The Story of the Mormons:

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Mr. Howe adds this important statement:--

"This old manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing
witnesses, who recognize it as Spaulding's, he having told them
that he had altered his first plan of writing, by going further
back with dates, and writing in the old scripture style, in order
that it might appear more ancient. They say that it bears no
resemblance to the 'Manuscript Found.'"

If Howe had considered this manuscript of the least importance as
invalidating the testimony showing the resemblance between the
"Manuscript Found" and the Mormon Bible, he would have destroyed
it (if he was the malignant falsifier the Mormons represented him
to be), and not have first described it in his book; and then
left it to be found by any future owner of his effects. Its
rediscovery has been accepted, however, even by some non-Mormons,
as proof that the Mormon Bible is an original production.*

* Preface to "The Mormon Prophet," Lily Dugall.

Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, a great-niece of Spaulding, who has
painstakingly investigated the history of the much-discussed
manuscript, visited D. P. Hurlbut at his home near Gibsonburg,
Ohio, in 1880 (he died in 1882), taking with her Oscar Kellogg, a
lawyer, as a witness to the interview.* She says that her visit
excited him greatly. He told of getting a manuscript for Mr. Howe
at Hartwick, and said he thought it was burned with other of Mr.
Howe's papers. When asked, "Was it Spaulding's manuscript that
was burned?" he replied: "Mrs. Davison thought it was; but when I
just peeked into it, here and there, and saw the names Mormon,
Moroni, Lamanite, Lephi, I thought it was all nonsense. Why, if
it had been the real one, I could have sold it for $3000;** but I
just gave it to Howe because it was of no account. "During the
interview his wife was present, and when Mrs. Dickenson pressed
him with the question, "Do you know where the 'Manuscript Found'
is at the present time?" Mrs. Hurlbut went up to him and said,
"Tell her what you know." She got no satisfactory answer, but he
afterward forwarded to her an affidavit saying that he had
obtained of Mrs. Davison a manuscript supposing it to be
Spaulding's "Manuscript Found," adding: "I did not examine the
manuscript until after I got home, when upon examination I found
it to contain nothing of the kind, but being a manuscript upon an
entirely different subject. This manuscript I left with E. D.
Howe."

With this presentation of the evidence showing the similarity
between Spaulding's story and the Mormon Bible narrative, we may
next examine the grounds for believing that Sidney Rigdon was
connected with the production of the Bible.

* A full account of this interview is given in her book, "New
Light on Mormonism" (1885).

** There have been surmises that Hurlbut also found the
"Manuscript Found" in the trunk and sold this to the Mormons. He
sent a specific denial of this charge to Robert Patterson in
1879.

CHAPTER VIII. SIDNEY RIGDON

The man who had more to do with founding the Mormon church than
Joseph Smith, Jr., even if we exclude any share in the production
of the Mormon Bible, and yet who is unknown even by name to most
persons to whom the names of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are
familiar, was Sidney Rigdon. Elder John Hyde, Jr., was well
within the truth when he wrote: "The compiling genius of
Mormonism was Sidney Rigdon. Smith had boisterous impetuosity but
no foresight. Polygamy was not the result of his policy but of
his passions. Sidney gave point, direction, and apparent
consistency to the Mormon system of theology. He invented its
forms and the manner of its arguments.... Had it not been for the
accession of these two men [Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt] Smith
would have been lost, and his schemes frustrated and abandoned."*

* "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs" (1857). Hyde, an
Englishman, joined the Mormons in that country when a lad and
began to preach almost at once. He sailed for this country in
1853 and joined the brethren in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young's
rule upset his faith, and he abandoned the belief in 1854. Even
H. H. Bancroft concedes him to have been "an able and honest man,
sober and sincere."

Rigdon (according to the sketch of him presented in Smith's
autobiography,* which he doubtless wrote) was born in St. Clair
township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793.
His father was a farmer, and he lived on the farm, receiving only
a limited education, until he was twenty-six years old. He then
connected himself with the Baptist church, and received a license
to preach. Selecting Ohio as his field, he continued his work in
rural districts in that state until 1821, when he accepted a call
to a small Baptist church in Pittsburg.

* Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt.

Twenty years before the publication of the Mormon Bible, Thomas
and Alexander Campbell, Scotchmen, had founded a congregation in
Washington County, Pennsylvania, out of which grew the religious
denomination known as Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites, whose
communicants in the United States numbered 871,017 in the year
1890. The fundamental principle of their teaching was that every
doctrine of belief, or maxim of duty, must rest upon the
authority of Scripture, expressed or implied, all human creeds
being rejected. The Campbells (who had been first Presbyterians
and then Baptists) were wonderful orators and convincing debaters
out of the pulpit, and they drew to themselves many of the most
eloquent exhorters in what was then the western border of the
United States. Among their allies was another Scotchman, Walter
Scott, a musician and schoolteacher by profession, who assisted
them in their newspaper work and became a noted evangelist in
their denomination. During a visit to Pittsburg in 1823, Scott
made Rigdon's acquaintance, and a little later the flocks to
which each preached were united. In August, 1824, Rigdon
announced his withdrawal from his church. Regarding his
withdrawal the sketch in Smith's autobiography says:--

"After he had been in that place [Pittsburg] some time, his mind
was troubled and much perplexed with the idea that the doctrines
maintained by that society were not altogether in accordance with
the Scriptures. This thing continued to agitate his mind more and
more, and his reflections on these occasions were particularly
trying; for, according to his view of the word of God, no other
church with whom he could associate, or that he was acquainted
with, was right; consequently, if he was to disavow the doctrine
of the church with whom he was then associated, he knew of no
other way of obtaining a living, except by manual labor, and at
that time he had a wife and three children to support."

For two years after he gave up his church connection he worked as
a journeyman tanner. This is all the information obtainable about
this part of his life. We next find him preaching at Bainbridge,
Ohio, as an undenominational exhorter, but following the general
views of the Campbells, advising his hearers to reject their
creeds and rest their belief solely on the Bible.

In June, 1826, Rigdon received a call to a Baptist church at
Mentor, Ohio, whose congregation he had pleased when he preached
the funeral sermon of his predecessor. His labors were not
confined, however, to this congregation. We find him acting as
the "stated" minister of a Disciples' church organized at Mantua,
Ohio, in 1827, preaching with Thomas Campbell at Shalersville,
Ohio, in 1828, and thus extending the influence he had acquired
as early as 1820, when Alexander Campbell called him "the great
orator of the Mahoning Association". In 1828 he visited his old
associate Scott, was further confirmed in his faith in the
Disciples' belief, and, taking his brother-in-law Bentley back
with him, they began revival work at Mentor, which led to the
conversion of more than fifty of their hearers. They held
services at Kirtland, Ohio, with equal success, and the story of
this awakening was the main subject of discussion in all the
neighborhood round about. The sketch of Rigdon in Smith's
autobiography closes with this tribute to his power as a
preacher: "The churches where he preached were no longer large
enough to contain the vast assemblies. No longer did he follow
the old beaten track, ...but dared to enter on new grounds,
...threw new light on the sacred volume, ...proved to a
demonstration the literal fulfilment of prophecy ...and the reign
of Christ with his Saints on the earth in the Millennium."

In tracing Rigdon's connection with Smith's enterprise, attention
must be carefully paid both to Rigdon's personal characteristics,
and to the resemblance between the doctrines he had taught in the
pulpit and those that appear in the Mormon Bible.

Rigdon's mental and religious temperament was just of the
character to be attracted by a novelty in religious belief. He,
with his brother-in-law, Adamson Bentley, visited Alexander
Campbell in 1821, and spent a whole night in religious
discussion. When they parted the next day, Rigdon declared that
"if he had within the last year promulgated one error, he had a
thousand," and Mr. Campbell, in his account of the interview,
remarked, "I found it expedient to caution them not to begin to
pull down anything they had builded until they had reviewed,
again and again, what they had heard; not even then rashly and
without much consideration."*

* Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523.

A leading member of the church at Mantua has written, "Sidney
Rigdon preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extravagantly
wild freaks, he was held in high repute by many."*

* "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," by A: S. Hayden (1876), p. 239.

An important church discussion occurred at Warren, Ohio, in 1828.
Following out the idea of the literal interpretation of the
Scriptures taught in the Disciples' church, Rigdon sprung on the
meeting an argument in favor of a community of goods, holding
that the apostles established this system at Jerusalem, and that
the modern church, which rested on their example, must follow
them. Alexander Campbell, who was present, at once controverted
this position, showing that the apostles, as narrated in Acts,
"sold their possessions" instead of combining them for a profit,
and citing Bible texts to prove that no "community system"
existed in the early church. This argument carried the meeting,
and Rigdon left the assemblage, embittered against Campbell
beyond forgiveness. To a brother in Warren, on his way home, he
declared, "I have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or
Scott, and yet they get all the honor of it. "This claim is set
forth specifically in the sketch of Rigdon in Smith's
autobiography. Referring to Rigdon and Alexander Campbell, this
statement is there made:--

"After they had separated from the different churches, these
gentlemen were on terms of the greatest friendship, and
frequently met together to discuss the subject of religion, being
yet undetermined respecting the principles of the doctrine of
Christ or what course to pursue. However, from this connection
sprung up a new church in the world, known by the name of
'Campbellites'; they call themselves 'Disciples.' The reason why
they were called Campbellites was in consequence of Mr.
Campbell's periodical, above mentioned [the Christian Baptist],
and it being the means through which they communicated their
sentiments to the world; other than this, Mr. Campbell was no
more the originator of the sect than Elder Rigdon."

Rigdon's bitterness against the Campbells and his old church more
than once manifested itself in his later writings. For instance,
in an article in the Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland), of June,
1837, he said: "One thing has been done by the coming forth of
the Book of Mormon. It has puked the Campbellites effectually; no
emetic could have done so half as well.... The Book of Mormon has
revealed the secrets of Campbellism and unfolded the end of the
system. "In this jealousy of the Campbells, and the discomfiture
as a leader which he received at their hands, we find a
sufficient object for Rigdon's desertion of his old church
associations and desire to build up something, the discovery of
which he could claim, and the government of which he could
control.

To understand the strength of the argument that the doctrinal
teachings of the Mormon Bible were the work of a Disciples'
preacher rather than of the ne'er-do-well Smith, it is only
necessary to examine the teachings of the Disciples' church in
Ohio at that time. The investigator will be startled by the
resemblance between what was then taught to and believed by
Disciples' congregations and the leading beliefs of the Mormon
Bible. In the following examples of this the illustrations of
Disciples' beliefs and teachings are taken from Hayden's "Early
History of the Disciples' Church in the Western Reserve."

The literal interpretation of the Scriptures, on which the Mormon
defenders of their faith so largely depend,--as for explanations
of modern revelations, miracles, and signs,--was preached to so
extreme a point by Ohio Disciples that Alexander Campbell had to
combat them in his Millennial Harbinger. An outcome of this
literal interpretation was a belief in a speedy millennium,
another fundamental belief of the early Mormon church. "The hope
of the millennial glory," says Hayden, "was based on many
passages of the Holy Scriptures.... Millennial hymns were learned
and sung with a joyful fervor.... It is surprising even now, as
memory returns to gather up these interesting remains of that
mighty work, to recall the thorough and extensive knowledge which
the convert quickly obtained. Nebuchadnezzar's vision... many
portions of the Revelation were so thoroughly studied that they
became the staple of the common talk." Rigdon's old Pittsburg
friend, Scott, in his report as evangelist to the church
association at Warren in 1828, said: "Individuals eminently
skilled in the word of God, the history of the world, and the
progress of human improvements see reasons to expect great
changes, much greater than have yet occurred, and which shall
give to political society and to the church a different, a very
different, complexion from what many anticipate. The
millennium--the millennium described in the Scriptures--will
doubtless be a wonder, a terrible wonder, to all."

Disciples' preachers understood that they spoke directly for God,
just as Smith assumed to do in his "revelations." Referring to
the preaching of Rigdon and Bentley, after a visit to Scott in
March, 1828, Hayden says, "They spoke with authority, for the
word which they delivered was not theirs, but that of Jesus
Christ." The Disciples, like the Mormons, at that time looked for
the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Scott* was an enthusiastic
preacher of this. "The fourteenth chapter of Zechariah," says
Hayden, "was brought forward in proof--all considered as
literal-- that the most marvellous and stupendous physical and
climatic changes were to be wrought in Palestine; and that Jesus
Christ the Messiah was to reign literally in Jerusalem, and in
Mount Zion, and before his ancients, gloriously."

* "In a letter to Dr. Richardson, written in 1830, he [Scott]
says the book of Elias Smith on the prophecies is the only
sensible work on that subject he had seen. He thinks this and
Crowley on the Apocalypse all the student of the Bible wants. He
strongly commends Smith's book to the doctor. This seems to be
the origin of millennial views among us. Rigdon, who always
caught and proclaimed the last word that fell from the lips of
Scott or Campbell, seized these views (about the millennium and
the Jews) and, with the wildness of his extravagant nature,
heralded them everywhere."--"Early History of the Disciples'
Church in the Western Reserve," p. 186.

Campbell taught that "creeds are but statements, with few
exceptions, of doctrinal opinion or speculators' views of
philosophical or dogmatic subjects, and tended to confusion,
disunion, and weakness." Orson Pratt, in his "Divine Authenticity
of the Book of Mormon," thus stated the early Mormon view on the
same subject: "If any man or council, without the aid of
immediate revelation, shall undertake to decide upon such
subjects, and prescribe 'articles of faith' or 'creeds' to govern
the belief or views of others, there will be thousands of
well-meaning people who will not have confidence in the
productions of these fallible men, and, therefore, frame creeds
of their own.... In this way contentions arise."

Finally, attention may be directed to the emphatic declarations
of the Disciples' doctrine of baptism in the Mormon Bible:--

"Ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye
baptize them.... And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and
come forth again out of the water."--3 Nephi Xi. 23, 26.

"I know that it is solemn mockery before God that ye should
baptize little children.... He that supposeth that little
children need baptism is in the gall of bitterness and in the
bond of iniquity; for he hath neither faith, hope, nor charity;
wherefore, should he be cut off while in the thought, he must go
down to hell. For awful is the wickedness to suppose that God
saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must perish
because he hath no baptism."--Moroni viii. 9, x¢, 15.

There are but three conclusions possible from all this: that the
Mormon Bible was a work of inspiration, and that the agreement of
its doctrines with Disciples' belief only proves the correctness
of the latter; that Smith, in writing his doctrinal views, hit on
the Disciples' tenets by chance (he had had no opportunity
whatever to study them); or, finally, that some Disciple, learned
in the church, supplied these doctrines to him.

Advancing another step in the examination of Rigdon's connection
with the scheme, we find that even the idea of a new Bible was
common belief among the Ohio Disciples who listened to Scott's
teaching. Describing Scott's preaching in the winter of
1827-1828, Hayden says:--

"He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original
apostolic order which would restore to the church the ancient
gospel as preached by the apostles. The interest became an
excitement; ...the air was thick with rumors of a 'new religion,'
a 'new Bible.'"

Next we may cite two witnesses to show that Rigdon had a
knowledge of Smith's Bible in advance of its publication. His
brother-in-law, Bentley, in a letter to Walter Scott dated
January 22, 1841, said, "I know that Sidney Rigdon told me there
was a book coming out, the manuscript of which had been found
engraved on gold plates, as much as two years before the Mormon
book made its appearance or had been heard of by me."*

* Millennial Harbinger, 1844, p. 39. The Rev. Alexander Campbell
testified that this conversation took place in his presence.

One of the elders of the Disciples' church was Darwin Atwater, a
farmer, who afterward occupied the pulpit, and of whom Hayden
says, "The uniformity of his life, his undeviating devotion, his
high and consistent manliness and superiority of judgment, gave
him an undisputed preeminence in the church." In a letter to
Hayden, dated April 26, 1873, Mr. Atwater said of Rigdon: "For a
few months before his professed conversion to Mormonism it was
noticed that his wild extravagant propensities had been more
marked. That he knew before the coming of the Book of Mormon is
to me certain from what he said during the first of his visits at
my father's, some years before. He gave a wonderful description
of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of
America, and said that they must have been made by the
aborigines. He said there was a book to be published containing
an account of those things. He spoke of these in his eloquent,
enthusiastic style, as being a thing most extraordinary. Though a
youth then, I took him to task for expending so much enthusiasm
on such a subject instead of things of the Gospel. In all my
intercourse with him afterward he never spoke of antiquities, or
of the wonderful book that should give account of them, till the
Book of Mormon really was published. He must have thought I was
not the man to reveal that to."*

* "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," p. 239.

Dr. Storm Rosa, a leading physician of Ohio, in, a letter to the
Rev. John Hall of Ashtabula, written in 1841, said: "In the early
part of the year 1830 I was in company with Sidney Rigdon, and
rode with him on horseback for a few miles.... He remarked to me
that it was time for a new religion to spring up; that mankind
were all right and ready for it."*

* "Gleanings by the Way," p. 315.

Having thus established the identity of the story running through
the Spaulding manuscript and the historical part of the Mormon
Bible, the agreement of the doctrinal part of the latter with
what was taught at the time by Rigdon and his fellow-workers in
Ohio, and Rigdon's previous knowledge of the coming book, we are
brought to the query: How did the Spaulding manuscript become
incorporated in the Mormon Bible?

It could have been so incorporated in two ways: either by coming
into the possession of Rigdon and being by him copied and placed
in Smith's hands for "translation," with the theological parts
added;* or by coming into possession of Smith in his wanderings
around the neighborhood of Hartwick, and being shown by him to
Rigdon. Every aspect of this matter has been discussed by Mormon
and non-Mormon writers, and it can only be said that definite
proof is lacking. Mormon disputants set forth that Spaulding
moved from Pittsburg to Amity in 1814, and that Rigdon's first
visit to Pittsburg occurred in 1822. On the other hand, evidence
is offered that Rigdon was a "hanger around" Patterson's
printing-office, where Spaulding offered his manuscript, before
the year 1816, and the Rev. John Winter, M.D., who taught school
in Pittsburg when Rigdon preached there, and knew him well,
recalled that Rigdon showed him a large manuscript which he said
a Presbyterian minister named Spaulding had brought to the city
for publication. Dr. Winter's daughter wrote to Robert Patterson
on April 5, 1881: "I have frequently heard my father speak of
Rigdon having Spaulding's manuscript, and that he had gotten it
from the printers to read it as a curiosity; as such he showed it
to father, and at that time Rigdon had no intention of making the
use of it that he afterward did." Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, in a
report of a talk with General and Mrs. Garfield on the subject at
Mentor, Ohio, in 1880, reports Mrs. Garfield as saying "that her
father told her that Rigdon in his youth lived in that
neighborhood, and made mysterious journeys to Pittsburg."*** She
also quotes a statement by Mrs. Garfield's** father, Z. Rudolph,
"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."**** Tucker says that in the
summer of 1827 "a mysterious stranger appears at Smith's
residence, and holds private interviews with the far-famed
money-digger.... It was observed by some of Smith's nearest
neighbors that his visits were frequently repeated." Again, when
the persons interested in the publication of the Bible were so
alarmed by the abstraction of pages of the translation by Mrs.
Harris, "the reappearance of the mysterious stranger at Smith's
was," he says, "the subject of inquiry and conjecture by
observers from whom was withheld all explanation of his identity
or purpose."*****

* "Rigdon has not been in full fellowship with Smith for more
than a year. He has been in his turn cast aside by Joe to make
room for some new dupe or knave who, perhaps, has come with more
money. He has never been deceived by Joe. I have no doubt that
Rigdon was the originator of the system, and, fearing for its
success, put Joe forward as a sort of fool in the play."--Letter
from a resident near Nauvoo, quoted in the postscript to
Caswall's "City of the Mormons". (1843)

** For a collection of evidence on this subject, see Patterson's
"Who Wrote the Mormon Bible?"

**(Scribner's Magazine, October, 1881.

*** "New Light on Mormonism," p. 252.

***** "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," pp. 28, 46.

In a historical inquiry of this kind, it is more important to
establish the fact that a certain thing WAS DONE than to prove
just HOW or WHEN it was done. The entire narrative of the steps
leading up to the announcement of a new Bible, including Smith's
first introduction to the use of a "peek-stone" and his original
employment of it, the changes made in the original version of the
announcement to him of buried plates, and the final production of
a book, partly historical and partly theological, shows that
there was behind Smith some directing mind, and the only one of
his associates in the first few years of the church's history who
could have done the work required was Sidney Rigdon.