DID RIGDON EXHIBIT THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT?
Especially out of just such evidence as this grows Mr. Schroeder's next subject—"Sidney Rigdon exhibits Spaulding's manuscript." While Rigdon was at Pittsburg, 1822-3, a Dr. Winters, then teaching school in the town, was in Rigdon's study when the latter took from his desk a large manuscript and said that a Presbyterian minister named Spaulding whose health had failed brought it to a printer to see if it would not pay to publish it—"it is a romance of the Bible," Rigdon is reported to have said. Doctor Winter thought no more about it until the Book of Mormon appeared. Then, of course, "he remembered all about it." Dr. Winter, did not commit his recollections of this interview to writing, though he lived until 1878. But Mr. Schroeder finds "something just as good," a daughter writes out what she had heard her father, Dr. Winter, say about it. This was in 1881, about the time interest was renewed in the subject through the publication of Mrs. Ellen E. Dickinson's article in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1880.
Of like import is the story of Mrs. Amos Dunlap, of Warren, Ohio. She wrote in answer to inquiries in December, 1879, to the effect that she visited the Rigdon family at Bainbridge, Ohio, when quite a child, (Mrs. Rigdon was her aunt). One day the following happened:
"During my visit Mr. Rigdon went to his bedroom and took from a trunk, which he kept locked, a certain manuscript. He came into the other room and seated himself by the fire place and commenced reading it. His wife at that moment came into the room and exclaimed, 'What! you're studying that thing again?' or something to that effect. She then added, 'I mean to burn that paper.' He said, 'No, indeed, you will not. This will be a great thing some day!"[125]
[Footnote 125: "Who Wrote the Book of Mormon?" p. 12.]
Mr. Schroeder introduces this as one of his items of evidence that Mr. Rigdon foreknew of the forthcoming and contents of the Book of Mormon. The thing that destroys the effect of it is, the undoubted fact that if Sidney Rigdon was engaged in such a scheme as Mr. Schroeder charges he was, then Mrs. Rigdon must have known of it. Now when Mr. Rigdon had before him in 1830 the question of what should be his relationship to Mormonism, and he had decided that it was true and that he would accept it, he naturally was concerned as to what Mrs. Rigdon's attitude would be in the matter, and when he broached the subject to her "he was happy to find that she was not only diligently investigating the subject, but was believing with all her heart, and was desirous of obeying the truth."[126] If it be urged by Mr. Schroeder, as it is most likely to be, that the conversion of Mrs. Rigdon, like that of her husband, was but a sham, a prearranged affair, that she as well as Mr. Rigdon foreknew of the forth-coming of the Book of Mormon, then the scene at Bainbridge, described by Mrs. Dunlap as taking place, supposedly because of Mr. Rigdon's absorption in Spaulding's manuscript, has no place in the scheme of things to be supported by Mr. Schroeder's contention. But I have referred to this and the Dr. Winter episode merely as illustrations of how variations and additions multiply upon myths when once started. And so it will continue to be as long as there is a relative who had a relative who heard something about what some one else had said of Rigdon's connection with Patterson and Spaulding; that is, new variations of the story will be constantly appearing.
[Footnote 126: Millenial Star, Vol. XIV, supplement, p. 48.]
DID RIGDON FOREKNOW THE COMING AND CONTENTS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON?
This question is more worthy of consideration than the last, because associated with it is a man of character, Alexander Campbell. In the Millennial Harbinger of 1844, at page 39, is a letter quoted by Mr. Schroeder, bearing date of January 22, 1841, from Adamson Bently, in which the following passage occurs:
"I know that Sidney Rigdon told me there was a book coming out, the manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates, as much as two years before the Mormon book made its appearance or had been heard of by me."