The following brief discussion of Mr. I. Woodbridge Riley's work, is an address delivered at the Seventy-fourth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church, held in Salt Lake City, Oct. 5, 1903. Mr. Riley's book of 446 pages is a well written thesis on the "Founder of Mormonism," and was published in 1902. It is a psychological study of Joseph Smith the Prophet. The purpose of the work is set forth in the author's preface, as follows:

"The aim of this work is to examine Joseph Smith's character and achievements from the standpoint of recent psychology. Sectarians and phrenologists, spiritualists and mesmerists have variously interpreted his more or less abnormal performances,—it remains for the psychologist to have a try at them."

The work also has an introductory preface by Professor George Trumbull Ladd, of Yale University, in which Mr. Riley's essay is very highly praised. Indeed, the work was offered to the Philosophical Faculty of Yale University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and before this the matter of the essay had been utilized in 1898 for a Master of Arts thesis, under the title of "Metaphysics of Mormonism," so that from these circumstances we may venture the remark that Mr. Riley's book is of a highly scientific character, at least in its literary structure, and has already attracted some considerable notice in the world.

I.

"THE FOUNDER OF MORMONISM."

Some of you perhaps are aware of the fact that I have been giving some attention of late to the literature on Mormonism; not only that which we ourselves publish, but that also which is Published by others. The publications on Mormonism during the last five years, I believe, are more numerous than in any twenty years previous to that time. The last five years have witnessed an awakening of thought upon our religion. More, and ever more attention is being given to it. More newspaper articles, more magazine articles, more volumes—some of them quite pretentious—have been written on Mormonism than ever before, and indicate the universal interest taken in the subject. The books and magazine articles have been written from various standpoints, some of them in the old spirit of bitterness, and some of them are intended to be written in a spirit of fairness. Yet I marvel at their author's ideas of fairness. One work, written by a noted professor, pretending to be an impartial history, and issued by one of the first publishing houses in the United States, with the view, evidently, of establishing a standard history of Mormonism, gives full credence to everything that has been said against us, but the author frequently cautions his readers against quotations he makes from our own works—and yet that book is put forth as an impartial history of Mormonism! Some have attempted to write from a philosophical standpoint, but with the result that they plainly manifest that they have not yet reached foundation principles upon which they can satisfactorily account for Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and the great work he accomplished. When I see men shifting their grounds, and advancing first one theory and then, another to account for Mormonism, and there is confusion among them, uncertainty, indecision—I know that the citadel of our mighty faith is secure from harm from their attacks; that Mormonism cannot fall a victim to their philosophies or their arguments.

Let me, for a little while, draw your attention to at least one of the so-called philosophical solutions of Mormonism, a scientific accounting for Joseph Smith. The work I allude to was offered to Yale University as a thesis upon which the author hoped to secure, and I think he did secure, the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. He candidly confesses that it is an effort to account for Joseph Smith upon some other hypothesis than that he was a conscious fraud, bent on deceiving mankind. When an intelligent man makes such an announcement as that, I know, and you know, that the theories heretofore advanced to account for Joseph Smith, are unsatisfactory; that they are efforts which have failed. The theory that Joseph Smith was a conscious fraud, an imposter, has fallen to the ground. The charges frequently made and persistently urged that Mormonism had its origin in deception and conscious fraud have failed of their purpose. The floods of falsehood with which some men have sought to overwhelm Mormonism have not accomplished the end proposed. The Latter-day Saints, after more than three-quarters of a century of existence, stand above all the floods of falsehood that have been belched out against them. The work of God has not broken down, it has survived; and the Saints smilingly pity those who would make use of such contemptible means with which to combat the truth of Almighty God. Now, however, we are to be treated philosophically. And the philosophy that is advanced is, unconscious hallucination in the mind of Joseph Smith; partly unconscious and partly conscious possession of hypnotic power, by which the minds of those around him were dominated and made to see things which in reality had no existence; and while the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and others testify of visions and voices from God honestly enough, still as a matter of fact those revelations had really no objective existence, but were mental hallucinations. And as for Joseph Smith, he was deceived by epileptic conditions.

The author I am considering is at great pains to trace the ancestry of the Prophet, pointing out their mental peculiarities and supposed defects, leading up to the conclusion that these defects of mind in his ancestors culminated in epilepsy in Joseph Smith. And hence, we have as the explanation of Mormonism, epileptic fits in its Prophet, whose hallucinations are honestly mistaken for inspired visions, with partly conscious and partly unconscious hypnotic power over others! And this theory is presented seriously to one of the first institutions of learning in America as a rational explanation of how Mormonism came into existence!

Ernest Renan, the French philosopher, when considering a similar hypothesis to account for the Lord Jesus Christ, overthrew all that kind of sophistry with this simple statement:

"It has never been given to the mere aberrations of the human mind to result in the establishment of permanent institutions that influence any considerable number of people."

In other words, the dreams and hallucinations of the epileptic end in mere dreams and hallucinations; they never crystallize into great systems of philosophy or into rational religious institutions. They never crystallize into great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men.

It is a pleasure to find one's conclusions sustained by men of recognized ability in any line of work on which they have specialized, and in respect of which they are regarded as authorities. In such manner I find the views, above set forth sustained by one eminent in the domain of nervous diseases and psychiatry, Charles L. Dana, the writer of text books on the foregoing subject, text books used in all the great colleges and universities of our country, that give attention to the subject. Following is his definition of paranoia, a disease closely allied to that to which Mr. Riley assumes Joseph Smith was subject. [A]

[Footnote A: This paragraph and the two quotations following have been added since the above remarks were published as part of the proceedings of the conference.]

"Paranoia is a chronic psychosis characterized by the development gradually and soon after maturity of systematized delusions without other serious disturbances of the mind, and without much tendency to dementia. * * * With some the systematized idea takes a religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take a devotional turn and the patient become an acetic. It is not, however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religions and novel social ideas are paranoiacs. Many of these are simply the natural developments, ignorance and a somewhat emotional and unbalanced temperament. The characteristic of the paranoiac is that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to receive. I do not class successful prophets and organizers like Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as paranoiacs. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak, and lack persistence in purpose or powers of execution." [A]

[Footnote A: Chas. Loomis Dana, Text Book of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry, 6th Edition, pp. 649-50.]

"A certain rather small percentage of epileptics become either demented or insane. True epilepsy is not compatible with extraordinary intellectual endowments. Caesar, Napoleon, Peter the Great, and other geniuses may have had some symptomatic fits, but not idiopathic epilepsy." [B]

[Footnote B: Chas. L. Dana, A. M. M. D., Text Book of Nervous Diseases, 3rd edition, p. 408.]

There is much glamor of sophistry, which may be taken for profound reason and argument, in the work to which I am calling your attention. But one word answers this "philosophical" accounting for our Prophet. The work accomplished by him, the institutions he founded, destroy the whole fabric of premises and argument on which this theory is based. Great as was the Prophet Joseph Smith—and he was great; to him more than to any other man of modern times was it given to look deep into the things that are; to comprehend the heavens and the laws that obtain there; to understand the earth, its history, and its mission. He looked into the deep things of God—always, be it remembered, by the inspiration of God—and out of the rich treasure of divine knowledge he brought forth things both new and old for the instruction of our race, the like of which, in some respects, had not been known in previous dispensations. Hence I repeat that Joseph Smith was great; but great as he was, rising up and towering far above him is the work that he accomplished through divine guidance; that work is infinitely greater than the prophet—greater than all the prophets connected with it. Its consistency, its permanency, its power, its institutions, contradict the hallucination theory advanced to account for its origin.

Let us look at this work for a moment. If one could but draw it clearly in outline, and present it in its originality and greatness, it would be its own witness of its divinity, for in all things it transcends the mere wit of man. Take the Church organization for illustration; and look at it with reference to its being an assemblage of means to the accomplishment of an end. As I understand the Church of Christ, its mission is two-fold; first, it is to proclaim the truth; second, it is to perfect those who receive the truth. I think these two things cover, in a general way, the entire mission of the Church. Is its organization competent to attain those two mighty ends? Let us see; and first as to the proclamation of the truth—the work really of the foreign ministry. What provision has God made for that? He has in his Church, first of all Twelve Special Witnesses, the Twelve Apostles, who were chosen in the first instance, by the Three Special Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. I remark in passing that there is a peculiar fitness in the Twelve Apostles—the Twelve Special Witnesses being chosen by those who had been made Witnesses for God by the great vision and revelation he had given them concerning the absolute truth and correctness of the Book of Mormon. Upon these Twelve Apostles rests the responsibility of being witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ in all the world. That is their special, peculiar calling. You can see, however, if you take into account the extent of their field of labor—for it encompasses the whole round world—that twelve men would not be adequate to meet all the requirements of the foreign ministry. God knew this, and hence he called into existence other special witnesses, to labor under the direction of these Twelve, they holding the keys to open the door of the gospel to all the nations of the earth; for all must hear it, from the greatest to the least. The Twelve, I say, hold the keys of this foreign ministry; and hence whenever there has been an opening of the door of the gospel to a foreign nation, one or more of these men holding the keys have been sent to do it. It was for this reason that Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve Apostles, was sent to Great Britain in 1837, to open the door of the gospel in that land; why Elder John Taylor was sent to France and Germany; why Elder Lorenzo Snow was sent to Italy and Switzerland; why Erastus Snow was sent to the Scandinavian countries; why Parley P. Pratt went to Chili and opened the door of the gospel to the South American republics; why, more recently, Elder Heber J. Grant was sent to Japan to open a mission. The Twelve, then, hold the keys of this ministry, and upon them devolves this responsibility of opening the door of salvation to the nations. But after them, other witnesses are chosen. These are the seventy apostles, or special witnesses, the assistants of the Twelve; under whose directions they labor. At first, two quorums of Seventy only were organized; but with the promise of the Prophet that as the work should expand other quorums would be organized, not only till seven times seven quorums should be brought into existence, but until seventy times seven; "aye," said he, "until there shall be a hundred and forty and four thousand seventies chosen, if the work of the ministry shall require it." So we have continued organizing quorums of Seventy, to labor in the foreign ministry, until now we have one hundred and forty-three quorums in the Church—a body of nearly ten thousand men. They are special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world, and when their numbers are considered, together with the privilege we have of increasing them, you can see that ample provision is made, in this respect, for the work of the foreign ministry.

But now let us consider their organization for a moment. Sixty-three members with seven presidents, when the quorum is complete, constitute a quorum. Suppose you were to send an entire quorum of Seventy bodily into the world—I hope that will be done some day—you could break that quorum into groups of ten. You could send with each group a president. It should be remembered here that these presidents are equal in authority. The council of a quorum of Seventy is made up of seven presidents, not one president and six counsellors—but seven presidents, equal in authority. For the sake of order in administration, however, the right of initiative and presidency in the council is recognized as being vested in the senior member by ordination, not of age. And this principle is observed not only in the case of the first or senior president, but all down the line in the First Council, and in all quorum councils of the Seventies. By this simple arrangement all confusion as to the right of presidency is obviated; for no sooner does the council of a quorum, or any part thereof, meet, in any part of the world than each president knows at once upon whom the responsibility of initiative rests. But to return to the groups of ten into which the quorum can be divided, with a president for each group. You could break each group of ten into five pairs, and scatter them out among the people, to bear effectual witness of the truth of the gospel under the provision of the law of the gospel; for it is the law of the gospel, one may say, for the Elders to travel two and two, mainly for the reason, I suppose, that God has declared that he would establish, his word in the mouth of two or three witnesses; and it is good when bearing testimony to the world that there should be the legal number of witnesses provided for in the law of God. Moreover, there is a very much needed companionship and sympathy provided for when the Elders travel two and two; and they are a protection one to the other. You could scatter these groups of ten in one or more states or countries; and they could occasionally meet in group conferences, exchange experiences, give advice and counsel; after which refreshing they could again divide into pairs, scatter and so continue their ministry. Occasionally the seven groups of the quorum could be brought together in general quorum conference, to take counsel for making their ministry more and ever more effectual: to readjust methods; to plan new campaigns; to strengthen each other by a mutual exchange of experiences and sympathy; and do whatever else their combined wisdom, helped by the inspiration of the Lord, would suggest as right and proper to do in the furtherance of their high aim in bringing to pass the salvation of men. Such are the possibilities of a quorum of Seventy. It may become a veritable flying column of witnesses for God, sweeping the earth with the testimony of Jesus, and calling the inhabitants of the earth unto repentance! Can you think of this beautiful arrangement for the foreign ministry as having its origin in the alleged epileptic hallucinations of a man? Such a conception is palpably absurd, and utterly revolting to reason.

Turn now for a moment to the home ministry of the Church, and what have you? You have your stake organization, with its Presidency of three presiding High Priests, aided in their counsels and labors by the High Council of the stake, consisting of twelve High Priests. This council also constitutes a judicial body for the settlement of difficulties that may not be satisfactorily adjusted in the Bishop's courts. It is, however, an ecclesiastical court of original as well as of appellate jurisdiction. You have a Bishopric in the respective wards of the Church, constituting the local presidency of the Aaronic Priesthood, with quorums of Priests, Teachers and Deacons to aid them in the work of their ministry. The Deacons take care of the house of the Lord, and are to be assistants to the Teachers when occasion requires. The Teachers are the watchmen upon the towers of Zion, and it is their business to see that there is no iniquity in the Church—no backbiting, no faultfinding, and that the members attend to their religious duties. The Priests' duty is to visit the homes of the people and instruct them in the gospel. Where they have sons or daughters who will not be amenable to the instructions of parents, the priests with very great propriety could be invited to meet with and teach them the sublime truths of the gospel. In addition to these officers of the wards and the stakes, there is in each stake a quorum of High Priests, and one or more quorums of Elders. These constitute the standing ministry in the stakes of Zion, and are authorized to teach the gospel, to warn all men against evil, and to invite and persuade all men to come unto Christ. These are the provisions made for the home ministry, in the Church organization proper. Time will not admit reference to the auxiliary organizations—the Sabbath schools, Improvement associations, Relief societies, Primary societies, and Religion classes. But from the fireside of the people to the public assembly of worship; from the cradle to the grave, every provision is made for carrying on the work of the ministry, at home, instructing the Saints in the things of God, inviting all to come unto Christ; the object of the Church being to lift to higher, and ever higher levels the lives of the Saints of God, until they shall become perfect men and women in Christ Jesus the Lord. Such are the arrangements, in brief, for the home ministry.

Notwithstanding the clear distinction between the foreign ministry and the home ministry, the lines that separate them may be crossed on occasion. You remember how Paul compares the Church of Christ to the body of a man, and insists that every member and every organ is necessary to the perfect working of that organism; that the head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of thee; neither can the feet say to the head, I have no need of thee; nor the hand to the eye, I have no need of thee; all the members of the body, he argues, are necessary. Now, what would you think of a body that possessed a right hand and left hand, yet the right hand would not at need come to the help of the left hand; or the left hand refuse to come to the aid of the right hand? You expect the two hands and arms of a man's body to help each other, under the direction of the intelligence of the mind. And so in the Church of Christ: the home ministry and the foreign ministry cross the line of separation as occasion requires, and come to the assistance of one another in accomplishing the purposes of God. Sometimes the officers who are particularly charged with the foreign ministry help at home; the home ministry sometimes help in the foreign ministry; but all work harmoniously together.

Rising above both these great divisions of the Priesthood, the home ministry and the foreign ministry, stands, as the keystone in the arch, the Presidency of the Church, having control over both departments, and directing the work of God in all the world. No branch of the Church, however remote, is beyond their oversight. No Elder, let him be travelling where he will, is outside the pale of their authority. Talk of catholicity being one of the marks of the true Church of Christ, as our Catholic friends sometimes do, they shall find here in the Church of Christ a catholicity equal at least to their own claims. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church universal; and the President of the Church holds universal jurisdiction. Moreover, as Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Church he is the source through which God speaks, not only to this people, not only to the Church of Christ, but to all the inhabitants of the earth, and God will hold them accountable for the use they make of the words he shall speak through his appointed mouthpiece. Do not think that this man's authority is limited to this Church alone. All the inhabitants of the earth are children of God, and he will deliver his word unto them through his prophet. I rather like the idea that all the inhabitants of the earth belong to us—they are God's children, though some of them are in rebellion and will not heed the commandments of their Father just now. But here in the Church of Christ is the center of ecclesiastical government. Here shine forth those rays of light that will grow brighter and brighter until all the inhabitants of the earth are enlightened by them.

Now, what do you think of this effort of philosophy, as set forth by Mr. Riley, to account for Mormonism? How insipid, how foolish, how inadequate are the theories of men to account for the organization of this Church! The Church is its own witness! As the stars, "singing ever as they shine, proclaim the hand that made them is divine," so, too, this work,—the restored latter-day gospel—the Church of Christ—proclaims that it has a divine origin, and that there is in it a divine power working out the purposes of God. Then let the imitators go on. Let them choose "apostles," if they want to—and some of them have them; let them have "seventies," if they want to, and some of them have them; let them accept this doctrine and that doctrine until they shall have the complete organization and the complete doctrine in form, if they want to; but there is one thing they never can get, worlds without end, and that is the spirit of this work, which gives it life and power. This work will always be distinguished from the works of men, in that there will be imminent in it the Spirit of God working his sovereign will. And that is something they cannot imitate.

My brethren and sisters, I rejoice in the truth. I rejoice in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It satisfies me completely. It responds to the hungering of my spirit. It meets the demands also of my intellectual nature. And as I see the growth of intelligence among men, an increase of scientific knowledge, a broader understanding of the universe, a comprehension of the extent and grandeur of the works of God, I see in Mormonism that which rises up to meet this enlarged knowledge of men. Mormonism teaches man that he is a child of God; it tells him that he has in him divine elements that partake of the nature of God; that after the resurrection he will live forever; and that he may go on from one degree of excellence unto another until he shall attain unto something that is truly great, worthy of a God to give, and worthy of a son of God to receive.

I rejoice in these truths. They cannot be accounted for by any theory that refers their origin to hallucinations of an epileptic's mind: They are too substantial, too grand, too rational, too sublime, too soul inspiring, to have any such contemptible origin. Their own intrinsic value—their own self evident truth—the institution to which they are committed as to a sacred depository for the benefit of mankind—The Church—all this proclaims their divine origin.

NOTE. At the close of the above remarks, President Joseph F. Smith arose and said:

"While I realize, as you all do, doubtless, that it may be wholly unnecessary for me to say what I am going to say, yet I feel prompted to say it, and let it go for what it is worth. I have been delighted with the most excellent discourse that we have listened to; but I desire to say that it is a wonderful revelation to the Latter-day Saints, and especially to those who were familiar with the Prophet Joseph Smith, to learn in these latter days that he was an epileptic! I will simply remark, God be praised, that there are so many still living who knew the Prophet Joseph well, and who are in a position to bear testimony, to the truth that no such condition [as that suggested in Mr. Riley's hypothesis] ever existed in the man. He was never troubled with epilepsy. Of course, this may be unnecessary to say, after this fallacious, foolish, nonsensical theory—this "fried froth"—gotten up by vain philosophers to account for something they would like to destroy from off the face of the earth, but are impotent to do it."

FOREWORD.

"The Mormon Prophet," is by Lily Dougall, author of "The Mermaid," "The Zeitgeist," "The Madonna of a Day," "Beggars All," etc. The review of the book which follows was written at the request of the editor of the "New York Times Saturday Review," and appeared in that paper, impression of September 23, 1899.

II.

"THE MORMON PROPHET."

It was expected that sooner or later some attempt would be made to explain Joseph Smith, the "Mormon Prophet." Such was his character, such the importance of the religion he founded, so remarkable and thrilling the history of his people, that he could not be ignored.

Already of biographies there have been many, some written from the side of sympathy and belief in his prophetic calling; more from the standpoint of the polemic contemner. Even fiction before now has found incidents in his career and elements in his character that promised material for its purpose. But the fiction in the main has been "sorry stuff," utterly contemptible from its distortion of facts and sickening in its childish efforts to deny the Mormon leader or his people any honesty of purpose, uprightness of intention, or praise for what they have achieved. The latest work of Miss Lily Dougall, "The Mormon Prophet," however, does not belong to that class of fiction. Here, at least, we have a strong, clear-cut, purpose story, lofty in tone; its incidents easily within the lines of probability, and singularly free from the vulgarity of nearly all the writers of fiction who have made their work at any point touch Mormonism. It is an honest effort to account for Joseph Smith and his work; and, I may add, without depreciating any one worthy of consideration, that it enjoys the distinction of being about the first honest effort in the department of fiction to account for the Mormon Prophet. This, it must be explained, is not said in approval of the entire book or its purpose, but is said of the story as unobjectionable fiction and the honesty of effort upon the part of the authoress to solve what must have been to her, and what is to the world, a difficult problem.

That Miss Dougall writes from intimate acquaintance with the early history of the Mormons is apparent on every page; that she has followed the order of events, all acquainted with the history of our people well know; and if, as she explains in her preface, she has taken "necessary liberty with incidents," those that she has used have not been violently wrested, and those invented have not been much out of harmony with the facts of history.

The point at which her work is vulnerable is the point of view from which she treats her subject. In studying the character and achievements of Joseph Smith, she was evidently not ready to accept him as a prophet truly inspired of God, nor could she accept the theory of "conscious invention" as a reasonable explanation of his life's work; for, had that been the source of his efforts in rounding a religion, "it would not have left sufficient power to carry him through persecution, in which his life hung in the balance and his cause appeared to be lost;" nor could she believe "that the class of earnest men who constituted the rank and file of his early following would have been so long deceived by a deliberate hypocrite." "It appears to me," she explains "more likely that Smith was genuinely deluded by the automatic freaks of a vigorous but undisciplined brain, and that yielding to these, he became confirmed in the hysterical temperament which always adds to delusion self-deception, and to self-deception, half-conscious fraud." She calls to aid of her theory—and with marked skill, be it said—the inclination of the times toward superstition. "In his day," she remarks, "it was necessary to reject a marvel or admit its spiritual significance; granting the honest delusion as to his vision and his book, his only choice lay between counting himself the sport of devils or the agent of heaven; an optimistic temperament cast the die."

This is Miss Dougall's point of view in the treatment of her subject, and it is utterly untenable. The facts in which Mormonism had its origin are of such a character that they cannot be resolved into delusion or mistake. Either they were truth or conscious, Simon-pure invention. It is not possible to place the matter on middle ground. Joseph Smith was either a true prophet or a conscious fraud or villain. Had his religion found its origin in the visions of his own mind, without any connection with material objects, as was the case with Emanuel Sweedenborg, then there would have been room for Miss Dougall's theory; but the facts in which Mormonism had its origin had to do with quite a different order of things. The ancient record of America, revealed to Joseph Smith by an angel, and which was finally given into his keeping to translate, was no visionary book—no mere creation of an overwrought brain but actual substance, sensible to touch as to sight, consisting of golden plates, with length, breadth, and thickness. Each plate was about seven by eight inches in dimension, and somewhat thinner than common tin; the whole bound together by rings made a volume some six inches in thickness. These plates Joseph Smith claimed to have handled, and during the time they were in his possession—some two years—he frequently removed them from place to place in the most matter-of-fact way. Others saw and handled them, also, not only the three men to whom the angel Moroni exhibited them, and whose testimony accompanies every Book of Mormon published, but eight other men, whose testimony is also published in every Book of Mormon, testify that Joseph Smith showed the plates to them; that they saw and handled them, and examined the characters engraven thereon. It cannot be said that Joseph Smith and these men were self-deceived in such things; not even the "automatic freaks of a vigorous but undisciplined brain," could delude itself in such matters. The Book of Mormon plates had an existence, and Joseph Smith and others who testified to the fact saw and handled them, or they were conscious frauds and lied and conspired to deceive.

So with many other manifestations which the claims to have received. Many of them consisted of and conversations with resurrected personages—men of flesh and bone—who laid their hands upon the head of Joseph Smith and others who were with him. There was no chance for self-delusion or mistake to enter into such transactions, and no theory based upon the idea of Joseph Smith being "confirmed in the hysterical temperament" can explain away these stubborn facts, however well intentioned or skilfully worked out.

It is to be regretted that Miss Dougall has not extended her studies of Mormonism beyond the Nauvoo period; had she done so she would have escaped some errors that now appear in her work, such as treating seriously the story of the Danite organization, which never had any existence by reason of any sanction given it by Church authorities. Nor would she have assumed so largely the ignorance of early converts of Mormonism, upon which she depends strongly for the working out of her theory Joseph Smith's character. Here in Utah, in the past, we have had with us very many of those early converts to Mormonism; some of them are still with us, and could Miss Dougall have met them she would have found them people of rather superior intelligence and character, and not at all the ignorant and superstitious persons they are generally supposed to have been. Nor would she have committed the blunder of saying that Mormons revered but one prophet. While it is doubtless true that Joseph Smith will always hold a pre-eminence among the prophets in the Church, yet the Mormons believe that all the men who have succeeded him in the Presidency of the Church have held the same keys of authority, possessed the same rights, and exercised the same prophetic powers that were exercised by him.

In conclusion, let me say, it has been suggested that certain "claims made for the early followers of Joseph Smith were later repudiated by members of the sect." That is not true, so far as the Church is concerned. What individual members scattered over the country formerly occupied by the Saints, but over whom the Church has no jurisdiction—what they may have repudiated of Joseph Smith's early or even later teachings we cannot, of course, say; but for the Church, it can be said that not one of the early claims or teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith has ever been repudiated, nor is there any institution or doctrine of the Church, which did not arise from his teachings; for all of which he is morally responsible. Such changes as have taken place are but the natural developments of that which he founded.

FOREWORD.

This review of Mr. Harry Leon Wilson's book was submitted to several eastern papers for publication, but was not accepted by any of them. The refusal of the article by the several eastern publications to which it was submitted illustrates in a way the difficulties which the Mormon people have now for a long time met with in correcting the misrepresentations made of them, and from which they have suffered so much. Here was a book of no small pretentious the work of a popular author, pretending to deal with the historical facts and character of a great people much in the public eye, and very much maligned and seriously misrepresented by the writer of "The Lions." Yet no correction of this misrepresentation would be allowed by the publications to which this review was submitted. Mr. Wilson's book had a wide circulation, and every consideration of fairness demanded that the people suffering from its falsehoods should be heard if they asked for that hearing and presented their case in a proper spirit, and in a literary style suitable for such a controversy. Of the suitableness of the article I shall leave the reader to judge. After being rejected by eastern papers, it was finally published in the Deseret Evening News of October 5th, 1903.

III.

"THE LIONS OF THE LORD."

I have just read the "Lions of the Lord," by Harry Leon Wilson. An extended friendly review of it in a leading Utah paper volunteers the statement that "Mr. Wilson gained his principal information during a few weeks' visit in Salt Lake last fall, and some time spent over the Schroeder Mormon library, now in Iowa." No one can doubt the accuracy of the statement; the treatment of the theme bears every evidence of the author's hasty and shallow thought upon the subject with which he attempts to deal. But he "spent some time over the Schroeder Mormon library;" yes, and what is more, he was undoubtedly "coached" by Mr. Schroeder while at work in the library; for the salacious fiction which that "gentleman" of unsavory reputation in Utah used to serve up to the delectation of the readers of his "Lucifer's Lantern" is altogether too evident in Mr. Wilson's book, and justly entitled him to recognition as collaborator with Mr. Wilson in its production.

Since inadvertently the source of the author's inspiration and information is disclosed, a word respecting Mr. Schroeder, the should-be-recognized collaborator of Mr. Wilson, becomes necessary in this review. Mr. Schroeder is known to fame in Utah first as a lawyer who stands under the recorded public censure of the Supreme Court of the state of Utah for unprofessional conduct, as is witnessed in the tenth volume of the Utah Reports of the Supreme Court of the state. Secondly he is known locally as the collector of a library on Mormonism, in which prominence and preference is given to anti-Mormon works redolent of that putridity so delectable to men of debased natures and perverted tastes. Thirdly, and perhaps most prominently, he is known as the author, proprietor, and publisher of "Lucifer's Lantern," that may be described as an intermittent periodical-now some time since happily defunct—most worthy of its title and its author. It is into such hands Mr. Wilson unfortunately fell, and by such a person he was evidently "coached," in his study of Mormonism.

The evidence of all this, apart from the inadvertent admission of the friendly Utah reviewer, is to be found in the identity of the sewer-stench that attaches to the work of both; in the use of the same materials; and the adoption of similar methods. As for instance: A somewhat eccentric writer in the early days of the Mormon Church characterized a number of the prominent Church leaders under what was to him descriptive titles, such as Brigham Young, "Lion of the Lord;" Wilford Woodruff, "Banner of the Gospel;" John Taylor, "Champion of Liberty." This evidently appealed to the erratic and fantastical intellect of Mr. Schroeder, and led him to adopt as the title of his intermittent, and now defunct anti-Mormon periodical, "Lucifer's Lantern;" and on the title page of the last number of the "Lantern" he gratuitously invents for Lorenzo Snow, then President of the Mormon Church, the descriptive title—as he supposes—"Boss of Jehovah's Buckler." Now, Mr. Wilson having his attention directed to the descriptive title of early leading Mormon Elders invented by the aforesaid eccentric, though friendly writer, conceived the idea of making the chief character of his story of the number of those who had received such titles, and hence confers upon "Joel Rae," the character in his book about whom he centers all the horrors of his gruesome tale, the blasphemous title—"Lute of the Holy Ghost!" Or was it Mr. Schroeder; for one dreads to think that a man of the order of talents of Mr. Wilson could stoop to the low blasphemy of such a performance; while it is altogether in accordance both with the principles and practice of his should-be-acknowledged collaborator, Mr. Shroeder; for blatant atheism was and is the latter's pride and boast; and he was wont, as we have seen by his use of it in "Lucifer's Lantern," to ascribe fanciful titles to leading Mormons.

A word, in headlines, as to the story itself; that it is possessed of dramatic force, and literary merit will go without saying when it is known that its author is also the author of "The Spenders." That it deals with elements capable of being so combined as to produce the most intense human interest will be conceded when I say that it treats of religious fanaticism—the faith—"fanatic faith," that

"Once wedded fast
To some dear idol,
Hugs it to the last;"

of love—the theme of the ages, the one theme ever old and ever new—the theme perennial; with human passions and ambitions, the desire for that most deceitful end of all human ambitions—the desire for sanctity while living, and a reputation for holiness when dead. These the elements of the story; and now the incidents:

Joel Rae, "bred in the word and the truth" of Mormonism, if not born in it, returns to Nauvoo from a mission just upon the time that the last remnant of the Saints have departed from that ill-fated city. He finds that the home of his parents in the outskirts of Nauvoo has been destroyed by mobs; and that his aged father and mother were driven into Nauvoo, where they are for the time under the protection of an apostate family; that his fiancee, with her family, has turned from the faith, and she is only awaiting his arrival to ascertain if he will join her in her apostasy. This he refuses to do, and with his parents prepares to follow his expatriated people in their great westward movement. While being ferried over the Mississippi, the aged father of young Rae—the son not being present—is pitched into the river by ruffian hands and is drowned; his aged mother dies from the shock of the horrible murder; and young Rae, made desperate by those events, becomes a "Son of Dan," a supposed secret society of the blood and thunder order, oath-bound to "support the First Presidency of the Church of, Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in all things, right or wrong!" He forms one of the band of pioneers which Brigham Young led to the Salt Lake valley in 1847, and gives numerous evidences of increasing fanaticism, much to the delight of the Mormon leaders, which delight is here and there expressed in silly, blasphemous sentences of which the following is a fair sample: "When that young man [Rae] gets all het up with the Holy Ghost, the Angel of the Lord just has to give down!" In the new home of the Saints young Rae does his full share of both manual and spiritual labor. In the latter he succeeded too well since he preached better, worked more seeming miracles, and prophesied more than the other "Lions of the Lord." Brigham declares him "soul proud," and sends him to the Missouri river in 1857 to bring in the handcart companies, in which expedition he witnesses enough distress and misery to humble the most "soul proud" man alive, since the sufferings of the handcart companies from cold, famine and over toil is the result of his own bad judgement in starting late in the season. Arriving in Salt Lake, however, his fanatical preaching starts a "reformation," i. e., an outburst of wild fanaticism attended upon by murders, and voluntary submissions to secret executions, to atone for the commission of the more heinous sins. Rae's fanaticism makes him a participant in the Mountain Meadows massacre in which it falls to his lot to kill the young militia captain—Grimway—who had assisted Rae to leave Nauvoo, and who subsequently married the woman to whom Rae was betrothed. She, too, was with the emigrants attacked at Mountain Meadows, and Rae, after killing her husband, saw her murdered and scalped by an Indian. From the number of emigrants doomed to death Rae rescued a white-haired boy and the little daughter of his one-time betrothed wife, Prudence Corson. The boy he leaves at Hamblin's ranch, whence he escapes, swearing vengeance against Rae, whom he saw kill the father of the little girl—Prudence Grimway. The girl Prudence—named after her mother—Rae leaves at a neighboring ranch, claiming her as his own child, for whom he will later return. Haunted by the memories of the awful slaughter of the gentile emigrants at Mountain Meadows, he goes north, actively participates in the resistance to the United States' army under Albert Sidney Johnston, then entering Utah, but is disgusted with the final submission of Brigham Young to United States authority, and takes up his abode in a new settlement far to the south of Salt Lake City, and not far from the Mountain Meadows. Here his life of penance begins. In a spirit of self-sacrifice he marries a woman with but one hand, and a disfigured face. The hand she lost by having it frozen while pushing a hand cart in the belated company Rae had led to Utah years before. He also married another woman—a poor half-starved, cast off wife of a prominent Mormon Bishop; and later still, another wife, a shallow-witted, talkative creature who is a cross indeed to the "man of many sorrows." He takes under his protection also a poor imbecile man, the victim of a horrible, and unnameable mutilation; and a woman who had gone insane because her husband married another wife. The wives, to his honor be it said, were such in name only. This collection of the woebegone, with the child Prudence added, make up the Rae household. The girl Prudence becomes beautiful, of course, and is much sought by men of middle life already possessed of many wives, no less a personage than Brigham Young being among the number; and it is represented that the latter "suitor" had but to send word in advance to the foster father of his intention to marry the girl on his next journey south, in order to close the matrimonial incident, except the formal word-ceremony, and taking away the bride! But Miss Prudence had visited Salt Lake, and while there witnessed the performance at the theater of "Romeo and Juliet," which is sufficient to give her ideas of love and matrimony all her own. The balcony scene much impressed her; and ever afterwards became her ideal of expressed love. A few years of dreaming on the part of the maiden, and a few years of silent suffering on the part of Joel Rae, now the "little man of sorrows," then the lad of the Meadows, Ruel Follett, who escaped from Hamblin's ranch swearing vengeance on Rae and two other participants in the massacre, returns, seeking his revenge. He is now a young man, handsome, brave, strong, aggressive. But he is baffled in his mission of retribution. Two of the murderers he seeks are already dead some time since, and Rae is so pitifully weak and distraught by the haunting memories of that awful butchery that young Follett cannot find the heart to kill him; besides there is Prudence, who loves the "little man of sorrows" with true filial affection. The upshot of it all is that young Follett leaves to time the duty of taking off Rae—an event that cannot be long deferred, since the little man is fast hastening to the end of his earthly career; and meantime Follett insidiously woos Prudence, and wins her love; while she makes an unsuccessful effort to convert him to Mormonism. In all their readings, and conversations upon the Book of Mormon and other subjects connected with the Mormon religion, Follett is given an easy victory over the poor girl by the employment of covert sneers, slightly concealed sarcasms and tender ridicule. Meantime Joel Rae has lost his faith in Mormonism; he discovers that polygamy is wrong; the Saints abandoned of God; and on the occasion of Brigham Young paying his annual visit to the settlement where Rae lives, he tells the prophet and the people his discoveries. Anticipating the vengeance of the "Sons of Dan," Rae flies to the cross and cairn of stones erected on the site of the Mountain Meadows massacre, that he may die—according to orthodox dramatic canons—at the place where his awful crime was committed. He is followed by Prudence and young Follett, who come up to him at the cross erected by Gentile hands on the site of the massacre, where, in company with two Indians, they watched him peacefully pass away in a rather protracted death scene, to the accompaniment of an Indian tom-tom drum, and notwithstanding one of the redmen waves before his eyes the yellow scalp-lock which years before he had seen reeking with blood snatched from the head of the woman he loved. Young Follett and Prudence, as soon as the "little man of sorrows" is buried, leave for the east with a passing wagon train, and having been married by Rae a few minutes before his death, the reader is left to infer that they "lived happily ever after," in some eastern city, far, far away from fanatical Mormons, and their wickedness, where only monogamous marriages obtain, and conjugal happiness is never disturbed by the haunting fears of marital infidelities, or polygamy, simultaneous or consecutive.

I have been at the pains to give this rather full synopsis of the story, that my readers may be witnesses of the fact that Mr. Wilson has certainly massed enough of gruesome materials to furnish to repletion several chambers of horrors. Far be it from me to suggest that so prominent an author has stooped to the methods of yellow-backed, ten-cent novelists of a quarter of a century ago, in the matter at least of the quality and mass of incidents to be woven into story. This glance at the incidents of the story also reveals the opportunity they will afford the author for gathering into one view the bigotry, ignorance, weakness, fanaticism, and wickedness of individual Mormons, all to be interwoven with the mockery, sarcasm, ridicule, ribaldry, innuendo and insults of their enemies.

And now, as to the treatment of the theme. The author of the "Lions of the Lord" in his opening chapter—the prettiest piece of descriptive writing in the book—has drawn heavily upon, if he has not actually plagiarized from, the lecture of the late General Thomas L. Kane, of Philadelphia, delivered before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1850. Mr. Wilson heads his first chapter "The Dead City," meaning Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr. Kane opens his Lecture under the caption "The Deserted City," meaning Nauvoo after the departure of the last of the Mormons. Mr. Wilson makes his hero, Joel Rae, enter the "dead city" in "September." Mr. Kane enters "the deserted city" late in the "autumn." Mr. Wilson's hero "from a skiff in mid-river" views the temple on the hill top; presently "landing at the wharf, he was stunned by the hush of the streets." Mr. Kane "procured a skiff," and rowing across the river, "landed at the chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked and saw no one. I could hear no one move, though the quiet everywhere was such that I could hear the flies buzz."

The closeness with which Mr. Wilson follows Mr. Kane's beautifully descriptive passages, however, will best be seen and appreciated when placed in parallel paragraphs, as follows:

Mr. Wilson certainly has a remarkably similar taste to that of Colonel Kane for flowers and gardens. Young Rae meets Prudence in the gardens—now observe:

After Mr. Wilson had followed General Kane in the matter of flowers so closely, one marvels that he did not go with him as far as the "sunflowers and love-apples;" but General Kane was hunting "over beds of cucumbers," and perhaps the author of the "Lions of the Lord" found that his taste for vegetables did not run so closely with the General's in the vegetable line as in the matter of flowers. But seriously, does not the code of ethics in literature require that our rising young author should either have the grace to put these descriptive passages in quotation marks, or else frankly give the source whence he draws the prettiest bits of description in his much-vaunted book? In the event of the work reaching a second edition, I suggest that he adopt the whole of General Kane's description of "The Deserted City," for his opening chapter; for beautiful as his own is, it but shines with a borrowed light, and when compared with the General's it appears to great disadvantage.

A word as to the purpose of the "Lions of the Lord;" for Mr. Wilson's performance must be classified with the "purpose novel." Undoubtedly there is such a thing as instructive fiction, and the "purpose novel" has its place as one of the agencies which contribute to the enlightenment of humanity. But if it takes hold of our respect it must be, in harmony with the truth—though fiction, it must speak truly; and keep within the probabilities of the subject in hand. Or, to slightly paraphrase an utterance in Mr. Wilson's preface, if the writer now and again has to divine certain things that do not show—yet must be—surely this must not be less than truth. For a writer of "purpose fiction" to do other than this is to make himself as much liable to censure as the historian who would pervert the truth which he is in honor bound to state whether it fits in with his personal theories or not. In his preface, Mr. Wilson informs us that he designed to make a tale from his observations of western life in Salt Lake and Utah; but in his search for things on which to found his fiction he was so dismayed by facts so much more thrilling than any fiction he might have imagined, that he turned from his first purpose in order "to try to tell what had really been." "In this story then," says he, "the things that are strangest have most truth. The make-believe is hardly more than a cement to join the queerly wrought stones of fact that were found ready." Hence we are to be turned from considering his work as fiction in order to regard it as truth.

It is exactly at this point that I arraign Mr. Wilson before the bar of public opinion, and tell him that what he represents as true I denounce as false; and this quite apart from any books from which he has paraphrased much of the matter he weaves into his story. The trouble is that the sources whence he makes his deductions are as untrue in their statements as his paraphrases of them are. Mr. Wilson is as one who walks through some splendid orchard and gathers here and there the worm-eaten, frost-bitten, wind-blasted, growth-stunted and rotten fruit, which in spite of the best of care is to be found in every orchard; bringing this to us he says: "This is the fruit of yonder orchard; you see how worthless it is; an orchard growing such fruit is ready for the burning." Whereas, the fact may be that there are tons and tons of beautiful, luscious fruit, as pleasing to the eye as it would be agreeable to the palate, remaining in the orchard to which he does not call our attention at all. Would not such a representation of the orchard be an untruth, notwithstanding his blighted specimens were gathered from its trees? If he presents to us the blighted specimens of fruit from the orchard, is he not in truth and in honor bound also to call our attention to the rich harvest of splendid fruit that still remains ungathered before he asks us to pass judgement on the orchard? I am not so blind in my admiration of the Mormon people, or so bigoted in my devotion to the Mormon faith as to think that there are no individuals in that Church chargeable with fanaticism, folly, intemperate speech and wickedness; nor am I blind to the fact that some in their over-zeal have lacked judgement; and that in times of excitement, under stress of special provocation, even Mormon leaders have given utterance to ideas that are indefensible. But I have yet to learn that it is just in a writer of history or of "purpose fiction," that "must speak truly," to make a collection of these things and represent them as of the essence of that faith against which said writer draws an indictment.

"No one would measure the belief of Christians," says a truly great writer, "by certain statements in the Fathers, nor judge the moral principles of Roman Catholics by prurient quotations from the casuists; nor yet estimate Lutherans by the utterances and deeds of the early successors of Luther, nor Calvanists by the burning of Servitus. In such cases the general standpoint of the times has to taken into account." (Edeshiem's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, preface, page 8.)

A long time ago the great Edmund Burke, in his defense of the rashness expressed in both speech and action some of our patriots of the American Revolution period, said: "It is not fair to judge of the temper or the disposition of any man or set of men when they are composed and at rest from their conduct or their expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation." The justice of Burke's assertion has never been questioned, and without any wresting whatsoever it may be applied to Mormon leaders who sometimes spoke and acted under the recollection of rank injustice perpetrated against themselves and their people; or rebuke rising evils against which their souls revolted.

Mr. Wilson's book is a false indictment against Mormonism, and against the leading characters of the Mormon Church. The speeches he represents as falling from their lips, could never be recognized in the utterances of Mormons, either among the leaders, or the rank and file. The blasphemous phraseology was never heard in Mormon camps or pulpits. Such expressions as "When that young man gets all het up with the Holy Ghost, the angel of the Lord just has to give down;" or "Lord, what won't Brother Brigham do when the Holy Ghost gets a strangle-holt on him?" are blasphemies utterly impossible to the Mormon mind. Such expressions as the following, represented as coming from Brigham Young: "The Lute of the Holy Ghost will now say a word of farewell from our pioneers to those who must stay behind," is equally impossible; and so are many other speeches which he puts into the mouths of leading characters of the Mormon Church. Even this blasphemous phrase-name given to Joel Rae—"Lute of the Holy Ghost"—is not original with Mr. Wilson. It was a cognomen given to Ephraem Syrus, "the greatest man," says Andrew D. White, author of "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom,"—"the greatest man of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the 'Lute of the Holy Ghost.'" [A]

[Footnote A: Vol. I, p. 92 of work named in text.]

The most serious injustice Mr. Wilson does the Mormon people, however, the thing in which he most departs from the facts established, not only by history but by the decisions of the United States courts in Utah, is in that he makes the awful crime of the massacre of emigrants at Mountain Meadows, in 1857, the crime of the Mormon Church. Over and over again in fact he makes that charge, and represents his chief character, "Joel Rae," as seeking to take upon himself the sins of the "Church" for committing that crime; and in one place represents him as saying: "For fifteen years I have lain in hell for the work this Church did at Mountain Meadows." To bear false witness against one's neighbor even in matters that may be trivial, is a contemptible crime; but when in bearing false witness the charge is that of murder, wholesale murder, and that under circumstances the most revolting and horrible, the crime then of bearing false witness rises above the merely contemptible, and to be seen in its true enormity, must be regarded as bearing a due proportion to the crime charged. That is, next to being guilty of the crime itself must be the crime of falsely charging it to the innocent. I care nothing for the fact that the predecessors of Mr. Wilson, in works of fiction on the West have made similar charges. He will not be justified in following their evil example. A man of his standing in the world of letters, starting out to "try to tell what had really been," to write fiction that must speak "no less than truth"—he was under obligations both to himself and the people to whom his message should go, to investigate all the facts, and speak truly in harmony with them in every case.

It is not necessary here to enter into any argument or even produce the evidence that the Mormon Church was in no wise responsible, in no wise connected with the awful butchery at Mountain Meadows. The evidence of these things appear upon the very surface of our history in Utah, and also in decisions of United States judges who would only have been too happy to have implicated the Mormon Church officials in that awful crime if it had been possible. In fact they tried to so fix the responsibility, and failed. But it is enough here to tell Mr. Wilson, that he has Committed an act of injustice for which I would not like to stand responsible at the judgement bar of God; I am confident that he will be driven to the necessity of choosing between these alternatives: either that he has consciously spoken contrary to truth in the matter; or else he has given merely surface consideration to one side of the subject only which he represents himself as having considered profoundly; in either event Mr. Wilson has assumed a most serious responsibility.