baptized, and given the new name of "Electra Cyria," or "Daughter of God."

The following June (1830) the first Mormon conference was held at Fayette, and there were thirty professed Mormons present, showing that converts to the new faith were not rapidly made; but "the gifts" began to mainfest themselves. Smith was heard to say about this time, that he had "got everything ready to fix the fools."

The religious teachings of the "Book of Mormon❞ show the influence of the doctrinal questions that were being agitated in central New York in 1830-Calvinism, Universalism, Methodism, Millerism, Romanism and other forms of belief. Smith and Rigdon were inclined to be Millerites. They had at first vague ideas of the church they were about to establish. Millerism was attracting great attention at the time, so they settled on that doctrine, and that the Millennium was close at hand; that the Indians were to be converted; and that America was to be the final gathering-place of the saints, who were to assemble at the New Jerusalem, somewhere in the interior of the Continent. With the "Book of Mormon❞ as their text, they began to exhort.

Sidney Rigdon preached the first Mormon sermon in what is at present the Hall of the Young Men's Christian Association, at Palmyra, taking a text from "the first Book of Nephi"-part of the "Book of Mormon""And the angel spake unto me, saying, These last records which thou hast seen among the Gentiles shall establish the truth of the first, which is of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb; and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them, and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and peoples that the Lamb of God is the eternal father and Saviour of the

world, and that all men must come to Him, or they cannot be saved." The preacher ventured to try to establish the theory that the Bible and the "Book of Mormon" are one in importance and inspiration. He said that he was God's Messenger," to proclaim this truth, etc.

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This sermon made so much disturbance, that no "regular preaching" was afterward attempted by the Mormons in the immediate vicinity.

In June (1831) two elders were sent West to preach and found churches, wherever people would listen to them. They made numerous converts. Rigdon was already preparing the way, to tell of the new revelation in the vicinity of Mentor, Ohio. Palmyra being contiguous to Hartwick and Onondaga Valley, where the Spaulding manuscript was familiar to many people, the similarity of the two was discussed. Smith had a revelation" that Palmyra was not a place for the "Saints" to prosper in, or be recognized, and he talked vaguely of the New Jerusalem in the West, and announced that it was time for the faithful to remove with him to Kirtland, Ohio, that locality having been agreed upon between himself and Rigdon; and so the Mormons made "The First Hegira" in their tragical pilgrimage to the Westa tedious journey in 1832-as they moved onward in wagons, carrying their household goods with them. Smith was already called a "prophet." His family

followed him.

On this journey to Ohio a sister of Joseph was delivered of a lifeless female child, which, before its birth, it had been foretold would astonish the Gentile world as a second advent of a "triune humanity." The mother was unmarried, and the birth of the babe was to be miraculous; but it became pretty well understood that Rigdon was its father.

In the year of the first Hegira, 1831, the "work" had extended over several of the States, and a large number of converts had been made by the captivating and fiery eloquence of Cowdrey, Rigdon, Orley P. Pratt, and others; the more intelligent and the better educated in the cause had been sent out for that purpose.

These missionaries had no compensation, and this was one secret of their successful preachings. They braved every danger, "faced a frowning world," rejoiced in tribulation, blessed the saints, cursed their enemies, and sang and shouted Glory Hallelujah!

There had been as yet no whisper of polygamy. The Mormons were generally hated, but increased with astonishing rapidity after the year 1830.

They were a community which had all goods in common, and this fact threw a fascination over the new faith to thousands of uneducated and illiterate people. They heard scriptural expressions used by the leaders, and had but a vague idea of what it was they professed; there was a novelty about the movement that captivated them, and they were willing to be led on by insinuating men.

In the year 1832 Smith professed to have had seventyfive "visions" or "revelations." As the analysis of the "Book of Mormon" will show, it is merely a narrative of a people who in an early age inhabited America, its whole construction being Hebraic, and a servile copy of that of the Spaulding manuscript. There was no instruction in it for the conduct of the "Latter-Day Saints." At first neither Smith nor Rigdon, nor their immediate followers, knew what spiritual commands they required. But as events developed their needs, the angel Moroni, the same who delivered the golden plates, appeared to Smith from time to time, until he was killed at Nauvoo in 1846.

It is a remarkable coincidence that the "Book of Mor

mon" was printed fourteen years after "The Manuscript Found" was written by Solomon Spaulding at Conneaut, and it was fourteen years from the time the Mormons left Palmyra for "Sheinar," as they called Kirtland, to the time of Smith's death.

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Some of the people who remember Smith at Palmyra have described him as given to strong drink, and to have been thoroughly disreputable." Mr. Thurlow Weed remembers his personal appearance in 1830, and says: "He was tall and awkward in his manner, showed his low origin, and was impudent and bold.” At one time Smith affirmed that he was as good as "Jesus Christ,'' and he was given to showing his abundant self-esteem and egotism on all occasions.

Of the many reminiscences of the Mormons in Palmyra, is that of the trick that Stephen H. Harding, since Governor of Utah, when a mischievous lad, played on one Calvin Stoddard, who was a convert of Joseph's, and felt he "had a call" to preach the new faith. One dark, stormy night Harding rapped thrice on Stoddard's doorstep, and cried in a deep, sepulchral voice: "Calvin Stoddard, the angel of the Lord commands that before another going down of the sun thou shalt go forth among the people and preach the gospel of Nephi, or thy wife shalt be a widow and thy children orphans, and thy dust shalt be cast to the four winds of heaven."

Stoddard no longer hesitated as to his duty, but joined "the new faith," so ridiculed at the time, but which has since become such a mischievous power.

CHAPTER IV.

Sketch of Sidney Rigdon-Interview with General and Mrs. Garfield at Mentor, Ohio-Description of the Mormon Temple at Kirtland. Interview with General and Mrs. Garfield at Mentor in 1880, concerning the Mormons.-Description of the Mormon Temple at Kirtland, Ohio.

SIDNEY RIGDON was born in Alleghany Co., Penn. He had a fair English education, as well as a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At an early age he was a printer by trade, and is known to have been in Conneaut, Ohio, at the time Spaulding read his "Manuscript Found" to his neighbors. Major Gilbert is of the opinion that Rigdon took notes on such occasions for after use.

Everybody who saw this intelligent, well-educated, and erratic young printer, then and later in life, was impressed with his unusual ability and capacity for trickery; and it is easy to believe the report that he followed or preceded Spaulding to Pittsburg, knowing all his plans, in order to obtain his manuscript, or to copy it, while it was in Patterson's printing-house—an easy thing to do, as the fact of the manuscript being left carelessly in the office for months is not questioned.

Mr. Spaulding (as already stated) told his wife and intimates in the last years of his life that a young printer in Patterson's office, named Rigdon, had copied his manuscript while it was there; but he never said that he stole the original copy. Spaulding died in 1816. In 1817 or 1818 Rigdon, when about twenty-three or twenty