[Footnote 67: "New Light on Mormonism," p. 80.]
Why did not Mr. Howe publish this precious item—this "odd" story "told at Conneaut in 1834?" Why does not Mr. Schroeder at least make use of it as among his "clinching" evidences of the plagiarism of the main part of the Book of Mormon by Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith et al? Is it possible that this was even too "raw" for Mr. Schroeder's stout stomach, which is capable of digesting everything anti-Mormon, from "pap to steel?" Or is it so that this bald statement is an outgrowth of the "recollection" process operating at Conneaut after Howe's record was closed? And that here we see the process of "recollection" at work in these Conneaut witnesses, which expands the dim consciousness that an old, eccentric minister, from twenty-one to twenty-four years ago lived among them two or three years—read to them some kind of a story about the ancient people of America, the manuscript of which he feigned to have found in a stone box in a cave—into that remarkable recollection of similarity of names, phrases and historical incidents to be found in their signed statements in Howe's book, until finally, if advocates of the Spaulding theory of origin for the Book of Mormon would but admit into their collection this "odd" story unearthed by Mrs. Dickinson, they might "prove" that Mr. Spaulding's story "Manuscript Found," "was a translation of the Book of Mormon,"—and what a victory that would be, O, my countrymen!
E. D. HOWE DISCREDITED AS A WITNESS.
The reader who will follow me through this review of Mr. Schroeder's evidence and argument, will find by the time the review closes that these Conneaut witnesses—incompetent and weak as they are as witnesses—and Mr. Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," are the very heart of this whole Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon. We have seen, in part, how flimsy and incompetent are the eight Conneaut witnesses, on whom Mr. Schroeder relies to "clinch" his evidence of the plagiarism of the Book of Mormon; let us now see how unworthy of belief is Mr. E. D. Howe.
Mr. Howe at the time he was preparing his book, "Mormonism Unveiled," 1833-4, represents the position of the church to be as follows, in respect of the several matters stated:
"About this time an opinion was propagated among them, that they should never taste death, if they had sufficient faith. They were commanded to have little or no connexion with those who had not embraced their faith, and everything must be done within themselves. Even the wine which they used at their communion, they were ordered to make from cider and other materials. All diseases and sickness among them were to be cured by the Elders, and by the use of herbs—denouncing the physicians of the world, and their medicines, as enemies to the human race."[68]
[Footnote 68: Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 124.]
And then he makes this sneering remark, and emphasizes it with an index hand pointing to it:
"They had one or two root doctors among them, for whose benefit it is presumed the Lord made known his will, if at all."
In refutation of these slanders, I quote the revelation by which the Saints were governed in the particulars here named by Howe; a revelation which to the Saints of course was the law of God, and which revelation Mr. Howe garbled into the statement above quoted: