MORMONISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume III, Issue 900, 2 October 1866, Page 6

MORMONISM.

Ltfr night a lecture on this .subject was delivered in Ebenezer Chapel, Itiley-street, Surrey Hills, by the K'ev. fi>. C. iient. The Chapel was well filled, and the chair was occupied by the i'.ev. Mr. Humphries. The lecturer said that ho proposed only to give a brief account of the rise ami progress of Mormonism ; to give a full and complete account and correct view of Mormonisui at the present day would be more than could be accomplished ill a single lecture, and lie warned his audience, therefore, that they should not expect too much, ii e alluded to the early history of Joseph Smith, showing liow this impostor had commenced practising oil the credulity of his neighbours at the early age of ten years, when lie represented that he had seen visions. At twenty-five years of age he commenced tho establishment ofhis new religion, his first disciples being his father and his three brothers. A lew weeks afterwards they numbered thirty, aud now they could he counted by hundreds of thousands, having a bible of their own—the book of Mormon—and numbers of zeaious missionaries. They had thriven in the midst of oppression, could boast of a complete orgauisation, and were in possession of great I wealth and power. Joseph Smith, however, possessed the three great elements of success, — impudence unbounded, novelty in his religion, and perseverance indomitable; aud any man, even at the present time might obtain sulllcient credulous persons to form a sect if he had only impudence enough. Smith had all this, and therefore he s on found himself at the head of a large and increasing body of ardent disciples. As to their doctrines, not to do them injustice, he would qvote their own words, and the. first witness he would call would be Joseph Smith himself; aud the rev. gentleui'm consequently quoted at length from Smith's own description of the mode in which he had first been led to enter on tho matter, and to discover the golden plates, the supposed translation from which now forms the book of Mormon. In reference to this dicovery it was mentioned that Smith had stated to some of the inhabitants of Palmyra, where he lived, that lie intended to have some lim with his parents. It struck Smith afterwards that something nore than I'un might-be made out of them. The lecturer next quoted from Oliver Cowdery, with reference to the discovery of the plates, and the subsequent visit of John the Baptist, to Cowderv and Smith, appointing them priests of the line of Aaron. He would now ask did an}' person ever see these plates, or copies of the original characters iu which they were written ? On this point,lie quoted from Martin Harris, who was one of ihe first to join the new sect. Smith, however, would not show him the plates, hut he gave him a copy of a portion oftiiem. This copy Harris showed to Professor Amnthon. The hook of Mormon was a duodecimo, of 000 pages, divided into parts or chapters, and purported to give a history of about a thousand years, from the time of Zcdekiah to the comiug of the Saviour. It was supposed to he written by Moroni, aud it undertook to trace the history of the aborgines of America from the time of their leaving Jerusalem to the time of their destruction at the hill at which the plates were found. At this hill, no less than two hundred and thirty thousand persons were slain in battle. Moroni, the writer of the plates, being the only man who escaped to tell the tal« aud to burr the plates. The plates were said to be written in reformed Jigyptiou, but the cvpy given to Harris, and shown to Professor Amphton, was declared by this learned nam not to bo Egyptian of any kind, and to be nothing more than a trick. The book however, abounded in errors of every kind. In the first place no reliance was to be placed upon Smith, who was denounced by his neighbours of Palmyra as nothing more than a lim* and impostor from', his youth up.; kTJien again, the plates were only six inches thick, but to contain all that they were said to contain they would require to be at least twenty inches thick. Why also had they not been written in Hebrew rather than in reformed Kgyptian ? It was said that this would have been done if the plates had been larger. Why then had they not been made larger It would have been as easy to hare made them one size as the other. Ihit the Hebrew would have been too easily traced, whilst the reformed Egyptian might, he anything. Part of the book of Mormon has been lost. Tho wife of one of the converts thought lhe_ whole an imposture, and her husband having part of the translation to copv, she took it away aud it was never again restored. Why should this have been wanting ? If translated once, it could be translated again. Utit, no. The book was lost, aud the dillieulty was met by Smith, who immediately had a vision in which it was declared that the lost book should not he translated again. A writer iu tho Athevcotm. had also pointed out that the use of the word Christ in the book was an evidence of imposture that was irrefutable—the word being not a proper name, but a Greek word, meaning the " anointed"—as the hook purported to be written in a character that was in existence at a time long before the Greek language was formed or had a being. Another point was that names of persons were used and passages were quoted that showed | that the writer must have had a close acquaintance with the JNJew Testament. The lecturer next gave, the history of the manuscript written by Solomon SpalJitig, intended an a romance descriptive of the original inhabitsntsof America, and handed over by .Spalding to a printer named Paterson. .-It Paterson's death the manuscript fell into tin; hands of Sydney kigdon, who became scribe to the new religion and was ranked as high as the great prophet Smith. Thelec-turer then traced the history of the Mormons from their first: collection in Missouri. Thence thev were driven across the Missis<-ip;,i, and settled at JVauvoo. in the State of Illinois. Hero the prophet Smith was engaged in a riot, destroyed a newspaper, surrendered to the civil authority to answer the charge and was then dragged out. of prison by the mob ami murdered, on June27th, ISI4, at the ageoflhirly-nineycars! He was succeeded by ih'igliam Voting; lint in IS to the troubles were renewed, and the Mormons ultimately quilted tho State, arid after great sufferings fixed themselves upon the Jjakc, iu IS IS. I'rom that time to the thev had advanced with wonderful rapidity. After giving a sketch of all that tlie Mormons had donj in improving the country in which they had settled, the lecturer observed-that tiiey now sent out missionaries, and established churches in almost every civilized country in the world • and to show how they proceeded in these countries, the lecturer quoted very largely from Mrs. Wood's account of the proc,-dings of brother Jarnm and the delusion of Mrs Peckerby, in the novel of Yerner's Pride. There was now in England no less than 3(1.000 Mormons, whilst over had emigrated ; and at a meeting held in this city in lSoo, it was stated that reports of great success had been received from missionaries "Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and l'i ew /jcaland. The lecturer then i proceeded to show the various points in which iVlormonism was entirely at variance with the precepts of the Uible, and eonchided hjr denouncing in forcible language the debasing effect that it had upon woman, and the materialism to which it bound the minds of men who followed its precepts. A vote of thanks was given to the lecturer by acelamntion, and after the benediction from tho chairman the meeting separated.—Si/i/.iry JTcruld. |