membership in the Baptist church.

"2. Isaac King, a highly-respected citizen of Library, Pa., and an old neighbor of Rigdon, states in a letter to the present writer, dated June 14th, 1879, that Sidney lived on the farm of his father until the death of the latter, in May, 1810, and for a number of years afterwards, farming with very indifferent success; 'it was said he was too lazy and proud to make a good farmer;' received his education in a log school-house in the vicinity; 'began to talk in public on religion soon after his admission to the church, probably at his own instance, as there is no record of his licensure;' went to Sharon, Pa, for a time, and was there ordained as a preacher, but soon returned to his farm, which he sold (June 28th, 1823) to James Means, and about the time of sale removed to Pittsburg.

"3. Samuel Cooper, of Saltsburg, Pa., a veteran of three wars, in a letter to the present writer, dated June 14th, 1879, stated as follows: 'I was acquainted with Mr. Lambdin, was often in the printing-office; was acquainted with Silas Engles, the foreman of the printing-office; he never mentioned Sidney Rigdon's name to me, so I am satisfied he was never engaged there as a printer. I was introduced to Sidney Rigdon in 1843; he stated to me that he was a Mormon preacher or lecturer; I was acquainted with him during 1843-45; never knew him before, and never knew him as a printer; never saw him in the book-store or printing-office; your father's office was in the celebrated Molly Murphy's Row."

"4. Rev. Robert P. Du Bois, of New London, Pa., under date of Jan. 9th, 1879, writes: 'I entered the book-store of R. Patterson & Lambdin in March, 1818, when about twelve years old, and remained there until the Summer of 1820. The firm had under its control a book-store on Fourth Street, a book-bindery, a printing-office (not newspaper, but job-office, under the name of Butler & Lambdin), entrance on Diamond Alley, and a steam paper-mill on the Allegheny (under the name of R. & J. Patterson). I knew nothing of Spaulding (then dead) or of his book, or of Sidney Rigdon."

"5. Mrs. R. W. Lambdin, of Irvington, N. Y., widow of the late J. Harrison Lambdin, in response to some inquiries as to her recollection of Rigdon and others, writes under date of Jan. 15th, 1882: 'I am sorry to say I shall not be able to give you any information relative to the persons you name. They certainly could not have been friends of Mr. Lambdin.' Mrs. Lambdin resided in Pittsburg from her marriage in 1819, to the death of her husband, Aug. 1st, 1825. Mr. Lambdin was born Sep. 1st, 1798."

In addition to this we have the testimony of Sidney Rigdon's mother. She informed one gentleman, who published her statement years ago, long before the Spaulding story was concocted, and therefore with no design to mislead on that matter, that her son lived at home and worked on the farm until the twenty-sixth year of his age; and was never engaged in public life until after that period, either politically or religiously. Thus, according to his mother's statement which is sustained by these other testimonies, he did not leave home until 1819. He did not go to Pittsburg until 1822; eight or nine years after the manuscript of Spaulding's romance had been returned to its author (if, indeed, it had ever been out of his hands), and that author had removed from Pittsburg and died.

Again it is asserted that Sidney Rigdon was associated with the printing-office of Patterson and Lambdin during his stay in Pittsburg. The testimony above given is very strong evidence to the contrary. In addition to which we have Rigdon's own refutation of the falsehood, made at the time that Mrs. Davison's bogus affidavit was first given to the world. He asserts in effect, most positively, that when he went to Pittsburg he did so as a minister of the gospel at the call of a religious congregation, and was never in any way directly or indirectly connected with any printing office during his stay there; and if he had been associated with a Pittsburg printing office nobody claims that the "Manuscript Found" was in that city at that late date (1822). According to Mrs. McKinstry's already quoted affidavit it was then hid up in an old trunk at a small village called Hardwicks, in the state of New York, hundreds of miles from Pittsburg. To tide over this difficulty someone has suggested that probably Spaulding made a copy of his romance for the printer, and it was this copy that Rigdon afterwards found. But this is a baseless supposition; until lately such an idea was never thought of, and it loses all its force from the fact that those best acquainted with the history of that manuscript say that the copy Spaulding gave to Patterson was returned to him; it was not left in the office to be found by Rigdon, or anyone else in after years.

It may be asked, is there no conflicting testimony? Do not some persons assert that Rigdon was in Pittsburg and acquainted with Patterson and Lambdin years before 1822? Yes, but their testimony is of little value for many reasons. It is, in the first place, almost invariably second hand. They do not testify of what they themselves actually knew on these points, but of what somebody else knew, or said, or told them. In the second place, they are made, as a rule, by very aged persons, whose memory, when we consider the mass of trash that has been published on this subject, cannot be trusted. They, where desiring to be truthful, have mixed up what they really knew and what they have since heard and read. A third class are "divines," men with "reverend" tacked on their names, whose testimony, it is a sad fact but it is a truth, can scarcely ever be trusted on anything pertaining to "Mormonism." One very aged lady, whose father and husband kept the post office from 1804 to 1833, says that Rigdon and Lambdin used to come together to the post office for mail matter as early as 1815, if not earlier, and that as youths they were very intimate. But it must be remembered that there was a difference of six or seven years in the ages of these two young men, Rigdon being the elder, and Mr. Lambdin's wife asserts of him and others that "they certainly could not have been friends of Mr. Lambdin." Again it is altogether inconsistent to believe that a young man of Rigdon's ambition would associate with a boy so many years his junior; the supposition is altogether more consistent that this lady has mixed her names and dates, and that young Lambdin having a companion who came with him for letters, she has in the course of many years confused this companion with Rigdon who doubtless often visited the post office at a later period, and at a time when his name would be well known through all Pittsburg.

But it is an open question whether Mr. Patterson ever had the "Manuscript Found" in his possession. The Spaulding family say that he had, he asserts that he had not. On being interrogated on the subject, soon after the publication of Mrs. Davison's bogus affidavit, he said that he knew nothing of any such manuscript.^[A] Even Hurlburt states that "he called on Mr. Patterson who affirmed his entire ignorance of the whole matter." Here is evidently a grand mistake or a gross falsehood. To us, it seems from the evidence, that the story of Mr. Patterson having received the manuscript was first invented by Priest Storrs on purpose to connect Sidney Rigdon with the "Manuscript Found" and the ladies of the Spaulding family have heard it so often reiterated that in their old age they have imagined that they have some recollection of such an incident, when, in truth, it is only the confused remembrance of what has been ding-donged into their ears by over-anxious opponents of "Mormonism" for the last forty years. It is a well-known fact that the human mind is so constituted that after brooding over imaginary circumstances for a lengthened period it will frequently grow to regard such fables as facts. This peculiarity of the human mind has often been commented upon. A laughable incident in this connection is related regarding King