Chapter XLIV: Counter Theories of Origin (3)

It is not possible in this writing to enter into an extended consideration of this theory. Neither indeed is it necessary. One consideration alone is sufficient to overthrow these fanciful speculations of Mr. Riley. "Hitherto," says Renan in his Life of Christ, "it has never been given to aberration of mind to produce a serious effect upon the progress of humanity." [48] As stated by Dana, the work of the paranoic is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas impractical and absurd. I believe that doctrine. The dreams and hallucinations of the epileptic end in mere dreams and hallucinations; they never crystallize into great systems of philosophy or into rational religious institutions. They never result in great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men, such as Mormonism has done over a large body of people, and resulted in permanent institutions. There is much glamor of sophistry, which may be taken by some for profound reason and argument, in Mr. Riley's book, but one word answers this so called philosophical accounting for our Prophet: The work accomplished by him, the institutions he founded, destroy the whole fabric of premises and argument on which this theory is based. Great as was the Prophet Joseph Smith--and he was great; to him more than to any other man of modern times was it given to look deep into the things that are; to comprehend the heavens, and the laws that obtain there; to understand the earth, its history, and its mission. He looked into the deep things of God, and out of the rich treasure of divine knowledge there, he brought forth things both new and old for the instruction of our race, the like of which, in some respects, had not been known in previous dispensations. But great as Joseph Smith was, rising up and towering far above him is the work that he accomplished through divine guidance; that work is infinitely greater than the Prophet, greater than all the prophets connected with it. Its consistency, its permanency, its institutions, contradict the hallucination theory advanced to account for its origin. [49]

This theory of Mr. Riley's may be said to now occupy the attention of men, but as the theories of Campbell, the Spaulding theory, and the Rigdon theory of origin have one by one been discarded as untenable, and inadequate for the purposes for which they were invoked, so, too, will this epilepsy and hallucination theory of Mr. Riley's be discarded, since it will fail to give an adequate accounting for the Book of Mormon, which, so long as the truth respecting it is unbelieved, will remain to the world an enigma, a veritable literary Sphinx, challenging the inquiry and speculations of the learned. But to those who in simple faith will accept it for what it is, a revelation from God, it will minister spiritual consolation, and by its plainness and truth draw men into closer communion with God.

Footnotes

1. "Limits of Religious Thought," Mansel, Preface.

2. Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 35.

3. Mr. Campbell's criticism of the Book of Mormon was published in the "Millennial Harbinger," Vol. II, pp. 86-96, February, 1831.

4. The same phrase appears in the testimony of the Eight Witnesses, as published in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, and the preface published in the first edition, but omitted in all other editions, is signed "The Author."

5. See announcement of copyright privileges in first edition of the Book of Mormon 1830. It is also copied into the History of the Church, Vol. I, pp. 58, 59.

6. Yet, in a work as late as 1902, on the subject of Mormonism, published by Dodd, Mead & Co., great importance is attached to this "author and proprietor" phrase, and indeed much of the force of the author's argument is based upon it. See "Founder of Mormonism" I, Woodbridge Riley, chapter iv.

7. See Vol. II., chapter ix.

8. See Vol. II., chapter vii.

9. See "Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate," Vol. II, p. 242, where Mr. Campbell is represented as recommending Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," which first set forth and was mainly devoted to the Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon.

10. Mormonism Unveiled, (Howe), pp. 278-287.

11. See Church History, Vol. I., chapter xxv; Vol. II., chapter iv.

12. By some, it is claimed that Mrs. Davison's statement was put forth in the "Boston Recorder" as an affidavit, but I have never seen it in the form of an affidavit. All versions of it that have fallen into my hands are merely in the form of a signed statement.

13. See Thompson's "Evidences," pp. 176-7.

14. Times and Seasons, Vol. I., p. 47.

15. See Preface to "New Light on Mormonism."

16. See "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 278-280.

17. When this fact was brought to light in the early controversy over the subject, it was claimed by Messrs. Austin--Storrs--Clark, who were responsible for this forgery, that "Woman" in the text was a typographical error and should be "Mormon." See Clark's Gleanings "By the Way."

18. The orthography is the affidavit's.

19. See letters of Mr. Rice to Mr. Joseph Smith, President of the "Reorganized Church," "History of the Church of Jesus Christ," [Reorganized] Vol. IV., pp. 471-473.

20. This is confirmed by a letter written by Hurlburt himself, in 1881, at the request of Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, as follows:

Gibsonburg, Ohio, January 10, 1881.

To all whom it may concern:

In the year eighteen hundred and thirty-four (1834) I went from Geauga Co., Ohio, to Munson, Hampden Co., Mass., where I found Mrs. Davison, late widow of the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, late of Conneaut, Ashtabula Co., Ohio. Of her I obtained a manuscript, supposing it to be the manuscript of the romance written by the said Solomon Spaulding, called "The Manuscript Found," which was reported to be the foundation of the "Book of Mormon." I did not examine the manuscript until I got home, when, upon examination, I found it to contain nothing of the kind, but being a manuscript upon an entirely different subject. This manuscript I left with E. D. Howe, of Painsville, Geauga Co., Ohio, now Lake Co., Ohio., with the understanding that when he had examined it he should return it to the widow. Said Howe says the manuscript was destroyed by fire, and further the deponent saith not.

(Signed) D. P. HURLBURT.

21. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 245.

22. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288.

23. He refers to the witnesses living at Conneaut Creek, the substance of whose testimony is previously quoted in his book, pp. 357-8.

24. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288, (first edition, 1834).

25. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289, 290. "This manuscript received by Hurlburt and by him given to Howe is the only Spaulding manuscript written by Spaulding, making any reference to the antiquities of America. It is the simon-pure and only "Manuscript Found." Against this it is urged by our opponents that "no such title is discoverable anywhere upon or in the body of the manuscript in the Oberlin library. (American Historical Magazine, Sept. 1906, p. 386). And yet with strange inconsistency the writer himself a few pages further on admits--"It is even possible that this first manuscript [meaning the one now at Oberlin], may at sometime have been labeled "Manuscript Found." But what is better than any "label" on the manuscript inside or outside; better than any admission of our opponent, is the fact that this manuscript is the one Mr. Spaulding feigned to have found, and that he pretended to translate into English. It is the "found" manuscript, and the only one that Spaulding pretended or feigned to have found. It is the one that Mrs. McKenstry says she had in her hands "many times" at Sabine's after 1816; and that "on the outside of this manuscript were written the words, "Manuscript Found." (American Historical Magazine, March, 1909, pp. 190, 191.)

26. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289-290.

27. Ibid p. 289. Lambdin died 1826.

28. "Braden and Kelly Debate," p. 44.

29. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 289.

30. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 62.

31. Ibid p. 71.

32. Myth of the "Manuscript Found" (1883), pp. 35, 36. See also an exhaustive treatise on the "Origin of the Book of Mormon", in the "American Historical Magazine," published in New York by the American Historical Society, during the years 1906-7; 1908-9. The articles in support of the Spaulding theory are by Mr. Theodore Schroeder; and the answer to these papers are by the author of this work, who hopes to publish the discussion in his second volume on the "Defense of the Faith and the Saints," now in course of preparation.

33. "Boston Journal." See also Smucker's "History of the Mormons," where the letter is given in full, pp. 45-8.

34. New Witnesses, Vol. II., pp. 250, 251.

35. "Late Persecutions," etc., Introduction, p. xi, xii.

36. "Church History," Vol. I., p. 122, 123.

37. Published by McMillan Co., 1902.

38. "The Story of the Mormons," Preface, p. vi.

39. "Story of the Mormons," Chapter ix, p. 74.

40. Vol. II, chapter iii.

41. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church," Vol. IV, pp. 618-20.

42. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church," Vol. IV, p. 227.

43. Revelations xiv: 6,7.

44. "The Founder of Mormonism," p. 172.

45. Ibid, p. 11.

46. "Nervous Diseases, Text Book on" (third edition), p. 408.

47. "Text Book of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry" (sixth edition), pp. 649-50.

48. "Life of Christ," p. 105.

49. During the October conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Salt Lake City, October, 1903, this writer then made some remarks in criticism of Mr. Riley's book, at the close of which remarks President Joseph F. Smith said:

"I have been delighted with the most excellent discourse that we have listened to; but I desire to say that it is a wonderful revelation to the Latter-day Saints, and especially to those who were familiar with the Prophet Joseph Smith, to learn in these latter days that he was an epileptic! I will simply remark, God be praised, that there are so many still living who knew the Prophet Joseph well, and who are in a position to bear testimony to the truth that no such condition ever existed in the man."

See also "Defense of the Faith and the Saints." pp. 42-61.