vicinity. Still, the excitement concerning the new Mormon doctrines spread through Western New York into Northern and Eastern Ohio. Members were sent West to preach and found churches wherever people would listen to them, and they made many converts.

In December, 1830, Sidney Rigdon, a Campbellite preacher near Mentor, O., became a convert. He was erratic, but very eloquent; self-opinionated, but well versed in the Scriptures; and in literary culture and intellectual force was the greatest man among the early Mormons. After this the new sect strengthened and spread.

Joseph was a veritable Numa Pompilius in the frequency and fitness of the “revelations” he received for the guidance of his people in things great and small; and seeing that but few followers were gained by him near his home in New York, while many converts were being gathered in Ohio, he had a revelation that Palmyra was not a place for the Saints to prosper in, and he talked of the New Jerusalem in the West, and announced that it was time for the faithful to remove with him to Kirtland, O.

Smith has often been called the “American Mohammed,” and Mormonism has been compared to Mohammedanism; and in many respects they are strikingly similar, although in so far as Mormonism resembles Mohammedanism it is true, as Dr. Jessup said before the Presbyterian General Assembly at Saratoga, it is only “a pinchbeck imitation of a putty original.” In nothing, however, is there a greater similarity between those two religions than in their history. Both Mohammed and Joseph Smith were the subjects of fierce opposition and even persecution, and they both were compelled to flee for their lives. The Mohammedans always reckon their time from the “Hegira,” or flight of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina; but while the Mohammedans have only one Hegira in their history, the Mormons have four. And, for convenience, we will consider their history under these four divisions.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF MORMONISM (continued).