THE CONVERSION OF PARLEY P. PRATT.
In the summer of 1830 the Book of Mormon came from the press, and the time had come for Pratt and Rigdon to be astonished by its appearance. Now watch their maneuvers. That year Pratt left Ohio for a visit to New York. Of this trip his autobiography records the following:
"Landing in Buffalo, we [Pratt and wife] engaged our passage for Albany in a canal boat, distance three hundred and sixty miles. This, including board, cost all our money and some articles of clothing."
Would a mere desire to visit friends induce him to give up part of his clothing for passage money? Hardly; he was after larger game. But let us read on:
"Arriving at Rochester, I informed my wife that, notwithstanding our passage being paid through the whole distance, yet I must leave the boat and leave her to pursue her passage to our friends, while I would stop a while in this region. Why, I did not know; but so it was plainly manifest by the Spirit to me. I said to her: 'We part for a season; go and visit our friends in our native place; I will come soon, but how soon I know not, for I have a work to do in this region of country, and what it is or how long it will take me to perform it, I know not; but I will come when it is performed. My wife would have objected to this, but she had seen the Hand of God so plainly manifest in His dealings with me many times that she dare not oppose the things manifest to me by His Spirit. She therefore consented, and I accompanied her as far as Newark, a small town upwards of a hundred miles from Buffalo, and then took leave of her and of the boat."
"It was early in the morning, just at the dawn of day. I walked ten miles into the country [remember now he doesn't know where he is going], and stopped with a Mr. Wells."
This was undoubtedly a member of the same Wells family of Macedon with whom Joseph Smith had long been on terms of intimacy.[119] Pratt's autobiography continues:
[Footnote 119: "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," by Lucy Smith, 101-103. Probably this refers to the home of Daniel H. Wells, afterward a prominent Mormon in Utah.]
"I proposed to preach in the evening. Mr. Wells readily accompanied me through the neighborhood to visit the people and circulate the appointment."
"We visited an old Baptist deacon by the name of Hamblin. After hearing of our appointment for the evening, he began to tell of a book, a strange book, a very strange book in his possession, which had just been published. I inquired of him how and where the book was to be obtained. He promised me the perusal of it at his house the next day, if I would call. I felt a strange interest in the book. Next morning I called at his house, where, for the first time, my eyes beheld the 'Book of Mormon,' that book of books."
Pratt says he opened it with eagerness and examined its contents. "As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true as plainly and as manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists."[120]
[Footnote 120: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 37-38.]
Pratt soon determined to see Smith, and, accordingly, visited Palmyra, where Hyrum Smith welcomed him to their house, and they spent the night together. Joseph had not returned from Pennsylvania. One is led to wonder if Hyrum Smith would take in every inquisitive stranger as his bedfellow. In the morning Pratt returned to fill his appointment to preach the doctrine of Alexander Campbell. Hyrum Smith presented Pratt with a copy of the book, which the latter tells us he was glad to receive, because he had not yet finished his reading of it.[121] Pratt preached the doctrines of the "Disciples" that night and the following one, then returned to the Smith house, and from there went to the Whitmers in Seneca County, resting that night, and taking his Mormon baptism the next day. On the next Sabbath Pratt attended a Mormon meeting and preached a Mormon sermon at the house of one Burroughs. "My work was now completed, for which I took leave of my wife and the canal boat some two or three weeks before."[122]
[Footnote 121: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 39-42.]
[Footnote 122: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 43.]
About the details and the order of events in such remarkable occurrences, there could not possibly be doubt or errors of memory. Had they actually transpired, these events would have been the most important in any eventful career, and would have been indelibly impressed upon Pratt's memory. If, however, this marvelous tale is but a falsehood told to conceal Pratt's real connection with a fraud, then, it is quite possible that he and those associated with him should forget how the falsehood had been told at other times, and thus produce contradictory statements.
Let us, in the light of this comment, examine the foregoing account more carefully. Evidently, in this account Pratt is desirous of conveying the impression that, as he had elsewhere expressed it, he "was greatly prejudiced against the book."[123] However, in a sermon delivered in 1856—thirty-two years before the publication of the autobiography—Pratt tells us he was converted before completing the reading of the Book of Mormon, or meeting a single true "Saint." Here are his own words:
[Footnote 123: Pratt's reply to Sunderland, copied in 45 Saints' Herald, 61. "Myth of the Manuscript Found," 32.]
"I knew it was true, because it was light, and had come in fulfillment of scripture; and I bore testimony of its truth to the neighbors that came in during the first day that I sat reading it at the house of an old Baptist deacon named Hamblin."[124]
[Footnote 124: 5 Journal of Discourses, 194. This Hamblin seems to have emigrated to Wisconsin with Pratt, there became a Mormon and later his son became implicated in the Mountain Meadow Massacre. See "Jacob Hamblin," p. 9, and books generally on Mountain Meadow Massacre.]
Of course such a conversion was altogether too miraculous and sudden to preclude suspicion of Pratt's complicity in the fraud; hence it has usually been stated that the conversion did not, in fact, take place until much critical examination, and sometimes, it is said, after much supplication to the Lord. In Joseph Smith's autobiography he puts the time of conversion as during Pratt's visit to the Whitmers in Seneca County. Here are his words: "After listening to the testimony of the 'witnesses' [at Whitmers, in Seneca County] and reading the 'Book,' he became convinced that it was of God."[125]
[Footnote 125: Supplement 14 Millennial Star, 47.]
The "prophet's" mother, who, with the mother of the Danite, Orrin Porter Rockwell, was present at Pratt's alleged first visit to the Smith home,[126] has a third account of this conversion. Pratt, according to the account above quoted from his sermon, had not yet seen the prophet, and had not yet finished reading the Book of Mormon, but was already converted and had borne testimony to its truth. Now read Mother Lucy's account as published by Orson Pratt (Parley Pratt's brother and his first miraculous convert)[127] and "written by the direction and under the inspection of the Prophet."[128]
[Footnote 126: Pratt's Sermon, 5 Journal of Discourses, 194.]
[Footnote 127: 7 Journal of Discourses, 177. Here Orson Pratt says his conversion is due to certain information "derived independent of what can be learned naturally by the natural man." See also supplement 14, Millennial Star, 49.]
[Footnote 128: Millennial Star, 169, 682.]
"Just before my husband's return, as Joseph was about commencing a discourse one Sunday morning, Parley P. Pratt came in very much fatigued. He had heard of us at some considerable distance, and had traveled very fast in order to get there by meeting time, as he wished to hear what we had to say, that he might be prepared to show us our error. But when Joseph had finished his discourse, Mr. Pratt arose and expressed his hearty concurrence in every sentiment advanced. The following day he was baptized and ordained."[129]
[Footnote 129: "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," 157, by Lucy Smith.]
This conversion is quite as miraculous and sudden as the one Pratt tells us about as having occurred at Deacon Hamblin's. The prophet's mother, Lucy Smith, who wrote this account, and the prophet himself, under whose supervision it was written, must have been both present, and in this account related only what they pretended they themselves saw. In contradiction of this, Pratt, in two different places, tells us that while at the Whitmers in Seneca County he was baptized and ordained an elder by Oliver Cowdery, and that then he preached a Mormon sermon, after which he went to visit his friends in Columbia County. On his return from Columbia County, over a month after he had been baptized, he for the first time saw Joseph Smith.[130] These discrepancies can be best accounted for by the explanation that they are different accounts of an event that never happened, and told to conceal one that did happen.
[Footnote 130: "Autobiography of P.P. Pratt," 43 and 46. 45 Saints' Herald, 61. "Myth of the Manuscript Found," 33.]
I understand that the Utah Mormon sect, after publishing "Mother Lucy's" book, condemned it as containing errors, but never pointed out any. The "Josephite" sect of Mormons, however, republished it. It still remains that in telling what she pretended to have seen, she told the story as at some time it had been agreed upon. Further, Lucy Smith could not have written the book, bad as it was from a literary point of view. The statement that it was written under the direct supervision of the prophet, I, therefore, consider as literally true. That it was published in 1853 by Orson Pratt and S. W. Richards, who had undoubtedly heard the stories corroborated many times and saw nothing erroneous in the book, is also significant, as is the further fact that it had been read by Saints four years before any errors were discovered.