Twenty-five years in the West

by E. Manford

CHAPTER XVI.

The Golden Era—Extensive Traveling—In Missouri and Kansas—Talk with a Deist in Jefferson City—Moses—The Prophets—Replied to in Pisgah—Talk with a Rum-seller—In Kansas City—In Wyandotte—Conversation with a Clergyman Concerning Christ and his Work—Lectured in Leavenworth—Destruction of Man’s Enemies—In St. Joseph—The Mercy of God—In Kingston—Rich Man and Lazarus.

As I have said in a previous chapter, the Golden Era, after it passed out of my hands, was merged into the Gospel Herald, a paper published in Indianapolis, Ind., and St. Louis was without a denominational paper. This was not contemplated when I disposed of that paper. Mr. Abbott was confident, that with my assistance as editor, it could be sustained in St. Louis; but experience taught him otherwise. Although being well satisfied that a weekly paper could not be supported in St. Louis, I was confident that a monthly magazine could be, and hence in 1857 I commenced a monthly periodical, called Manford’s Monthly Magazine. It contained twenty-four pages, and the price was one dollar per year. By the close of the first volume I had two thousand subscribers—a pretty good beginning. Mrs. Manford was co-editor, book-keeper, and generally assisted in mailing the magazine.

I resolved to again canvass Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Indiana, for the benefit of the new journal; and from 1857 to the spring of 1861, I was a large portion of the time on the wing. The Magazine was popular with our people, and I had no difficulty in obtaining subscribers. The articles were chiefly doctrinal, explanatory, and answers to the ten thousand objections usually offered to the liberal faith.

During the first year of its publication, I took a horseback journey up the Missouri river into Kansas, and was absent nearly all winter. At a hotel in Jefferson City I had the following conversation with a Deist:

“I believe the Old Testament is full of lies, fables and absurdities. I would as soon believe ‘Guliver’s Travels’ to be divine as the old Bible.”

“You are too fast, my friend. Without pretending that the Old Testament is perfect, I find many excellencies in that book. That Moses, the principal character of it, had a deep insight into many spiritual realities, must be conceded by every candid person. He was born, brought up, educated, and lived till he was eighty years old, in the midst of the grossest superstition. The Egyptians deified the bull, the cat, the snake, the crocodile; and many of their other religious notions corresponded with such debased superstitions. Moses boldly denounced the whole of their mythological abominations; and declared that there was only one God, and that he was a spiritual being, and ruled in heaven and on earth. The Egyptians believed in a formal judgment for every soul after death; Moses taught that God judgeth in the earth. The Egyptians maintained that there was a hell for some and a heaven for others over the river of death; Moses taught on all occasions that virtue is rewarded, and vice is punished, in this world. These four tenets are the ground-work, the basis, of Moses’ system. He introduced certain forms and ceremonies to be practiced, till a superior Light would bless the world, and his countrymen be more advanced in civilization, and when that Light came they were laid aside. But his doctrines of one God, who rules the universe, and rewards virtue and punishes vice, are not obsolete. They are eternal truths, and you say you believe them. You are then a disciple of Moses, fool as you say he was. That Moses did not know the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is readily admitted; that all he said and did were not divine, is also admitted; and it is also conceded that sometimes his spirit did not seem to harmonize with the forgiving spirit of Christ. But with all his imperfections, he was a man among men; he was the tallest man of his day, and his brow was bathed in the rising sun, when the world was yet shrouded in darkness.”

“To that view of Moses I do not much object. But what is called the history of the Jews, is contradictory, and often much exaggerated.”

“There may be errors in the Bible history of the Jews, but the main statements are doubtless correct. The writers thereof make no pretention to inspiration, that I know of. You do not reject the history of the United States, because some of the writers thereof contradict each other.”

“Well, there are the pretended prophets; do you think they were God’s prophets?”