I devoted the time I could spare from the ministry to writing my history and for the press.
Some time in August, Elders George Q. Cannon, J. Hawkins, Bigler and Farran, of the Island Mission, landed, and Brother Cannon assisted me some forty days in copying my autobiography.
About the last of August the following was published in a weekly paper, called the Chronicle, of San Francisco:
A PROPHET IS AMONG US.
Mr. Parley P. Pratt, of Salt Lake notoriety, is among us, and we knew it not. He has just addressed a letter to Mr. J. S. Hittell, whose "proposed course of lectures against Christianity" appears to have caught the Prophet's attention.
As Mr. Pratt's letter, which is written on the blank leaf of a printed Latter-day Saint's circular, is curious and characteristic, we give a copy of it. We also give a copy of the circular itself. To enable the reader to understand Mr. Pratt's allusions in the letter, he had better first glance over Mr. Hittell's advertisement in another column. One would scarcely have thought that Mr. Pratt could seriously expect to make converts to his faith in this "desperately wicked" California—the very hell on earth of the "Mormons." But so it seems to be. We give him and his cause all the publicity we can, by publishing his circular gratuitously.
SAN FRANCISCO, September 1st, 1854.
MR. JNO. S. HITTELL.
Sir—What do you mean by the term "Christianity?" If you mean the system taught by Christ and His Apostles, as recorded in the "New Testament," you need give yourself or the public no uneasiness, for no such system has troubled the earth for the last thousand years at least, so far as we have any knowledge, except in the single instance of its restoration in the United States by the Prophet Joseph Smith; and even this has been misnamed "Mormonism," and driven to the mountains of Utah.
In short, this Christianity of the New Testament is a system of visions, angels, revelations, prophesyings, gifts, miracles, etc. Such system you can never oppose—it speaks and acts for itself; its votaries know what they experience, see, hear and feel.