History of Utah, Part 4

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026

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The course of the colony from Jerusalem led to the Red Sea and along its shores; thence eastward across the peninsula of Arabia. On the shores of the Persian Gulf, under the inspired direction of Nephi, who became the virtual leader of the colony, they built a ship, and in it crossed " the great waters "-the Indian and Pacific oceans -to South America. They are supposed to have landed on the coast of the country now called Chili. Thence, as their nation or nations

* Joseph Smith said that the manuscript lost by Martin Harris so stated.

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grew, and the people multiplied, the descendants of Lehi spread over the whole face of South and North America.

After Lehi's death the colony divided; Laman and Lemuel, who had always been jealous of their younger and gifted brother Nephi, rebelling against his rule, and leading away others to form a separate people. Thenceforth there were two nations ; the followers of Laman, who were known as Lamanites, and the adherents of Nephi, who took upon them his name in like manner. The Lamanites, for their iniquity, were cursed by the Almighty with dark skins. They became a loathsome and benighted race, savage and blood-thirsty, roaming the wilderness and subsisting upon wild beasts, killed for game, or by their frequent marauding incursions into the territory of the Nephites. The latter were highly civilized, dwelling in cities and cul- tivating the arts and sciences. Unlike their dark-skinned neighbors, they were " a white and a delightsome people," fair and beautiful to look upon. Gentle in peace, valorous in war, refined, intelligent, wealthy and powerful, they were at once the envy and the terror of their foes, the ferocious Lamanites, who hated them with an inten- sity indescribable. Many were the wars and conflicts between the two races; the Lamanites being generally the aggressors, while the Nephites fought in self-defense. Their warriors were highly disci- plined, wore armor, and wielded the sword, spear and javelin, while the Lamanites, whose favorite weapons were the bow and sling, went half nude or clothed in skins, affording little protection against the sharp blades and keen points of their adversaries. Still they were fiercely brave, and frequently came off conquerors. When the Nephites served God they prospered, and in war were invincible and invulnerable. When they forgot Him, as they often did, their power waned and departed, and they fell an easy prey to their enemies. But as often as they repented, their strength and valor returned, and the God of battles fought with them and against their foes.

The religion of the Nephites, until the advent of the Savior,- who appeared to them shortly after His resurrection and established His church among them,-was the law of Moses; though they also

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understood and practiced the first principles of Christ's gospel, revealed to them prior to His coming. One of their first projects, after separating from Laman and his followers, who turned entirely from the Lord, was to build a temple to the Most High, constructed after the pattern, though not on the same scale of magnificence, as the temple of Solomon. Nephi, his brothers Jacob and Joseph and their descendants were the officiating Priesthood.

The Nephite government was originally a limited monarchy, with Nephi,-against his own will, for he, like the first Jaredite leaders, was an anti-monarchist,-as king or protector. His successors, for sev- eral centuries, were mostly wise and able rulers, during whose reigns the Nephites enjoyed many periods of prosperity, and the nation, though at times brought to the brink of ruin by the wickedness of its people, spread abroad and became powerful. The Lamanites like- wise had kings, who were autocrats, but, as stated, they were a nomadic and savage race, and only at rare intervals,-and then by fusion or contact with the Nephites .- reached a standard of civiliza- tion.

In the year B. C. 91, the Nephite republic was proclaimed, and for a period of one hundred and twenty years the nation was ruled by judges elected by the people. Wars with the Lamanites and with bands of truculent outlaws known as Gadianton robbers; victories, defeats, internal dissensions, revolutions, disasters, works of glory and deeds of darkness mark this checkered period,-an era of violent vicissitudes. In the year A. D. 30 the republic was disrupted, and the people divided into tribes and factions.

Then came the greatest, most glorious, and withal most terrible event in the annals of the Nephite nation,-the advent of the risen Redeemer; His appearance to the more righteous portion of the people, preceded by the appalling, overwhelming destruction and desolation of the wicked. First, according to those annals, an awful tempest, unparalleled in force and fury, swept over the land, leaving death and devastation in its wake. Three hours it endured,-but what hours ! During the prevalence of the storm, while the lightning's

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fiery falchion smote, and the batteries of heaven thundered and rever- berated, the whole face of nature was changed, disfigured, like the rage-distorted visage of an angry man. Mountains disappeared, sunken or swept away. Valleys became towering peaks. Impelled by the whirlwind, great boulders hurtled through the air, as if thrown by Titan hands, or rolled grinding and crashing along the quivering earth. The mighty heart of nature throbbed tumultuously. Earth- quakes with awful rumblings rent the ground. Great chasms opened, like monster jaws, engulfing cities with their living millions, while others were devoured by fire, or swallowed by the raging seas, heav- ing beyond their bounds. Three hours of fearful turmoil, with three days of thick darkness following, during which the affrighted inhabit- ants, survivors of the tempest and its terrors, lay shuddering half lifeless upon the quaking earth, listening to the horrible groanings and grindings of the storm ; or when its fury lulled, loudly bewailing their own and their fellows' woes.

At length the tumult ceases; the earth no longer trembles, and the voice of Him who stilled with a word the stormy waves of Galilee is heard from heaven proclaiming in solemn tones the calamities that have befallen. A note of awful warning to the transgressor; a prom- ise of peace and of pardon to the penitent. Subsequently the Savior appears. The more righteous of the Nephites behold Him. He shows to them His wounded side and the prints of the nails in His hands and feet ; instructs them in the truths of His gospel ; heals their sick, blesses their children, administers the sacrament and establishes His church in the midst of them. Therein are apostles, prophets, etc.,-the same orders of Priesthood, the same doctrines, ordinances, gifts and graces that characterize the church at Jerusa- lem. He informs the Nephites that they are the "other sheep," of whom He spake to His Jewish disciples-though they understood Him not-who were "not of that fold;" not of Judah but of Joseph; and that from them He goes to visit still "other sheep," not of this land, "neither of the land of Jerusalem." Having fully instructed then He departs; not, however, before giving to three of the Twelve

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whom He has chosen, power over death, insomuch that the destroyer cannot assail them, and to all the Apostles power to preach the gos- pel, administer its ordinances, work miracles, build up the Church and bring souls to Him.

Then ensue nearly two centuries of unexampled peace and pros- perity, during which period the Church of Christ, a pure theocracy, reigns supreme. A community of interests, spiritual and temporal- more than realizing the theories of a Bellamy-is established; Neph- ites and Lamanites throughout the entire land are converted unto Christ, and bask in the light of an almost Millennial era. This happy state continues until the year A. D. 200, when the first signs of disintegration appear. Other churches are then founded, other creeds promulgated, and the order of unity, equality, fraternity, is aban- doned. Thirty years later a great separation takes place, and the people are again known as Nephites and Lamanites.

It is the beginning of the end. The period of the nation's decline and downfall has arrived, and the descent is thenceforth ruin- ous and rapid. Contentions, crimes and disasters follow in succes- sion. Nearly a century rolls by. The great international conflict has resumed. Again have wars between Nephites and Lamanites drenched and deluged the land with blood and tears. The Nephites now occupy " the land northward," whither they have been driven by their victorious foes, who hold possession of the southern continent. The "narrow neck of land" divides them. The struggle goes on. Each army invades alternately the territory of the other ; only to be repulsed and driven back. Again and again sounds the tocsin of war. Again and again the two nations rush to battle. Peace after peace is patched up, only to be rent asunder. At length the Lamanites gain an advantage. They once more invade the northern continent. The degenerate Nephites no longer prevail against them. Bravely. des- perately they contend, but vainly. The God whom they have offended is no longer with them, and victory perches permanently upon the banners of their adversaries. Backward, still backward they are driven, disputing with stubborn valor every inch of ground. The

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whole land reeks and smokes with blood and carnage. Rapine and slaughter hold sway. Each side, drunken with blood, besotted and brutalized, vies with the other in cruelties and atrocities. Finally the hill Ramah-Cumorah-is reached, and there, on the spot where ages before the Jaredite nation perished, the Nephites, similarly fated, make their final stand.

Their general, Mormon, foreseeing the destruction of his people, has committed to his son Moroni,-like himself one of a righteous few left of a degenerate nation,-the records of their race, including an abridgment of their history written with his own hand upon plates of gold. These are accompanied by certain instruments called "interpreters"-Urim and Thummim-used by the Nephite prophets in translating.

The carnage of Cumorah ensues; the Nephite nation is annihil- ated, and the Lamanites,-ancestors of the dusky aborigines whom Columbus, centuries later, found and named Indians,-are left in absolute, undisputed possession of the soil. Moroni, having sur- vived the awful massacre, abridges the Jaredite record, adds it to the Nephite history written by his sire, and deposits the golden plates and interpreters in the hill Cumorah, A. D. 420.

Such, briefly, is the story of the Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith and his confreres had now given to the world; the famous "Gold Bible," so styled in derision by opponents of Mormonism, but revered by the Latter-day Saints as an inspired record, of · equal authority with the Jewish scriptures, containing, as they claim, the revelations of Jehovah to His Israel of the western world, as the Bible His revelations to Israel in the Orient. The Saints hold that the Book of Mormon is the veritable "stick of Joseph," that was to be one with the "stick of Judah"-the Bible-as foretold by Ezekiel .*

The book being published and circulated, speculation at once became rife as to its origin. Of course nobody believed, or compar-

* Chapter xxxvii. 16-19.

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atively few, that it had come in the way its translator and the wit- nesses declared. The same skepticism that repudiated the idea of the Father and the Son appearing to Joseph Smith, now ridiculed the claim of the Book of Mormon to being a divine record. That it was purely of human origin, or worse, was very generally believed. Passing by the many minor theories put forth to account for it, we will merely take up one, the celebrated Spaulding story, which obtained greater credence and notoriety than any other, and still forms the back-bone argument of objectors to the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

In the year 1816, at Amity, Washington County, Pennsylvania, died Solomon Spaulding, a native of Ashford, Connecticut, where he was born in 1761. A few years prior to his decease, he had resided at Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio. At one time in his life he was a clergyman,-at least he wore to his name the prefix of "Reverend,"-and is said to have been a graduate of Dartmouth Col- lege. Though not a man of much ability, nor of much education, if we may judge from his work, he cultivated a taste for literature, and aspired to the distinction of authorship. His mind ran upon ancient and archaic themes, insomuch that about the year 1812, while living at Conneaut, he wrote a romance entitled "Manuscript Story," giving a fabulous account of the pre-historic races of North America. The romance was suggested by the discovery, near the author's home, of certain relics, such as bows and arrows, and the existence in that vicinity of the ruins of an ancient fort. Two years later, Spaulding removed from Ohio to Pennsylvania, stopping awhile in Pittsburg, and then settling at Amity, where, as stated, he died in 1816.

The romance, unpublished. remained in the possession of his widow until 1834,-four years after the Book of Mormon was pub- lislied,-at which time she was living at Monson, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and having re-married was then Mrs. Matilda Davison.

During the year 1834, D. P. Hurlburt, an apostate Mormon. came to Mrs. Davison and procured the "Manuscript Story " written by her

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former husband. His avowed purpose was to use this work, of which he had heard in Pennsylvania, in an expose of Mormonism, which certain opponents of the Saints,-whose headquarters were then at Kirtland, Ohio,-were helping him to publish in that state. Hurl- burt's reason for desiring the romance was that he had recognized, from the account he had obtained of it, a supposed resemblance between it and the Book of Mormon, which he was then zealously decrying. He agreed with Mrs. Davison to publish the story and give her half the profits realized from its sale. She reluctantly consented to part with the relic, giving him an order for it addressed to Mr. Jerome Clark, of Hartwick, Otsego County, New York, with whom she had temporarily left an old trunk containing the manuscript. Hurlburt, having secured it, returned to Ohio. A perusal of its pages, how- ever, failed to afford him and his colleagues the satisfaction they had anticipated. The supposed resemblance between it and the Book of Mormon, they found to be indeed suppositional, or at all events so vague as to poorly subserve their purpose. They therefore sup- pressed it. Hurlburt wrote to Mrs. Davison that the manuscript "did not read as he expected," and that he should not publish it. He did not return it, however, though repeatedly urged by the owner so to do, but gave out that it had been accidentally destroyed by fire, claim- ing to have been so informed by Mr. E. D. Howe, a publisher at Painesville, with whom he had left the romance to be read and then returned to Mrs. Davison. From that time, until fully fifty years later, nothing further was known of the fate of the Spaulding manu- script.

" Mormonism Unveiled"-Hurlburt's expose-appeared in due time; not, however, in the name of D. P. Hurlburt, but of E. D. Howe, who had purchased the work and published it. It was a satirical assault upon Mormonism in general, and upon Joseph Smith in par- ticular. It announced to the world that the Book of Mormon, in.all probability, was Solomon Spaulding's romance revised and amplified. The assertion was supported, not by extracts from the two records. compared, but by depositions from various persons who claimed to be

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familiar with both, touching the points of alleged similarity between them. It denied, on the authority of these deponents, that the writ- ing obtained of Mrs. Davison was the "Manuscript Story," and claimed that it bore no resemblance to it. Mrs. Davison, however, though no friend to Mormonism, stated that it was the " Manuscript Story," that Hurlburt obtained of her, and her statement is borne out by the fact that no other manuscript of like character, claiming Solomon Spaulding as its author, has ever yet appeared.

The theory put forth by the author of "Mormonism Unveiled" regarding the origin of the Book of Mormon was this: that Sidney Rigdon,-then Joseph Smith's "right-hand man,"-who had formerly resided at Pittsburg, where Mr. Spaulding once tarried for a time, had procured the dead clergyman's manuscript from the printing- office of Messrs. Patterson and Lambdin, in that city; that being a man of ability and education, Rigdon had altered and enlarged the original work, adding the religious portions, and then, through Joseph Smith, had palmed it upon the world as an ancient and inspired record. This hypothesis found many believers, and even to this day, among non-Mormons generally, is accepted as authentic and reliable.

On the other hand, Mormon pens and tongues have been busy for fifty years denying the truth and consistency of the Spaulding story. They have always affirmed that until after the Book of Mormon was published, Joseph Smith had not been seen, nor scarcely heard of, in those parts traversed by the Spaulding manuscript; that Sidney Rigdon did not visit Pittsburg until years after the removal of the Spauldings from that city; that he never was connected, as alleged, with a printing-office in that place; that up to the fall of 1830, several months after the Book of Mormon was published, he had not so much as seen the book, and that until December of the same year he and Joseph Smith had never met. In short, that Rigdon's alleged connection with the origin of the Book of Mormon was an anachronism pure and simple, and that any theory seeking to identify that record with the Spaulding romance was susceptible of the easiest disproof.

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But all in vain. The world had made up its mind. The Mormon side of the story was too miraculous for belief; the Hurlburt-Howe theory too plausible for disbelief ; and the Spaulding romance, with Sidney Rigdon or "some other designing knave" as its amplifier and embellisher, has continued to be regarded as the literary nucleus of the Book of Mormon.

In the year 1884, fifty years after its disappearance and alleged destruction, the missing Spaulding manuscript was brought to light. Its discoverer was Mr. L. L. Rice, of Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. Being visited that year by President James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, Ohio, Mr. Rice, at his suggestion, was looking through his papers in quest of certain anti-slavery documents, when he came upon a package marked in pencil on the outside "Manuscript Story-Con- neaut Creek," which proved upon examination, to their great surprise. to be the long-lost romance of Dr. Spaulding. Its presence among the private papers of Mr. Rice was explained by the fact that about the year 1840 he and a partner had purchased from E. D. Howe, the publisher of "Mormonism Unveiled," the business and effects of the Painesville "Telegraph." At that time Mr. Rice,-who in Ohio was an anti-slavery editor,-had received from Howe a collection of miscellaneous papers, which, prior to Mr. Fairchild's visit, he had never taken time to thoroughly examine. The original of the " Manuscript Story" Mr. Rice presented to President Fairchild, but an exact copy, procured of the former by a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was published verbatim et literatim at Salt Lake City in 1886 .*

As stated by Howe-or Hurlburt-it is "a romance purporting to have been translated from the Latin, found on twenty-four rolls of parchment in a cave;" its author thus anticipating a method in vogue among popular novelists of the present period,-notably of the H. Rider Haggard school. It contains perhaps a tentli as much reading matter as the Book of Mormon, and unlike that record is

* Josephites-dissenting Mormons-have also published the " Manuscript Story." Their edition was the first to appear.

4-VOL. 1.

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written in modern style. None of the proper names, and few if any of the incidents, are similar to those of the Nephite narrative. Its rhetoric is exceedingly faulty,-more so than the usually criticised passages of the Book of Mormon,-and the pamphlet throughout is largely mis-spelled and poorly punctuated. Rehabilitated and con- densed, the story would run about as follows :

In the reign of the Emperor Constantine, a young patrician named Fabius, secretary to his imperial majesty, sails from Rome for Britain, with an important commission to the commander of his country's legions stationed there. After safely traversing the Mediterranean. the ship encounters near the British coast a terrific storm, which drives her oceanward until she is utterly lost in the midst of the watery wilderness. Five days the tempest rages, and the vessel flies west- ward before a furious gale. On the sixth day the storm abates. The black mists which have hung over the deep, obscuring the lights of heaven, are dispelled, and the sun dawns in glory upon a cloudless sky. But no land is in sight; only "water, water everywhere." Con- sternation reigns, and the ship is still driven westward. Finally a mariner comforts his fellow castaways by announcing that the Almighty has revealed to him that land is not far off, and that gentle breezes will soon waft them into a safe harbor and to hospitable shores. Five days later the prediction is fulfilled. Land heaves in sight, and the storm-beaten ship enters the mouth of a spacious river. Sailing up many leagues, it arrives at a town on the river's bank, the home of the king and chiefs of a savage nation, upon whose domain the outcasts have entered. They are the "Deliwares," one of several tribes or nations inhabiting the land. The Romans are kindly received, and conclude to remain. The seven damsels of the party select husbands from their male companions, leaving the residue to lead lives of celibacy, or choose mates from the ranks of the copper-colored maidens of the land. Two years later the white colonists leave the country of the "Deliwares." and migrating to the north-west, take up their abode among the "Ohons," another native tribe vastly more numerous, powerful and civilized.

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The remainder of the story, which is disjointed and incomplete, includes a series of philosophic, geographic, and astronomical observations by Fabius ; descriptions of the religious teachings and traditions of the natives, their social and political customs and an elaborate narration of their glorious antecedents. Their great oracle and law-giver, a sort of Moses and Hiawatha combined,-though there is no allusion to Israel in all the text,-was one Lobaska, an illustrious character, a portion of whose biography is given. After dwelling upon the manner in which Lobaska united all the tribes or kingdoms of the land under one government, gave them their "sacred roll" of religious tenets, and framed their political constitution, it describes their subsequent wars and dissensions, and closes abruptly on the eve of a great battle between the hosts of the militant empires of "Sciota " and " Kentuck."

The latter is by far the best written portion of the narrative, the quality of which differs so in places, and descends so often from the half sublime to the wholly ridiculous, as to tempt the reader to believe that more than one pen was employed in its composition.

To enable the reader to compare the respective styles in which the two books are written, brief selections from each are here presented :

BOOK OF MORMON, 1. NEPHI, CHAP. 1.

And now it came to pass after 1, Nephi, had made an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them, in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem.

And he spake unto them concerning their rebellions upon the waters, and the mercies of God in sparing their lives, that they were not swallowed up in the sea.

And he also spake unto them concerning the land of promise, which they had ob- tained : how merciful the Lord had been in warning us that we should flee out of the land of Jerusalem.

For, behold, said he, I have seen a vision,

MANUSCRIPT STORY, CHAP. II.

As no alternative now remained, but either to make the desperate attempt to re- turn across the wide boistrous ocean or to take up our residence in a country in- habited by savages and wild ferocious beasts we did not long hesitate. We held a solem treaty with the king & all the chiefs of his nation. They agreed to cede to us a tract of excellent Land on the north part of the town on which was six wigwams, & engaged perpetual amity & hospitality & the protection of our lives & property. * But now a most singular & delicate subject presented itself for consideration. Seven young women we had on board, as passen- gers, to visit certain friends they had in

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History of Utah, Part 4

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon Number of Pages: 1026

Author: Whitney, Orson Ferguson
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Cannon
Number of Pages: 1026