ORIGIN  OF  THE  MORMON  IMPOSTURE.                

The Rochester American publishes the following from a forthcoming work by Mr. Turner, entitled a "history of Philip and Gorham's Purchase." Though not entirely new, it is succinct, and communicates some facts coming within the author's personal knowledge:

As we are now at the home of the Smith family -- in sight of "Mormon Hill" -- a brief pioneer history will be looked for, of the strange, and singularly successful religious sect -- the Mormons; and brief it must be, merely starting it in its career, and leaving it to their especial historian to trace them to Kirtland, Nauvoo, Beaver Island, and Utah, or the Salt Lake.

Joseph Smith, the father of the prophet Joseph Smith, jr., was from the Merrimack river, N. H. He first settled in or near Palmyra village, but as early as 1819 was the occupant of some new land on "Stafford street," in the town of Manchester, near the line of Palmyra. * "Mormon Hill " is near the plank road about half-way between the villages of Palmyra and Manchester. The elder Smith had been a Universalist, and subsequently a Methodist; was a good deal of a smatterer in scriptural knowledge, but the seed of revelation was sown on weak ground; he was a great babbler, credulous, not especially industrious, a money-digger, prone to the marvellous; and, withal, a little given to difficulties with neighbors, and petty law-suits. Not a very propitious account of the father of a prophet -- the founder of a state; but there was a "woman in the case."

Mrs. Smith was a woman of strong, uncultivated intellect; artful and cunning; imbued with an ill-regulated religious enthusiasm. The incipient hints, the first givings out that a prophet was to spring from her humble household, came from her; and when matters were maturing for denouement, she gave out that such and such ones -- always fixing upon those who had both money and credulity -- were to be instruments in some great work of new revelation. The old man was rather her faithful co-worker, or executive exponent. Their son, Alvah, was originally intended or designated, by fireside consultations and solemn and mysterious out-door hints, as the forthcoming prophet. The mother and the father said he was the chosen one; but Alvah, however spiritual he may have been, had a carnal appetite; ate too many green turnips, sickened and died. Thus the world lost a prophet, and Mormonism a leader; the designs, impiously and wickedly attributed to Providence, were defeated; and all in consequence of a surfeit of raw turnips. Who will talk of the cackling geese of Rome, or any other small and innocent causes of mighty events after this? The mantle of the prophet which Mrs. and Mr. Joseph Smith and one Oliver Cowdery had wove themselves -- every thread of it -- fell upon their next eldest son, Joseph Smith, Jr.

And a most unpromising recipient of such a trust was this same Joseph Smith, Jr., afterwards Jo Smith." He was lounging, idle, (not to say vicious,) and possessed of less than ordinary intellect. The author's own recollections of him are distinct. He used to come into the village of Palmyra, with little jags of wood, from his back-woods

home; sometimes patronizing a village grocery too freely; sometimes finding an odd job to do about the store of Seymour Scovell; and once a week he would stroll into the office of the old Palmyra Register for his father's paper. How impious in us young "dare devils" * to once in a while blacken the face of the then meddling, inquisitive lounger -- but afterwards prophet -- with the old-fashioned balls, when he used to put himself in the way of the working of the old-fashioned Ramage press! The editor of the Cultivator at Albany -- esteemed as he may justly consider himself for his subsequent enterprise and usefulness -- may think of it with contrition and repentance, that he once helped thus to disfigure the face of a prophet, and, remotely, the founder of a state.

But Joseph had a little ambition, and some very laudable aspirations; the mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club, which we moved down to the old red school-house on Durfee street, to get rid of the annoyance of critics that used to drop in upon us in the village; amid, subsequently, after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp-meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings.

Legends of hidden treasure had long designated Mormon Hill as the repository. Old Joseph had dug there, and young Joseph had not only heard his father and mother relate the marvellous tales of buried wealth, but had accompanied his father in the midnight delvings, and incantations of the spirits that guarded it.

If a buried revelation was to he exhumed, how natural was it that the Smith family, with their credulity, and their assumed presentiment that a prophet was to come from their household, should be connected with it; and that Mormon Hill was the place where it would be found!

It is believed by those who were best acquainted with the Smith family, am>! most conversant with all the Gold Bible movements, that there is no foundation for the statement that their original manuscript was written by a Mr. Spaulding, of Ohio. A supplement to the Gold Bible, "The Book of Commandments," in all probability was written by Rigdon, and he may have been aided by Spaulding's manuscript; but the book itself is without doubt a production of the Smith family, aided by Oliver Cowdery, who was school teacher on Stafford street, an intimate of the Smith family, and identified with the whole matter. The production, as all will conclude who have read it, or ever. given it a cursory review, is not that of an educated man or woman. The bungling attempt to counterfeit the style of the Scriptures; the intermixture of modern phraseology; the ignorance of chronology and geography; its utter crudeness and baldness, as a whole, stamp its character, and clearly exhibit its vulgar origin. It is a strange medley of scripture, romance, and bad composition.

The primitive design of Mrs. Smith, her husband, Jo and Cowdery, was money-making; blended with which perhaps was a desire for notoriety,

to be obtained by a cheat and fraud. The idea of being the founders of a new sect was an after-thought, in which they were aided by others. The projectors of the humbug being destitute of means for carrying out their plans, a victim was selected to obviate that difficulty. Martin Harris was a farmer of Palmyra, the owner of a good farm, and an honest, worthy citizen; but especially given to religious enthusiasm, new creeds, the more extravagant the better; a monomaniac, in fact. Joseph Smith, upon whom the mantle of prophecy had fallen after the sad fate of Alvah, began to make demonstrations. He informed Harris of the great discovery, and that it had been revealed to him that he (Harris) was a chosen instrument to aid in the great work of surprising the world with a new revelation. They had hit upon the right man. He mortgaged his fine farm to pay for printing the book, assumed a grave, mysterious, and unearthly deportment, and made here and there among his acquaintances solemn annunciations of the great event that was transpiring. His version of the discovery, as communicated to him by the prophet Joseph himself, is well remembered by several respectable citizens of Palmyra, to whom he made early disclosures. It was in substance as follows: --

The prophet Joseph was directed by an angel where to find, by excavation, at the place afterwards called Mormon Hill, the gold plates; and was compelled by the angel, much against his will, to be the interpreter of the sacred record they contained, and publish it to the world. That the plates contained a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, "engraved by Mormon the son of Nephi." That on the top of the box containing the plates, "a pair of large spectacles were found, the stones or glass set in which were opaque to all but the prophet;" that "these belonged to Mormon, the engraver of the plates, arid without them the plates could not be read." Harris assumed that himself and Cowdery were the chosen amanuenses, and that the prophet Joseph, curtained from the world and them, with his spectacles read from the gold plates what they committed to paper.

Harris exhibited to an informant of the author the manuscript title-page. On it was drawn, rudely and bunglingly, concentric circles, between, above, and below, which were characters with little resemblance to letters, apparently a miserable imitation of hieroglyphics, the writer may somewhere have seen. To guard against profane curiosity, the prophet has given out that no one but himself, not even his chosen co-operators, must be permitted to see them, on pain of instant death. Harris had never seen the plates, but the glowing account of their massive richness excited other than spiritual hopes, and he, upon one occasion, got a village silversmith to help him estimate their value, taking as a basis the prophet's account of their dimensions. It was a blending of the spiritual and utilitarian that threw a shadow of doubt upon Martin's sincerity. This, and some anticipations lie indulged in as to the profits that would arise from the sale of the Gold Bible, made it then, as it is now, a mooted question whether he was altogether a dupe.

The wife of Harris was a rank infidel and heretic, touching the whole thing, and decidedly opposed to her husband's participation in it. With sacrilegious hands she seized over a hundred of the manuscript pages of the new revelation, and burned or secreted them. It was agreed by Smith

and family, Cowdery and Harris, not to transcribe these again, but to let so much of the new revelation drop out, as the "evil spirit would get up a story that the second translation did not agree with the first." A very ingenious method, surely, of guarding against the possibility that Mrs. Harris had preserved the manuscript with which they might be confronted, should they attempt an imitation of their own miserable patchwork.

The prophet did not got his lesson well upon the start, or the household of the impostors were in fault. After he had told his story, in his absence, the rest of the family made a new version of it to one of their neighbors. They showed him such a pebble as may any day be picked up on the shore of Lake Ontario -- the common hornblende -- carefully wrapped in cotton and kept in a mysterious box. They said it was by looking at this stone, in a hat, the light excluded, that Joseph discovered the plates. This, it will be observed, differs materially from Joseph's story of the angel. It was the same stone the Smiths had used in money-digging, and in some pretended discoveries of stolen property.

Long before the Gold Bible demonstration, the Smith family had, with some sinister object in view, whispered another fraud in the ears of the credulous. They pretended that, in digging for money at Mormon lull, they came across a chest, three by two feet in size, covered with a dark-colored stone. In the centre of the stone was a white spot about the size of a sixpence. Enlarging, the spot increased to the size of a twenty-four pound shot, and then exploded with a terrible noise. The chest vanished and all was utter darkness.

It may be safely presumed that in no other instance have prophets and the chosen amid designated of angels, been quite as calculating and worldly as were those of Stafford street, Mormon Hill, and Palmyra. The only business contract -- veritable instrument in writing -- that was ever executed by spiritual agents, has been preserved, and should be among the archives of the new State of Utah. It is signed by the prophet Joseph himself, amid witnessed by Oliver Cowdery, and secures to Martin Harris one half of the proceeds of the sale of the Gold Bible until he was fully reimbursed in the sum of $2,500, the cost of printing.

The after-thought which has been alluded to -- the enlarging of original intentions -- was at the suggestion of S. Rigdon, of Ohio, who made his appearance and blended himself with the poorly devised scheme of imposture, about the time the book was issued from the press. He unworthily bore the title of a Baptist elder, but had by some previous freak, if the author is rightly informed, forfeited his standing with that respectable religious denomination. Designing, ambitious and dishonest, under the semblance of sanctity and assumed spirituality, he was just the man for the use of the Smith household amid their half-dupe and half-designing abettors; and they were just the fit instruments he desired. He became at once the Hamlet, or more appropriately perhaps, the Mawworm of the play.

Under the auspices of Rigdon, a new sect, the Mormons, was projected. Prophecies fell thick and fast from the lips of Joseph; old Mrs. Smith assumed all the airs of a mother of a prophet; that particular family of Smiths were singled out amid became exalted above all their legion of namesakes. The bald, clumsy cheat found here and there an enthusiast, a monomaniac or a knave, in

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         From the Athenaeum, 28th June.

WOULD an ocean penny postage pay? That is a question to be solved. The inland system has been so well established by ten years of trial as very naturally to suggest the extension of a similar system to the ocean. If it can be demonstrated to be possible, no one doubts that it will be desirable to make this extension. But is it possible for Great Britain to constitute herself post-carrier to all the world without incurring an absolute loss in the service? Mr. Eliho Burritt replies in the affirmative without hesitation. We cannot say that we share his enthusiasm to the full extent, or admit that his calculations are free from error and exaggeration. But the object to be gained is of such importance to the rapid development of commerce, to the increase of friendly feeling between nation and nation, and to the vivification of every other good and peaceful element in the world, that it should command the best and earliest attention of those who have to legislate on the affairs of empires. It is well known to politicians, that the carrying of letters by the present mails, at high prices, involves a considerable yearly outlay, for which there is no direct return in money -- though, at the same time, there is no doubt that we gain influence by it, serve the interests of our trade, and obtain early and accurate information. Our insular position compels us to maintain a mail squadron; and we already carry nearly all the letters which pass and re-pass between this country arid the continents of Europe and America. The machinery is therefore all created, and an experiment might be tried with little or no risk. There are three grand points at which we deliver and receive our foreign correspondence -- Calais, for France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and the East -- Ostend, for

Belgium, Prussia, Germany, Russia, Austria and the North -- New York, for the vast continent of North America. It would certainly not be impossible to try the experiment with a chance of success at any one or more of these ports for a year or two. Dover and Calais offer the best field for a trial -- and they are the scenes of an abuse which needs instant correction. From London to Paris the postage is 10 d. -- that is, from London to Dover 1 d.; From Calais to Paris, 2 1/2d.; from Dover to Calais, about twenty miles, by water, 6 1.2d.! -- There is neither reason nor good policy in this extravagant charge. From Jersey to Shetland, 1,000 miles, the rate is 1 d -- from Semlin to Aix-la-Chapelle, 3 d. -- from the Rio Grande to the St. Lawrence, 1 1/2d. -- from Trieste to Lubee, 3 d. From Dover to Ostend, three times the distance between Dover and Calais, the ocean rate is 3 d. From Liverpool to New York, 3,000 miles, the rate is 8 1/2 d. In order to produce the same amount of revenue as at present under a uniform penny system, the number of letters carried to and from Ostend would need to be tripled -- and our experience at home would lead us to suppose that this increase would soon take place. The French rate is altogether unreasonable, and ought to he reduced. A penny rate would certainly yield as large a revenue from Calais as from Ostend -- and both routes would no doubt pay at a penny. With regard to America, the case is different -- the immense distance and the ten or twelve days' sea-voyage are elements which must add more or less to the expense. But there is very good reason to believe that with less jobbery in making our mail contracts, the large sums now paid to the Cunard line might be materially reduced. Compared with the charge for goods and passengers, the letter rate is at present enormously high. A man weighing 200 lbs -- not to speak of his trunks, boxes, and portmanteaus, -- will take up at least ten times as much room as a bag of letters of equal weight. He will consume no small quantity of ducks, fowls, bread, wine, beer, and vegetables -- he will expect to be served with attention night and day -- he will claim a right to quarrel with the officers and abuse the captain -- he will perhaps smoke and swear, and otherwise worry the passengers in the cabin -- yet he will have to pay for all these luxuries only some 30 l., while a harmless bag of letters of equal weight, content with a dark corner and with being left alone, is mulced for its simple transport from Broadway to St. George's Pier, more than 230 l. We speak now of the actual and the possible. If two hundred-weight of whims and wants, flesh and phantasies, besides luggage, can be taken from Liverpool to New York for 30 l. by the mail-packets, surely, a bale of letters, like a bale of cotton, may be carried for a third of the money. If we are right in this supposition, 6,400 letters might be sent over the Atlantic for 10 l. -- or considerably less than a halfpenny each. We recommend this mode of illustrating their theory with regard to America to the ocean postage reformers.

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SELF-DEVOTION.

IN the latter part of the month of February, many years since, a schooner from the state of Maine, which had been to New York with a cargo and was now on her return home, anchored under Sandy Point. The wind increasing from the north-west to a gale, she parted her cables ; sail was got upon her as soon as possible, but no having in much ballast, she did not fetch in to the westward of Great Point Light, on the north-