[43]. It was one of Mr. Finney’s doctrines that whenever we pray with sufficient faith, God, so to speak, is bound not only to answer the prayer, but to give us the precise thing we ask for; in other words, that we know better than God what is good for us. “There are men and women still alive and among us,” says Dr. Spring, “who remember the circumstances of the death of Mrs. Pierson, around whose lifeless body her husband assembled a company of believers, with the assurance that if they prayed in faith she would be restored to life. Their feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and strong. They prayed, and prayed again, and prayed in faith. But they were disappointed. There was none to answer, neither was there any that regarded.” The italics are Dr. Spring’s.
[44]. Remarkable Visions. By Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Liverpool, 1848.
[45]. Mormon books contain representations of six plates of brass, inscribed with unknown figures, which are said to have been dug out of a mound in Pike County, Illinois, in 1843. Like those which Moroni is supposed to have revealed to Joseph Smith they are described as bell-shaped and fastened together by a ring. But the evidence that any such plates were ever found is not satisfactory, and the characters on the published pictures of them bear little or no resemblance to those which Joseph Smith presented to the world as a fac-simile of a part of the Book of Mormon.
[46]. Many suppose that Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum fabricated plates of some basemetal and imposed them upon their credulous followers. But if they had gone to the trouble of doing this it is probable that they would have shown them to a number of people, and not confined the exhibition to a handful of their immediate associates. The mere fact that evidence as to the existence of any plates at all is so defective seems to us conclusive that there were none—not even forged ones.
[47]. “Revelation given to Joseph Smith, Jr., May, 1829, informing him of the alteration of the manuscript of the fore part of the Book of Mormon.”—Covenants and Commandments, sec. xxxvi.
[48]. Five thousand copies were printed, yet the first edition is excessively rare. The later editions differ a little from the original. The “third European edition,” which is now before us, was published at Liverpool in 1852.
[49]. Oliver Cowdery was expelled from the church some years later for “lying, counterfeiting, and immorality,” and died a miserable drunkard. Sidney Rigdon attempted to rule the church by revelation after the death of Joseph Smith, and, being “cut off” at the demand of Brigham Young, led away a small sect of seceders. Parley P. Pratt, having induced a married woman to become his polygamous wife, was killed by the outraged husband. Orson Pratt is still living, and one of the ablest of the Mormon leaders.
[50]. Although these lectures bear Smith’s name, it is understood that they were really written by Sidney Rigdon.
[51]. Autobiography of Joseph Smith, quoted by Stenhouse.
[52]. This is quoted by Capt. Burton, but he does not give his authority.