MORMONS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, 23 August 1923, Page 5

MORMONS.

To the Editor. Sir, —I desire to as briefly as possible reply to a letter re the above appearing in your issue of August 15th. 'Mr. Jones opens his letter witK a mere quibble. He quotes from my letter of July 24th wherein I dealt with the members of the above Church in general. He then hops it to my letter of July 7th. However I am satisfied that those of your readers with an unbiased mind plainly understand my references to the foregoing. Mr. Jones says that the right of young Joseph to succeed his father was advocated as early as 1844 or 14 clays after the m&rtyrdom. He. produces several witnesses and I am going to take them in the order mentioned and test them for what their evidence is worth. Witness No. I.—A mere speculative statement by a newspaper cannot be held to be sound evidence especially when we find that those who ought

to have been in the know as to whether young Joseph was set apart to be his father’s successor failed to make mention of the fact when the question of succession was so warm-. [iy discussed immediately and for' some time after the martyrdom. Witness No. 2.—Mr Jones says that William Smith advocated the right of Joseph Junr. in 1845. Mr. Jones there are 52 weeks in a year and unfortunately William Smith was one of those chaps who found it much easier to change his mind than anything else. In May, 1845, William said that the twelve were the proper persons to lead the Church. In October of the same year he was excommunicated from the Church; it was after this that we find him advocating the rights of Joseph Junr. To further prove my statement that William' could very easily change his mind we find that he later joined joined Strang’s Church and supported him as the Successor, until he was excommunicated from that cult. We later find him prominent in the socalled re-organisation. I was nearly forgetting to mention that William also put forward his own claims as

the Successor. Witness No. 3 Hyman (Lyman) Wight gathered a little flock around him and wandered off down into Texas and neither he nor John S.

Carter put forward the claims of Joseph Junr. in 1844. I put it to you Sir, that the whole of the evidence that the Reorganised Church has so far produced is entirely unreliable. I have finished my examination of the witnesses and I will leave the judge (your readers) to do the summing up and in conclusion I wish to point out that both Mr. McConley and ' Mri < Jones have been silent so far as the

article that appeared in their first issue of the Saints’ Herald in reference to a certain Revelation. Remember this Mr. Jones, that Joseph Smith the Prophet, held office as President of the Church by the voice of the people and had they desired someone else as president they would have been within their rights in choosing him but all this could not affect Joseph Smith’s position as Prophet to the Church. I am etc. SID ENSOR.