Joseph in Egypt (!); and on the 17th of August, at a General Assembly held at Kirtland, the Book of Doctrines and Covenants, together with the Lectures on Faith delivered by Sidney Rigdon, was accepted as a rule of faith and practice. In other words, the Mormons drew up their creed. On the 4th of January 1836, a Hebrew professorship was established at Kirtland, which one would have thought superfluous to a community which had for three years enjoyed the miraculous gift of tongues. Finally, on the 30th of April in the same year, the copestone was put to the edifice of spiritual despotism which Smith had gradually been rearing, for on that day, as was alleged, in the House of the Lord at Kirtland, the Saviour, Moses, Elias, and Elijah appeared to him and Cowdery, delivered to them the keys of the several priesthoods, and bestowed unlimited power in things temporal and spiritual.

While the internal organisation of the sect was being thus perfected, its numbers in Missouri went on increasing so rapidly that its opponents were both alarmed and enraged. Smith, Rigdon, and others had been forced to take refuge there in order to escape a sudden outburst of fury on the part of the mob in Kirtland, owing to the awkward stoppage of the Mormon bank there. On arriving in Missouri the prophet found the affairs of his church in the greatest confusion. Conflicts with the anti-Mormon mobs continually occurred, many outrages were committed, and several persons killed on both sides. Worse than all, a great schism (as it has been called), took place in the spring of the year, and the new religion seemed on the point of ruin. Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer (the 'three witnesses' to the Book of Mormon), charged with lying, theft, counterfeiting and defamation of the prophet's character, were cut off from the church, while others of its most influential members apostatised. Among these were Orson Hyde, Thomas B. Marsh (then president of the Twelve Apostles), and W. W. Phelps, who accused Smith in turn of being accessory to several thefts and murders, and of meditating a tyranny not only over the state of Missouri, but over the whole American Republic (!). The language of their affidavits, however (it must be confessed), strikes one as suspiciously extravagant; for example: 'I have heard the prophet say that he would yet tread down his enemies, and walk over their dead bodies that if he was not let alone, he would be a second Mohammed to this generation, and that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.' And finally, what deprives their accusations of any real weight is that the renegades themselves subsequently retracted them, sought forgiveness, and were restored to their former privileges. There can indeed be no doubt that violent language was used during this crisis, when foes without and within threatened the very existence of the sect. Toward the close of the year, the conflict assumed the character and proportions of a civil war—Smith himself and his brother

Hyrum being twice imprisoned and once sentenced to be shot. The most determined efforts, in fact, were made to expel the Mormons from the state.

This object was finally effected in April 1839, and the Mormons, to the number of 15,000, took refuge in Illinois. They purchased lands in the vicinity of the town of Commerce, and shortly afterwards changed the name of the place into Nauvoo, or the City of Beauty." The country was rich in agricultural resources, and the Mormons failed not to turn them to account. Soon,' says Lieutenant Gunnison, the colonists changed the desert to an abode of plenty and richness: gardens sprang up as by magic, decorated with the most beautiful flowers of the Old and New World, whose seeds were brought as mementoes from former homes by the converts that flocked to the new state of Zion; broad streets were soon fenced, houses erected, and the busy hum of industry heard in the marts of commerce; the steam-boat unladed its stores and passengers, and departed for a fresh supply of merchandise; fields waved with the golden harvests, and cattle dotted the rolling hills.' A site for the temple was chosen on the brow of a hill overlooking the town, and the building was commenced according to a plan or pattern which the prophet professed to have received by revelation. In the course of eighteen months, the people had erected about 2000 houses, besides schools and a variety of public buildings. The place became a populous and imposing-looking town. Joseph Smith was appointed mayor, and for a while enjoyed an undisturbed supremacy. His word was law; he was the temporal and spiritual head of the community; and, besides his titles of prophet, president, and mayor, he held the military title of general, in right of his command over a body of militia, which he organised (1841) under the name of the Nauvoo Legion.

As early as 1837, Kimball, Hyde, Richards, and other Mormon leaders had visited England and preached the new gospel. Lancashire has the doubtful honour of furnishing the first converts. On the 20th of July in that year, at Preston, the first Mormon baptism was performed by immersion in the river Ribble. It does not appear, however, that great success attended this effort; but in the autumn after the settlement at Nauvoo, a second attempt was made by a body of enthusiastic 'elders,' among whom was Brigham Young. They cunningly sought the great centres of industry, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow, South Wales, and by pictures of worldly prosperity, no less than by the magic influence of fanatical zeal, they charmed and led away multitudes of the 'weary and heavy-laden' poor, to whom the new faith had at once the zest of novelty and the allurements of an earthly Paradise.

At home, affairs did not run quite so smoothly as the prophet wished. Prosperity, in his case, unfortunately involved additional persecution. The more his followers, the more his enemies.

It

was dangerous to boast of the '100,000 Mormons in the United States, or to meddle in political elections. Thrice in 1841-42, Smith was arrested on a charge of instigating or attempting the assassination of the United States' authorities, and it gradually became clear to him that even Nauvoo could not be an abiding city. The result of his conviction was a prophecy that 'the Saints would be driven to the Rocky Mountains.' What probably strengthened this conviction was the development about the same time of a new social feature of his system, since become its most distinctive and perilous one: we mean polygamy. In 1842, it began to be whispered about Nauvoo that polygamy was secretly practised among what we may perhaps call the fully initiated Saints, the prophet himself setting a liberal example. It is, we confess, extremely difficult to ascertain what amount of truth was contained in the allegation. Our readers will remember that in the Book of Mormon polygamy is actually denounced, and that up to this date, twelve years after the formation of the sect, no evidence exists that the subject had seriously if at all engaged the thoughts of the Saints. What raised the marriage question into such startling prominence all at once, cannot probably be discovered. Of course, if we are persuaded (with his enemies) that Smith was simply a drunken and licentious reprobate, the explanation is easy. It was mere lust that provoked the new revelation; but when we consider the sobriety and decorum of household life among the Mormons (according to all candid observers), we will be slow to believe that their domestic relations however repugnant to our social ideas-have no better origin than the depraved appetites of one of the leaders. Further, it must not be overlooked that there is a large body of Mormons who positively deny that the prophet is the author of the 'revelation' ascribed to him, or that he ever lived in polygamous relations. That he did not openly live with more than one woman, is admitted by all. 'Emma, Joseph's wife and secretary, the partner of all his toils, of all his glories, coolly, firmly, permanently denies that her husband ever had any other wife than herself. She declares the story to be false, the revelation a fraud. She denounces polygamy as the invention of Young and Pratt—a work of the devil-brought in by them for the destruction of God's new church. On account of this doctrine, she has separated herself from the Saints of Utah, and has taken up her dwelling with what she calls a remnant of the true church at Nauvoo.'-Dixon's New America, sixth edition, vol. i., p. 321. Testimony to the same effect, and no less emphatic, is borne by the four sons of Joseph-Joseph, William, Alexander, and David-who have practically formed a great schism in the church. Under the name of Josephites, there exist, particularly in Missouri and Illinois, but also to some extent in Utah, considerable numbers of Mormons who denounce in the strongest language the doctrine of a plurality of wives. On the other hand, most of the elders stoutly

assert that the prophet had secretly taken or 'sealed' to himself a multitude of wives at Nauvoo, though Young alone seems to know anything about the matter. I was pointing out to him,' says Mr Dixon, the loss of moral force to which his people must be always subject, while the testimony on that cardinal point of practice is incomplete. If Joseph were sealed to many women, there must be records, witnesses, of the fact: where are those records and those witnesses? "I," said Young vehemently, "am the witness-I myself sealed dozens of women to Joseph." But Young at the same time admitted that his predecessor had no issue by any of these 'dozens of women.' The conclusion at which Mr Dixon arrives (after testing all the evidence to be gathered from friend and foe') is one in which we are disposed to agree. He says: 'These ladies, though they may have been sealed to Joseph for eternity, were not his wives in the sense in which Emma, like the rest of women, would use the word wife. I think they were his spiritual queens and companions, chosen after the method of the Wesleyan Perfectionists -with a view not to pleasures of the flesh, but to the glories of another world. Young may be technically right in the dispute; but the prophet's sons are, in my opinion, legally and morally in the right. It is my firm conviction that if the practice of plurality should become a permanent conquest of this American church, the Saints will not owe it to Joseph Smith, but to Brigham Young.'

But if the calmer and less prejudiced verdict of posterity is likely to free Smith from the imputation of having introduced the obsolete Turkish harem to the modern society of the New World, it was a very different affair with his Gentile contemporaries and enemies in 1842-44. Every wild slander was greedily caught up, and intensified by circulation. Women recklessly accused him of offensive conduct; apostates from the faith furnished the world with 'revelations' of his secret character; persons expelled from the Mormon community for misdemeanours of their own, kept up an incessant fire of malignant recriminations. Finally, in May 1844, a paper in Nauvoo, called the Expositor, and edited by some Mormon renegades, made the most specific and offensive charges against the prophet, who was then mayor of the city. A council was convened, and measures instantly taken to silence the defamers. The marshal and municipal officers, with a posse, destroyed their printing-press, scattering the types in the streets, and burning an edition of their paper. After finishing this work of demolition, they repaired to headquarters, and were complimented by the prophet and his brother Hyrum, and received from them the promise of some appropriate reward. This, however, they never got, for a grand and fatal outrage was presently transacted, which brought both the power and the life of the prophet suddenly to an end.

It being impossible to bring the Mormon mob to justice through the Nauvoo courts, the officer who undertook to deal with them

procured a county writ, and attempted to enforce it in the manner resorted to against ordinary offenders. But this attempt was opposed and prevented by the people and troops in Nauvoo; and when at length the militia were called out, Joseph Smith, as mayor and commanding-general of the legion, declared the city under martial law. Thereupon an appeal was made to Governor Ford of Illinois, who forthwith ordered out three companies of the state militia, to bring the prophet and his adherents to submission, and to enforce their obedience to the laws. An officer was despatched to arrest Joseph and his brother Hyrum; but to avoid the indignity, they crossed over the Mississippi into Iowa, and there remained to watch events, keeping up by a boat a correspondence with the Mormon council. At length (June 24), the governor persuaded them to surrender, pledging his word, and the faith and honour of the state, that no harm should befall them in consequence, and that they should have a fair trial. They accordingly repaired to Carthage, the seat of government, and were there indicted for treason, and, in company with two of their apostles, were lodged in the county jail.

It is related that the prophet had a presentiment of evil in this affair, and said, as he surrendered: 'I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am calm as a summer morning; I have a conscience void of offence, and shall die innocent.' As the mob still breathed vengeance against the prisoners, and as the militia sided with the people, and were not to be depended on in the way of preventing violence, the governor was requested by the citizens of Nauvoo and other Mormons to set a guard over the jail. But the governor, seeing things apparently quiet, discharged the troops, and simply promised justice to all parties. It now began to be rumoured that there would be no case forthcoming against the Smiths, and that the governor was anxious they should escape. Influenced by this belief, a band of about two hundred ruffians conspired to attack the jail, and take justice into their own hands. "If law could not reach them,' they said, 'powder and shot should.' On the 27th of June 1844, they assaulted the door of the room in which the prisoners were incarcerated, and having broken in, fired upon the four all at once. Hyrum Smith was instantly killed. Joseph, with a revolver, returned two shots, hitting one man in the elbow. He then threw up the window, and attempted to leap out, but was killed in the act by the shot of the assailants outside. Both were again shot after they were dead, each receiving no less than four bullets. One of the two Mormons who were with them was seriously wounded, but afterwards recovered; and the other is said to have escaped 'without a hole in his robe.'

Here, then, ends the life and prophetic mission of Joseph Smith. Henceforth, the Mormons are left to be guided by another leader. Of himself it has been said: 'He founded a dynasty which his death