon chroniclers did not care to say more.
From the mouth of a living witness I have received an account of the final public appearance of these two men in
the temple which their influence and energy had created. It was on a Sabbath in December. Rebellion, malice and
secret enemies confronted them from within the Church, while debt, revenge, arrest, prosecution, and even physical
assault threatened them from without. The faithful many had been sent to the settlements of the west, while here
remained the hostile few.
A demand had been made by the prophet that condemnation and excommunication should be pronounced upon several
who were in rebellion, but it soon became apparent that the votes by which the behest was to be obeyed were not
forthcoming.
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Never in his life did Joseph Smith make a better, manlier showing than on this day. He came into the gathering
with the resolution and courage that the situation demanded, and carried himself as one who felt that his feet
had been set upon a rock. The wonderful experiences of nearly a decade of spiritual and material command had
given power and play to every faculty and carried him far outward from the uncouth and flimsy experiences and
assertions of the early days.
He had a natural grain of greatness -- without it, he never could have become what he was. It had been smoothed
and polished by contact with the world, and he was no longer the ungainly boy who looked into the white stone
for lost money or straying flocks; he was the clear-sighted and ambitious man, who now aspired to a place with
Mohammed as the founder of a vast religious empire.
There could be no show of weakness now that was not fraught with danger -- and he played his game with boldness
and courage clear on to his tragic end.
Rigdon had been sick, and was aided to his seat by the steadying arms of friends. The debate was long and stormy.
Three hours of the Sabbath passed, and no decision was reached. Rigdon's address was not soon forgotten by those
who heard it Physical weakness was upon him, but the pathos of his plea, and the power of his denunciations,
swayed their feelings and shook their judgments, as never in the old days of prosperous peace.
When he had finished, and was led out, a tense silence reigned in the temple, until its door had closed upon him
forever.
Smith made a resolute and determined battle. False reports had been circulated, he declared, and those by whom
the offense had come, must repent and acknowledge their sin, or be cut off from fellowship in this world and
from honor and power in that to come. He made his demands as head of the church, and for the church, and he would
abate not one jot therefrom.
The accused pleaded their case; one of them gave the prophet the lie to his face, and fire did not come from
heaven to consume
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him. The day was lost for Smith. The matter was postponed for a few days, and that ended it, so far as he was
concerned. He never entered the temple again.
There came to his ears the rumor that an old enemy had gone to Chardon to secure a warrant for his arrest for
fraud in connection with the defunct bank. It was not true, but he did not wait to investigate. He made hurried
and secret arrangements for flight. Fleet horses were secured, and late in the evening of January 12, 1838,
Smith and Rigdon bade farewell to a few devoted friends and galloped over the frozen roads and through the snow,
toward the west. There was an outcry, but no legal action was taken, and in due season they were hailed as heroes
and welcomed as martyrs by that portion of the Mormon world to which their coming was a blessed surprise.
The sheriff was now an almost daily visitor at Kirtland. The dream of a city was gone, and those who were left
thought only of how they might save something from the wreck.
After years of silence, emptiness and long disuse, the old temple was declared by the courts of Ohio to belong
rightfully to the Anti-polygamy Mormons of Iowa, the reorganized branch of the Church. In late years they have
returned to Kirtland, for the purpose of holding their annual conferences within its walls.
The leader of this branch is Joseph Smith, the only son of Joseph, the prophet: He was born at Kirtland in the
early days of prosperity, and has a dim recollection of the exciting scenes amid which his boyhood was passed.
It was intended by his father that he should become the spiritual and temporal heir. When he reached the proper
age he was chosen as the leader of those Mormons who followed not after Young, and it was his happy lot to send
missionaries to Utah, for the conversion of his misguided brethren from the error of their ways.
Joseph Smith, after his flight from Kirtland, founded two other Mormon strongholds in the valley of the Mississippi,
one at Far West and the other at Nauvoo. In the latter place a second temple was erected. The Mormons raised and
equipped a small
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standing army. Joseph Smith became richer and more powerful than he had ever dreamed of being. He took an active
part in Illinois politics, and for a time the Mormon vote was a considerable factor in the public affairs. With
power and recognition came arrogance and ambition, and Smith even talked in public of himself as a possible
candidate for the president of the United States.
All this and much that went with it, made enemies. They arose on all sides in wrath and bitterness. We have not
time to go into details, or contributory causes. The culmination came in June, 1844, when a writ was issued
against Joseph and Hyrum Smith and others on the charge of destroying a printing press without authority of law.
They were lodged in Carthage jail.
And it was while there that the prophet and his brother were attacked and murdered by a cruel and cowardly mob.
This act -- outside of justice and the law -- did more for Joseph and Mormonism than all their friends could have
done. The halo of martyrdom had descended upon him, and of all the works performed by Joseph for the system of which
he was the foundation and the head, none could reach the power, the influence and the vitalizing force that lay
in the legacy of his bloody death.
With this event the initial era of Mormonism came to an end.
Then arose Brigham Young -- well had he bided his time -- and with a strong hand, standing on the vantage ground
of his chiefship of the twelve apostles, put aside all claimants for the succession, relegated the dead prophet's
brothers to inferior places in the Church, set altogether aside the son of Joseph, gave Sidney Rigdon over to
excommunication and the buffetings of Satan, took matters into his own strong hands, and saved the Church from
disintegration and possible extinction.
A word as to Rigdon. He saw that there was no future for him under Young. He had boldly played for Joseph's place
and lost.
He gathered a faithful few about him, went east to Pennsylvania, attempted to build a Church upon the foundation
of
EARLY SETTLERS' ASSOCIATION
365
Joseph the Prophet and Sidney the successor, failed utterly, retired into obscurity, and died the death of a
broken, disappointed old man. But he held his counsel to the last, and no word came from his lips or pen to show
that fraud and falsehood had any part in the founding or upbuilding of the Mormon Church.
After the murder of Joseph, there came, for a time, peace upon Nauvoo. But it was the calm that forges the bolt
for the storm. Other and greater troubles arose. The Church was ordered to leave Illinois, and Young knew that
it was the better part of wisdom to go. Then came the long journey through the wilderness, the founding of an
empire in Utah, the promulgation of the doctrine of spiritual wifehood, and all the things that have followed in
its train...
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