wickedly I did,
And God’s laws I did forbid,
As I sailed, as I sailed.”

A certain superstitious feeling concerning the Smith family existed in the minds of their more ignorant neighbors on account of the reputation which Mrs. Smith had for telling fortunes. She seems to have been a woman full of odd conceits and superstitions, while at the same time she possessed a great deal of natural talent; and Joseph resembled his mother in mental quickness and imaginative power.

When he was scarcely fifteen years old, while he was watching the digging of a well, he said that he found a peculiarly shaped stone that resembled a child’s foot in its outlines. It must have resembled the stone foot of Buddha at Bangkok, Siam. At any rate, it has well been said that this foot “has left footprints on the sands of time.” This little stone, afterward known as the “peek-stone” and the “Palmyra seer-stone,” has been called “the acorn of the Mormon oak.”

For some time Joseph Smith obtained a subsistence by means of that stone. In a kneeling posture, with a bandage over his eyes (so luminous was the sight without it), with the stone in a large, white stove-pipe hat, and this hat in front of his face, he claimed to see very remarkable sights, such as buried treasures of gold and silver. He could trace stolen property, tell where herds of cattle had strayed and where water could be found. With the “peeker” he carried a rod of witch-hazel, which assisted him in the discovery of water.

This state of affairs continued for some time. Then he disappeared, and for four years his life is involved in much mystery; but during that time he is known to have been in both Onondaga and Shenango counties, N. Y., since his name appears in the criminal records of both as a vagabond. While he was wandering through the country during those years of mystery, he doubtless heard the theories (as they were a common topic of conversation at the time) that were afloat to account for the peopling of America—the traditions collected from the Indians, the Hebrew traditions among them, the discovery of ruined cities and temples in Central America, the relics of pottery, and the bricks and stumps of axe-cut trees buried far beneath the surface of the Mississippi.

During that time, also, he became interested in the great revivals that prevailed in the churches of the different denominations in the vicinity of his home at Palmyra. In 1821 five of the Smith family were awakened, and united with the Presbyterian Church. Joseph, in his own account of his early life, says that he “became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect,” but he was not able to decide which was right. In his bewilderment he gave himself up to prayer for days, that the truth might be made known to him among all the conflicting opinions that he heard among these different sects; and finally a heavenly messenger bade him not to join any sect. And three years afterward, on September 22d, 1823, another celestial visitant outlined to him about the golden plates he was to find and the prophet he was to be. He was told that the North American Indians were a remnant of Israel, the descendants of a certain family of Jews that emigrated from Jerusalem in the time of Zedekiah, and were miraculously led across the Eastern Ocean; and he was also told that before they had fallen off from the faith a priest and prophet named Mormon had, by direction of God, drawn up an abstract of their national records and religious opinions, and buried it, and that he himself was selected to recover and publish it to the world. He was also told that it contained many prophecies relating to these “latter days,” and would give instructions as to “the gathering of the Saints” into a temporal and spiritual kingdom, preparatory to the second coming of the Messiah, which was at hand.

From that time on he declares that his days and nights were filled with “visions,” “voices,” and “angels;” and, following the direction of an angel, on the night of September 22d, 1827, amid a grand display of celestial pyrotechnics, he received from the hand of the angel Moroni, the son of Mormon, a chest that contained a number of golden tablets with inscriptions, and with them a pair of stone spectacles by means of which he was to decipher the characters. It is asserted that these plates were seen by eleven persons, but all of them except three were members of Smith’s family or his near neighbors. The plates themselves disappeared soon after the publication of the “Book of Mormon,” and it is understood that the angel took them again into his custody.

The tablets, Smith said, were covered with hieroglyphics, which he called the “reformed Egyptian” language. A document was actually exhibited as a confirmation of this assertion, and was seen by Professor Charles Anthon, of Columbia College, New York City, who in a letter dated February 17th, 1834, relates that it was in fact a singular scroll, containing a mixture of Greek, Hebrew, and Roman letters, with crosses and flourishes, and a Mexican calendar given by Humboldt, but altered so that it could not be well recognized.

For more than two years, by the aid of the stone spectacles, Smith was engaged in translating the hieroglyphics into English. In March, 1830, the translation was given into the printer’s hands, was published under the title of the “Book of Mormon,” and that book is the corner-stone of that great Modern Delusion called Mormonism. A delusion the writer prefers to call it rather than “the Latter-day swindle,” as Joseph Cook and many others denominate it.

There are TWO VIEWS that may be taken of Joseph Smith by the Christian world. One is that he was a base swindler, and concocted the Mormon scheme with the express purpose of deluding the people; the other is that he was a religious enthusiast, deceived and deluded himself. Arguments may be adduced in support of either theory, and which are the stronger is a question which every man must settle for himself.

1. On the one hand, it may be said that Smith’s former life is in strict accord with the theory that his scheme was a deliberate fraud; for he swindled many of his neighbors with his “peek-stone.”

But, on the other hand, it may be said that it is not so certain that he was not himself deceived with regard to that matter also. At any rate, his naturally superstitious and imaginative mind, which he inherited from his mother, would strongly favor the idea that he really thought he saw visions and heard voices. Even Joseph Cook says, in an address delivered in Salt Lake City, May 17th, 1884: “I am not sure that he did not have in his experience some spiritistic manifestations, which he mistook for a revelation; but I am sure that if he had any superhuman revelation, it came from below the earth rather than from above it.”

2. Again, in support of the swindling theory, it may be said that, apart from the “peek-stone” business, his previous immoral life and ignorance favors the idea that he was a base villain; but, on the other hand, it might be said that that is only another form of the old mistaken notion that “no good thing can come out of Nazareth.”

3. Then, too, it might be said that Mormonism was regarded as a swindle by the people generally who lived right around him and were acquainted with him and his character; but, on the other hand, it may be said that that is no proof whatever that the Mormon scheme was a fraud, but only another evidence of the truth of the well-known proverb: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country.”

4. Again, it may be said that Joseph