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. 1817 or 1818 Rigdon, when about twenty-three or twenty

In

four years of age, became an orthodox preacher, but soon gave utterance to strange doctrines, which were recognized later as derived from Spaulding's manuscript. He wandered about through the interior and northern part of Pennsylvania, preaching here and there, as opportunity afforded, and then abandoned the practice, as he said “to study the Bible.”

In this interval he met Joseph Smith, as it is believed, through the ubiquitous tin peddler, Orley B. Pratt. For two years he dogged the footsteps of Smith, was frequently in Palmyra and its vicinity, and was the master mind in the preparations for this "Peeker" and moneydigger in the discovery of the golden plates in Cummorah Hill.

While these preparations were being slowly made, through lack of funds, Rigdon became a Campbellite preacher at Mentor, Ohio.

Mr. F. Rudolph, father of Mrs. Garfield (see Appendix No. 11), knew Sidney Rigdon very well, and from him the statement comes that “ during the winter previous to the appearance of the Book of Mormon' Rigdon was in the habit of spending weeks away from his home, going no one knew where, and that he often appeared very preoccupied, and would indulge in dreamy, imaginative talk, which puzzled those who listened." When the "Book of Mormon" appeared, and Rigdon joined in the advocacy of the new religion, the suspicion was at once aroused that he was one of the framers of the new doctrines, and probably was not ignorant of the authorship of the "Book of Mormon."

Rigdon was versatile in his gifts, had a keen wit, was shrewd, given to discussion on theological and scientific topics, and was considered wily and unprincipled.

The followers of this remarkable man were now being

prepared for some new ism, and his preaching was talked of far and near.

Of course the excitement concerning Joe Smith and his new Mormon doctrines at Palmyra, and through central and western New York, spread into northern Ohio ; and when "The First Hegira" took place, in 1832, and the Mormons were at Conneaut, Rigdon was prepared to meet them and to affect to be converted to the new faith. Near his residence in Kirtland there had been for some time previous a few families belonging to his congregation who had formed themselves into a community or common-stock society; they had become fanatical, and were daily looking for some wonderful event to take place in the world. They were prepared to embrace Mormonism, or any other ism. Seventeen of these people believed the whole story which was related to them of the finding of the plates, and were all baptized in one night.

At this time Rigdon said he had never been satisfied in his religious yearnings, and that at night he had often been unable to sleep, walking and praying for more light and comfort in his religion. But while in the midst of this agony he heard of the revelations to Joe Smith, and his soul suddenly found peace, as they filled all his aspirations. In 1831 the Mormons settled at Kirtland, Lake Co., three miles from Mentor, and here Rigdon joined them. He had no property to offer them, but from this time openly advocated their doctrines, preaching to crowds of people who gathered to hear his eloquent discourse, and over whom he seemed to have a wonderful power, and such influence that it is felt to the present day in that vicinity. A Presbyterian clergyman of Painesville, Ohio, informed the writer in November, 1880, that all the northern part of the State is permeated with the doctrines of the early Mormons. A graphic account of