Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

"A paper on 'Mormonism' was recently read before the seminary class in American History at this university. The writer was very fair, and I believe tried to be impartial. In the paper the manner of the interpretation of the Book of Mormon as described by Martin Harris was brought to its only logical conclusion. Our professor stopped the reader and asked if 'Joseph Smith had made the statement which seemed so incredulous.'

"'I am not sure,' was the reply, 'yet this appears to be the Mormon explanation of the manner of interpretation.'

"Later I gave copies of the last Manual to both our professor and my fellow classmate. Both myself and another Mormon boy who listened to the paper, heartily wished that the correspondents you found it necessary to answer in the last two numbers of the Era had been seated in the room. We believe a cure would have been the result."

Desiring something more in detail on this circumstance, Edward H. Anderson, assistant Editor of the Era, wrote to Elder Kirkham for further particulars. Following is the body of the letter received in reply to this request:

"The paper was on Mormonism. In discussing the Book of Mormon, the reader followed largely the argument of Mr. Frank Pierce in a number of the American Archaeologist. [I can get the exact reference when I return to Ann Arbor.] I did not read the article in full, but it quoted from the writings of Martin Harris, and others. Mr. Pierce claimed he gave the Mormon account of the interpretation of the golden plates, which is, he said, that Joseph Smith, Jr., saw the exact words he was to write in the transparent stone spectacles and that the words would not disappear until the scribe had written them exactly as the Lord had given them. Mr. Pierce also gave the testimony of the printer of the original edition of the Book of Mormon in which he testified that the 'Smiths' would not allow him to change the manuscript in the least, although he was aware of its crudeness.

"When the reader of the paper had made the above assertions concerning the interpretation of the Book of Mormon, our professor spoke up and said: 'Are you sure Joseph Smith said this was the manner of the interpretation?' 'No,' was the reply, I am not sure.' 'Well,' continued our professor, 'It is very important that we know, for, if Joseph Smith did make the assertions you speak of, there seems to me but one logical conclusion, either the Lord intentionally made all the mistakes of the first edition and colored the writings with the provincialisms of New York state, or, that the Lord was unable to speak correctly or use other than the phrases and mannerisms of the locality in which Joseph Smith lived.

"I wrote to Elder B. H. Roberts the letter because we regret it, because we realize that the Martin Harris theory of the interpretation is contrary to common sense and reason."

It is no use resisting the matter, the old theory must be abandoned. It could only come into existence and remain so long and now be clung to by some so tenaciously because our fathers and our people in the past and now were and are uncritical.[A] They have been and are now—and to their honor be it said—more concerned with the fact of the divine origin of the Book of Mormon and the great work it introduced than to the modus operandi of its translation. Overwhelmed by a divine testimony of its truth they have paid little attention to the precise manner by which it was brought forth. It is doubtful if the Prophet Joseph himself was conscious of the mental and spiritual processes of translation. It was not his part in the great work to distinguish all the minutiae of the process by which the word of God came to him. It was his higher and nobler part to feel and know the word of God in his own soul; to receive that word through the aids and means provided of God, and to proclaim that word of God to the world, leaving to others the less important task of expounding it, unifying its parts, harmonizing it with previous revelations, proving it true, analyzing it, defending it when assailed. And in the process of attending to the part of the work of God the Prophet left to us, we meet with the necessity of explaining the manner of translating the Book of Mormon, so far as it can be ascertained, in order to defend the book from assaults made upon it by mocking unbelievers. One could wish that our own people would approach the consideration of the matter with less feeling and more reason than they do; for the whole effort on the part of those who put forth the Manual theory of translation is merely to ascertain the truth respecting the matter, and with the view of finding a basis from which the work may be successfully defended and advocated.

[Footnote A: "It is no use trying to twist facts to suit theories derived from a past which was destitute of the knowledge we now possess; what we have to do is to adjust our theories to suit the facts."—Hibbert Journal, April, 1907, page 197.]

These latter reflections bring to mind some observations I remember to have read some time ago in the philosophical works of John Fiske respecting two classes of disciples or partisans in the world of religious and philosophical opinion, which I think with profit may be reproduced here. By the way, I see the passage I refer to occurs in the introduction to Fiske's Work, written by Josiah Boyce, and is as follows:

"Disciples and partisans, in the world of religious and philosophical opinion, are of two sorts. There are, first, the disciples pure and simple,—people who fall under the spell of a person or a doctrine, and whose whole intellectual life thenceforth consists in their partisanship. They expound, and defend, and ward off foes, and live and die faithful to the one formula. Such disciples may be indispensable at first in helping a new teaching to get a popular hearing, but in the long run they rather hinder than help the wholesome growth of the very ideas that they defend: for great ideas live by growing, and a doctrine that has merely to be preached, over and over, in the same terms, cannot possibly be the whole truth. No man ought to be merely a faithful disciple of any other man. Yes, no man ought to be a mere disciple even of himself. We live spiritually by outliving our formulas, and by thus enriching our sense of their deeper meaning. Now the disciples of the first sort do not live in this larger and more spiritual sense. They repeat. And true life is never mere repetition.

"On the other hand, there are disciples of a second sort. They are men who have been attracted to a new doctrine by the fact that it gave expression, in a novel way, to some large and deep interest which had already grown up in themselves, and which had already come, more or less independently, to their own consciousness. They thus bring to the new teaching, from the first, their own personal contribution. The truth that they gain is changed as it enters their souls. The seed that the sower strews upon their fields springs up in their soil, and bears fruit,—thirty, sixty, an hundred fold. They return to their master his own with usury. Such, men are the disciples that it is worth while for a master to have. Disciples of the first sort often become, as Schopenhauer said, mere magnifying mirrors wherein one sees enlarged, all the defects of a doctrine. Disciples of the second sort co-operate in the works of the Spirit; and even if they always remain rather disciples than originators, they help to lead the thought that they accept to a truer expression. They force it beyond its earlier and cruder stages of development."

I believe Mormonism affords opportunity for disciples of the second sort; nay, that its crying need is for such disciples. It calls for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths; and enlarge it by that development. Not half—not one-hundredth part—not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world. The work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fulness of times. The watering and the weeding is going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent discipleship shall obtain. The disciples of Mormonism, growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; co-operating in the works of the Spirit, until "they help to give to the truth received a more forceful expression, and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development." Another has said:

"The ultimate Truth, no doubt, is one; but Truth as it enters the world through human lips is always involved in temporary forms, which subsequent experience enlarges or corrects. No historic religion, therefore, can ever claim finality; and the work of religious founders is not so much to create systems of thought as to impart those impulses of moral endeavor and spiritual affection which the Christian sums up under the term "life."[A]

[Footnote A: Hibbert Journal, April, 1906, p. 503]