Oliver Cowdery now became scribe, and the task was finished without further accidents, the Books of Nephi standing at the head of the volume, and the remnant of the Book of Mormon, which gives its title to the whole collection, coming near the end of the table of contents. Still, the wretched Harris was not altogether cut off for his sin. He owned a farm. When the translation was finished Heaven uttered, by the mouth of Smith, “a commandment of God, and not of man, to Martin Harris”: “I command thee that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon. And misery thou shalt receive if thou wilt slight these counsels—yea, even the destruction of thyself and property.” So Harris mortgaged his farm to pay the printer, and in 1830 appeared at Palmyra, New York, The Book of Mormon: an Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi. By Joseph Smith, Jr., author and proprietor.[[48]]
Instructed by John the Baptist, Smith and Cowdery now went into the river and baptized each other by immersion. Joseph then ordained Oliver to the Aaronic priesthood, and Oliver ordained Joseph. In April, 1830, the “Church of Christ” was organized at the house of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, Seneca County, New York, the company of the faithful consisting only of the prophet, his two brothers, his scribe, and two Whitmers; but in the course of the summer several other converts appeared, and Joseph became associated with three men of some ability and education, who gave the Mormon creed a doctrinal development which the founder himself was quite incapable of devising. These three were Sidney Rigdon, Orson Pratt, and Parley P. Pratt. They were devotees of the sensational and inspirational school, ready for any new form of spiritual extravagance, believers in visions, crack-brained students of the prophecies. Rigdon had been a preacher among the Campbellites—a sect whose fundamental doctrine it is that no precise doctrines are necessary. Read your Bible, say they, select your opinions from it, don’t allow infant baptism, but get yourselves baptized by immersion as often as you commit sin. Upon this broad foundation they can erect as many different systems of theology as they have congregations. Rigdon had outgrown the latitudinarianism and bibliolatry of the Campbellites, and at the time of Joseph Smith’s appearance he was preaching a religion of his own, rousing his little Ohio congregation with apocalyptic dreams and interpretations, and bidding them look for the instant coming of the Lord. Although his name does not appear in the roll of the first converts and apostles, it is certain that he was intimately associated with Smith from the beginning; it is certain that he embodied his peculiar views in the Mormon creed; it is suspected that he had more than a half-share in arranging the original machinery of imposture. Parley P. Pratt was likewise a Campbellite preacher, a man of ardent and passionate temperament, restless, eloquent, a brilliant albeit somewhat rude orator. Orson Pratt, inclining rather towards metaphysical speculations than prophecy and spiritual excitement, became the Mormon philosopher and controversialist, and to him are attributable the extraordinary materialistic doctrines which form so important a part of the new system.[[49]] When Smith and his companions began to preach it does not appear that they had any scheme of theology ready at hand. Moroni and the golden plates made up the sum of their first teachings. There was comparatively little doctrine of any kind in the Book of Mormon; but, as Joseph’s prophetic pretensions found acceptance, it became necessary for the prophet to announce some positive creed. In setting it forth, point after point, he appealed neither to history nor to reason; “revelation” taught him from day to day all that he wished to know; and so, little by little, he built up a mass of dogma in which it is impossible to discover any regular plan. The authoritative handbook of Mormon theology as it existed in Smith’s time is a small volume first published in 1835, entitled The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, carefully selected from the revelations of God, by Joseph Smith, President of said Church. It comprises two parts. The first consists of seven Lectures on Faith,[[50]] which need not detain us; the second and more important contains about one hundred “revelations,” addressed sometimes to Smith, sometimes to one or another of the disciples, sometimes to the church, and occasionally to sceptical Mormons who showed signs of becoming troublesome. They embrace counsels and instructions of all kinds, for the organization of the hierarchy, the preaching of the new gospel, the regulation of private business affairs, and the management of congregations. Here is a sample of a “revelation given in Kirtland, August, 1831”: “Let my servant Newel K. Whitney retain his store—or, in other words, the store yet for a little season. Nevertheless, let him impart all the money which he can impart, to be sent up unto the land of Sion.” A few days later the voice of heaven spoke through Joseph Smith again:
“And now verily I say that it is expedient in me that my servant Sidney Gilbert, after a few weeks, should return upon his business, and to his agency in the land of Sion; and that which he hath seen and heard may be made known unto my disciples, that they perish not. And for this cause have I spoken these things. And again, I say unto you, that my servant Isaac Morley may not be tempted above that which he is able to bear, and counsel wrongfully to your hurt, I gave commandment that his farm should be sold. I willeth not that my servant Frederick G. Williams should sell his farm, for I the Lord willeth to retain a stronghold in the land of Kirtland for the space of five years, in the which I will not overthrow the wicked, that thereby I may save some.”
There was a special revelation to the prophet’s wife, Emma, who never quite relished Joseph’s proceedings:
“Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God while I speak unto you, Emma Smith, my daughter; for verily I say unto you all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom. A revelation I give unto you concerning my will, and if thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I will preserve thy life and thou shalt receive an inheritance in Sion. Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady whom I have called. Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come. And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jr., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words in the spirit of meekness.”
She was afterwards styled by the saints the Elect Lady, or “Cyria Electa,” and was “ordained” by Joseph as his scribe in the place of Oliver Cowdery. The dogmas to be found in this book are few and simple. The saints were taught to believe in “God the Eternal Father, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost”; to believe that men will not be punished for original sin; that the four saving ordinances of the Gospel are faith, repentance, baptism, and the laying-on of hands for the Holy Ghost; that the church enjoys still, as it did in primitive times, “the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, etc.”; that the Bible, “as far as it is translated correctly,” and the Book of Mormon are both the word of God; that “the organization of the primitive church—viz., apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc.”—ought to be revived; and that Israel will be literally gathered and the ten tribes restored, Sion built on this continent, the personal reign of Christ established on earth, and the earth renewed in paradisaic glory. Finally, the book contains elaborate instructions for the establishment of a double priesthood; that of Melchisedech is the higher, and embraces the offices of apostle, Seventy, patriarch, high-priest, and elder; the other is that of Aaron, and includes bishop, priest, teacher, and deacon; it can only be held by the lineal descendants of Aaron, who are designated by revelation.
It will be seen how artfully this plan of a church was adapted to the purposes of Smith and Rigdon, supposing them to have been, as we have no doubt they were, arrant and conscious cheats. There was novelty and mystery enough in it to attract the fanatical, and there was not so very much after all to shock their common sense; while the doctrine of continuous revelation and the prophetic office left a door wide open for the introduction of other inventions as fast as they were found desirable. We shall see, further on, what monstrous blasphemies and absurdities were in reality adopted as the saints became strong enough to bear them.
Noyes, in his History of American Socialisms, speaks of Western New York as “the volcanic region” of spiritual and intellectual disturbance. Here sprang up Mormonism; here were first heard the ghostly rappers; here raged Millerism and Second-Adventism; here John Collins founded the Skaneateles community on the basis of “no God, no government, no marriage, no money, no meat”; here arose the “inspired” Ebenezer colony, since removed to Iowa; here flourished all manner of Fourierite phalanxes, wild social experiments, and extravagant beliefs; here at the present day are found the Brocton community, with their doctrine of “divine respiration,” and the Perfectionists of Oneida, perhaps the worst of all the professors of free-love. In this region of satanic activity the Mormon preachers made disciples so fast that Smith was soon encouraged to undertake the “gathering of the tribes.” He had visited Sidney Rigdon at Kirtland, Ohio, early in 1831, and had a revelation commanding the saints in New York to follow him. But in June the town of Independence, in Jackson County, Missouri, was revealed as the site of the American Sion, and there some hundreds of the faithful, selling all that they had in the East, assembled and laid the foundation of a temple. With this event begins a phase of Mormonism—the political separation of the Latter-Day Saints from the Gentiles—which at once illustrates most forcibly its fanaticism and accounts for its temporal success. Henceforth the leaders had only to give the word of command, and the people went wherever the finger of the prophet pointed, sacrificed their lands and houses, broke off domestic ties, and marched through pain, starvation, and death into the parched wilderness. The settlement at Kirtland, however, was retained; a revelation even commanded the saints to build there a house for Joseph Smith “to live and translate in,” and another great temple for the Lord. This was fortunate, because the Mormons were soon expelled from Independence by a mob; and when Joseph, in obedience to revelation, raised an army of two hundred men, and, with the title of “commander-in-chief of the armies of Israel,” marched twelve hundred miles on foot to reinstate them, his expedition was dispersed by cholera and thunder-storms as soon as it reached the scene of action. The saints were never restored to the homes from which they had been driven out; yet to this day they look for a restoration. They refused all offers to sell their estates; they hold the Missouri title-deeds as the most precious of their inheritances; the city of the Great Salt Lake is only the temporary home of their exile; and Brigham Young, in his will, which was published the other day, after giving instructions for his funeral, says: “But if I should live to get back to the church in Jackson County, Missouri, I wish to be buried there.”
It is not our purpose to follow the persecuted fanatics in all their early migrations. Driven from place to place, they came, in 1840, to Hancock County, Illinois, where the owner of a large tract of wild land gave Smith a portion of it, in order to create a market for the rest. The prophet sold it in lots to his followers, at high prices, and there, on the bank of the Mississippi, the Mormons built the city of Nauvoo. It was revealed to them that they should build a goodly and holy “boarding-house,” and give Joseph Smith and his posterity a place in it for ever, and those who had money were commanded by name to put it into the enterprise (“Revelation given to Joseph Smith, Jan. 19, 1841”). They were to build a magnificent temple also; they were to organize a military force, known as the Nauvoo Legion; they were to create, in short, within the limits of Illinois, a theocratic state, with Joseph Smith at its head as mayor, general, prophet, church president, and inspired mouthpiece of the divine will. The city grew as if by magic. The legislature of Illinois granted it a charter of such extraordinary liberality that its officers became practically independent of all other authority. The apostles, sent all over America and England, preached with such zeal that in the course of six years no fewer than fifteen thousand believers were numbered in the Nauvoo community. Arrested several times for treason, for instigating an attempt at murder, and for other crimes, Joseph Smith was released by Mormon courts and set all “Gentile” laws at defiance. He was absolute in everything, organizing the government upon the most despotic principles, yet copying in some things the system and the phraseology of the Hebrew nation. His aides and counsellors received names and titles imitated from the Bible. Brigham Young was “the Lion of the Lord,” Parley P. Pratt was “the Archer of Paradise,” Orson Pratt was “the Gauge of Philosophy,” John Taylor was “the Champion of Right,” Lyman Wight was “the Wild Ram of the Mountains.” No one could deal in land or liquor except Joseph Smith. No one could aspire to political office or to church preferment without his permission. No one could travel abroad or remain quiet at home except by his consent. In Kirtland, with the assistance of Rigdon, he had started a bank and flooded the country with notes that were never redeemed. In Nauvoo he amassed what was, for that time and that region, the great fortune of $1,000,000. From the first gathering of the saints into communities he had made it a practice to use them in politics. He had given their votes to one party or another as interest dictated, and in 1844 he went so far as to offer himself for the Presidency of the United States, and sent two or three thousand elders through the States to electioneer for him.
As he grew in pride and prosperity the revelations multiplied, the faith became more and more extravagant, the ceremonies and ordinances of the church more cumbrous and more mystical. Moroni and Raphael, Peter and John, visited and conversed with him. He healed the possessed; he wrestled with the devil. The brethren began to prophesy in the temple; mysterious impulses stirred the congregations; “a mighty rushing wind filled the place”; “many began to speak in tongues; others saw glorious visions, and Joseph beheld that the temple was filled with angels, and told the congregation so. The people of the neighborhood, hearing an unusual sound within the temple, and seeing a bright light like a pillar of fire resting upon it, came running together and were astonished at what was transpiring.”[[51]] This diabolic manifestation, or alleged manifestation, reminds us of the scenes in the Irvingite congregations in London six years previously, when those brethren likewise prophesied in an unknown language. But the specimens of the Mormon “gift of tongues” which have been preserved for us are not calculated to inspire awe. “Eli, ele, elo, ela—come, coma, como—reli, rele, rela, relo—sela, selo, sele, selum—vavo, vava, vavum—sero, sera, seri, serum”—such was the style of the rhapsodies which inflamed the zeal of the Mormon saints.[[52]]