OF THE CONVERSION OF PRATT AND RIGDON.
As part of Mr. Schroeder's chain of evidence, by which he hopes to establish the cumulative proofs that Pratt, Rigdon and Joseph Smith connived in palming off upon the world the Spaulding manuscript as a revelation—the Book of Mormon—he points to discrepancies in the published accounts of the suddenness or slowness of Pratt's and Rigdon's conversions. Holding that the accounts of their sudden and miraculous conversion, had to be modified, and, in fact, concealed lest they should lead to the suspicion of connivance, if Rigdon and Pratt should be found giving too ready a credence to the Book of Mormon. Of the variations pointed out in Pratt's conversion it is only necessary to say that they are such variations, so slight and unimportant, that if it is considered that they are made by different persons, or, as in the case of Pratt himself, on widely separated occasions, the variations are the sure witnesses that the account is not a concocted one. In the case of one of the authorities quoted, Lucy Smith, mother of the prophet, and author of the "Life of the Prophet Joseph," Mr. Schroeder should be corrected. He states, following a misapprehension of Orson Pratt's, in order to make his statement of more force, that Lucy Smith's book was written under the supervision of Joseph Smith.[151] This is not true, as Lucy Smith did not begin to write her book until after the martyrdom of her son Joseph. It was in the fall of the year of 1844 that she began her work, and the prophet was killed in June of that year, all of which could have been learned by Mr. Schroeder by consulting the foot notes of the edition of Lucy Smith's book published by the Reorganized Church, in 1880.[152]
[Footnote 151: American Historical Magazine, Jan., 1907, p. 67. Ante p. 61.]
[Footnote 152: "Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet," by Lucy Smith, p. 90, foot notes.]
The discrepancy as to the time element in the conversion of Sidney Rigdon—as to whether it was two days after Pratt and Cowdery's arrival at Kirtland, or two weeks—may not be as satisfactorily accounted for as in the case of Parley P. Pratt. Still the chief authority for Mr. Schroeder's whole theory of the Spaulding origin of the Book of Mormon favors the longer period for the conversion of Rigdon, since Mr. Howe represents that the "sudden" conversion of Rigdon occurred "after many pretensions to disbelieve it."[153] Furthermore, in view of the whole question here debated, and the overwhelming evidences educed against the contentions of Mr. Schroeder, the matter of the time it took to convert Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism is of but slight importance.
[Footnote 153: "Mormonism Unveiled," Howe, p. 290.]