551 



SMITH, JOSEPH. 



SMITH, JOSEPH. 



552 



Smith was aii executor to Nollekens, and was disappointed in not 

 being a legatee. He therefore wrote under the influence of excited 

 feelinga, and made a discreditable use of the free access he had for so 

 many years enjoyed to the home and studio of Nollekena. Still, 

 although the work contains much that should not have been pub- 

 lished, and is distinguished by a degree of high colouring which 

 greatly impairs its veracity, it contains many curious anecdotes of 

 artists and other distinguished men with whom Smith had come in 

 contact in the course of a long and rather eventful life. He left in 

 manuscript materials for a history of his own life and times, and had 

 also collected much matter towards an account of the parish of St. 

 Paul, Covent Garden, and for a work which he intended to call ' Walks 

 through London ; ' but he did not live to complete any of these works, 

 having died of inflammation of the lungs, after only a week's illness, 

 March 8th 1833, in his sixty-seventh year. His wife, a son, and two 

 daughters survived him. Mr. Smith is stated to have been of kind 

 disposition, and inclined to encourage young artists. In his attention 

 to the duties of his office he was exemplary ; and his fund of anec- 

 dote rendered him a very amusing companion. There is a portrait of 

 him engraved by Skelton, from a drawing by Jackson. (' Gent. Mag./ 

 vol. 103, part i., p. 641, &c.) 



SMITH, JOSEPH, founder of the religious body commonly known 

 as MORMONITES, but called by their founder and by themselves " The 

 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." 



Whether regarded as a religious, political, social, or intellectual 

 phenomenon, the rise and progress of Mormouisrn is one of the most 

 remarkable movements of modern times ; and a calm survey of its 

 origin and development, made with a view to arrive at a true 

 knowledge of the facts, and, as far as practicable, a clear understand- 

 ing of its inner spirit to comprehend, that is, alike the system and 

 its effects, the character of its founders, and its influence on its dis- 

 ciples, could not but be serviceable as well as interesting. Such a 

 survey we cannot of course attempt here. What will be attempted 

 in the present article will be to give a brief notice of the founder of 

 Mormoniem, and of the system as he left it. Its subsequent develop- 

 ment and present state will be noticed in our sketch of his successor. 

 [YOUNG, BKIGHAM.] 



Joseph Smith left behind him an autobiography; and a strange 

 book purporting to be written by his mother has been published, 

 under the title of 'Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the 

 Prophet, and his Progenitors for many Generations, by Lucy Smith, 

 Mother of the Prophet' Of these, as well as the notices of him by 

 his adherents and opponents who profess to have obtained their 

 information respecting him at first hand, we have made use ; but we 

 prefer to let the Prophet in a measure tell his own story as we find it 

 in a short sketch of himself and his system, which he supplied a few 

 months before his death to" Mr. Daniel Rupp for that gentleman's 

 ' Original History of the Religious Denominations at present existing 

 in the United States,' 8vo, Phil., 1844, and which may consequently 

 be taken as an authentic representation, as far as it goes, of what 

 Smith himself wished to be believed. He says : 



" I was born in the town of Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, on 

 the 23rd of December 1805. When ten years old, my parents removed 

 to Palmyra, New York, where we resided about four years, and from 

 thence we removed to the town (township) of Manchester, a distance of 

 six miles. My father was a farmer, and taught me the art of husbandry. 

 When about fourteen years of age, I began to reflect upon the importance 

 of being prepared for a future state ; and upon inquiring the plan of 

 salvation, I found that there was a great clash in religious sentiment. 

 . . . . Considering that all could not be right, and that God could 

 not be the author of so much confusion, I determined to investigate 



the suVgect more fully Believing the word of God, I had 



confidence in the declaration of James, ' If any man lack wisdom let 

 him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, 

 and it shall be given him.' 



" I retired to a secret place in a grove, and began to call upon the 

 Lord. While fervently engaged in supplication my mind was taken 

 away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was 

 enrapt in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who 

 exactly resembled each other in features and likeness, surrounded 

 with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noonday. They told 

 me that all the religious sects were believing in incorrect doctrines, 

 and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his Church and 

 Kingdom. And I was expressly commanded to ' go not after them,' 

 at the same time receiving a promise that the fulness of the Gospel 

 should at some future time be made known to me." 



This " fulness of the Gospel," was that revealed in the Book of 

 Mormon ; and as his account of the discovery of the book and its con- 

 tents is really the point on which our estimate both of the man and 

 the doctrine must to a great extent turn, it will be best given in his 

 own words and without abridgment. He says " On the evening of 

 the 21st of September, A.D. 1823, while I was praying unto God and 

 endeavouring to exercise faith in the precious promises of Scripture, 

 on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a far purer and more glorious 

 appearance and brightness, burst into the room; indeed, the first sight 

 was as though the house was filled with consuming firo. The ap- 

 pearance produced a shock that affected the whole body. In a 

 moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet 



greater than that with which I was already surrounded. The messen- 

 ger proclaimed himself to be an angel of God, sent to bring the joyful 

 tidings, that the covenant which God made with ancient Israel was at 

 hand to be fulfilled ; that the preparatory work for the second coming 

 of the Messiah was speedily to commence ; that the time was at hand 

 for the Gospel in all its fulness to be preached in power unto all 

 nations, that a people might be prepared for the Milleiiial reign. 



" I was informed also concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this 

 country (America) and shown who they were, and from whence they 

 came ; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilisation, laws, 

 governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of 

 God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known 

 unto me. I also was told where there were deposited some plates, on 

 which was engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient 

 prophets that had existed on this continent. The angel appeared to 

 me three times the same night, and unfolded the same things. After 

 having received many visits from the angels of God, unfolding the 

 majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days, 

 on the morning of the 22nd of September 1827, the angel of the 

 Lord delivered the records into my hands. 



" These records were engraven on plates which'had tho appearance 

 of gold ; each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long, and 

 not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings 

 in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume, as the leaves 

 of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume 

 was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. 

 The characters on the unsealed part were small and beautifully 

 engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its 

 construction, and much skill in the art of engraving. With the 

 records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called 

 ' Urim and Thummim," which consisted of two transparent stones set 

 in the rim on a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium 

 of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and 

 power of God. 



" In this important and interesting book the history of ancient 

 America is unfolded from its first settlement by a colony that came 

 from the tower of Babel, at the confusion of languages, to the begin- 

 ning of the 5th century of the Christian era. 



" We are informed by these records, that America, in ancient times, 

 has been inhabited by two distinct races of people. The first were 

 called Jaredites, and came directly from the tower of Babel. The 

 second race came directly from the city of Jerusalem, about 600 years 

 before Christ. They were principally Israelites of the descendants of 

 Joseph. The Jaredites were destroyed about the time that the 

 Israelites came from Jerusalem, who succeeded them in the inheritance 

 of the country. The principal nation of the second race fell in battle 

 towards the close of the 4th century. This book also tells us that our 

 Saviour made his appearance upon this continent after his resurrec- 

 tion ; that they had apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evan- 

 gelists ; the same order, the same priesthood, the same ordinances, 

 gifts, powers, and blessing as was enjoyed on the eastern continent; 

 that the people were cut off in consequence of their transgressions; 

 that the last of the prophets who existed among them was com- 

 manded to write an abridgment of their prophecies, history, &c., and 

 to hide it up in the earth, and that it should come forth and be united 

 with the Bible, for the accomplishment of the purposes of God in the 

 last days. For a more particular account I would refer to the Book 

 of Mormon." 



We must here for awhile interrupt the Prophet's narrative. It will 

 have been noticed that the account of his early life, and of his pro- 

 ceedings between the first appearance of the angel and the discovery 

 of the plates, is remarkably vague. His education had evidently been 

 of the rudest kind. From various accounts, including those of his 

 mother, it would seem that he used to assist his father in his business, 

 but that he was of an unsettled disposition, and probably spent a good 

 deal of time in wandering about the country. It is stated also, that 

 he for some time got a living by trying for mineral veins by a divining- 

 rod, and some affirm that, like Sidrophel, he used " the devil's looking- 

 glass a stone," and was consulted as to the discovery of hidden 

 treasures, whence he had come to be commonly known as the " money- 

 digger ; " and on one occasion he had been, at the instigation of a 

 disappointed client, imprisoned as a vagabond. He is also stated to 

 have carried off and married a Miss Hales, during the interval between 

 the first angelic visitation and the discovery of the plates of Nephi. 



As to the Book of Mormon itself, the authorship has been claimed 

 for one Solomon Spalding, a presbyterian preacher, who having fallen 

 into poverty composed a religious romance, entitled ' The Manuscript 

 Found,' which professed to be a narrative of the migration of the Lost 

 Tribes of Israel from Jerusalem to America, and their subsequent 

 adventures on that continent, in the hope of obtaining enough from 

 its publication to release him from his difficulties. The work was 

 written, but he could not find a publisher for it, and some ten years 

 after his death, the manuscript was carried by his widow into New 

 York, where it was stolen by or somehow got into the hands of Smith, 

 or Rigdon (an early associate in his proceedings). The statement is 

 supported by affidavits made by Spalding's daughter, his brother, one 

 Henry Lake, and some other persons, who declare that they had heard 

 him read portions of the work which were substantially the same as 



