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wish, which induced him to act against his better judgment, and flee from the Gentiles. She wrote to him reproachfully for his cowardice, denounced him as an impostor, and asked him to give proof of his mission by facing the enemies of the church.

It was the Missourians-who had never forgiven the Mormons-who were mainly instrumental in inciting the mob at Carthage to murder the Smiths. Even their enemies acknowledged that they died manfully. Joseph was heroic in a sense rarely allied to meanness; yet every act of his life and all the circumstances of his death attest the cheat; still he was of no ignoble order.

A few months before the Prophet's death Professor Turner, of Jacksonville, Ill., saw him at Nauvoo, and thus described his personal appearance :

"He is a curious mixture of the clown and the knave; his hands are large and awkward, and he wears a massive gold ring on one of his fingers. He has a downcast look, and nothing of that straightforward appearance that characterizes the honest man. His language is uncouth and ungrammatical."

But this description of the Prophet's appearance is contradicted by other testimony, quite as reliable; and whatever he may have been from the commencement of his pretended mission to the time of his death, the mass of Mormons have been satisfied with him. His personal beauty and magnetism, it is said, controlled those who were about him. He made them believe he could work miracles, cast out devils; that angels visited him; that he had revelations, trances, and was the chosen Prophet of the "Latter-Day Saints." In one year he had thirtyseven revelations, which he said were from Jesus Christ. He began all his addresses with "thus saith the Lord." The New Jerusalem was ever in his mind and conver

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sation; but where it was to be he did not discover. associations were such as made him acquainted with the weak side of humanity, and he early saw that numbers were more convincing to the masses than intellectual attainments in point of religious influence. His "mission" grew with his years and his success, and he had far more power over the destinies of Mormonism than the Book of Mormon" itself.

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During his life he had an unquestioned influence over his wife Emma; she assisted him in every way to delude the credulous and unscrupulous; but a few years after his death she published a statement in the Quincy (Ill.) Whig to the effect that she had no belief in Smith's prophetic capacity, and considered his pretended revelations as the emanations of a diseased mind.

The following extract, from a criticism of books on Mormonism, is pertinent to the foregoing chapter. Author unknown. Date, January, 1880:

This ridiculous proposition to establish a Territorial Government within the bounds of a State has underlying it a desperate expedient to save Joe's neck from the halter which it richly deserved. Orrin Porter Rockwell, church murderer, then new to the business, but now the retired hero of a hundred murders, had been sent by Joe over to Missouri to assassinate Governor Boggs. "Port," as he is affectionately called at Salt Lake, shot the governor in the head, but, as he was comparatively inexperienced, did not kill him. On the 5th of June preceding the date of this petition, an indictment against Joe and Port was found in Missouri, and on the 7th Governor Ford issued a warrant for Joe's arrest, and surrendered him to a Missouri officer. He was rescued by the Mormons, taken on a writ of habeas corpus before the Nauvoo Municipal Court (!), and, of course, discharged. Governor Ford had been urged to call out the militia to aid in Joe's rendition, and in the petition it is proposed that the Mayor of Nauvoo (Joe) shall have the power "to call to his aid a sufficient number of United States forces, in connection with the Nauvoo Legion, to repel the invasion of mobs, keep the public peace, and protect the innocent from the unhallowed ravages of lawless banditti that escape

justice on the Western frontier; and also to preserve the power and dignity of the Union. And be it further ordained that the officers of the United States Army are hereby required to obey the requisitions of this ordinance." Joe did not get his Territorial Government, but the Illinois election was about to take place, and having three thousand votes to trade on, he was allowed to run at large a few months longer, until he was killed. If he had been taken over to Missouri, and given a fair trial, he might have saved his life by going to State's prison. "Port" was tried, but being advised in better season than Mr. Pickwick, proved an alibi," and is still an ornament to Salt Lake society and a shining light in the Mormon Church,

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CHAPTER IX.

Brigham Young's election to the presidency--The expulsion of the Mormons from Nauvoo in 1846.

AFTER the death of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the Mormons seem to have been in a state of bewilderment and indecision. It was one of the most critical periods in their history, and the question arose "on whom the mantle of the Prophet should fall." The most influential of the citizens of Nauvoo assembled to debate that question.

Sidney Rigdon had already assumed the role of chief functionary as of right, and had a "revelation" on this subject. He had strong claims to sustain this assumption of power. He had originated Mormonism, and had very important secrets in his custody; but he miscalculated his influence. He was unpopular, was distrusted, and it was known that Joseph had long kept him at arm's length, fearing to quarrel with him. Rigdon said his new "revelation" commanded the "Saints" to go to Pittsburg, Pa., and this contradicted all that Joseph had received, which indicated that Jackson Co., Missouri, was positively to be their final home.

Ten weeks after the removal of the Prophet, Rigdon was called before the high quorum of the priesthood to answer for his misdeeds. He refused to appear.

Brigham Young was in Boston, Mass., engaged in mission work, when he heard of the death of the Smiths, and hastened to Nauvoo as rapidly as possible after the news reached him, convinced of his right to govern the peo

ple. Next to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young was the ablest man in certain ways who has been brought into prominence by the Mormon delusion. The two men had much in common, and each had a keen perception. of the character of the other. Brigham was born in Vermont, in 1801, and removed at an early age to Livingston Co., N. Y., where he was a field-laborer. Later he was a house-painter at Canandaigua, N. Y. He joined the Mormons in 1832, at Kirtland, where his natural shrewdness and quickness were immediately recognized.

As one of the "Twelve Apostles" he soon became famous as a successful preacher, and Smith, with prophetic vision, in acknowledging Young's qualities as a ruler, remarked: "If Brigham has a chance he will lead the Mormons to hell." At Nauvoo, however, he saved them from destruction. He saw his opportunity, and had the wit and the nerve to embrace it. His first movement in this emergency was to make a public address accusing Rigdon of "manufacturing revelations," as having a spirit as corrupt as the devil," and declaring his mind was enveloped in darkness, and that he sowed dissensions in the church.

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The following portion of this address is curious as tending to prove Rigdon's complicity in the original fraud by which the "Book of Mormon" was palmed off on the credulous as a divine revelation-to wit:

"Brother Sidney says he will tell our secrets; but if he tells them, we will tell his. Tit for tat. If there is so much iniquity in our church, he is a black-hearted wretch not to have told it long ago;" and Young concluded with saying that Rigdon was the prime cause of all the troubles the Saints had had in Missouri and Illinois, and to retain him in the church was to bring

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