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Clark Braden (1831- c.1915)
Braden-Kelley Debate
(1st edition: Cincinnatti, 1884)
Part 2 of 7 pages 036-077
  • Title Page   Preface

  • Proposition 1:
    • pp. 003-035   pp. 078-112
    pp. 113-174   pp. 175-219

  • Proposition 2:   pp. 220-301
  • Proposition 3:   pp. 302-381

  • Appendices:   pp. 382-396
    •

    The original book has no proper contents page.   --   Tabulated Links (in lieu of a Contents Page)
    Prop. One Speeches:  1-3   |   4K  4B  5K  5B  6K  6B  7K  7B   |   8-10   |   11-16   |   17-20

    This book will not be fully transcribed until mid-2007.
     

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    MR. KELLEY'S FOURTH SPEECH.
    ______

    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- By way of reminding you of the fact that sometimes a man gets frightened at his own evil surmisings I call attention to the statement of my friend, "That he was not going to be scared down." This was certainly uncalled for. Who has tried to scare him down? Have I, or has a single person in this audience? Now, I take this as the simple upbraidings of his own conscience. It reminds me of the story of the boy that got terribly scared upon a certain occasion. His hair began to stand up right lively, and the cold chills coursed down his back. Finally he gathered up a little courage and edged up a little toward the object of his fright and after straightening up, he stammered out, "Who's afraid?" It turned out that the boy had only been stuffed with a few ghost stories and was frightened at nothing. And it seems to me that this is the true condition of my opponent. There is no necessity of being afraid here. I hope my friend is not afraid. I can say truly to you that I am not. What is he afraid of? I want him in this discussion to bring the strongest evidence he can, To do his worst, as well as best, Only let him state facts!

    He makes a statement with reference to the prophecy of Jacob in the 49th chapter of Genesis where in blessing Joseph, he tells him his "branches," (daughters), "should run over the wall," and says that men have read it for thousands of years and never thought of applying it as I have in this discussion. Is that an argument against the force of my position? On the contrary it occurs to me to be an argument in favor of it. When men have read it, scanned it, for thousands of years, and no one conceived the idea of applying it to its proper place until it was made known as we claim by the revelation of God, it argues in favor of the divine knowledge. It is something that was not likely to be spontaneous in the heart of man, but let down from heaven as were many other things that I will be able to show you during this discussion. And yet will he deny that the Book of Mormon has given a single new truth to the world? Another thing he has referred to as an argument is the sermons of the "notorious Stephen Burrows," using his language. He seems to have been a faithful student of Burrows. Now, his sermons may be good, as he claims from his or the Disciples' (Campbellites) standpoint of judging; but I will state to this audience fairly and candidly that no such man as he says he was could preach good sermons from the standpoint of the Latter Day Saints, nor the standpoint of the Bible; and they are not good sermons. I invite him to produce the sermons now, and I will examine them before you and show that they are not good.

    Another thing. He said that he could show that the prophecies of the Bible which I have quoted refer as much to the Koran as the Book of Mormon. Why does he not do it then? What is he here for but to show what they apply to? Let him do it. I deny that he can select a single one that has a like or similar application, and demand the proof. When he names one, it will show it does not, nor cannot be made to apply to the Koran as obviously as the Book of Mormon. He has so far failed, or refused, to follow me and notice my arguments, although he is in the negative of the proposition. I shall not be so kind with him, but will both set forth my affirmative proofs, and expose the fallacies in his positions. In his desperation to make out a case against the Book of Mormon he does not hesitate to ignore as applicable to man after the Apostles' time, all that is assuring and comforting to the Christian.

    The beautiful promises, "Seek, and ye shall find," "Knock and it shall be opened unto you," "Ask and it shall be given unto you," Matt. 7:7; "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him," James 2:6; "How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him," Matt. 7:11; and many other like assuring and comforting promises, are all things of the past with him. Confined to the apostles' age. Jesus says, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him." Again, "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." John 14:21, 23. But according to my friend's theory, all of these promises are limited to the apostles, and those upon whom they laid their hands. His theory limits pretty much all of the New Testament to the apostolic times; especially does it, all giving assurance that the Christian may have a knowledge of God. Christ said, "I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth." John 14:16, 17. "Where two or three are met together in my name there I am in the midst." But my opponent makes this limited to the olden times. What is the use praying then, if God cannot give, and Jesus cannot be in the midst. Again, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:11-16. This is also limited


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    by the theory of the negative. Yet, it is clear from the texts themselves, that these promises and experiences were, and are, for the doers of the word, the faithful in Christ in every age.

    John said, " I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matt. 3:11. And Jesus in keeping with this says, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." John 3:5. These texts prove that the influence and power of the Spirit was to follow the baptism by water. But my opponent limits the baptism of the Spirit, and holds on to the water. But upon what authority? A vain assumption evidently thought necessary to bolster up his Campbellite theory. His arguments prohibit salvation to the race after the apostolic age. Jesus taught, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." Yet, Mr. Braden says, there is no birth or baptism of the Spirit now. There would be more consistency in abandoning both baptisms as they are both taught by the same persons and at the same time. In his madness he not only wars against the claims of the Book of Mormon and the Latter Day Saints, but all Christians who hold to a Christian experience under the divine energies of the Holy Ghost. Every Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian. Methodist, Friend, Independent, or what not, who has testified of tasting the heavenly gift the joy of the Holy Ghost shed abroad in the heart, in any age or time since the Apostles, has witnessed falsely. Their experiences are but vain things and they, deceivers of themselves. There is no Spiritual communion, so Mr. Braden claims, except through the medium of the word. His is but a first step in Atheism. It destroys or removes God out of the world, if not out of the universe. Inspiration is not only confined to the early church, but God, and Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are barred out; limited and confined to the Apostles alone and can no longer move upon the Christian's heart. But thank God, we are assured of better things: Says Paul, "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart." How is the love of God shed abroad in the heart? "By the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Rom. 5:5. "Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." 2 Cor. 1:22. "And because you are sons. God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." "In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." Eph. 1: 13. This was not attained through the medium of the word as my opponent would have you believe, for the Apostle says, verse 13, "After ye heard the word of truth, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of promise the same which Jesus said, "When he is come he will testify of me." This promise of the Spirit to burn in the heart of the Christian in fact, was to continue until the redemption of the purchased possession, and is the evidence of the right of possession. But Braden's theory confines all this to the apostles' time and all the experience, and knowledge, that men can have of God now, is through the written word. Jesus says, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned; and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues," etc. Mark 16. This message included the entire world of believers. The promise is, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," and "These signs shall follow them that believe." Wherever the message was to be obeyed, the signs were to follow. Where the signs are limited, the duties en- joined by the message are limited. This proves too much for my opponent's theory and faith, for he professes great faith in the water part of the message. But if he confines the result of obedience to the age of the apostles, he must confine the obligation to obey the ordinance of baptism to that age, and per consequence the duties preceding it, faith and repentance, which are necessary to prepare one to obey the ordinance of baptism. Thus he not only limits the Holy Ghost to the age of the, apostles, but faith, repentance and baptism also. Hence he has God and Christ and the Holy Ghost out of the world, and so far away that neither can commune with Christians, and the essential feature of the gospel itself is confined to the apostolic times and people. But Peter held to a better faith. Said he, " For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." This promise was to be realized when they accepted the gospel message as is shown in verse 38. of Acts, second chapter. "Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Nothing is more certain than that the obedient doer of the word was to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost wherever the gospel message zzWHS sent, as is clearly shown by these texts. It is not limited to Pentecost day, nor to that age. Whenever, and wherever, the remission of sins took place in all the world, in every age, "ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Hence Paul says, "by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." 1 Cor 12:13.


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    This body to which he refers, is the church, the body of Christ, so termed. Those who joined in this relation became "fit temples for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost." If these powers and blessings were limited to the early apostles' time, then the body of Christ, the church of God on earth was limited to that age.

    Paul foreseeing that such a theory would be foisted upon the world in the future from his day. raised a warning voice to the people, declaring, "that in the last days perilous times shall come," by men, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The advice that follows this announcement is most striking and cheering: "From such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:5. The apostle Peter also, as if on purpose to put the question beyond caviling, and at rest, says, "The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." To all who are called to repentance and salvation, and not to miraculous power, as has been stated; but called to Christ Jesus. God thus calls all men in every age. "In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." "Come unto me, all ye ends of the earth," says God, "And be ye saved." But my opponent says, Christ limited Joel's prophecy made to all flesh, to Pentecost day, and that Peter meant when he said, "Even as many as the Lord our God should call," "That all should receive the Holy Ghost on whom the apostles laid their hands."

    This is evidently a subterfuge, and false rendering, for there is not a statement in the Bible anywhere to the effect that none were to receive the Holy Ghost but those on whom the apostles should lay their hands. This is gotten up out of whole cloth and added to the word of God in order to support a weak theory. But my opponent seems to be driven to the last ditch here. He assumes to turn Jesus against his prophets. Bays he, "Christ limits Joel's prophecy to those on whom the apostles should lay their hands." Why does he want Joel limited? Ah I Joel speaks too loud for his theory. Let me read it: "And it shall come to pass afterward." (after the time of the re-gathering of Israel when they shall never again be ashamed), "That I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants, and upon the handmaids in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke." Joel 2:28-30. When shall this be? In the "last days," when God shall have set his hand a second time to gather his people. "When Jacob's (Israel's) face shall no longer wax pale;" "afterwards." All the prophets agree as to the time Not on Pentecost day; nor at the time when the apostles laid on hands during their ministry. Not on a few on Pentecost day, and those upon whom the apostles should lay their hands; but "upon all flesh." In the period of the world's history when God should "show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire and pillars of smoke." When, "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood before the great and notable day of the Lord comes." This prophecy was not fulfilled on Pentecost day. Nor does the apostle so state. He says, referring to the Holy Ghost that had then rested upon and imbued the disciples, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," the Spirit that Joel referred to which should be poured out in the last days, by which men should see visions, dream dreams and prophesy. Not the accomplishment of what Joel said would take place, but the presence of the Spirit the agency by which it would be accomplished. Joel prophesied of certain things to take place in the "last days." My opponent's position is that Christ corrected him and says, no prophesying in the "last days;" this is to be confined to Pentecost and those on whom the apostles shall lay their hands. Who is right? Joel or my opponent? He gays again, that no one received the Holy Ghost save under the apostles' hands. But Ananias, who was not an apostle, laid his hands upon Saul that he "might receive the Holy Ghost," and be healed. This shows that the authority to lay on hands for the healing of the sick and the bestowing of the Spirit, was vested in the same class of officers. Jesus says, "They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." Mark 16. James also tells us who shall lay hands on the sick, showing the practice under the Savior's instruction: "Is there any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, "&c. James 5: 14. Hence, Paul addresses Timothy, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." 1 Tim. 4: 14. Here the presbytery, body of elders, officiated in laying hands upon Timothy, and a gift was manifest by prophecy through the ordinance. But the negative in his ramblings goes from bad to worse. He says that the Christian Institution under Christ and the apostles was a little boy, playing with toys, compared with the excellency, perfection, and power that followed after. How wonderful! Then they had apostles, prophets, the gift of the Holy Ghost, communion with God, and the visitation of angels, the healing of the sick and the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost which they received; yet he stands before you and claims that this is nothing to be compared with the condition of the church that followed in after ages and is now ex ant almost universally, and from which all of this heavenly clothing and adornment has been stripped, as the woman going into the wilderness was shorn of her beauty and heavenly power.

    One is inclined to think he is joking here, rather than talking in earnest; the absurdity is so palpable. The Church of


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    Christ was to be "a habitation of God through the Spirit." This new theory leads to the conclusion that the world is better off and religion more excellent not to have God in either. When God talks with men. and the Holy Ghost fills their souls, and they have the testimony of Jesus and certainty in religion, it is a dark and trying time; "a boy with his toys;" but when neither God nor Christ, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the prophets nor apostles are known in the church, or in the world; and division, and discord and contention, distraction and uncertainty everywhere reigns, the full grown man appears, with all his captivating influences and enticing graces. The gifts having passed away, he says, we have love, joy, peace, etc. But did not they have all this and God, and Christ besides in the "toy day," that he refers to? To support this hallucination he refers to 1 Cor. 13, and endeavors to show that there is a "more excellent way," than to have communion with God, through the Holy Spirit, and the realization of the gifts in the church. "Charity never faileth." Right; but it is found in and enjoyed most by those exercising the gifts of the gospel. Charity is love, the pure love of God. It is for the saints here, and in the future world, when they shall reign with God. "But whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away." When shall these things cease? My opponent says, in the age of the apostles, i. e., when the apostles died and there was no one to lay on hands; and thus from sheer necessity. But this proves too much for him. If it was because the apostles died, it could not have been because, "that which is perfect is come;" unless the killing of the apostles brought perfection. Knowledge, prophecies, and tongues are classed together, and if he takes it that these are to cease without reference to the "part" exercise of them as explained by the apostle himself, all are mustered out together, and become things of the past at the same time. It would scarcely do for me to tell such a towering light as my opponent; that knowledge ceased in the apostolic age; that was the age of boys, the "toy age." But his theory forces him to do so. If it is said that this refers to miraculous knowledge, I ask what kind is that? Certainly it does not come under that classed as learning "erudition, scholarship. &c. Nor "cognition, notice," &c. It must be then of "apprehension, comprehension, understanding, discernment, judgment." Will he take the position that this kind of knowledge has ceased from the church? No wonder things looked dark to Mr. Wesley. Let us permit the apostle to be his own* interpreter here. Verses 9 and 10, " For we know in part, and prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." What shall be done away? Doing in part. Knowledge in part prophesying in part; speaking in languagesonly in part. When shall it be done away? Answer: "When that which is perfect is come:" and this is when part prophesying and knowing in part will cease. My opponent says, Paul is contrasting two states of the church: One under the spiritual gifts, the other under a "perfected" state without spiritual gifts, or communion with God except as may be received through the written word: that is from reading the Bible. This is another of his fallacies. Paul is contrasting the state of the church and saints here with the condition that is to be attained in the future world, at the coming of Jesus the second time. "Now, (in this life this side of a time of perfection,) I see through a glass darkly; but then shall I know, even as I am known." When this perfect time shall come then Paul will know as he is known; until that time he sees through a glass darkly walking by the light of prophesying in part, and knowing only in part. There is nothing more clear, than if Paul with his spiritual vision, knowledge and prophecy, could know only in part, there has been no state of the church since his day when man attained to a more perfect knowledge And more especially must this be conceded by my opponent, when he and his Campbellite Church, assumes that all that men can know of God, and religion now, is by reading the Bible written in part by Paul himself, and wholly, so far as its divinity is concerned, when men were blest with the spiritual gifts and had communion with God. The facts are these: The light of God only comes to earth in part. The Saints of old knew in part and prophesied in part; but they looked forward to the future when the knowledge in part should be a thing of the past, and they would know as they were known. My opponent says, this was after the apostles passed away and the church became a full-grown man. But who can believe him when he further says that the Christians, or the world, knows more of duty and the light of heaven, and are in a higher, more advanced and perfect state than when the spiritual gifts, were extant and there was communion with God? The gifts were to continue until the day of perfect knowledge should come. "The day of Christ." 2 Thess. 2:2. Paul says in the Ephesian letter, fourth chapter -- "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets and some, evangelists; and some pastors and teachers." What for? "For the perfecting of the Saints the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ," or the church. How long was this inspired ministry to continue? The apostle answers in the next sentence. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the zzstatum of the fulness of Christ." And all this for the purpose: --

    "That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up unto him in all things, which is .the head, even Christ. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth. according to the


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    "effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in "in love." 11 to 16 verses.

    This scripture confirms the opinion that the apostles and prophets were designed to continue in the church, that the people might be "no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine."

    But Mr. Braden reverses it, and says the apostles and gifts ceased that we might be no more children, but full grown men. That was "the children or toy day" of the church. However the apostle further tells us, that they were to continue till we all come to, "the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Again, "God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, govern- ments, diversities of tongues," 1 Cor. 12:28. "God has set the members every one in the body as it hath pleased him." This body in which he placed thes members is his church; and he placed them in the body, the church, to edify the same and to continue therein, until "we all come to the knowledge of the Son of God;" but now we are gravely told that they are not necessary or essential to the proper growth ot the body, and that they are not to continue "till we come to the knowledge of the Son of God." But since it is by this same Holy Spirit that was manifest on Pentecost day, and by which the signs followed the believer, and which God gave by gift to the ministry, and poured out upon all the believers, that we may at all attain to the knowledge of Christ, will he now be so kind as to tell us whether he expects by banishing the means of knowledge, to have the people become enlightened? "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord." (come to the knowledge of him), "but by the Holy Ghost." 1 Cor. 12:3.

    He says again, the "Mormons baptize for miraculous gifts." But he also told you, they got their baptism through a Campbellite preacher, Sidney Rigdon. Do THEY baptize for miraculous gifts? The Saints do not now, nor never did baptize for miraculous gifts. That is out of whole cloth.

    They baptize "for the remission of sins," and then say as the apostles taught, that the obedient doer or' the word is entitled to, the Holy Ghost by reason of the "promise."

    Again, he claims that, the Book of Mormon is an addition to the Bible. This is in- correct. The Book of Mormon stands alone, as a work or as a revelation from Deity and is complete of itself; as the Bible 'stands alone and is complete, (so far as the book is concerned and a record of God's will as revealed upon the Eastern continent), so is the Book of Mormon of a like history and of that same will, as revealed, upon the Wes- tern continent. The Book of M i:mon is? in no true sense an addition to the Bible: no such claim is, or has ever been, made for it, by the book itself, or its friends. But it confirms the Bible in its testimony, and this is answer enough if we had no other as to the good of the work. The Bible is a record of the Jews and their religion. The Book of Mormon is a record of the people who came to and lived upon the Western continent and their religion. It is not true as asserted, that the Latter Day Saints hold the revelations in the Book of Mormon in higher veneration than they do the revelations of the Bible With them a revelation from God, given to the world in Palestine, is just as worthy of consideration and respect, as one given in America; and one from a similar source in America, just as good as one given in Palestine. Neither is age a consequence as to the truth or applicability of it. God over all is rich, and none can limit His power of giving and revealing. If a church that denies to its members the light and gift of the Holy Spirit, of communion with God, through the Comforter, and an approach to the life of the church of the First Born, and Jesus the Mediator, is not a Jack o'lantern light to the world, then there is no faint and dim glimmering anywhere. Now I wish to refer hurriedly to what he stated last evening by way of an illustration, using the American government, or the compact of the Constitution and the framers, in a comparison, to the apostles and their work, or to those whom he says gave us the Bible. The trouble with his illustration is, that it is not a parallel case as used by him. The framers of the American Constitution were selected by the American people, and authorized by them to meet and in their own wisdom frame a constitution which should, if ratified, be the governing or fundamental law. In the word of God, as committed to the world, the apostles are not the framers, or makers, neither the ones to ratify as well as devise or institute. They could approve or reject as they chose, but this action could not affect the law, only themselves, as witness the act of Judas. They were the means simply of communicating that knowledge to the world that was framed and devised by Deity himself. And when my opponent seeks by his illustration to reason apostles out of the world, he makes the blunder of placing the apostles in the position occupied by Deity himself, to the New Testament, and his illustration legitimately, instead of showing that apostles were to cease, puts God out of the Universe and out of the church, instead of the apostles. This is why I object to his theory. It is but on a par with his other argument, wherein ho has sought to shut the Holy Ghost, the lifo and power of the gospel out of the church. God gave the covenant or constitution ot the 'Christian Church, and it was not the work of the apostles. The apostles were the means of teaching this constitution to the world; "ambassadors" to publish the glad news. The publication of the constitution of the United States, was not by the fram era, but by means of another's agency, tho press, and public, criers selected for that purpose. The framers of the constitution so far as their work was concerned, would


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    bear a likeness to Deity, who framed and gave the gospel law. Says Jesus in his delivery of the law; "The Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." John 12:49. The apostles are, in the comparison, in fact but the publishers, ambassadors, preachers. For God to give direction how he would have these laws carried out, would not necessarily either, be making "new constitution every day;" any more than he was making new constitution every day in the time of Paul and John. Who will say that because we have a constitution or first basis in our government, we shall have no more laws. The only restriction is, that the laws shall not conflict with the constitution.

    The next objection I shall take up and examine, is that profound and doubtless scholarly argument, based upon the miraculous in the creation of the world. That since God created the earth by miraculous power, therefore he says, I would have him continue to keep a miracle going all the time, in order that we might have miraculous things or new animals and plants. But he forgets that when God created the earth by miraculous power, if he wishes to call it miraculous, he at the same time established in the same miraculous manner, for aught my opponent can tell, a law by which those things which were created, that he calls miraculous, were to be reproduced. And we have the miraculous plants aud animals now' by virtue of that law. Just the same as he ordained in the first age of Christianity by the law of the Holy Spirit that apostles should continue if men kept the faith, and if they kept not the faith, then they should not continue; and if we have not the fruits by the ordination of the law of the Holy Spirit, it is because the law has not been kept, for God has not changed.

    Will my opponent now stop to tell us whether the law by which the natural creation is now continued is not the same by which God originally wrought when it first germinated? When did Deity change, or at what time did the new law take the place of the old? Make the comparison, and follow it to its conclusion and you will see that instead of supporting his theory it destroys it. God in the creation of the world brought forth certain things, and ordained a means by which they should continue and they continue as at the first by that means, and as the law provided, to the just and unjust alike. In the establishment of his church he did many things which showed the proper fruits of his law, by means of the Holy Spirit. He ordained that they should continue by means of the same agency and power, to the, believer, the doer of the word, for this law was limited to such, and not as the other, made alike to the just and the unjust. Do they continue? Has God changed? The law governing should as in the order of creation cause the same effect, and bring to the believer, knowledge, wisdom, faith, prophecies, tongues and healings. These are the legitimate fruits of the law of the Holy Spirit to the believer. But my opponent says no. Why? The simple reason is his people do not have the fruits, and the application will show that they are not " doers of the word."

    Now I call your attention to the real import of the story he related, which certainly displayed his ingenuity in taking an economical way of meeting my arguments. I have several times called your attention to the fact that he was not debating properly this question, and that he had abandoned any defense, so far as meeting my arguments is concerned; and now, he comes in and admits it in his story of the boy, that he says was only waiting for something sufficient to roll up so that he could have something to kick at. He is waiting for my arguments to roll up.

    This reminds me of another boy. He saw an object in the path and at first sight he concluded he would kick it out. As he neared it, the object looked a little firmer than at first, but he thought he would kick at it any way. Finally he drew quite close and the object looked as if it was bundled up so tightly, that if he kicked he might get his toes hurt, and so he did not kick at all; and this seems to me to be the true reason why he has not foot-balled my argument.

    (Laughter and applause.) (Time expired.)




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    42                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      


    MR. BRADEN'S FOURTH SPEECH.
    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- Mrs. Matilda Spaulding, Solomon Spaulding's wife testifies, after stating that Mr. Spaulding was very much interested in the antiquities found around Conneaut:

    "Solomon Spaulding conceived the idea of giving a historical sketch of the long lost race that produced these antiquities. Their extreme antiquity lead him to write in the most ancient style, and as the Old Testament was the oldest book in the world, he imitated its style, as nearly as possible. As he progressed in his narrative, the neighbors would come in from time to time to hear portions read, and a great interest in the work was excited among them. It claimed to have been written by one of the lost nation, and to have been recovered from the earth. The neighbors would often ask how Mr. Spaulding progressed in deciphering the manuscript, and when he had sufficient portion prepared, he would inform them, and they would assemble to hear it read. He was enabled from his acquaintance with the classics and ancient history to introduce many singular names, which were particularly noticed by the people, and could be easily recognized by them."

    Miss Martha Spaulding, now Mrs. Kinstry, Spaulding's daughter testifies: "My Father read the manuscript I had seen him writing to the neighbors and to a clergyman a friend of his who came to visit him. Some of the names he mentioned while reading to the people I have never forgotten. They are as fresh in my memory as though I had heard them but yesterday. They are Mormon, Moroni, Lamanite and Nephi, etc., etc."

    Joseph Miller of Amity, Pa., who was intimate with Spaulding while he lived in Amity, nursed him in his last illness, and heard him read much from his manuscript, says:

    "Mr. Spaulding seemed to take great delight in reading from his manuscript written on foolscap. I heard him read most if not all of it, and had frequent conversations with him about it. Some time ago I heard most of the Book of Mormon read. On hearing read the account of the battle between the Amilicites (Book of Alma, chapter II), in which the soldiers of one army placed a red mark on their foreheads, to distinguish them from their enemies, it seemed to reproduce in my mind not only the narrative but the very words, as they had been impressed on my mind by reading Spaulding's manuscript."

    Ruddick McKee of Washington D. C. testifies:

    "I was a boarder at Spaulding's tavern in Amity, Pa., in the fall of 1814. I recollect, quite well, Mr. Spaulding spending much time in writing on sheets of paper torn out of an old book, what purported to be a veritable history of the nations or tribes that inhabited Canaan. He called it 'Lost Manuscript' or some such name. I was struck with the minuteness of his details and the apparent sincerity and truthfulness of the author. I have an indistinct recollection of the passage referred to by Mr. Miller, about the Amilcites making a cross with red paint in their foreheads to distinguish them from their enemies in the confusion of battle."

    Mr. Abner Jackson of Canton Ohio who heard Spaulding read the MS. to his father in Conneaut, just before his removal to Pittsburg, testifies:     		"Spaulding frequently read his MS. to the neighbors and commented on it as he progressed. He wrote it in Bible style. 'And it came to pass' occurred so often that some called him 'Old come to pass.' The names, Mormon, Moroni, Nephi, Nephite, Laman, Lamanite, etc. were in it. The closing scene was at Cumorah, where all the righteous were slain."

    We propose now to introduce Sidney Rigdon himself. Rev. John Winter, M.D. was teaching school in Pittsburgh, and was a member of the First Baptist church when Rigdon was its pastor and was intimate with Rigdon. He testifies that

    "In 1822 or 3 Rigdon took out of his desk in his study a large MS, stating that it was a Bible romance purporting to be a history of the American Indians. That it was written by one Spaulding, a Presbyterian preacher whose health had failed and who had taken it to the printers to see if it would pay to publish it. And that he (Rigdon) had borrowed it from the printer as a curiousity."

    James Jeffries, an old and highly respected citizen of Churchville, Hartford Co., Maryland, testifies, in a statement he dictated to Rev. Calvin D. Wilson, Jan. 20th, 1884, in the presence of his wife and J. M. Finney, MD; and attested by Dr. Finney, Rev. Wilson and Mrs. James Jeffries:

    "Forty years ago I was in business in St. Louis. The Mormons then had their temple in Nauvoo Illinois. I had business transactions with them. I knew Sidney Rigdon. He acted as general manager of the business of the Mormons (with me). Rigdon told me several times in his conversation with me, that there was in the printing office with which he was connected in Ohio, a MS of the Rev. Spaulding, tracing the origin of the Indians from the lost tribes of Israel. This MS was in the office several years. He was familiar with it. Spaulding wanted it published but had not the means to pay for printing. He (Rigdon) and Joe Smith used to look over the MS and read it on Sundays, Rigdon said Smith took the MS and said 'I'll print it,' and went off to Palmyra New York."

    "Forty years ago" would be the fall of 1844, just after Rigdon had been driven out of Nauvoo. The Times and Seasons assailed him bitterly that fall and winter, for exposing Mormonism. On his way from Nauvoo to Pittsburg, he called on his old acquaintance, Mr. Jeffries, in St. Louis, and, in his anger at the Mormons, he let out the secrets of Mormonism, just as he told the Mormons he would, if they did not make him their leader.

    George Clark, son of Jerome Clark of Hartwicke, N.Y., testifies that Mrs. Davidson left the trunk containing her first husband's MSs. at his fathers, before she went to Munson Mass., to live with her daughter. He says:

    "Shortly before Hurlbut got the MS. from fathers, during a visit to fathers, Mrs. Davidson gave to my wife to read a MS. written by her husband, Spaulding: remarking as she handed her the MS.: 'The Mormon Bible is almost a literal copy of this MS'"

    It was this MS. Hurlbut obtained from Jerome Clark, and which he never delivered to Howe. He retained it and gave to Howe a few leaves, the beginning of an entirely different MS.

    Scores of witnesses who would have corroborated the above could have found




                        THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                     43

    where the Book of Mormon appeared, but these are enough certainly.

    We wish now to call the attention of the reader to these facts.  I. We have proved by sixteen witnesses of the highest character, one Solomon Spaulding's brother, another his sister-in-law, another his wife, another his daughter, another his business partner, another one who was an inmate of his family for many months, another one with whom Spaulding boarded for months, and the others intimate acquaintances, that between the years 1809 and 1816 Solomon Spaulding spent much of his time in preparing manuscripts for a book he intended to publish called the "Manuscript Found."  II. That from reading it and hearing him read it they became more or less familiar with the contents of his manuscript.  III. Their description of his manuscript is as accurate an outline of the historic portion of the Nephite part of the Book of Mormon, in the plot of the story, the starting point of the history, its leading incidents, journies, wars, etc., the names of the principal characters, as any average Mormon can give.  IV. They mention only the Nephite portion of the book of Mormon, with on exception, which we will soon give.  V. They all declare that there was no religious matter in his manuscript.  VI. Oliver Smith testifies that Spaulding told him just before going to Pittsburg, that he would prepare the manuscript for press while there, living a retired life for that purpose.  VII. J. N. Miller testifies, that in explaining his book to him, Spaulding told him that he landed the people at the Isthmus of Darien which he called Zarahemla.

    From all these facts we gather these conclusions. Spaulding wrote, at first, only the historic part of the Nephite portion of the Book of Mormon. This was his second manuscript which we will call manuscript No. II, or Mormon Manuscript No. I. It was this small manuscript that Mrs. Martha Spaulding, his daughter, saw in the trunk at W. H. Sabin's, her uncle's, in Onadago Valley, N.Y. about the year 1823. From the amount of writing Spaulding did during the seven years, and from Miller's description, it is evident that he prepared a more complete manuscript, adding the Zarahemla emigration. This we will call manuscript No. III, Mormon manuscript No. 2. In 1812 Spaulding moved to Pittsburg, for the purpose of publishing his book, intending, as he told Oliver Smith, to lead a retired life and rewrite it for the press. He showed it, his daughter testifies, to Mr. Patterson, a publisher in Pittsburg, who told him to rewrite it for the press and he would publish it. He did so and added the Jaredite emigration. Mrs. Spaulding, his wife, and Miss Spaulding, his daughter, testify that he sent the manuscript to Patterson's publishing house. Mr. Miller, Mr. McKee and Dr. Dodd of Amity, Pa., testify that Spaulding told them be had done so. In 1814 Spaulding, then in very poor health, went to Amity, Washington Co., Pa. His wife kept tavern     		and supported the family. Spaulding continued to write on his manuscript and read it to all who would listen to him until his death Oct. 20th, 1816.

    His wife and daughter put his manuscript and papers that they found into a trunk, and took it with them to the residence of a brother of Mrs. Spaulding, W. H. Sabin, Onandago Valley, Onandago County, N.Y. In 1820 Mrs. Spaulding went to Pomfret Conn. Sometime afterwards she married a Mr. Davison of Hartwicke, Otsego County, N.Y. and went there to live. She left her daughter, Miss Martha Spaulding, with her uncle, Mr. Sabin, and left the trunk containing the manuscripts in her care. Miss Spaulding testifies that she read one of the manuscripts, a small one, either Spaulding's first draft of the story, or his Mormon manuscript No. 1 -- the one he wrote in 1809-10. She also testifies that while she was at her uncle's Joseph Smith worked as [a] teamster for her uncle, and learned of the existence of the manuscript. Impostor Joe places his first vision concerning the plates, Sept. 1823. As this is his way of dressing up his first knowledge of the manuscript, he worked for Sabin in September 1823 and learned of the existence of the manuscript then. Sometime after her moving to Hartwicke, and after Sept. 1823, Mrs. Davidson sent for the trunk and it was sent from Onandago Valley, to the house of Mr. Davidson in Hartwicke. In 1828 Miss Martha Spaulding married Dr. McKinstry and went to Munson Mass. to live. In 1830 Mrs. Davidson left Hartwicke and went to Munson to live with her daughter, Mrs. McKinstry. She left the trunk containing the manuscript and papers -- that is all she and her daughter found after Spaulding's death, in care of her brother-in-law, Jerome Clark, in Hartwicke. Here it stayed until it was opened by Philastus Hurlbut and Jerome Clark in 1834. Hurlbut had visited Mrs. Davidson and Mrs. McKinstry in Munson, and obtained an order from them authorizing him to open the trunk, and examine the contents. . .

    We are ready now to introduce the person who was instrumental in giving to the world the "Book of Mormon." Sidney Rigdon was born near the village of Library in St. Clair township, Allegany county, Pa., February 19, 1793. He lived on the farm of his father until the death of the latter in 1810; when Sidney was 17 years old. All the education he obtained he got in a log school-house near his home. After his father's death he still made his home at his mother's, pretending to work on the farm and to farm the land part of the time, but was, his neighbors say, too lazy or too proud to work. A dispute has arisen over the question whether he was in Pittsburg before he went there in 1822, to take charge of the first Baptist church. His friends assert that he did not live in Pittsburg till that time, A dispute arises over the question whether he learned the printer's art in early life. Also whether he worked in the office of Patterson, when Spaulding's manuscript




    44                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    was taken there to be published. His friends deny this, and persons employed in Patterson's office before and after that time, say they remember no such employee of the office, and Rigdon denied it most emphatically. Mr. Patterson remembers nothing of him. On the other hand Mrs. Davidson, Spaulding's wife, declares positively that he was connected with the office. Mr. Miller of Amity, Mr. McKee, and Dr. Dodd testify that Mr. Spaulding so informed them. There must have been some foundation for such positive impressions on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding, and many others.

    I think Mrs. Eichbaum who was clerk in the post office, in Pittsburg, from 1812 to 1816, gives the key to the matter. A young man by the name of Lambdin was in Mr. Patterson's employ and became his partner in 1818. She states that Rigdon and Lambdin were very intimate and that Mr. Engle [sic] foreman of Patterson's printing office complained that Rigdon was loafing around the office all the time; that Rigdon was working in a tannery at the time. The explanation then is that Rigdon was intimate with Lambdin one of the leading employees of Patterson, while he was working in a tannery in Pittsburg, and from this intimacy, persons supposed that he was in Patterson's employ; especially when he was around the office so much. Rigdon was then a young man, noted for his gift of gab, and fondness for discussion, especially on religious topics. We are now ready to prove that Rigdon came into contact with the Spaulding manuscript. Joseph Miller of Amity, Pa., who took care of Spaulding in his last illness, testifies: "My recollection is that Spaulding left a transcript of the manuscript with Patterson for publication. The publication was delayed until Spaulding could write a preface. In the mean time the manuscript was spirited away, and could not be found. Spaulding told me that Sidney Rigdon had taken it or was suspected of taking it. I recollect distinctly that Rigdon's name was mentioned in connection with it." Mr. McKee says that Rigdon was mentioned to him by Spaulding as the employee of Patterson. Dr. Dodd who took care of Spaulding in his last illness declared that Spaulding's manuscript had been transformed into the Book of Mormon, and that Rigdon was the one who did it. He made this statement years before Howe's book appeared, the first public statement of such a theory. He did it on account of what he had heard of the Spaulding manuscript, and what Spaulding had told him. Mrs. Spaulding positively declares that Rigdon was connected with Patterson's office, when the manuscript was there, and that he copied it. That the manuscript was a subject of much curiosity and interest in the office. That it was well known that he had a copy of it.

    We can now collate the evidence. Rigdon was intimate with Lambdin a prominent employee in the office. He loafed     		about the office so much that Mr. Engle the foreman complained of it. His fondness for religious discussion and love of the strange and marvelous, caused him to take a deep interest in the Spaulding manuscript. It was just what would interest such a cast of mind as his. The manuscript was missed. He was blamed with spiriting it away. Mrs. Spaulding thinks he copied it. She, in the course of her husband's last illness did not learn all the facts, or did not remember clearly. She was mistaken in regard to his copying it and that it was returned, as Miller, McKee and Dr. Dodd's statements, in regard to Spaulding's own statements show. We have now traced the manuscript that Spaulding prepared for publication into Rigdon's hands. The statement of his friends that he staid on the farm till he went to Pittsburg, in 1822, they contradict themselves. It does not harmonize with Rigdon's character. Mrs. Eichbaum's statement is confirmed by the fact that Rigdon went to work in a tannery when he quit preaching in 1824. He had learned the trade in 1812 to 1816. That Rigdon was in Pittsburg, when Spaulding's manuscript was in Patterson's office, learning the tanner's trade. He was intimate with Lambdin, an employee of Patterson. He was about the office so much that Engles complained that he was always hanging about. He was just such a person as would be excited over Spaulding's manuscript. He took great interest in it. That was what made him hang around the office. The manuscript was stolen and Spaulding said that Rigdon was suspected of taking it.

    Rigdon joined the Baptist church on Piney Fork of Peters creek May 31, 1817. He studied theology during the years 1818-19 with a Mr. Clark a Baptist Preacher of Beaver county, Pa. He was licensed to preach by the Connequessing Baptist church in 1819. He went to Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, where his uncle was a prominent member of the Baptist church and joined that church March 4th, 1820. He was ordained to preach as a regular Baptist preacher by that church, April 1st, 1820. He preached for that church and other churches in the vicinity during the years 1820 and 21. He married Phebe Brooks in Warren in 1820. In January 1822 he moved to Pittsburg and was made pastor of the First Baptist church, Jan. 28th, 1822. He embraced many of the teachings of Campbell and Scott. His church and Scott's often met together in worship. He was arraigned for such doctrinal errors and excluded Oct. 11, 1823. He preached for his adherents in the courthouse till the summer of 1824. Then for two years did no regular preaching. He says he studied the Bible and worked in a tannery.

    We will now prove that he had the Spaulding manuscript in his possession at this time. Rev. John Winter M. D. who was a member of Rigdon's congregation when he was pastor or the First Baptist church, and very intimate with him testifies; that Rigdon in his presence in his




                        THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                     45

    house took out of a desk a manuscript and remarked that a "Presbyterian minister Spaulding whose health had failed brought this to a printer to see if it would pay to publish it. It is a romance of the Bible -- and he got it from the printer to read as a curiosity." Here we have clear proof that Rigdon had Spaulding's manuscript in his possession in 1823. In the winter of 1826 Rigdon moved to Bainbridge, Geauga, county Ohio. Soon after he was visited by his niece now Mrs. A. Dunlap of Warren, Ohio. She testifies:

    "That in her presence her uncle went to his bedroom and took from a trunk which he kept locked a certain manuscript and came back, seated himself by the fire and began to read. His wife came into the room and exclaimed, 'What, you are studying that thing again? I mean to burn that paper.' Rigdon replied, 'No, indeed, you will not. This will be a great thing some day!' When he was reading this manuscript he was so completely occupied that he seemed entirely unconscious of anything around him."

    We have now proved that Rigdon had the Spaulding manuscript in his possession, and that he expected to make some great thing out of it and spent much time over it.

    In June 1826 Rigdon was invited to preach the funeral sermon of Warner Goodall of Mentor Ohio, and so pleased the congregation that they chose him their preacher and he became a Disciple preacher. He was now 33 years old. He had barely what was a common school education of those days, and was never a student or reader, except of the visionary and mysterious. He had a wonderful command of language, an extravagant imagination and a marvelous power of word painting. He excelled in declamation and in a kind of pulpit power that arouses revival excitement. He never was regarded as a reasoner, or a man of profound thought. He was relied on as a revivalist rather than as a regular preacher. His favorite theme was the millennium, on which he was fond of declaiming, and entertained the ideas now found in the Book of Mormon. He was always talking of some great time coming, some great thing going to happen. He brought with him many of his Baptist ideas, and never accepted all Disciple teaching. His power in revivals and his love of revival excitement inclined him to the idea then popular in all churches, except the Disciples, of direct and immediate or miraculous power of the Holy Ghost. His extravagancies and eccentricities gave constant annoyance to the Disciples, who overlooked them on account of his power as a revivalist. They would often say: "Oh well it is Rigdon. It is one of Rigdon's oddities." His imagination and love of the marvelous lead him constantly into exaggerations, that often were absolute falsehoods. Those who watched him closely were soon convinced that he lacked logical mental power and moral stamina, and was unreliable in his statements and wanting in moral principle. He was a vain and showy pulpit orator but never was a trusted preacher among the Disciples.

    We propose now to show that Rigdon knew     		of the appearance of the Book of Mormon before it appeared, and knew of and described its contents. Adamson Bentley Rigdon's brother-in-law and one of the most reliable men that Ohio has ever known, declares in the Millennial Harbinger of 1844, page 39: "I know that Sidney Rigdon told me as much as two years before the Mormon Book made its appearance, or had been heard of by me, that there was a book coming out, the manuscript of which was engraved on gold plates." Alexander Campbell whose word not even sectarian hatred ever dared to impeach, clinches the matter by adding his testimony:

    "The conversation alluded to in brother Bentley's letter was in my presence as well as his. My recollection of it led me, some two or three years ago, to interrogate brother Bentley concerning his recollections of it. They accord with mine in every particular, except in regard to the year in which it occurred. He placed it in the summer of 1827. I placed it in the summer of 1826. Rigdon at the time observed that on the plates dug up in New York there was an account, not only of the aborigines of this continent, but it was also stated that the Christian religion had been preached on this continent, during the first century just as we were then preaching it on the Western Reserve."

    That clinches the matter.

    We will now introduce Darwin Atwater of Mantua, who testifies:
    "Sidney Rigdon preached for us when the Mormon defection came on us, and notwithstanding his extraordinary wild freaks, he was held in high repute by many. For a few months before his pretended conversion to Mormonism, it was noted that his wild, extravagant propensities had been more marked. That he knew beforehand of the coming of the Book of Mormon is to me certain, from what he said during the first of his visits at my father's some years before (in 1826). He gave a wonderful description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of America, and said that they must have been made by the aborigines. He said there was a book to be published containing an account of those things. He spoke of them in his eloquent, enthusiastic style, as being a thing most extraordinary. Though a youth I took him to task for expending so much enthusiasm on such a subject, instead of things of the gospel. In all my intercourse with him afterwards he never spoke of antiquities, or of the wonderful book that should give account of them, till the Book of Mormon was really published. He must have thought I was not the man to reveal to."

    That is true. Darwin Atwater was not, Parley P. Pratt was. He was the right man for Rigdon's schemes.

    Rigdon made a convert of Pratt then teaching school in Lorain county Ohio. Pratt began to preach for the Disciples. Rigdon let him into his scheme and Pratt entered heartily into it. We will now prove that Rigdon was away from home, engaged in getting out his manuscript, that he told his wife would be a great thing some day. Zebulon Rudolph, Mrs. Garfield's father testifies:

    "During the winter previous to the appearance of the Book of Mormon, Rigdon was in the habit of spending weeks away from home, going no one knew whither. He often appeared preoccupied and he would indulge in dreamy visionary talks which puzzled those who listened. When the Book of Mormon appeared and Rigdon joined in the advocacy of the new religion the suspicion was at once aroused that he was one of the framers of the new doctrine, and that probably he was not ignorant of the authorship of the Book of Mormon."

    John Rudolph, brother to Z. Rudolph, says:
    For two years before the Book of Mormon appeared




    46                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    Rigdon's sermons were full of declarations and prophecies that the age of miracles would be restored and more complete revelations than those in the Bible would be given. When the Book of Mormon appeared all who heard him were satisfied that he referred to it."

    Almon B. Green, well known in Northern Ohio, says:
    "In the Annual Meeting of the Mahoning Association held in Austintown in August, 1830, about two months before Sidney Rigdon's professed conversion to Mormonism, Rigdon preached Saturday afternoon. He had much to say about a full and complete restoration of the ancient gospel. He spoke in his glowing style of what the Disciples had accomplished but contended that we had not accomplished a complete restoration of Apostolic Christianity. He contended such restoration must include community of goods -- holding all in common stock, and a restoration of the spiritual gifts of the apostolic age. He promised that although we had not come up to the apostolic plan in full yet as we were improving God would soon give us a new and fuller revelation of his will. After the Book of Mormon had been read by many who heard Rigdon on that occasion they were perfectly satisfied that Rigdon knew all about that book when he preached that discourse. Rigdon's sermon was most thoroughly refuted by Bro. Campbell, which very much offended Rigdon."

    Scores of others who were present have made similar statements hundreds of times. Eri M. Dille testifies:
    "In the Autumn of 1830 Sidney Rigdon held a meeting in the Baptist meeting-house on Euclid Creek. I was sick and did not attend the meeting, but my father repeatedly remarked while it was in progress that he was afraid that Rigdon was about to leave the Disciples for he was continually telling of what marvelous things he had seen in the heavens and of wonderful things about to happen, and his talks indicated that he would leave the Disciples.

    We will now prove that Rigdon came in contact with Smith in 1827-28-29, while Smith was getting out the Book of Mormon, Pomeroy Tucker, a native of Palmyra, New York, an intimate acquaintance of Impostor Joe, who read much of the proofs of the Book of Mormon says:
    "A mysterious stranger now appears at Smith's and holds intercourse with the famed money digger. For a considerable time no intimation of the name or purpose of this stranger transpired to the public, not even to Smith's nearest neighbors. It was observed by some that his visits were frequently repeated. The sequel of the intimacies of this stranger and the money digger will sufficiently appear hereafter. There was great consternation when the 118 pages of manuscript were stolen from Harris, for it seems to have been impossible, for some unaccountable reason, to retranslate the stolen portion. The reappearance of this mysterious stranger at Smith's at this juncture was again the subject of inquiry and conjecture by observers, from whom was withheld all explanations of his identity and purpose. When the Book of Mormon appeared, Rigdon was an early convert. Up to this time he had played his part in the background and his occasional visits to Smith's had been observed by the inhabitants as those of the mysterious stranger. It had been his policy to remain in concealment until all things were in readiness for blowing the trumpet of the new gospel. He now came to the front as the first regular preacher in Palmyra."

    Mrs. Eaton, wife of Horace Eaton D. D. for thirty-two years a resident of Palmyra says:
    "Early in the summer of 1827 a mysterious stranger seeks admission to Joe Smith's cabin. The conferences of the two are most private. This person whose coming immediately precedes a new departure in the faith was Sidney Rigdon a backslidden clergyman, then a Campbellite preacher in Mentor, Ohio.

    J. C. McCauley, in his history of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, states:
    "As a matter too well known to need argument that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and Sidney Rigdon were acquaintances for a considerable time before Mormonism was first heard of."

    Abel Chase, a near neighbor of the Smiths testifies:     		"I saw Rigdon at Smith's at different times with considerable intervals between them."

    This disproves the statement that Rigdon never was at Smith's but once and that after the book appeared. He was there several times and some visits must have been before the book appeared.

    Lorenzo Saunders, another near neighbor, testifies:

    "I saw Rigdon at Smith's several times, and the first visit was more than two years before the Book appeared."

    We have now brought Rigdon the second character in the origination of the Book of Mormon, in contact with the Impostor Joe Smith the third and last character in originating the fraud. This appearance could have been brought about in two ways. Parley Pratt the school teacher in Lorain county Ohio, that Rigdon converted, had been a peddler in central New York, and was acquainted with every noted character in it. When Rigdon let him into the secret of his scheme, he could have suggested to Rigdon that the seer and famous money seeker of Manchester, with his wonderful peep-stone, would be the very person to introduce his fraud in the world, as a revelation by miracle. Or it could have occurred in another way, The work of Smith and his gang in digging over a large scope of country in southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania, had been extensively commented on by the press. Rigdon could have learned of this wonderful seeker after treasure, and his wonderful peep-stone through the press, and it occurred to him that here was the one to give his stolen manuscript to the world as a new revelation, by miracle, translating pretended plates with his peep-stone. We are now ready for a sketch of Impostor Joe.

    Impostor Joe was born Dec. 23, 1805, in Sharon, Windsor county, Vermont. The minister employed by the Home Missionary Society, to labor in Vermont 1809-10-11-12-13, says, in his autobiography, that in 1812 a religious impostor created an excitement in the neighborhood of the Smith's. He taught that miraculous spiritual gifts could and should be enjoyed now, and claimed to be a prophet and then a Messiah, Christ in his second advent. Among the most active of his followers was Impostor Joe's father and mother, especially his mother. She prophesied, at the time, that Joe, then seven years old, would be a prophet, and give to the world a new religion. Joe was raised with this idea before him. All the family were taught and believed it. Joe's father used to speak of Joe as the "genus," as he termed it, of the family. This accounts for Joe's peculiar gravity when but a child, and as a youth. He was to be a prophet, and he must not act as other children and boys did. In 181[5] the Smiths moved to Palmyra N.Y. and in 1813 they squatted on an unoccupied piece of land, belonging to minors and lived there until they went to Ohio in 1830. Soon after coming to Palmyra, in a revival excitement, Joe showed




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    some interest in religious matters, and joined the class of probationers on probation and was soon left off "on suspicion" as the Yankee expressed a similar experience of his own. This is all there is of the long story that Impostor Joe wrote in 1843, twenty three years afterwards, of hid wonderful vision, of his going to the Methodist preacher with queries that would be in character, had the querist been a person of mature mind, well versed in the controversies of the age, but were utterly out of character in the mouth of an ignorant illiterate boy of fifteen, that was remarkable chiefly for his power of exaggeration and falsehood, and not for thought. The ideas that he said he had then, he never dreamed of until he learned them from Sidney Rigdon, years afterwards.

    In Sep. 1822, while digging a well for Willard Chase, Impostor Joe's father found a singularly shaped stone of cloudy quartz, strangely resembling a child's foot. Impostor Joe, who was loafing around was very much interested in the stone and finally stole it from Mr. Chase's children. The stone is the Urim and Thummim. Rigdon had stolen the "Book of Mormon." Now Impostor Joe steals the Urim and Thummim, with which he pretended to      		translate Rigdon's stolen manuscript. In Sept. 1823 Impostor Joe worked for W. H. Sabin, in Onandago Valley N.Y. Here he learned of the existence of the Spaulding manuscript then at Mr. Sabin's in the care of Martha Spaulding, Solomon Spaulding's daughter. During the year 1823-24-25-26-27, Impostor Joe was engaged in loafing around, strolling over the country, pretending to find water by witching for it with a witch-hazel rod, and pretending to find lost property, buried treasures, and minerals, by means of the same stone he had stolen from Mr. Chases's children. He had, a part of the time, with him, a gang of idle superstitious men, who dug holes over a large scope of country, in several counties in southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania. His knavish tricks, and frauds, had attracted to him great notoriety. His proceedings with a gang of dupes were published and commented on in several of the papers of New York and Pennsylvania. By this means Rigdon who was still looking around for some means to publish his stolen manuscript heard of the Seer of Manchester, and his wonderful peep-stone. It occurred to him that here was the means of getting his new revelation -- his "Golden Bible" before the world.



    MR. KELLEY'S FIFTH SPEECH.

    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- This evening I shall introduce first, some of the unmistakable corroborative evidences of the truth of the Book of Mormon as found contained in the reports and records of eminent travelers, explorers, scientists, historians and archaeologists, of the world.

    The Spaulding Romance no doubt will still be the means of entertaining you upon the part of the negative, as it seems to be a much easier task for him to spin out that yarn, than to attempt to answer the arguments of the affirmative. I will promise you one thing however, that is, that the Spaulding tale shall not go unanswered, if the arguments of the affirmative are. I will show you before the close of the discussion of this question, if the negative holds out the time agreed upon, that, that thing is so rotten and deceitful in conception, so false and malicious in publication, so absurd and ridiculous in belief, that you shall in your hearts feel ashamed that you ever entertained the thought, that there might be something in it. In the meantime carefully follow him; he is a good reader and has the story well rehearsed.     		But to the facts: In 1827 and 1828, when the greater part of the Book of Mormon was translated and put in manuscript, and in the year 1829, when it was put in the hands of the printer, very little was known as to the peoples, ancient races and civilization of the American continent. Taken in the light of what is known of these ancient peoples to-day with the later developments, there was comparatively nothing known at that time. There were then speculations and theories afloat as to the probabilities of an older people than the Indians in a few cases, brought out by the finding of a few relics of rude implements and ornaments together with some bones, &c., unaccounted for, and in a few instances speculation as to the cause of certain mounds of earth, whether such showed a higher state of civilization and was the remains of an older people than was then to be found among the savages of the forest. But there was no one who for a moment thought that the country had been inhabited by a people whose state of civilization and enlightenment had equaled, if not surpassed, that of Europe itself. In the arts and the sciences; in agriculture and



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    mining; In masonry and architecture; In painting arid sculpture; in engineering and mecnanical skill, in physics and medicine and in mathematics and astronomy. Not only this, but to that time no one speculated in all the domain of history, science or literature, that the continent had been successively inhabited by different peoples of a high state of civilization, who in turn had become extinct or dwindled into barbarism. It was also at that tvme a speculative belief that the continent was settled from the north, the people gradually making to the south when it was settled, and that probably some of the rude tribes which inhabited northeast Asia had at some period wandered across Behring's strait and gradually made their way southward upon the continent. It was also speculated that perhaps at some time some of the daring and hardy seamen of maritime Europe had discovered the country and formed small settlements which were afterwards destroyed by the more powerful nations, for the relics discovered up to 1829, were only in certain places, which would only indicate the landing of a ship's crew at the point; and again, that the Chinese had been cast upon its shores in some accidental manner and the Indians were descended from them; and later by some, that the "Ten tribes of Israel," that were carried away captive from Samaria by Shalmanesar, King of Assyria^ may have made their way to the continent and after a time fallen into idolatry and a state of savagery. But in turn every one of these theories have given way as the light of discovery and research has been thrown upon them, and now none find a support as demonstrable facts. At the time before referred to however, there was published to the world by a young man in the State of New York, a record claiming to give a positive and correct account of the peoples who had formerly inhabited this continent. The places from whence they came; the different times of their coming; the countries of first settlement; the varied states of civilization; their knowledge of the arts, sciences, agriculture, languages and literature. The manner of settlement, leading from south to north. The extent of settlement and the magnitude of the population. Giving^ a general account of their hundreds of cities and the glory and grandeur of them; of the industries, pursuits and character of the people, ana their final overthrow. And singular as it may seem, every statement with reference to these matters is in harmony with the facts which have been developed by the later researches of science. And upon nearly every one of its marvelous revelations as to these people, the result of the work of the archaeologist has been to furnish corroborative evidence of their truthfulness. Notwithstanding the fairness and candor in which the statements of this record have been published to the world, from the day it met the public eye, self-constituted leaders, theologians, and paltry politicians have taken it upon themselves to inform the public mind of their views of its teachings, always careful, however, to, if possible, keep the record itself in the background lest it reveal their perversions, until at this time, I think I may safely assert anfd keep within the bounds of truth, that there is not published in America a single Encyclopedia, Gazetter, Geography, History, History of Religious Debominations, Review of Expose which has spoken of the work and undertakes to give its statements, unless such publication was made by the friends of this record, that does not contain a false, garbled and perverted account of what it contains and teaches. I ask in the broad world of books everywhere for one. Why is this, my audience? If the book is a bad one will it not be sufficient to prove it so by giving its statements without perversion? Has it come to this? That men are compelled to resort to falsehood and trickery in order to overcome and out down an evil thing? In the apostles' time the injunction was "to be not overcome of evil, and overcome evil with good." But perhaps this with the other good things of the New Testament was confined to the apostles, and "to those upon whom they laid their hands." The truth is my friends that there is method in this madness. Somebodt is just afraid that if the light is turned on they may be discovered to be sitting in darkness. It may be said as of olden time: "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither comest to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." "But he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God."

    It was stated by my opponent last night that Sidney Rigdon said in 1823, that a book would be published some day, "and be a big thing," "And," says he, "it is a big thing."

    Well it seems to me he makes Rigdon out a prophet, and a true one too, rather early in the career. According to this Rigdon was a prophet while he belonged to the Baptists, and after he was with the Disciples; and I make my guess right there that if he had not found out they were not in accordance with the Bible and left them he would be accounted such with them to this day; yes, and the grandest and ablest of them all; making no exception to Campbell, or Scott or Barton W. Stone. It is much like the case of Saul of Tarsus, who while he was a Pharisee was hail fellow well met. But when he became converted to the full light of the gospel, and afterwards preached good to the people, and told them how many bad things he did when a Pharisee, "They cried out, Away with such a fellow, he ought not to be permitted to live upon the earth."

    But to return to the "big thing." This work my friends will prove to be a big thing to this age yet: not to the destruction of Christianity, but to its full establishment. Why! do you not know that I can go side by side with the scientist and the skeptic


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    into the National Museum of our country and corroborate that work by the collections, from the rude arrow-head of the Indian to the cities of the clitf-dwellers which are there set out in full representation, simply by turning to the wonderful history in this book? And not only in these but in the fossil and other collections from the time you strike the bones of the mastodon till you come to those of the common domestic animals. It is truly an ensign set up bearing the most indisputable tidings that Jesus was the Son of God and that God is, who created the heavens and the earth and revealed himself to man upon this as upon the other continent; and this fact alone ought to be a sufficient answer to the question, "Of what use is the book?" Since it is brought to light in an age of the world when whole multitudes disbelieve in the existence of God, and millions whose fear toward him are taught by the precepts of men, believe in him only as a God of the past, but not now having any especial thing to do with the human family, the use of it is as apparent as any known thing in the universe. Opening this record (the Book of Mormon), I hurriedly cite some of its pages upon the civilization of the continent.

    First of the civilization which came out from Babel four thousand years ago. Page 620 of the record:

    "And the whole face of the land northward, (that Is from the straits, from what we term the Isthmus of Panama northward]), was covered with inhabitants; and they were exceeding industrious, and they did buy and sell and traffic one with another that they might get gain. And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, und all manner of metals; and they did dig It out of the earth: wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold and of silver, and of iron and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. And they did have silks, and fine twined linen; and they did work all manner of cloth that they might clothe themselves. And they did make all manner of tools to till the earth, both to plough and to sow, and to reap and to hoe, and also to thrash. And they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceeding curious workmanship. And never could be a people more blest than they, and more prospered by the hand of the Lord."

    Then I refer you to page 517 for another description:

    "And in the space of sixty and two years," (that is from the time that Emer one of their kings began to reign), "they had become exceeding strong, insomuch that they become exceeding rich, having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things, and also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of hheep. and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for ihr food of man; and they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants, and cnreloms, and cumoms, all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants, and cureloms, andcumoms."

    Citing you now to page 43, I refer you to the situation of the country as it appeared and was found to exist when the second people came to the continent Those who came out from the land of Jerusalem six hundred years before the birth of the Savior:

    "And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts In the forests of every kind, both the cow, and the ox, and the ass, and the horse and the goat, and the wild goat, and all manner of wild ani- mals which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper."

    On page 394 we have a further description, and also of the habits of the people:

    "And behold, there was all mannerof gold in both these lands, and of silver, and of precious ore of every kind; and there were also curious workmen, who did work all kinds of ore, and did refine it; and thus they did become rich. They did raise grain in abundance, both in the north and in the south. And they did flourish exceedingly both in the north and in the south. And they did multiply and wax exceeding strong in the land. And they did raise many flocks and herds, yen, many fallings. Behold, their women did toil and spin, and did make all manner of cloth, of fine twined linen and cloth of every kind."

    Leaving the description of the country and the people as set out in the book, I next refer you to their society and moral and religious instruction. The book shows that the people were taught by Jesus when he manifested himself to many upon this continent. Jesus said unto them page 456:

    "And as I have prayed among you, even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent, and are baptized in my name. Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you."

    "Pray In your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and children may be blessed. And behold, ye shall meet together oft, and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ve shall meet together, but suffer them that they irm. come unto you, and forbid them not; but ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft, ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name; therefore hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that 1 have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed; and ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye may feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world; arid whosoever breaketh this 'commandment, suffereth himself to be led into temptation."

    I might cite its pages to show you with regard to the hundreds of cities that it refers to, and magnificent ones too, located upon different parts of the continent; and especially upon the part of the continent known as Central America, and of which I shall refer hereafter; and also that part of the continent known now as Peru and Bolivia. But will proceed at the present upon another line.

    Having given you a glance into the his- tory as published in the years 1829 and 1830, I will briefly enumerate some of the prominent things mentioned in the work which have since been verified, and then intro- duce the evidences from Archaeologists.

    1. The book states that three civilizations have existed, flourished and decayed, upon parts of the continent, and one on nearly every part.

    2. One of these, first settled north of the Isthmus, or "narrow neck of land " as described by them, and inhabited first what is now called Central America, and afterwards the more northern parts of the continent.

    3. The second settled on the east coast of South America and first inhabited that country occupying the territory that is now known as Peru and Bolivia, and from thence spread over the whole continent.


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    4. The third landed on or near the coast of what is now called Yucatan in Central America.

    5. The last two of these civilizations were cotemporaneous, and that they after a time united and were known as one people.

    6. That the habitation of each began about 590 years before the Christian Era, and the joint habitation ceased about four centuries after, except as to the estranged tribes.

    7. That the occupancy of the first or original inhabitants ceased at least a thousand years before these.

    8. That the last prophets understood the Egyptian language in part and wrote in a brief and phonetic system of their language.

    9. That they also wrote in other languages as did also the earliest of the peoples. That the civilization so far as to the occupancy of the country were in each in- stance from south to north originally.

    10. That they builded many great and fine cities in the northern parts of South America; also, on and near the narrow neck of land, and north in the country of Central America, wnere the cities were the finest, largest, and most numerous. They also builded farther north upon all parts of the continent.

    11. That the ancestry of the last two peo- ples was Israelitish, but not the lost "Ten Tribes."

    12. That there was early brought to the continent by the first people, the common domestic animals and many others. (Here I will also state that the fossil remains of many of these were not discovered or known to the world to have existed upon this continent till a very late date, some as late as the year 1860.)

    13. That many of their cities were walled with solid masonry and made immense fortresses and that they had engines of war, and the battle ax, the cimeter, the sword and many other kinds of instruments of war.

    14. That classes had fortified cities in the mountains far up, so much so that it was impossible to dislodge them, and they retired and lived there, except to sally forth and prey upon the people in the land or the agricultural portions.

    15. That the structure and manner of building of their temples was upon a grand and magnificent plan and they were decorated with much expense and many curious and unique ornaments.

    16. The enlightened and civilized part of the people were peaceably inclined and not warlike, and highly cultivated in morals and religion. This is the history as given in the Book of Mormon.

    I will now turn to my evidences with regard to this, as ascertained and published by explorers since the publication of the Book of Mormon, citing you the first volume of John L. Stephen's explorations in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, page 131. Mr. Stephens here sets forth the first reference made to the distinguished city of Copan, as being made by Francisco de Fuentes in 1700; but he only mentions it casually, and in his description he represented it as containing figures of men likewise represented in Spanish habits, with hose, and ruffle around the neck, sword, cap and short cloak. But that history has never been published in the English language. And little known of it in any part of the world, and it contained no true or full description of this ancient city.

    "From this time," says the author, "there is no account of these ruins until the visit of Col. Galindo in 1836, before referred to, who examined them under a commission from the Central American Government, and whose communications on the subject were publoshed in the proceedings ot the Royal Geographical Society of Paris, and in the Literary Gazette of London." This was in the year 1834.

    I might remark here that there is in the books reference made to, a Spanish gentleman, and also an explorer, who examined some of these ruins, and left his manuscript in the hands of the government, and which was published in London in the year 1822. But the publication in English of that manuscript was confined to such narrow limits that at the time Stephens wrote this work, (1841), he had never himself seen the work, and such a journal as the London Literary Gazette had never heard of it in 1834. Mr. Stephens continues with reference to the first published account by Col. Galindo in 1834, as follows:

    "Not being an artist his account Is necessarily unsatisfactory and imperfect, but it is not exaggerated. Indeed it falls short of the marvelous account given by Fuentes one hundred and thirty five years before, and makes no mention of the movable stone hammock, with the sitting figures which were our great inducement to visit the ruins. No plans or drawings have ever been published, nor anything that can five e^en an idea of that valley of romance and wonder, where as has been remarked, the genii who attended on King Solomon seem to have been the artists."

    I cite you next to the account on page 142 of the same work, where the author in describing some of the sculptured art of this ancient people says:

    "Between the two principal personages is a remarkable cartouche, containing two hieroglyphics well preserved, which reminded us strongly of the Egypdnn method of giving the names of the kings or heroes in whose honor monuments were erected. The headdresses are remarkable for their curious and complicated form; the figures have all breastplates and one of the two principal characters holds in his hand an Instrument, which may, perhaps, be considered a scepter; each of the others holds an object which can only be a subject for speculation and conjecture. It may be a weapon of war, and if so, it is the only thing of the kind found represented In Copan. In other countries, battle-scenes, warriors, and weapons of war are nmong the most prominent subjects of sculpture; and from the entire absence of them here there is no reason to believe that ihe people were not warlike, but peaceable ane easily subdued."

    Do not forget the fact in the examination that the only account pretended to have been given prior to 1834 of this city, that of Fuentes in 1700. represented these relics as adorned in Spanish dress and costume, and which would have really misled a reader of the true character of the ruins.

    On page 155 of the same work we have another concise description of their sculp- ture:

    "The monument, unhappily, Is fallen and broken. In sculpture it is the same with the beautiful half-buried monument before given, and I repeat It, In equal to the best remains of Egyptian


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    art The fallen part was completely bound to the earth by vines and creepers, and before it could be drawn it was necessary to unlace them, and te ar the fibres out of the crevices. The paint is very perfect, and has preserved the stone, which makes it more to be regretted that it is broken. The altar is buried with the top barely visible, which, by examination we made out to represent the back of a tortoise."

    Before Mr. Stephens visited Central America and in a manner he was under the auspices of the government of the United States he had visited all of the distinguished countries of the Eastern continent, and examined their cities, and had written or given partial accounts of them. He was a man well calculated to look closely into these cities of Ancient America and give a reliable account and description of them.

    I next refer you to page 310 of his second volume. In his description of the temple of Palenque another ruin city of Central America he says:

    "It stands on an artificial elevation of an oblong form, forty feet high, three hundred and ten feet in front and rear, and two hundred and sixty feet on each side. This elevation was formerly faced with stone, which has been thrown down by the growth of trees, and its form is hardly distinguishable. The building stands with its face to the east, and measures two hundred and twenty-eight feet front by one hundred and eighty feet deep. Its height is not more than twenty five feet, and all around it had a broad projecting cornice of stone. The front contained fourteen doorways, about nine feet wide each, and the intervening piers are between six and seven feet wide. On the left (in approaching the palace), eight of the piers have fallen down, as has also the corner on the right, and the terrace underneath is cumbered with the ruins. But six piers remain entire, and the rest of the front is open. The building was constructed of stone, with a mortar of lime and sand, and the whole front was covered with stucco and painted. The piers were ornamented with spirited figures in bas-relief."

    On page 346 we have this further description:

    "The principal subject of this tablet," that is one of the sculptured figures that was found there, called 'the tablet of the cross,'-- "is the cross. It is [surmounted] with a strange bird, and loaded with indescribable ornaments. The two figures are evidently those of important personages. They are well drawn and in symmetry of proportion are perhaps equal to many thai are carved on the walls of the ruined temples in Egypt. Their costume is in a style different from any heretofore given, and the folds would seem to indicate that they were of a soft and pliable texture like cotton. Both are looking toward the cross, and one seems in the act of making an offering, perhaps of a child; all speculations on the subject are of course entitled to little regard, but perhaps it would not be wrong to ascribe to these personages a sacerdotal character. The hieroglyphics doubtless explain all. Near them are other hieroglyphics, which reminded us of the Egyptian mode for the recording the name, history, office or character of the persons represented. This tablet of the cross has given rise to more learned speculations than perhaps any others found at Palenque."

    On page 356 we have this statement of the author in the conclusion of his description of the fallen city:

    "Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar people, who had passed through all the stages incident to the rise and tall of nations; reached their golden age, and perished entirely unknown."

    I refer you next to the late work of Mr. John T. Short, entitled, The North Americans of Antiquity. On page 387, he says of Palenque:

    "The accompanying cut shows Waldeck's drawing (employed by Mr. Bancroft). Four hundred yards south of the palace stands the ruins of a pyramid and temple, which at the time of Dupaix's and of Waideck's visits were in a good state of preservation, but quite dilapidated when seen by Charny. The temple faces the east, and on the western wall of its inner apartment, itself facing the eastern light, is found, (or rather was. for it has now entirely disappeared), the most beautiful specimen of stucco relief in America. Mr. Waldeck, with the critical insight of an experienced artist declares it 'worthy to be compared to the most beautiful works of the age of Augustus.' He therefore named the temple Beau Relief. The above cut is a reduction from Waldeck's drawing used in Mr. Bancroft's work, and is very accurate. However, the peculiar beauty of Waldeck's drawing is such that it must be seen in order to be fully appreciated. It is scarcely necessary for us to call the reader's attention to the details of this picture, in which correctness of design and greceful outlines predominate to such an extent that we may safely pronounce the beautiful youth who sits enthroned on his elaborate and artistic throne, the American Apollo. In the or ginal drawing the grace of the arms and wrists is truly mHtchless, and the muscles are displayed in the most perfect manner."

    I hope the audience will not overlook the fact of the high order of art here set out. This is the latest work on American antiquities, bearing the date of 1882. Fifty three years after the Book of Mormon was in the publisher's hands, and yet every line of these grand descriptions are in perfect keeping with the high attainments of the people set out in that book most full and complete.

    On page 392 of the same works he says:

    "The stuccoed roofs and piers of both the temples Cross and Sun may be truly pronounced works of art of a high order. On the former Stephens observed busts and heads approaching the Greek models in symmetry of contour and perfectness of proportion. Mr. Waldeck has preserved in his magnificent drawings some of these figures, which are certainly sufficient to prove beyond coniroversy that the ancient Palenqueans were a cultivated and artistic people. In passing to Uxmal the transition is from delineations of the human figure, to the elegant and superabundant exterior ornamentation of edifices, and from stucco to sione as the material employed. The human figure, however, when it is represented, is in statuary of a high order,

    The elegant square panels of grecqnes and frets which compose the cornice of the Casa del Gobernador delineated in the works of Stephens, Baldwin and Bancrott, are a marvel of beauty which must excite the admiration of the most indifferent studeut of the subject."

    (Time expired).


     

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    52                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      


    MR. BRADEN'S FIFTH SPEECH.
    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: - A stock argument of Mormons in proof that the inspiration of Impostor Joe, and that the Book of Mormon is true and a revelation, is stated: "The Book of Mormon [is] based on the idea that the aborigines of America were Israelites. Such an idea was not thought of or advocated until years after the Book of Mormon appeared. Some years after its appearance, scientific research demonstrated the truth of the basic idea of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was an unlearned man. He could have obtained such an idea by revelation, and in that way alone." Young men who were as great readers as Joseph Smith was, have originated as startling ideas without inspiration. But we will now utterly explode this impudent falsehood. I have here two books. One is "The Wonders of Nature and Providence," written by Josiah Priest, and copyrighted by him June 2d, 1824, in the office of R. R. Lansing, Clerk of the District of Northern New York, and printed in Rochester in 1824. The other is the "Book of Mormon," copyrighted by Joseph Smith in the office of the same R. R. Lansing, Clerk of the same district, June 10, 1829, printed in Palmyra, twenty miles from Rochester in 1830.

    On the 297th page of "The Wonders of Nature and Providence," begins an article by Mr. Priest, the author, in which he argues at great length that the Indians are descendants of the Israelites. Not only so, but he quotes from Clavigero a Catholic Missionary, who advocated the same ideas in the seventeenth century. From Wm. Penn, who advocated this theory in 1774.. From a sermon of Dr. Jarvis preached before the American Historical Society in 1811, Jarvis quotes some books of Sewall, Willard and several New England historians. Priest quotes further from Menasses Ben Israel, from Dr. Boudinot, from Dr. Edwards, from Charlevoix, Du Pratz's History of Louisiana, from Lock and Escaruotus, Dr. Williams, Governor Hutchison, Dr. Beatty McKenzie, Maranez, Col Smith's History of New Jersey, and many others. Priest quotes in all from over forty writers, of whom twenty were Americans, who advocated the idea that the aborigines of America were Israelites. Most of these lived and wrote before Smith was born. He proves that it was the almost universal opinion of the ministers of New England and the Middle States. That it had been from the time of Elliott until Priest's own day. Not only is this true, but Priest, in his argument, quotes nearly all of the passages of scripture quoted by Mormons to prove the theory. It was from Priest's book that Rigdon and the Pratt stole their arguments.     		We show then that a book copyrighted in the same office as the Book of Mormon, published within twenty miles of Smith, circulated all over New York, Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, years before the Book of Mormon appeared, advocated the idea upon which it is based and urged the same, arguments in favor of the theory that Mormons use. That ends all claim that Joe Smith must have obtained the idea by revelation. It shows that not only did Rigdon steal the book, but Mormons stole their arguments from Priest.

    We will now take up my opponent's long array of prophecies. I might let them pass untouched, for he did not make an application of them, to the aborigines of America, that was worthy of notice. There was published in London, a few years ago a work by a Mohammedan quoting and applying most of the same prophecies to the Ishmaelites to the Arabs and to the Koran. I have before me an argument applying the same prophecies to the Anglo-Saxon race. The stick of Ephraim is England, of Judah, America. There is an organization with many societies that publishes a paper advocating this idea. Scores of publications have been published and they make a much better argument than Mr. Kelley has made. This shows the absurdity of such farfetched perversions of the poetic language of prophecy. If we admit that the prophecies extend beyond Palestine, I defy my opponent to quote one prophecy that is not met by the dispersion of Israelites over the old continent. Israelites were scattered into Spain, Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean, into Morocco, Congo in west Africa, and over northern Africa into Egypt and Ethiopia. Also into China, India and over central and southern and western Asia. I defy my opponent to name one prophecy that extends beyond these countries into America. Now here is a fair challenge and test. Until he meets this his prophecies are worthless. Isaiah XVI--8 refers to the dispersion of Moab, has not the least reference to Israel. Jeremiah XX-XXI refers to dispersion in the Assyrian Empire. Has no reference to America. So of every quotation from Jeremiah

    Isaiah xi--11. The 16 verse reads: "There shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria like it was to Israel in the day he came up out of Egypt." This shows that it refers to Israelites in the Assyrian Empire, and has no reference to America. We now come to the pet passage of Mormonism. Ezek. xxxvii -- the sticks of Ephraim and Judah. The Book of Mormon declares in several places the Nephites were Manassehites,




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    and the people of Zarahemla Judahites. The stick of Ephraim can have no reference to them. Stick does not mean a book. The stick of Judah is not the Bible. The stick of Ephraim is not a book. Numbers, xvii. Aaron is told to take twelve rods or sticks and write on them just as Ezekiel is told to take two sticks and write on them. Aaron wrote the name of a tribe on a stick, writing twelve names, using twelve sticks. Ezekiel wrote the name of a tribe or a nation on a stick -- for Judah respresented the southern kingdom and Ephraim the northern kingdom -- using two sticks. Gen. xlix, the rod, staff, stick or scepter of Judah is mentioned. We read of the rod, staff or stick of Aaron that budded, that Moses used. Then stick is a symbol of power. What the prophet's act meant was that the northern kingdom or Ephraim, and the southern kingdom or Judah should be united again, after the captivity, as they were before the rebellion of Jereboam. In verse 23 the prophet declares these Israelites were scattered in captivity for sin. Lehi and Nephi were taken by the Lord from Jerusalem because they were so good to save them. The prophecy cannot refer to the Nephites. Verses 26-27 declares the Lord will bring Israel or Judah from their enemies' lands, nor from America, into their own land, and leave none in their enemies' lands. We might examine every passage and show that thry have no reference to America -- can have none. That the context confines the prophecy to Asia, North Africa, and that it refers to the return, under Ezra and Nehemiah, but this is sufficient. Isaiah xxix -- In the first verse the prophecy is against the city where David dwelt, Jerusalem. In the seventh verse the prophecy is confined to Jerusalem. It has no reference to America. It speaks of the ignorance of the people of Judah, their failure to understand the prophets. It has not a ghost of reference to America. We have shown that the prophecies need not extend beyond the old world. We defy our opponents to name one that need extend beyond the old world. We have proved by the context that in every instance they refer to the old world and usually to the immediate neighborhood of Palestine.

    We are now ready for our opponent's Holy Ghost speech, a speech that the audience will hear a dozen times before we are done. My opponent charges the Disciples with denying the power of godliness, the power of God, the power of the Spirit of God. The Bible declares that God has accomplished all things by his Spirit abd by his word. In these is all power that God has exerted in the Universe. There are four different exercises of power by the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible. I. The miraculous powerm, as seen in inspiration, and in spiritual gifts, including all miraculous power mentioned in the Bible. This the world, sinners, cannot receive. John XIV: 16-17. "The Father will give you (the apostles) the Comforter, whom the world can not receive." This is not converting     		or sanctifying power, for the sinner can not receive it to convert him. It is not sanctifying power, for it was to the apostles alone, and was to endow them with miraculous power for their mission, and not to sanctify them. It did not descend on the apostles at Pentecost, nor was it imparted to the Samaritans nor to John's disciples at Ephesus to convert them, for all these had been converted before. II. Converting power. Romans II:16: "The Gospel is the power of God unto slavation to all who believe." John IV:36. "The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and life." Peter 1:5: "We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." III. Indwelling power, Gal. IV:6: "Because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." Because by the converting power, the Gospel, you have been made sons. God has sent the indwelling power into your hearts. Eph I:13: "Having believed in Christ you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise that is the earnest of your inheritance." John XIV:25 "Jesus said 'If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.'" Eph. III:15-17, "I pray that you be strengthened with might in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." I John II:24. "If that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you, you shall continue in the Son and the Father." John III:23-24, "This id the commandment of God, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, and he that keepeth his commandments, dwelleth in God, and God in him." IV:15-16: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God! God is love. He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." Col. III:16. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom."

    IV. Resurrecting power. Romans viii - "If the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies, by the Spirit of Christ that dwells in you." When? 1 Thess, 14-15-16: "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first." So also 1 Cor. xv. 51-52. We have proved that there are four manifestations of power of the Holy Spirit. I. The miraculous. This is not converting power, for the sinner cannot receive it to convert him. The apostles and others who received it were already converted. II. Converting power. This is the Gospel, the word of God, which begets, makes alive, converts. III. Indwelling power. This is not moraculous power. It is by and through faith, belief, by the word




    54                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    of God. God and this Spirit dwells in us, when his word dwells in us, and we live it out in life. IV. Resurrecting power at the general judgment. My opponent, with the Book of Mormon and all of Joe Smith's revelations, and with the inspiration of a Mormon Elder, and with all his miraculous illumination, is so grossly ignorant as to quote and jumble together passages in which these four manifestations are mentioned, and is as ignorant as a dead man of these palpable distinctions. The miraculous power has ceased. The resurrecting power is to come. The converting and indwelling power that are exerted through the truth remain and we will believe in them as God's word teaches, and not as Mormon ignorance and delusion teach. That is the difference between us. The miraculous power was not a moral influence. It was given to wicked men, and even to animals, to Baalam's ass. It was given regardless of character. It made men no wiser or better, when it had passed away from them, as the cases of Baalam, his ass, Saul, Jonah and Caiaphas show. It converted no one, unless it be Baalam's ass, and if Mormons belong to that class, they may be converted by it, as the other ass was; but men never were converted by it.

    We will now take up the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. We showed that there is one baptism in the church, in water, into the name of Father, Son and Spirit, it is a memorial and symbolical institution. There can be no other baptism, and baptism in the Spirit which was a miracle, ceased. My opponent can not touch this. We said that Joel's promise was to all flesh. That Christ's was to believers alone. That Peter's was only to believers that God should call. That is just what the Bible says. We said an apostle had to lay hands on believers, before they could receive the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. That is just what the VIII chapter of Acts declares. We said that this power never descended to a third person. He has not found a case. We said that there is a more excellent way than the exercise of the best of these miraculous powers. That is just what Paul says. I said that prophecying or speaking by inspiration, miraculous knowledge or revelations, speaking with tongues or miracles, signs, were to cease. That is just what Paul says. Kelley asks who believesit? All who believe the word of God believe it. I said that the partial was the inspiration, the revelation imparted by the inspiration, the revelation imparted by this miraculous power. It was but a fragment of the truth, only that could be uttered at a time. The whole, that which is perfect, is the complete word of God. So says common sense. So says the word of God. The word is perfect, makes Christians perfect. I said that as one of the members of the comparison, the imperfect was a state of the church -- the state when these gifts, these fragmentary revelations were given; the other member is a state of the church, when the word of God is completed, and these gifts; these fragments     		of revelation do not exist. So say Paul and common sense. He quotes "ask." I inquire how? "Seek." I ask how? "Knock." I ask how? In acordance with God's law and word. If we ask for miraculous power, we ask contrary to God's law. "If any man lack wisdom let him ask." How? In accordance with God's word. If he asks for miraculous power, he asks contrary to God's law. "We will manifest ourselves to him." How? Not in miraculous power, dor that is contrary to God's word. "We will abide in him." How? In miraculous power? No, for that has ceased. "If two or three are gathered I will be in their midst." How? In miraculous power? No, for that has ceased. "Witness of Spirit?" "The Spirit witnesses." How? On miracles. No, for he cannot utter teaching in that way. Ib his word, the word of truth, the only way one intelligence can testify to another "Born of Spirit," How? By miraculous power? No. "He that believes is born of God." "Christian experience." Must it include miraculous power? No, for that has ceased. "Son of God will dwell in our hearts." How? By miracle? No, for it can not be done in that way. We love him because he loved us. By learning his love for us. "Holy Spirit in Christian." How? In miraculous power? No, for that has ceased. WEhen his word dwells in us richly.

    "By one Spirit are we baptized." Yes, in obedience to command of one Spirit, just we are begotten of Christ in obeying his word. My opponent does not know enough to know that there is a difference between being baptized in the Spirit, and being baptized in obedience to the command of the Spirit. No, I do not confound the four powers of the Spirit as he does. I separate them as the word of God does, and believe that the miraculous power has ceased as the word of God teaches. I remove God from men and religion now, he says. No. I believe that as God is not in the work of bringing animals and plants into being by creation now, but in the operation of natural law, so he is not in men and religion now, in miracle, but in the operation of his word. I no more remove God from religion than I remove him from nature. I believe he is present in a higher sense, and in a higher way. That miracle in each case was only preparatory to this higher operation of divine power. My opponent assumes that the only power of God in both cases must be miraculous.

    How are apostles and prophets and the Holy Spirit in the church now? Just as Christ is present in the church. He is not present in person on earth. He is in heaven. He is present in his word and law. Thw apostles are present in their words. The Holy Spirit in his word. He blunders over the illustration of the constitutional convention. The people were not in the convention in person, yet the constitution says: "We the people, ordain this constitution." How did they ordain? Through




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    their appointed delegates. God in person never spoke to men but three times. He speaks through his representatives. God organized the church, gave its constitution, the New Testament, through the apostles, just as the people ordained the constitution and government through their representatives. The apostles says "In Christ's stead -- God in us -- through us." They teach that they were God's representatives. His blundering in comparing apostles to trees is ridiculous. Miraculous power created the first trees, but miraculous power was no part of the things created. The apostles gave the constitution, the New Testament, and organized the church under it; but were no more a part of the church that they organized than delegates that framed our constitution are a part of the government they organized for us. Can my opponent understand that?

    We want to call our opponent's attention to a defect in his stock argument on Mark XVI. Let us read it:

    "Afterwards Jesus appeared unto the eleven as they (the eleven) sat at meat, and upbraided them (the eleven) with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they (the eleven) believed not. He said unto them (the eleven), 'Go ye (the eleven) into all the world, and preach, etc. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be condemned. These signs shall follow them (the eleven again) who shall believe.' After the Lord had spoken unto them (the eleven), he was received up into heaven, and they (the eleven) went forth preaching the word, the Lord working with them (the eleven), confirming the word (of the eleven) with signs following."

    The language itself extends no farther than the eleven. They were the ones who were to preach. Those of them who believed and went forth and preached should have these signs. They believed, went forth and the signs followed their preaching. The promise does not necessarily or logically include a single human being except the eleven who were upbraided with unbelief, and who were to preach, and were told that if they believed and preached the signs would follow, for the conclusion says they (the eleven) went and preached, and the signs followed, the Lord working with them (the eleven). We will now resume our history of the Book of Mormon.
    Rigdon visited Smith in the spring of 1827. The two concocted their scheme. Smith was to pretend to have a "Golden Bible," a book made of plates of gold, and pretend to translate it with his stolen peep stone. Spaulding had intended to pretend that his fabrication had been found in a mound, or in a cave, in MS. He intended to call his fraud "The Manuscript Found." From 1818 to 1827 there had been published accounts of finding glyphs or metallic plates with strange characters on them, in mounds and old ruins in America. This suggested to Rigdon to claim that his fraud had been found in that way. A hoax started in 1827, that a pile of such plates called "The Golden Bible," had been found in Canada, suggested the name. Rigdon always spoke of his fraud, when prophesying of its appearance, as a "Golden Bible." Smith, however, in publishing it, changed the name to     		the "Book of Mormon." But from the time the Smiths began to talk of Impostor Joe's wonderful revelations, they spoke of it as a "Golden Bible," and did so until about the time it was published.

    In their conferences Imposter Joe told Rigdon of the existence of the other Spaulding manuscripts, then at Hartwicke, New York, in the house of Mrs. Davidson, formerly Spaulding's wife and widow. The two concocted a scheme to steal them and thus destroy all likelihood of detection of the theft of the Spaulding manuscript, and exposure of the fraud. Smith was loafing in Hartwicke in the summer and early fall of 1827, superintending a gang of men, who were trying to find a silver mine, on the farm of Mr. Stowell. He dug some wells in the town also, one for Stowell, September 21-22, 1827. Smith succeeded in stealing some of the Mormon manuscripts of Solomon Spaulding, perhaps Mormon manuscript No. 1, the one Miss Martha Spaulding had read a few years before at her uncles when the trunk was in her care, and the first one Spaulding wrote, the one he read to most of the witnesses who lived in Conneaut, also Mormon manuscript No. 2. the one he told Smith he was writing before he left Conneaut, the one of which he read a portion to J.N. Miller -- the one to which he added the Zarahemla portion. This theft of the manuscripts is the true interpretation of Smith's wonderful visions of September 21-22, 1827. Smith's neighbors say that he never mentioned his visions of 1820 and 1823 while in the state of New York, and his visions of September 1827, as first told, have no resemblance to his final version. The version quoted by Mormons was written in 1843 or 1844. In it he fabricated the first vision. He dressed up his hearing of the existence of the Spaulding manuscripts into his second vision of September 1823. He dressed up his theft of the manuscripts from Mr. Davidson's house into his third vision of September 1827.

    Having, in possession, they supposed, all means of exposing their fraud, the confederates now went to work. Smith sat behind a blanket, pretending to look through his stolen peepstone, which was placed in his hat. He claimed that God, by miracle, caused one word at a time to appear before his vision. He announced this to a scribe who sat on the other side of the blanket, who wrote it, and then it disappeared, and another appeared. Some old Mormons say he handed out sheets of manuscript to the scribe who copied them, What he actually did, was to read from Rigdon's manuscript which was a remodeling of Spaulding's Manuscript No. III, which he had concealed behind the curtain. He may have handed out leaves of this manuscript at times. Martin Harris was his first chief scribe. It is said his wife and his brother-in-law wrote a little each. After 118 pages had been copied by Harris and others, Imposter Joe gave Harris the leaves to take home with him, to use in making converts, dupes or




    56                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    confederates in the scheme. Mrs. Harris took the manuscript and burned it, one night while her husband was asleep. There was dire consternation, and Rigdon appears on the stage. I want to call the reader's attention to a singular coincidence here. Mr. Lake, Spaulding's partner testifies that when Spaulding read to him his romance, Mormon Manuscript No. 1, he pointed out an inconsistency in the story of Laban which Spaulding promised to correct, but the same blunder is in the Book of Mormon. That can be explained. Spaulding no doubt did correct it in the manuscript prepared for the press, but when Mrs. Harris destroyed the 118 pages, Rigdon had to restore the stolen portion from an older manuscript, in which the blunder had not been corrected, hence we have it in the Book of Mormon. It took Rigdon some months to remodel another manuscript to replace the stolen portion, and translation did not begin till the next June or [July]. Joseph says it began in March.

     

    MR. KELLEY'S SIXTH SPEECH.


    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: While I am on the subject of American antiquities, I shall refer you to one or two statements made by my opponent with reference to my argument of last evening, and at another time take up and answer them more particularly.

    The first statement, or misstatement rather, was that Mormons continually claimed that it was in favor of their book because nobody ever claimed that the aborigines of this continent were of Israelitish origin before its publication. I had just stated to you, however, in my argument that such claims were made long before. Now, why he will make such a statement as that before you when I had stated to the contrary, is a question for this audience to answer. Is that the way to argue questions -- to get up and state something as the claims of an opponent's people which they do not nor never did believe, and say that that is their faith or position, and attack it? I stated to you in the beginning of this part of my argument, fairly and fully, that one of the theories and speculations long prior to the year 1830, with regard to the settlement of the American continent was, that the "Lost ten tribes," as they are termed, came to the continent; and that is what is referred to in Mr. Priest's work; but it is not what the Book of Mormon refers to, or teaches. There is where these would-be critics and story tellers are mistaken, and have been all the time.

    Pursuing now my argument from the position of the scientific discoveries as left when my time was called, I cite the work of J. D. Baldwin, page 156, entitled, "Ancient America." He says:

    "The evidence of repeated reconstructions in some of the cities before they were deserted has been pointed out by explorers.

    At Palenque as at Milo, the oldest work is the most artistic and admirable. Over this feature of the monuments and the manifest signs of their differences in age, the attention of the investigators has lingered in speculation. They find in them a significance which is stated as follows by Brasseur de Bourbourg: 'Among the edifices forgotten by time in the forests of Mexico and Central America we find architectural characteristics so different from each other, that it is as impossible to attribute them all to the same people as to believe they were all built at the same epoch.'"

    Here are the two different civilizations, both of a high order and cultivation. That fact was never known or published to the world until years and years after the publication of the Book of Mormon, and you cannot find it in any work or record prior to the publication of that book. If you can, bring your record here and read it to the audience, any time. I come here claiming to be armed with facts, and will be only too glad to have them weighed and sifted to the bottom. But Mr. Baldwin proceeds:

    "In this view, the substructures of Mayapan, some of those at Tulha, and a great part of those at Palenque are among the older remains. These are not the oldest cities whose remains are still visible, but they may have been built in part upon the foundations of cities much more ancient."

    Remember that these are highly civilized nations that he is writing of, not a barbarous nation coming upon and occupying the land where a civilized nation had dwelt, but one highly cultivated and enlightened nation following and inhabiting upon the ruins of another. He says:

    "No well considered theory of these ruins can avoid the conclusion that most of them are very ancient, and that to find the origin of the civilization the represent, we must go far back into the 'deeps of antiquity.' On all the fields of desolation where they exist, everything perishable has disappeared. Wooden lintels are mentioned, but these can hardly be regarded as constituting an exception when the character of the wood and the circumstances that contributed to their preservation are considered. Moreover, wooden lintels seem to have been peculiar to Yucatan, where many of the great edifices were constructed in the later times, and some of them of perishable materials. Everywhere in the older ruins, nothing remains but the artificial mounds and foundations of earth, the stone, and cement, the stucco hard as marble, and other imperishable materials used by builders."

    Next in this investigation I introduce the work entitled American Antiquities, by Josiah Priest. The book that I have was


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    published in 1833, and the earliest publication that I have ever seen of the work was made in the year 1831. If Mr. Braden has an earlier copy than that, as he claimed before this audience, I will examine his copy and see what it contains, and if there is anything in it of these marvelous works, which the Book of Mormon describes, I will give due credit to it on to-morrow evening. But I state here without fear of contradiction that it does not contain the remarkable things that the Book of Mrmon sets out, neither as to the habitation, extent of civilization, or anything else. Neither does the book I have before me, which was published in 1833. But there is an account of a few interesting things in this. Turn to page 170, an account and description of articles obtained from a mound in the state of Ohio.

    One, "The handle either of a small sword or large knife, made of an elk's horn; around the end where the blade had been inserted, was a ferule of silver, which, though black, was not injured by time, though the handle showed the hole where the blade had been inserted, yet no iron was found, but an oxide or rust remained, of similiars hape and size." "About twenty feet to the north of it was another skeleton, with which was found a large mirror, about three feet in length, about one foot and a half in width, and one inch and a half in thickness; this was of isinglass, (mica membranacea). On this mirror was a plate of iron, which had become an oxide; but before it was disturbed by the spade, resembled a plate of cast iron. The mirror answered the purpose very well for which it was intended." "The knife or sword handle was sent to Peale's museum, Philadelphia." "On the south side of this tumulus, and not fur from it, was a semicircular fosse, or ditch, six feet deep; which, when examined at the bottom, was found to contain a great quantity of human bones, which it is believed, were the remains of those who had been slain in some great and dcstructive battle; because they belonged to persons invariably who had attained their full size, while those found in the mound adjoining, were of all sizes, great and small, but laid in good order, while those in the ditch were in the utmost confusion."

    "The mirror was a monstrous piece of isinglnss, a lucid mineral, larger than we recollect to have ever heard of before, and used among the rich of the ancients, for lights and mirrors. A mirror of any kind in whicn men may be enabled to contemplate their own form, is evidence of a considerable degree ofadvancement in the arts, if not even luxury itself."

    Passing from this important discovery as published by Mr. Priest, I call your attention to the work of Mr. Stephens, vol. 1, page 105. Speaking of the remains which he had examined in his explorations of these peoples' cities he says: "Architecture, sculpture, and painting, all the arts which embellish life, had flourished in this overgrown forest; orators, warriors, and statesmen, beauty ambition, and glory, had lived and passed away, and none knew that such things had been or could tell of their past existence."

    Now I will call your attention to some authorities touching the nativity of this last people who inhabited Ancient America, showing their common origin with the Asiatic race known as Hebrews. First, the work of Mr. George Catlin, published by H. G Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, London, in the year 1857, and entitled: "North American Indians, vol. 2, page 231:

    "The North American Indians and all the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, speaking some two or three hundred' different languages entirely dissimilar, may have all sprung from one people."

    "ISRAELITISH EXTRACTION.''

    He proceeds with the following thoughts:

    "I believe with many others that the North American Indians are a mixed people. -- That they have Jewish blood in their veins, though I would not assert as some have undertaken to prove, that they 'are Jews, or that they are the 'ten lost tribes' of Israel. From the character and composition of their heads, I am compelled to look upon them as an amalgam race, but still savages, and from many of their customs, which seem to me peculiarly Jewish, as well as from the character of their heads, I am forced to believe that some part of those ancient tribes who have been dispersed by Christians in so many ways, and in so many different eras, have found their way to this country where they have entered among the 'native stock."

    "I am led to believe this from the very many customs which I have witnessed among them that appear to be decidedly Jewish, and many of ifiem so peculiarly so that it would seem almost impossible, or at all events exceedingly improbable, that two peoples in a state of nature should have hit upon them and practiced them exactly alike."

    "The first and most striking fact among the North American Indians that refers us to the Jews is that of their worshiping in all parts, the 'Great Spirit,' or Jehovah, as the Jews were ordered to do by divine precept, instead of a plurality of gods as ancient pagans and heathens did, and the idols of their own formation." Ibid., page 232

    Mr. Catlin then offers "TWELVE REASONS" why he accepted the idea that the American Indians are descendants from the Israelites in some way, and, as his investigations contain many facts which enter into this discussion, I offer them for your consideration.

    1. "The Jews had their Sanctum Sanctorum, and so it may be said the Indians have, in their council, or medicine houses, which are always held as sacred places."

    2. "As the Jews had, they have their High Priests and their Prophets."

    3. " Among the Indians as among the ancient Hebrews, the women are not allowed to worship with the men, and in all cases also, they eat separately."

    4. "The Indians everywhere believe that they are certainly like those ancient people, persecuted, as every man's hand seems raised against them."

    5. "In their marriages, the Indians, as did the ancient Jews, uniformly buy their wives by giving presents, and in many tribes, very closely resemble them in other forms and ceremonies of their marriages."

    6. "In their preparation for war, and in peacemaking, they are strikingly similar."

    7. " In their treatment of the sick, burial of the dead and mourning, they are also similar."

    8. " In their bathing and ablutions, at all seasons of the year, as a part of their religious observances -- having separate places for men and women to perform these immersions -- they reassemble again."

    9. "The custom among the women of absenting themselves during the lunar influences, is exactly consonant to the Mosaic law."

    10. "After this season of separation, purification in running water and anointing, precisely in accordance with the Jewish command, is required before she can enter the family lodge."


    58                                    THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                                    


    11. "Many of them have a feast closely resembling the annual feasts of the Jewish Passover, and amongst others, an occasion much like the Israelitish feast of the Tabernacle, which lasted eight days (when history tells us they carried bundles of willow bows and fasted several days and nights), making sacrfices of the first fruits and best; of everything, closely resembling the sin offering and peace offering of the Hebrews (See this history in vol. 1. pp. 159. 170 of 'Religious ceremonies of the Mandarins.')"

    12. "Amongst the list of their customs, however, we meet a number which had their origin, it would seem, in the Jewish ceremonial code, and which are so very peculiar in their forms that it would seem quite improbable, and almost impossible that two different peoples should have hit upon them alike, without some knowledge of each other. These I consider go further than anything else as evidence, and carry in my mind, conciusive proof that these people are tinctured with Jewisn blood." Ibid., vol. 2, pp 232 to 235.

    In keeping with these facts and deductions of Mr. Catlin, are other authorities equally positive Mr. Bradford, in his rsearches into the origin or the Red race, adopts the following conclusions with regard to the ancient occupants of this continent:

    1 "That they were of the same origin, branches of the same race, and possessed of similar customs and institutions."

    2 "That they were populous and occupied a great extent of territory."

    3. "That they had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization, were associated in large communities, and lived in extensive cities."

    4. "That they possessed a use of many of the metals, such as lead, copper, gold, silver, and probably the art of working in them."

    5. "That they sculptured in stone, and sometimes used that material in the construction of their edifices."

    6. "That they had the knowledge of the arch, of receding steps; and the art of pottery producing urns and utensils formed with taste, and constructed upon the principles of chemical composition; and of the art of brickmaking."

    7. "That they worked the salt springs, and manufactured that substance."

    8. "That they were an agricultural people, living under the influence of regular forms of government."

    9. "That they possessed a decided system of religion, and a my thology connected with Astronomy, which with its sister science, Geometry, was in the hands of the priesthood." '

    10. "That they were skilled in the art of fortification."

    11. "That the epoch of their original settlement, in the United States is of great antiquity," and lastly,

    "That the only indications of their origin to bo gathered from the locality of their ruined monuments, point toward Mexico."

    Thus far I have read copiously from these celebrated authors, and yet their pages are filled with unnoticed and untouched corroborative proofs of what I have stated to you of the greatness and grandeur of the ancient civilizations of this continent. I have also gathered in running through the works of various authors upon these things brief statements which will aid you in determining to some extent the certainty of the applications of my arguments to these ancient peoples as reflected in their own history, as I claim, set out in tne Book of Mormon. They are as follows:

    1. "They had a standard or measurement and had a means of determining angles." Baldwin p 24.

    2. "These ruins were not built by the Egyptians." Stephens, vol 2, p 441.

    3. Yet of a figure in Palenque Mr. Short, in his work p 392, states: "The head dress has been pronounced Egyptian by all wno havte seen it.

    4. "They had Priests." Stephens vol. 2, p 447.

    5. "Diviners and Priests." Ibid. vol. I.

    6. They were agriculturists and also engaged in spinning and weaving." Baldwin pp 40-41.

    7. "Made use of astronomical instruments." Ibid. 42

    8. "Used military machines in war." Stephens, p 177-178.

    9. "Believed in the flood, and had traces Of the tower of Babel." Short, 263.

    10. "Possessed a knowledge of the sciences, and metals, and used tools of porphyry." Baldwin, pp 39-40.

    11. "A phonetic system of writing was had among them." Ibid. 187

    These evidences are clear and satisfactory. I hope my opponent Will take them up one by one, and examine them. But during the remainder of my time this evening, I shall examine another matter. Look after his tirade upon character, etc.

    The statement made by him on last evening, that the Bible was believed in by the best minds of every age, and so the messages of the prophets, is not true, if he means by this what the world called best in their time. What the world called the best minds, did not accept God's messages through the prophets when brought, in any age. Scarcely a household received the message sent by Noah, and doubtless there were many plausible reasons hatched up, and set afloat, by the cunning craftiness and deception of malicious men, and rendered plausible, in order to feed the vain and foolish minds of the lovers of falsehood; and thus they were 1ed along in blindness and darkness to destruction. Under the vile array of slander and falsehood, the masses were marshaled against Elijah the Prophet, and they sought his life, and he was compelled to flee his country for safety; and in the wilderness, he was fed by a bird of the forest. Moses was derided and falsely accused in the very camp of Israel, and it was necessary that


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    God open the earth and swallow up his maligners. Isaiah was sawn asunder. Something was hatched up by the enemies of the truth, and made the basis of an accusation, which inflamed and encouraged this vile attack, or it never could have been made. Jeremiah was accused as a traitor to his country, was imprisoned, and put in a pit of mire and filth, and left to die; aud only escaped as by a miracle. Indeed, so universally had the prophets been opposed, slandered, misrepresented, and lied about, from the days of Adam to Christ, that it was stated by him -- and seems to have grown into a proverb -- "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country." Why not? Because of the misrepresentations and slanderous accusations, invented and hawked about by the enemies of tho message which he brings. Not being able to answer the message upon the ground of truth and fairness, they resort to unfairness, falsehood, and stories hatched up and ingeniously circulated in order to break down the prophet's character, to blind the people and prejudice them against the message. Ihis was the devil's system of warfare from Adam to Christ. When Jesus Christ came with a message from God, the arch-deceiver appeared upon tho field of battle armed with the old weapons of slander and misrepresentation. The accuser always feigned great piety and love and reverence for all past prophets and heavenly messages. He did this in order to more readily gull the pious. Among their forst moves, they camo to Christ and said: "Master, we would see a sign from thee." But he replied, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Indicating that honest men believe the truth from other evidences.

    They were soon in counsel seeking to invent a scheme by which to destroy him, Matt. 12:14. They sent a committee to catch him in his words, and failing in this they assailed his character and filled Jeruselem with slanderous stories. When he did a good deed it was in their view, by the inspiration of the devil, "Beelzebub." They accused him of being born of fornication, of low parentage and of coming from a low city. Called him a "glutton and a wine bibber," and accused him of being a friend of publicans and sinners; he was so defamed, black mailed, slandered, and lied about by certain of the people, that the masses were blinded and marshaled against him, and demanded his life; all from the stories of lying lips. This, too, while they were making great pretensions to piety and reverence for the ways of God and the prophets of the past.

    Jesus discovering their hypocrisy, re-torts:

    "Woe onto you Scribes and rharisees. hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous and say. If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them of the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses yourselves that ye are the children of them that killed thi prophets. Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, "ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell. Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city," etc.

    Their great pretensions to the love of the cause of God was feigned, that they might more easily blind and influence the multitude against Christ. Did they assail his doctrine? oh no; that was too hard tor them. Moving in the dark, among the masses, peddling hatched up stories was the effectual way of procedure This ungodly method of warfare against the grandest being that ever lived was carried on until Jerusalem was moved to join hands and demand the life of the Christ, and failing to make out a just case, they falsely accused him, and suborned witnesses to testify against him, and he was condemned tod th and crucified. "Many bore false witness against him." Mark 14:56. The death of Christ did not relieve him from the false charges of his enemies While his body lay in Joseph's new tomb, then went they to Pilate saying. "Sir we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people He is risen from the dead, so the last error shall be worse than the first." Matt. 27:63-64. All this took place while the witnesses of Jesus were in the midst of the people, ready to vindicate his character, but they had no ears to hear them. They loved stories, and inventions and what the old neighbors said, rather than truth. Finally, whom Jesus had arisen from the dead according to his word, it did not foil the persistency of hie ememies, or assuage their malice or hate, so they circulated the story, "His diciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept;" and, they gave the soldiers large sums of mouey to circulate this story, with the promise, that if it came to the Governor's ears, we will persuade him and secure you." Matt. 28:12, 13, 14. But the misrepresentations, cunning inventions, and slanders against the cause of Christ, did not stop here; they followed the apostles wherever they went, and called them "blasphemers," "pestilent," "and movers of sedition among the Jews throughout the world." Acts 25:5. This was so widely circulated that it was said, "As concerning this sect, we know that it is everywhere spoken against." Acts 28: 22.

    Later, in the time of the grandson of St. Luke, this same unjust course was followed, and they were published and vilified everywhere. But, says my opponent, they were false stories. Who said they were false? Their enemies or their friends? Why, the descendants of the enemies to this very day maintain that the stories were true, and that the Christians were deceivers. And in the narative of such a learned historian as Gibbon, we have an account that in the time of these grandsons, before referred to, the Emperor of Rome sent a committee to interrogate them and spy out the



    60                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    probable damage they might likely be able to ibflict upon his kingdom, if let live, and the messenger returned the answer, that they were men who were settled on a little spot of ground, and had hard, rough hands from working as slaves for a livelihood, and not worth noticing. Before this, a like interview had been had with the apostle Paul by one of the most noted scholars of the age, and he returned the answer to his Emperor that, "Paul entertained no opinions that were calculated to interest or benefit men of attainments and culture." Great God! I couid reproduce such stories which were affirmed to be true for hundreds of years after Jesus' time against the early Christians, until I might arouse the indignation if this audience against them, were I disposed to stoop to gathering garbage for weapons. The books are so laden, that when Gibbon had gone through them, although before a devoted Christian, it nauseated his hope in Christ, and he turned from worship, saying it seems to me that if the great things told of in the scriptures are true they aught to be had by the people now as then, and "I find by running through the history of the world, that mankind have been more ready to accept the history as correct of what occured in their forefather's time, than to believe the evidences of their own senses." He therefore came to the conclusion that no miracles were ever performed as claimed by Jesus and the apostles. The quotation is made from memory, but I am sure if not the exact wording, the the thought and idea is carefully preserved and presented.

    Volumes might be adduced to show that the work of scandalizing, has been the method pursued by the enemies of truth and progress in every age; not only to meet prophets and religious truth, but scientific truth as well; and the battle has been waged almost in every instance when a new message has been sent to man, or a new truth revealed. With such a history before the world, is it not strikingly strange that in the blaze of the light of the nineteenth century, that men professing as profound a reverence for Jesus and the apostles, as the Jews did for Moses and the prophets, will accept this method of warfare, and scour the universe to hunt stories and gossip, to meet the claims and argument of a people, rather than accept the gage of fair and honorable warfare, and investigate their claims in the light of the facts presented. Strange as it may appear, this is all the kind of warfare that has ever in the least succeeded against the message brought by the Hook of Mormon, and believed by the Saints. It is much easier to call Joseph Smith an "infamous scoundrel," and a "fraud," then to prove his message false. It is easier to assert that Sidney Rigdon was "fanatical" and "lazy," than to prove the doctrine of the Latter Day Saints untrue.

    It is far more suitable to preverted tastes to drink a little satisfaction from a misuse of the words, Mormon, Mormonism, and "it came to pass." than to accept the word of God.

    Stories, slander, the traducing of character is the method adopted by my opponent. This is not new, but an old system of attack; but the only one that ever did succeed even momentarily against the truth.

    Now, ladies and gentlemen, did you ever listen for so long a time, to such a dark and mistry web as was spun by my opponent last night? The whole material of which was gathered from the ebony cloud of gossip, tattle and scandal. Somebody said that one Spaulding wrote a romance. Some one else said that they had heard it read. It would seem from one of the stories, that Spaulkding made a business of going around and reading it to his neighbors. In process of time it was left with a printer. It was not seen afterwards. Sidney Rigdon was in the tanning vusiness in that city; he was awful lazy, however; and of course he must have stolen it. The printer Patterson, said no such manuscript was ever there, but that is nothing, the story runs on just as glibly. Then there were some old trunks, over in Pennsylvania and York States, left in back-rooms and by-places, etc. etc. One Rigdon reads a book on one occasion and would not let his niece see it. This was in Ohio. Finally a stranger is seen in Palmyra, N. Y. No one knows indeed who, and there is no evidence in fact that there was one there. Finally the Book of Mormon was published in March, 1830, and in the fall of the same year Sidney Rigdon came in contact with the Latter Day Saints, believed their message, and, therefore he is the author of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith is the cat's paw by which it is to be foisted upon the world under the inspiration of a peep stone which is stolen from one of his neighbor's children. Wonderful indeed! He did not tell us whether Joseph could really see anything extraordinary in the stone or not. If so, there might be something in the seeing business after all. If not what inducement was there for Joseph to steal one in order to perpetrate a fraud, when he had but to stoop down to pick one up and run no risks. It matters not however, which horn of the dilemma my opponent takes, his story will run on just the same.

        (Time expired.)

     


                        THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                     61


    MR. BRADEN'S SIXTH SPEECH.
    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- Mr. Kelley started out with the assertion that at the time the Book of Mormon appeared, no one had thought of certain facts in archaeology, ethnology, philology and antiquities of America, that are assumed and stated as facts in that book. Therefore if scientific research has demonstrated, since the Book appeared, that these statements and assumptions are true, the Book must be true. It is either a revelation of such truths, for it stated them before they were learned by any human means of learning, or an actual history of them. He claims that it is an actual history given to Joe Smith, by revelation, and translated by him by inspiration. The Book of Mormon may be divided into two portions:  I. Certain assumptions and statement in archaeology, ethnology, philology and the antiquities of America.  II. Certain historical statements based on these assumptions, in archaeology, ethnology, philology and the antiquities of America, that assume to account for the antiquities of America, and to explain its archaeology, ethnology, philology. My opponent's argument has been an attempt to establish the truth of the first part. He has never touched the second. If we prove that all of the first part was well known long before the Book of Mormon appeared we refute his proof.

    I have before me a work entitled "Atlantis." by I. B. Donnelly. In it he traces certain legends such as the Deluge, and certain stories all over America, and shows that they are found in Europe, in Asia, and Africa. He traces resemblances between the arts and antiquities of the Old World and the New. He traces resemblances in philology or language, between peoples of America and peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe. He traces ethnological affinities between the tribes of America and the Celts, the Scandinavians, Basques, Iberians and other Europeans -- the Egyptians, ancient Africans, and the Negroes, the Chinese, Hindoos, Persians and Malays. He traces resemblances in arts, civilization, sciences, literature, customs, between the peoples of America and peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa. A larger portion of the authorities he quotes were written before the Book of Mormon appeared. It has been known from the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, that there were three civilizations in Mexico, three immigrations into that country; the Toltecs, the Chicemas and the Aztecs, and that the first known were very highly civilized. It has been known since the conquest of Peru by Pizarro that there had been three or more civilizations there, that of the Incas being the last. It has been known for more than one hundred years before the Book of Mormon appeared, that mounds fortifications, ruins, antiquities, and relics     		had been found all over North America. It had been decided that they had been the work of races that were in America before the Indians. If this is denied we will give the names of the authors. It had been a prevalent idea that the Indians were of Israelite origin. Affinities of some tribes to the Scandinavian, Welsh, Tartars, Hindoos, Chinese, Persians, Israelites and Egyptians had been observed and published.

    My opponent makes much of the cities of Central America. Cabrina and others had published descriptions of these long before the Book of Mormon appeared. It was such books and not the Book of Mormon that caused Stephens, Squires, and others to explore Central America. Not only so but Cortez in his conquest of America conquered Central America, then a part of the Aztec Empire, and conquered these very cities, and his companions who wrote of his conquests describe them. They were inhabited when Balboa, another Spanish adventurer, explored the Isthmus and countries around it. So declare Herrera and other Spanish writers quoted by Wilson Prescott and other American writers.

    Baron Humboldt visited Central America and described these ruins and his book was published in England and America in 1806. Spaulding was familiar with it. The Book of Mormon agrees literally with Humboldt. Where he is right, it is right. Where late research proves that he is in error, it is in error. That is all we need to say in regard to his long lingo in regard to antiquities.

    We have proved that Solomon Spaulding was an enthusiast in American antiquities, believed that the Indians were descendants of the Israelites. As an earnest advocate of such theories, and as an enthusiast in American antiquities, he was well versed in the literature of the subject, Seventeen witnesses of the highest character testify that he wrote his "Manuscript Found" assuming all of these facts and theories, pretending to give a history of the people who were the authors of these ruins and antiquities several years before the Book of Mormon appeared. That Rigdon stole his manuscript and interpolated the religious matter. I challenge my opponent to name one theory or assumption in the Book of Mormon that research as sustained, that I cannot prove to have been well known before the Book appeared. This overturns his entire argument. Let him prove that the Jaredites, Nephites and Zarahemlites came to America and had such a history as recorded in the Book of Mormon. All that he quotes from the Book of Mormon was well known before it appeared.     If he will prove the truth of its historic statements he will sustain his book. Proving that certain assumptions are true, no more prove[s] that his book is true, than proving




    62                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    that similar assumptions in Scott's novels are true, proves that those novels are real.

    I will agree to take Scott's novels and prove that a far greater portion of Waverly or Ivanhoe is true in archaeology, antiquities, etc., than my opponent can prove to be true in the Book of Mormon. Not only so, but I will prove that its characters were real persons in a majority of instances, its places real, its battles real, and yet they are novels. He cannot prove that a person, a place, or a battle of the Book of Mormon is real. I can offer ten fold as much proof of the very kind he offers, to Ivanhoe, and of the same kind. His line of proof is absurd to idiocy. He takes the romance written by Spaulding, in which he assumed certain things well known, as the basis, and claims it is all true, because these facts so assumed as the basis are true. I will prove Robinson Crusoe to be true and of divine origin in the same way.

    We will now resume our history of the Book of Mormon. We have come down to the time of publication.

    In the fall of 1829 Martin Harris, one of the gang, mortgaged his farm, and E. B. Grandin of Palmyra, began the publication of the Book. The manuscript was carried by several of the gang, a small portion each morning, and removed at night, for weeks. At last they were less careful. Mr. Gilbert says that the Impostor was very particular to insist that the manuscript be set up exactly as written. The translation had been done by inspiration, and it would be blasphemy to alter one iota. But as there was no punctuation, but little use of capitals, and as it abounded in misspelled words, and the most outrageous grammatical blunders, the printer absolutely refused to allow such an atrocious affair to go forth with his imprint on it. The printer was allowed to correct some blunders in the manuscript. When one reads the book, and sees the thousands of blunders in it, after all the printer's care, the query arises, "What must the manuscript have been?" What a pity the printer interfered with the inspiration, in the way he did. If the manuscript had been printed exactly as it came from the inspired lips of Joe, and as it was penned by the inspired Oliver who had the special divine commission and unction to do his work, no doubt the world would have been converted long ago by such sublime evidences of inspiration. That printer robbed the world of "the more part" of the inspiration of the Book of Mormon.

    In the meantime Rigdon was preaching and working constantly to prepare the way for his scheme. He preached extravagant ideas of the millennium, such as are in the Book of Mormon -- community of goods -- restoration of miraculous gifts -- new revelations, and that something wonderful was going to happen. In private he approached persons as he did D. Atwater. A portion of the Kirtland Church of Disciples that was organized by him and made up largely of his converts formed a common stock community     		and practiced feet-washing, another Mormon peculiarity at the beginning. They did this under the direction of Rigdon and Titus Billings, who became a Mormon with Rigdon. In June 1830 Rigdon attended the Annual Meeting of the Mahoning Association in Austintown. In an address he presented his hobbies in regard to return to community of goods, and restoration of spiritual gifts, a restoration of everything in the apostolic churches. He was signally defeated in discussion by Campbell. He left the Association soured and disappointed, declaring that he "had done as much for the Restoration as Campbell and Scott, yet they got all the honors." Tradition tells us that, by advice of Campbell, Rigdon was put up to preach on Lord's Day, as a plaster to his wounded egotism. He discoursed on "Envy" and took the conduct of Haman towards Mordecai as an illustration of the meanness of envy. All understood what he meant. Campbell and Scott were the Hamans, who, although mounted on the King's horse of public honor, were envious of Rigdon, the Mordecai sitting in the gate. When he came to a description of Haman's triumphal procession on the King's horse, the horse ran away with Sidney. He mounted that horse and cavorted miraculously for some minutes. He turned him into a veritable Pegasus, and, like Bellerophon, he cleft the skies, and soared among the stars. As he was skyscraping in his description of King Ahasuerus' horse, Walter Scott took aim at him, and brought him down from among the stars by roaring out in his broad Scotch, "Glory to King Ahasuerus' horse!" Rigdon had gone up like a rocket; Scott brought him down like a stick.

    Rigdon returned home to Mentor. He sent for Pratt who came through Mentor in August, and went from Rigdon straight to Manchester, in the wilds of New York, and Imposture Joe's mother says he arrived Saturday night, all worn out after an excessive day's journey, and was converted that night and made a preacher of the New Dispensation the next day, doubtless, "according to previous appointment," as the preachers say. Pratt visited his brother Orson and enlisted him in the scheme. Then he and Cowdry and Whitmer returned to Mentor. After weakly pretending to be ignorant of the scheme, and to oppose it, Rigdon is miraculously converted, by a vision, embraces Mormonism, goes to New York, he and Imposter Joe have a revelation, that Joe is the Moses, Sidney the Aaron of the movement, and that Kirtland is to be possessed by the saints forever, and Smith and his adherents, made up chiefly of confederates in his money-digging frauds and schemes and confederates in the new fraud, the Book of Mormon, move to Ohio. Rigdon takes his new brethren around to the congregations for which he had preached, and when he had industriously prepared for his move and the Rigdonites in these churches embrace Mormonism and the fraud




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    was fully inaugurated in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831.

    We have thus traced the origin of the Book of Mormon. We have proved that Solomon Spaulding was the author of the historic portion. Sidney Rigdon the author of the religious portion, and that Impostor Joe gave it to the world by means of his stolen peep-stone. It was begotten by Spaulding in sin, conceived by Rigdon in iniquity, and brought forth by Impostor Joe in depravity and pollution. It has spoken lies from its birth, and has resulted in delusion and ruin to thousands. It has gone to seed in Utah, in pollution that would disgust Priapus himself, and horrify a satyr. Priapus Young and He-goat Kimball are the ripened fruit of the infamy. We will now take up the detection of the fraud. In an article published in the Boston Journal, May 18, 18[3]9, Mrs. Matilda Davidson, formerly Solomon Spaulding's wife and widow, testifies:

    "In 1834, a Mormon preacher, in a meeting in Conneaut, Ohio, read copious extracts from the Book of Mormon. The historical part was immediately recognized by all the older inhabitants, as the identical work of Mr. Spaulding, in which they had been so deeply interested years before. John Spaulding was present and recognized perfectly the work of his brother. He was annoyed and afflicted, that it should have been perverted to so wicked a purpose. His grief found vent in a flood of tears, and he arose on the spot, and expressed to the meeting his sorrow and regret that the writings of his deceased brother should be used for a purpose so vile and shocking. The excitement in Conneaut became so great, that the inhabitants held a meeting and deputed Dr. Philastus Hurlbut, one of their number to repair to this place and to obtain from me the original manuscript of Mr. Spaulding, for the purpose of comparing it with the Mormon Bible, to satisfy their own minds, and to prevent the[ir] friends from embracing an error so delusive."

    We wish to call the reader's attention to this statement, that narrates an occurance that attracted great attention at the time. It was published in the papers of the Western Reserve, and all over the United States. The citizens of Conneaut, in 1834, assembled to hear for the first time a Mormon preacher. They hear the first words of the Book of Mormon that any of them ever heard. Scores of them, and among the number Solomon Spaulding's brother, his sister-in-law, his business partner, one who had bboarded in his family many months, one who had boarded him many months, and other acquaintances, without any expectation or previous concert of action on their part recognized in the Book of Mormon, the historical romance of Solomon Spaulding with which they were so familiar from 21 to 25 years before. Now let us hear some of their testimony. John Spaulding testifies:

    "I have read the Book of Mormon, and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical matter, names, etc. as they were in my brother's writings. I well remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every sentence with 'And it came to pass,' or 'Now it came to pass,' the same as in the Book of Mormon. To the best of my recollection the Book of Mormon is the same as my brother, Solomon Spaulding
    		wrote, with the exception of the religious matter."

    Martha Spaulding, wife of John, and sister-in-law of Solomon, testifies: "I have read the Book of Mormon, which brought fresh to my recollection the writings of Solomon Spalding. I have no manner of doubt that the historical part of the book of Mormon is the same that I have read and heard read, more than 20 years ago. The old, obsolete style and the expressions: 'And it came to pass,' etc. are the same."  Henry Lake, Solomon Spaulding's business partner, testifies:

    "When my wife read to me from the Book of Mormon, she had read but a few minutes before I was astonished to find the same passages in it that Solomon Spaulding had read to me more, than 20 years before, from his Manuscript Found. I have examined the Book of Mormon and have no hesitation in saying that the historical part of it is principally, if not wholly taken from the Manuscript Found. I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding, that so frequent use of the words: 'And it came to pass,' 'Now it came to pass,' rendered the book ridiculous."     "One time when he was reading to me the tragic account of Laban, I pointed out to him what I considered an inconsistency which he promised to correct; but on examining the Book of Mormon, to my surprise I find that it stands just as he read it to me."     "He left here in 1813, for Pittsburg, to get his book published, but I heard no more of his writings till I saw them in the Book of Mormon."

    Mrs. Davidson remarked to Mrs. George Clark, when she handed her the manuscript of Spaulding's Manuscript Found to read: "The Mormon Bible is almost a literal copy of that manuscript."

    J. N. Miller, who boarded months in Spaulding's family, testifies:

    "I have examined the Book of Mormon, and find in it the writings of Solomon Spaulding, from beginning to end, but mixed up with Scripture and other religious matter, which I did not meet with in the 'Manuscript Found.' Many of the passages in the Mormon Book are verbatim from Spaulding, and others in part. The names Nephi, Lehi, Mormon, and in fact all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection, by the Gold Bible."

    Aaron Wright testifies:

    "Spaulding traced the journey of the first settlers of America from Jerusalem to America, as it is given in the Book of Mormon, except the religious matter. The historical part of the Book of Mormon, I know to be the same as I read and heard read from the writings of Solomon Spaulding, more than twenty years ago; the names especially are the same without alteration. In conclusion, I will say that the names and most of the historical part of the Book of Mormon, were as familiar to me before I read it, as most modern history."

    Oliver Smith testifies:

    "When I heard the historical part of the Book of Mormon, I at once said it was the writings of Solomon Spaulding. Soon after I obtained and the book; on reading it found much of it the same as Spaulding had written twenty years before."

    Nathan Howard testifies: "I have read the Book of Mormon and believe it to be the same as Spaulding wrote, except the religious part." Artemus Cunningham testifies: "I have examined the Mormon Bible and am fully of the opinion that Solomon Spaulding had written its outlines before leaving Conneaut." Joseph Miller of Amity, Pa., who took care of Spaulding in his last sickness, and familiar with his manuscript




    64                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    says: "The longer I live the more firmly I am convinced that Spaulding's manuscript was appropriated and largely used in getting up the Book of Mormon. I believe that, leaving out of the book, the portions easily recognized as the work of Joe Smith and his accomplices, Solomon Spaulding may be truly said to have been its author. I have no doubt of it." Ruddick McGee, who boarded with the Spauldings and became familiar with Spaulding's manuscript, says that "the Book of Mormon was founded on and largely copied from the romance of Solomon Spaulding." Dr. Dodd who attended Spaulding in his last illness, declared years before Howe's book appeared, that "Spaulding's manuscript had been transferred into the Book of Mormon, and that Sydney Rigdon had done it. This declaration was based on his knowledge of the manuscript, and what Spaulding had told him about Rigdon's stealing his manuscript. Rev. Abner Jackson declares: "The Book of Mormon follows Spaulding's Manuscript too closely to be a stranger to it. In both many passages appear, having the same names, found nowhere else. Such as Moroni, Nephi, etc. In the second romance called the Book of Mormon, we are told the same story of the same people travelling from the same place in the same way, having the same difficulties and destination with the same wars, same battles and same leaders and same results, such as the Mormon account of the battle of Comorah in which all the righteous are slain. How much this resembles the closing scene in 'Manuscript Found.'" Mr. Jackson, who was in the meeting at Conneaut, when the Mormon preacher read the Book of Mormon, says that Squire Wright shouted out, "Old come-to-pass has come to life again." Mrs. McKinstry, Spaulding's daughter, declares that the Book of Mormon is largely her father's Manuscript Found. His wife declares that it is a wicked remodeling of her husband's work.

    We might add scores of names who heard the Spaulding manuscript and recognized it in the Book of Mormon. The testimony of these seventeen witnesses, who were familiar with Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" prove that the historical portion of the Book of Mormon, what we charge Rigdon with stealing, is an almost verbatim reproduction of that "Manuscript Found." If my opponent were on trial for his life, one quarter of [t]his testimony would hang him higher than Haman. He must do one of three things.  I. Prove that these witnesses never so testified.  II. Impeach them.  III. Or disprove their evidence by rebutting testimony. Or lose his case. There has been some controversy over Spaulding's motives and object in writing his Manuscript Found, His wife and daughter strenuously insist that he wrote it merely to while away his time in declining health. That he had no intention of publishing it. That he refused to have it published, when Mr. Patterson offered to publish it. It is     		probable that he so told his wife. He may have had two reasons for it. He had failed in business continually. His wife supported the family and he might have feared that she would oppose the idea of publication as one of his visionary projects. For the preservation of peace and that he might pursue his purpose unopposed, he doubtless told her what she says he did. Again, she seems to have been a woman of decided moral convictions, and he may have feared that she would regard such a scheme as very questionable if not a downright fraud.

    But there can be no doubt about his intentions to publish it. His brother says he wrote it for that very purpose, hoping to make money by it. So say Lake, Smith, both the Millars, McKee, John Spaulding, his wife and Cunningham. Joseph Miller and McKee say he prepared a manuscript for publication and took it to the publishing house for that purpose.

    There can be no doubt that he wrote it for the sole purpose of publishing it and that he expected to make money by publishing it. There is nothing wrong about this. But that his motives, he knew, were some of them wrong, is evident from the fact that he kept them from his wife and daughter, and also lied to them in regard to his object in writing the manuscript. Some of his expressions show that his motives were very questionable. He intended to assert that his book was copied from a manuscript dug out of the earth, or found in a cave. He expected to deceive the world except the learned few, and cause them to believe this falsehood that he intended to palm off on them; and also to induce all, but the learned few, to believe his book to be veritable history as much so as any history. So he declared to Miller of Conneaut, Wright, Cunningham and others. No wonder he concealed his purposes from his wife and daughter. Howe says on page 289 of his history, that he has a letter in his possession that proves that Spaulding was skeptical (on religion) in his last days. If so we can understand his caricaturing the Bible in the way he did, in his romance. The Book of Mormon was in its inception a deliberate fraud, conceived by a backsliden preacher, who intended to foist it onto the world, the fraud by falsehood, stolen by another renegade preacher, who increased the blasphemy of the fraud by plagiarising the Bible, so as to deceive the world by it as a revelation. Joe Smith, a money hunting, fortune telling impostor and infidel, gave it to the world by means of his peep-stone which he stole from Chase's children. We repeat that the whole affair was begotten by Spaulding in sin, conceived by Rigdon in iniquity and brought forth by Impostor Joe in depravity and corruption, and it has thrived on ignorance, fanaticism and pollution, and has culminated in Utah, in infamy that would make devils blush.

    Mrs. Davidson declares that Hurlbut wrote to her from Hartwicke that he found the Manuscript and would return it to her when through with it. He came to Howe




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    with a lie and told him he only found a portion of an entirely different manuscript. He sold the manuscript to Rigdon and Smith, took the money and went to Western Ohio and bought a farm, and Mrs. Davidson and her daughter, Mrs. McKinstry, could never get a word of reply from him although they sent several letters to parties who wrote, they gave the letters to Hurlbut. This answers the Mormon "Why did not the Spauldings publish the 'Manuscript Found'?" Because Mormons had gotten it into their possession by bribing Hurlbut.

    This careful analysis of evidence enables us to brush to one side the fog that Mormons have raised over Rigdon's copying the manuscript. He did not, he stole it. Over the size of the manuscript, Miss Spaulding read at her uncle's: She read only the small manuscript, the first draft of the book her father made. Also the fog over the fact that the manuscript brought by Hurlbut was not what the ones sending him to search the trunk expected him to bring. It explains how the 116 pages of stolen manuscript were replaced. They were replaced from another Spaulding manuscript, probably Mormon manuscript No. II. This accounts also for the length of time that Spaulding spent in writing. He began in 1809 and closed in 1816, a period of time of seven years, and even after Rigdon stole his last manuscript he wrote on till he died. It accounts also for the differences in the descriptions of the witnesses. Most of them heard read Mormon manuscript No. I. Miller heard portions of Mormon No. II. Writing different manuscripts and adding additional portions will account for discrepancies and contradictions. Such as Moroni saying the plates were full and then writing the Jaredite portion. Spaulding added the Jaredite portion and forgot that he had made Moroni close the book with the destruction of the Nephites. Also the contradiction which places Ether's plates in the hands of King Benjamin when they did not come to the knowledge of the Nephites until years after King Benjamin's death. The gross contradiction which makes Coriantumr the last Jaredite, die among the people of king Zarahemla about 200 years B. C., when the battle of which he was sole survivor occurred more than 600 years B. C. Either he was over 400 years old or the Jaredites were not exterminated until 200 B. C. instead of 600.

    SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE.

    Let us now review the evidence we have presented, and settle several questions.  I. Are the witnesses competent?  II. Are they worthy of belief?  III. What is established by their testimony? In determining the first and second queries there are several points to be weighed.  I. Is the point at issue one that can be settled by testimony? No question is susceptible of clearer proof. The facts to be determined are.  I. Did Solomon Spaulding write a certain MS?  II. What were its contents?  III. Did they have adequate means of knowing these     		facts? No witnesses ever had better. Mr. Spaulding was a preacher, in poor health and out of employment, the very man that would attract company, and have much company, and of the highest character and intelligence, There was much excitement and curiosity over certain mounds that had been opened. Spaulding had taken great interest in the matter. He was writing an unusual book concerning this exciting topic. He was very fond of reading his productions to all who would listen to him. All this would secure him a circle of intelligent hearers. The singularity of his theme would cause his hearers to remember what they heard. To such hearers Spaulding read large portions of his MS.  III. Were they competent in intelligence? No one can read their testimony and fail to see that they were persons of unusual Intelligence -- the very class of persons that such a man as Spaulding would attract around him -- that would be interested in his theme -- the very ones to whom he would read his work -- and who would talk with him.  IV. Were they persons of good character for truth and veracity? Their character cannot be excelled. Compare them with the gang of loafing, money-hunting knaves and dupes, upon whose testimony the Book of Mormon stands. Their intelligence is infinitely above that gang of ignorant, superstitious, illiterate, ignoramuses.  V. Were they interested in the points at issue? In no way whatever. On the other hand the witnesses to the Book of Mormon all expected to make money out of the fraud, and had gotten it up for that purpose.  VI. Is there any collusion in their testimony? There is absolutely none. Never were witnesses more independent and individual in their testimony. Each tells his story in his own way -- tells what be knows, in his own way -- is careful to tell no more -- is careful where not certain to say so. Had they fabricated their testimony they would have stated more than they did. Contrast their evidence with that of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Those witnesses do not testify separately, but sign a statement prepared for them by Impostor Joe. They testified to what they did not know, and could not know. There is every evidence of collusion and perjury. The three witnesses are worse, for they testify to what an angel told them; the character of the entire twelve has been impeached. They had every motive to induce them to lie. They had concocted a fraud to make money and lied to carry it out. Our witnesses are absolutely free from all such fatal defects as those that utterly destroy the evidence of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

    What facts are established by the testimony of the witnesses?  I. The plot and matter of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found." They describe it clearly and definitely. It is precisely the plot and matter of two Books and only two of all books that have ever been written. The Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon




    66                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    II. That it is purported to be a real truthful history of the aborigines -- the first settlers of America. To this testify Mrs. Solomon Spaulding, Miss Martha Spaulding, John Spaulding, Mrs. John Spaulding, Lake, J. N. Miller, Smith, Wright, Howard, Cunningham, Jas. Miller, McKee, Dodd and Sidney Rigdon.  III. An attempt to account for the antiquities of America by giving a real history of their construction. Mrs. Solomon Spaulding, Miss Spaulding, John Spaulding, Mrs. John Spaulding, Wright, Smith, Howard, and Cunningham. There never were but two books that had this feature. The "Manuscript Found" and the Book of Mormon.  IV. It assumed that the Israelites were the aborigines of America. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Smith, J. N. Miller, Wright, Cunningham, Jackson. There were never but two books that had this feature, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found.  V. That they left Jerusalem: J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Miller, Wright, Smith, Jackson. There never were but two books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that had this feature.  VI. Journeyed by land and by sea. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, J. N. Miller, Smith, Jackson. There never were but two books that had this feature, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon.  VII. Their leaders were Nephi and Lehi. Miss Martha Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Smith, Cunningham and Jackson. There never were but two books that had this feature, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon.  VIII. They quarreled and divided into two parties called Nephites and Lamanites. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Jackson. There were never but two books that contained this feature. The Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found.  IX. There were terrible wars between the Nephites and Lamanites, and between parties into which these nations divided. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Jackson. There never [were] but two books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that contained this feature.  X. They buried their dead after the slaughter in their wars which were unprecedented, in great heaps, which caused the mounds. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding. There were never but two books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that contained this feature. XI. The end of their wars in two instances was the total annihilation, in battle of all but one who escaped to make the record of the catastrophe. Jackson. There never were but two books, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon, that contained this feature.  XII. It gives a historical account of the civilization, arts, sciences, laws, and customs of the aborigines of America. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Miller, Smith. There never were but two books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that contained this feature.  XIII. these people were the ancestors of our American Indians. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake Wright. There never were but two books, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon, that contained this feature.  XIV. The names Lehi, Nephi, Lamanite, Nephite, Moroni, Mormon, Zarahemla, Laban. Miss Martha Spaulding, J, Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Smith, J. N. Miller, Wright, Cunningham, Jackson. There never was but two books, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon, that contained these features.  XV. These in every instance are the names of the same persons or places or things, and have the same characteristics and history, etc. J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Miller, Wright, Smith, Cunningham, Jackson. There never were but two books, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon, that had this feature.  XVI. Written in scriptural style. Rigdon, Winter, Spaulding, Mrs. S. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Jas. Miller, Smith, Cunningham, Jackson. There never was but two books, the size of either of these books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that had this feature. Small articles have been so written for burlesque but never such large books.  XVII. Absurd repetition of "And it came to pass," "And now it came to pass." Mrs. S. Spaulding, J. Spaulding, Mrs. J. Spaulding, Lake, Cunningham, Jas. Miller. There never were but two books, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found, that had [ ] this feature.  XVIII. One party left Jerusalem to escape judgments about to overtake the Israelites. Smith. There never were two books [but] the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon. that contained this feature.  XIX. History was written and buried by one of the lost people. Mrs. S. Spaulding. There never were but two books that contained this feature, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found.  XX. The book was obtained from the earth. Lake, Mrs. S. Spaulding, Cunningham. There never were but two books claiming to be translations of manuscript dug out of the earth, the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found.  XXI. One party of emigrants landed near the Isthmus of Darien, which they called Zarahemla, and migrated across the continent in a north-east direction. J. N. Miller. There never were but two books that had this feature, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon.   XXII. In a battle the Amlicites marked their foreheads with a red cross so that they could distinguish themselves from their enemies. Jas. Miller, McKee. There never were but two books that had these features, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon.  XXIII. The book could be, and as an addition to the Bible by an impostor, as an addition coming from America. There never were but two books that had this feature, the Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon.

    We have now found that the Book of Mormon and the Manuscript Found contained twenty-features, great features




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    exactly alike. Nothing but a miracle, scarcely credible, could have caused this agreement. One was stolen from the other. The Manuscript Found was in existence fifteen years before the Book of Mormon. It is certain that the Book of Mormon was stolen from the Manuscript Found as that a child is the offspring of its parents.

    Nearly all of our witnesses are careful to state that the religious portion of the Book of Mormon was not in "The Manuscript Found." We will prove that Sidney Rigdon interpolated that into the manuscript he stole. That will refute the objection raised by the three. ID Joseph, that a Presbyterian preacher would not write such religious sentiments as those of the Book of Mormon. Nearly all the witnesses in their descriptions mention only the historic part of the Nephite portion of the Book of Mormon. This shows that Spaulding had written only that portion in his first manuscript. This meets a Mormon objection that some portions of the Book of Mormon were not mentioned by the witnesses.

    We will now notice some of the retorts of Mormonism to this testimony. I. It is "the Spaulding story." So Antedeluvians sneered at Noah about his "flood story," but the flood overwhelmed them all the same. Such evidence, given by seventeen witnesses can not be sneered down even by the prophet, the three. ID Joseph, as "the Spaulding story."  II. "It is all a pack of lies." Why is it a pack of lies? Do they     		attempt to impeach the witnesses? No. Do they attempt to rebut the testimony? No. They jabber the great Mormon argument, "It is a pack of lies."  III. The three, ID Joseph says there is a collusion in the testimony. He knew he was penning a falsehood when he wrote the sentence. There never were seventeen witnesses whose testimony was more independent, and marked with each one's personality than these. Contrast the seventeen independent statements, in which the individuality of each person appears, with the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. They sign a joint statement written out by Impostor Joe.  IV. It is improbable that they would know so much of the manuscript. We have given the reasons why so many persons heard so much of the Manuscript Found.  V. It is impossible that they would remember so much. The testimony shows that they were persons of more than usual mental power, with clear strong intellects. The contents of the manuscripts were so peculiar that they would be remembered and recognized, when heard again; as the nickname old "Come to Pass" and the expression of Squire Wright "Old Come to Pass, has come to life." show.  VI. It is religious persecution. There was no suggestion of an attempt at religious persecution. Nor do the statements show any such spirit. They are remarkably calm and unsectarian in tone.

     


    MR. KELLEY'S SEVENTH SPEECH.

    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- Last evening I took considerable tome in presenting to you some of the evidences contained in the works of archaeologists and explorers of the ancient ruins and the remains of the extinct civilizations of the American continent; showing that the extent and greatness of them was equal to that given in the history, of the three civilizations which had existed here, two of them contemporaneous, as represented in the Book of Mormon. I was answered by my opponent at the time with this: "That those things were known to the world and were accessible to Joseph Smith at the time of the publication of the book;" and for proof he cited to Josiah Priest's work which he said treated of these things and which was published it was averred, prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. I did not state then that I did not believe it, for I was taught by my mother not to say a thing was not true until I had tested it; and I have made no statement to this audience but what I believed to be as true as that the sun has this day been on his daily course. Neither do I expect to state to this audience anything but what I believe to be true, and strictly true. But to his, Priest's work: -- I asked for the book and examined it. Instead of finding a work that treats upon antiquities, or civilizations, such as I have proven to have existed, I found that the book did not contain a single thing upon these: -- neither speculations upon ruined cities or a high state of enlightenment, nor a single mound referred to from which conclusions of a great civilization could be drawn; -- not one single thing that tends to disprove a single statement that I dwelt upon last evening: and yet, you are expected to accept it as an answer to my argument. The work does not treat upon antiquarian researches even; but it is Mr. Priest's compilation




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    of certain things, entitled the "Wonders of Heaven and Earth." I stated in my opening remarks upon last evening that it was speculative, long prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon, that the ten lost tribes of Israel had been led to this country, and that afterwards they had dwindled into barbarism; and showed also that the common theory was that when the country was settled it was settled from the north to the south, and that, that was one of the main theories at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon. I open this book that treats of the wonders of earth and heaven, and find an article referring to the ten tribes coming to this continent, giving the writer's speculation from what had been ascertained by conversing with the natives; and there is a long argument in it from page 297 forward for the purpose of showing that the people who inhabited this country, and of whom the Indians were descendants, were the lost tribes, as I had admitted in my opening argument upon these antiquities, stating that such were the speculations. But there is not a single work or mound cited in this book to prove it, or that the people attained a high state of civilization and builded great cities, etc., here as was my argument. But, turning to the book, page 201, I find that the speculation is here set out also, that they crossed at Behrings Strait, as I had claimed upon last evening, and afterwards made their way southward. Not only that, but on turning further in this book I find some excellent things to show that the people upon this continent were of Israelitish origin, one of which is plainly and clearly set out, wherein it states that they formerly practiced circumcision on the continent. I call the attention of my opponent to that, because he challenged me to show upon a former evening, that any such thing as circumcision had been practiced upon this continent. That is a proof from his own work. Will he take his own witness? I refer to this fact of the Saint's actual position upon this for the reason, that I do not wish you to misunderstand my position upon the point. While there were many speculations in regard to whether the Indians were the first inhabitants of America, and how they came here, at the time of the publication of this book, as I have before stated, there was no understanding and no knowledge extant in the world of the grand civilization that had occupied here, that outnumbered by thousands and millions the present population of the country, if we are permitted to judge at all from the ruins and the discoveries that have been made since that time, and of the great enlightenment of the people. I expected to have collated to-day and presented to you this evening a concise account by the best authors of just when this knowledge was first developed and published to the world through explorers, and I shall do so upon to-morrow or some future evening; showing that it was not known to the world prior to 1834. There was one English publication in 1822, but it was never known in this part of the world, and not widely in any; and I doubt if there is a man in the State of Ohio, -- well, there possibly has been one in the State of Ohio, -- but certainly not many more, who ever saw such a work or such an author as that of Fuentes or Del Rio. Mr. Stephens, whom I cited last evening, and who wrote in 1841, a traveler all over this globe, and a man that was versed not only in the English language, but in the Spanish also, in which Del Rio's work was originally written, had never heard of it at the time he first went to Mexico in 1839. But suppose that they had heard of the publication of the work, and that it had been all over the country in 1822, and that it contained anything of these great cities: -- what would it benefit my opponent in this argument? His claim is that this "Romance" was written by one Solomon Spaulding in 1811. Well, if it was written in 1811, and the historical part of it gotten up by Mr. Spaulding, could Mr. Spaulding write correctly of these things when he did not know about them unless he was a prophet? Why not God inspire Smith to write and antedate these discoveries as well as Spaulding? The argument is, that neither Smith nor Spaulding could get these things out, for the manuscript of the Book of Mormon as they are described therein as early as the year 1829, (or 1811), and as they have since been found correct by the best authors. Not only that, but I read fully from the most authentic writers in support of the statements of the Book of Mormon, which was copyrighted and in the hands of the printer as early as the first part of the year 1829, on the question of the high state of the ancient civilizations of the continent; the magnificence of their cities, temples, palaces and works of art; their high attainments in the sciences, mechanical skill and inventions; and of the fauna as presented in the later-discovered fossils, etc. This however, was sneered at as things everybody knew of that, long before the Book of Mormon was printed, and that Smith could easily have located his Central American cities: told of the three different highly civilized peoples who had lived there: told what domestic animals they had, and what places on the continent these people first inhabited from such general knowledge, and thus had practiced a fraud upon the world. Now, my friends, nearly sixty years have passed since the book was published, with new discoveries being continually brought to light, and in an age when the means of transmission of news and knowledge was never so perfect it is thought; as gifted men as the times have produced, have given their attention and attainments to the research and development of these things, and the result is, they have gained no new light upon this subject, that was not possible for a poor, unlettered boy in the backwoods of New York State to gather and compile into a book in 1827 and 1829. Friends, can you swallow that? If you




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    it is possible you may swallow down and roll as a sweet morsel under the tongue the Spaulding tale, "Old come to pass." and all. What! says one, have not these new authors who have been publishing for the past fifty years unfolded something new as to the civilization that is not to be gained by reading the Book of Mormon? Nor anything either, that has been established as a truth that is conflicting with, or contrary to, that book? I answer they have not; the book is full and explicit upon the civilizations. Will my opponent please show the new light or the fact of the difference or contradiction to the audience if they have? One demonstrable fact thus brought, which will show a statement in the book false, will have more weight with any honest investigator, then ten thousand Spaulding stories, all laid, brooded, hatched, raised and palmed upon the world years after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

    This is his position fairly stated: The Book of Mormon was in press in 1829, and sent out as a publication in 1830. -- A few persons under the guidance and leadership of one Philaster Hulburt, who, at the time had been cut off from the church of the Latter Day Saints for bad conduct, and who had publicly confessed his crime and had been taken back upon his profession of repentance as I will show you by the church publications at the time, and was again cut off; and a few others at Conneaut, Ohio, of a like stamp, got together in 1833, with the Book of Mormon in their hands and vengeance and hatred in their hearts and got up some affidavits as to a story which it was surmised had been written before by Solomon Spaulding, a broken down clergyman of that place. Afterwards they found a confederate in Mr. Howe, of Painesville, Ohio, who was terribly mad and jealous because his wife and sister had joined the church here in Kirtland; and so between Hulburt and Howe and these testifiers, they published their tale between the years 1834 and 1841, years after the publication of the Book of Mormon and with the book in their hands from which to make their garbled statements. Therefore, he concludes the thieving Joseph Smith who was always an honest and honorable man, stole the Book of Mormon from the Spaulding story and made of the theft a Bible. This is logic for you with a rush! Who again will doubt that my opponent is a profound logician! But I have yet to give you the rich part of his tale. A few of the best citizens of Ohio, at Conneaut, got together one night and appointed one of their number, to wit, the said Dr. Hulburt, who had before been ostracized from the Latter Day Saints for an open insult to a young lady in Kirtland, to go to New York, Pennsylvania, and other places, to get statements from other first citizens of the country (like themselves), and get up a story to beat the Book of Mormon. Did you ever before hear of so many of the first citizens of the     		country living near by you, who were never known outside of their neighborhood, except by the work of evil they did by signing false statements? His idea of best citizen is from the standpoint of whether they are on "our side;" not from a single truth he knows. But let me right here call your attention to the fact that he has not even presented the testimony of a single one of these best citizens he refers to in full. Not a single statement. Not even the poor show of reading to you a written statement in full of a single one of them. Not even the offer to read you a single affidavit of one of these "best citizens." I am here to examine the evidence in this discussion and if he has any statements, or affidavits, I want him to read them here, and give the people a chance to judge and me a chance to examine them. I deny, sir, that you can produce affidavits or respectable statements proving the statements and assertions you read last night; and demand the evidence. Not a few lines from the witnesses but the testimony. I call attention to the fact that this opponent is the first I ever met who would stand before an audience and tell and rehearse what he says, somebody else said, old mother Grundy said about what somebody else said and did, and then ask his audience to take it for evidence. What would you think of an attorney, who after rehearsing his case to the jury or judge, without ever offering to introduce a witness or read a record except in extracts, would stand up and claim he had put his evidence in, and ask for a verdict in his favor? Can you not see, ladies and gentlemen, he has not proven a single thing? What evidence has he presented to you upon any matter? Mention, any of you who can. Oh, says one, he gave us Mr. Rudolph's testimony. Did he? I have not seen it or heard it read. I heard what Braden said Rudolph said Sidney Rigdon did: but what do you know about it? Mr. Rudolph is near here, if he knows anything, put him on this stand: you claim him as one of your own men, a Disciple Preacher. I want to examine him if his name is to be used, since he is near by and can be had. The only request I will have in the matter is that the evidence shall be taken on extra time; and that we do not take up the hour named for discussion. I deny here that Mr. Rudolph knows a single fact which can in the remotest degree connect Sidney Rigdon with Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon, prior to the time when Sidney Rigdon was converted to the faith of the Saints in the last part of the year 1830. And I make this statement fearlessly, after having had a conversation with Mr. Rudolph on the subject of the book myself last summer.

    Another thing: I state fearlessly before you that Mr. Howe of Painesville, who first published the Spaulding story and the affidavits which were gotten up to blacken the character of Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, et. al., and whose book is the key note from which all subsequent works have taken




    70                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    their music, does not know one thing, not a single fact that can be made in the least to connect that Spaulding story with the Book of Mormon or show that Joseph Smith's character was bad; or that a single affidavit in his book is true. Will you put him on the stand here for examination? I will bear the expense of bringing him here as he is a little farther away than Mr. Rudolph. I do not make these assertions for bluff, or effect; but for the reason that the world has thought Mr. Howe knew something about the matter, or he would not have published the book which forms the basis of all other lying works; and if he does know anything now is the time to find it out. One other thing. It has been asserted here that he has a chain of evidence. A chain of evidence! What is it to make a chain of evidence? Can you use broken or pieces of links? Has Mr. Braden debated all his life and has not yet found out that to form a circumstance or truth, that the evidence of such circumstance or truth must be complete within itself and independent of another fact or circumstance which he claims to form another link? Each must be complete of itself to be evidence and constitute a chain. For illustration: It is said here by him that at one time a niece of Sidney Rigdon once saw him go to an old trunk, take out a manuscript, go to the fire place and read it, and that he would not let her see it. Suppose this is all true as the story goes; what of it? Is it pertinent to the issue until they in some manner connect that same manuscript with the one claimed by Spaulding? Why? Rigdon might have had a hundred manuscripts and read them, and taken them from an old trunk, and put them back without first having given them to his niece to read, and each and every one of them altogether different from the Spaulding manuscript; and if any such unconnected statement was offered as evidence in any court to sustain the most trivial case, it would instantly be ruled as improper. Before this can be made evidence the parties must also show by some other fact, or thing, that the manuscript which he is said to have read and would not let his niece see was the Spaulding Romance, and then they may use it as a link to show that Rigdon did have an opportunity of copying the Spaulding manuscript. Don't you know that if Sidney Rigdon did have the Spaulding manuscript it is just possible he had another besides; mother Grundy's manuscript, a manuscript sermon, or manuscript article for publication, and that at the time his niece saw him he was reading mother Grundy or one of the other manuscripts instead of Spaulding? What then would be the true position of my opponent in this argument? Mr. Braden offering to show that Rigdon had the Spaulding manuscript by citing the time he read mother Grundy's manuscript, and offering the people a false thing as evidence and asking them to accept it as true instead of accepting the facts. Take another one of his points(?). Mr. Rudolph says, so Braden says, that one time during the year 1827, Sidney Rigdon, who was their pastor at Mentor, Ohio, went off some place and was away two or three weeks and they did not know where he went to. I might have been over to Hiram, down to Mantua, to Cleveland or Cincinnati; but no difference to him; he will have it at this very time he was in the wilds of Pennsylvania or New York, concocting the Book of Mormon with Joseph Smith. Where is his witnesses showing where Rigdon was at this time, or that he was in New York? There is none, nor never have been. Now according to their idea Smith has no rights that even a rogue is bound to respect; and so if they can show that their pastor Rigdon was out on a spree, Smith will have to bear the blame. My friends, don't you know that it would sink any man, prophet, priest, or king, to undertake to make him a scapegoat to carry away the sins of many pastors of the Campbellite Church.

    But I have only been arguing the matter in this suppositious form -- sifting it; -- when I come to ask for the evidence, I find out the whole thing is trumped up to defeat Sidney Rigdon because he left their church. I shall now present to you a supposable case upon facts proven, and ask you to compare the two methods of argument. Upon the part of the affirmative I have shown that John the Revelator, in the 14th chapter and 8th verse of his book, says: "And I saw another angel ply in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." I use this to support the truth of my claim. But how?  1. I show by it, the time that is referred to, "The hour of God's judgment."  2. That it was to be after John's time, or the year A.D. 96, by turning to the preceding chapters. Rev. 1:19, 4:1, and 22:6.  3. That the hour of the judgment is the same as defined in Matt. 13 by Jesus. And it is "just afore the harvest," the same time referred to in Isaiah 18, when the ensign is lifted up; and that the ensign of God is the gospel of Christ; this is what he calls men to look to, saying, "Repent ye and believe the gospel;" and since it is the gospel and lifted up at the same time that John saw the angel bringing it, I must conclude they are the same in teaching at least, for there is but one gospel.  4. Then, when I notice that the same time and event is spoken of in both, as in Isaiah 29, and Ezekiel 37, where the message and event is represented as a book that should be brought to light which should contain "doctrine," and (connected with its publication). understanding attained, and the power of God brought to light, as was the gospel when it was in the world in its fullness before, as Paul says: -- "Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost,




                        THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                     71

    and in much assurance;" (1 Thess. 1:5), and that this is the same work specifically set forth as in the other texts, time, place and conditions each being complete of themselves and agreeing in all their phases, and that there is no reasonable interpretation or application of the prophecies agreeing with any other time, place, thing or event, I conclude that they all refer to the same thing, and that that thing is the gospel which is to be again commited to the earth at the time, "just afore the harvest;" in "the hour of His judgment," and hence committed again sometime after the apostles' time, and which may be in our own time, and must be in this or hereafter, for the harvest spoken of has not yet come. Having made such a connected chain as this, every link being in itself complete, since they all refer to a like, or the same thing, and that thing has a complete likeness in the coming forth and teaching of the Book of Mormon, and no other book known to men will answer to the fulfillment as this, and the time in the history of the world as predicted has arrived for the fulfillment. I say it is logical to conclude, and the evidence irresistible as showing that this is the prophetic work, notwithstanding Satan's old cry of deceiver.

    How about his Spaulding story as compared with this logical deduction from admitted facts? In the argument of a proposition or the trial of an issue, there is what is termed an affirmative and anegative; a plantiff and a defendant. One who affirms the truth of a matter and who must bring evidence to sustain this, and one who denies the authority or application of the evidence, or else, admitting the statements of the one who affirms to be correct, he denies the conclusion, for the reason that something else is true, which must destroy the correctness of the plaintiff's conclusion. This other thing or averment is what is termed an alibi, and may properly be made the defense in certain cases. But in other cases it cannot. For illustration: I set forth my claim and title to a certain piece of land, showing patent from the government, all due and legal transfers by power of conveyance: show that this patent and all transfers and steps of entry and possession are strictly in harmony and keeping with the law, -- it would hardly be worth while for another to bring a suit to oust me under the plea that, it is true, he is properly entitled under the chain of title and I cannot break that claim, but then John Doe had a correct chain of title too, at one time, to a piece of land, and it is the defendant's belief that plaintiff ought to be kept out of possession for the reason that John Doe now does not know what kind of land his was nor where it is. No judge would for a moment hesitate to say that not even an issue had been formed by such a plea. If my chain of title could not be broken, no amount of alibi would help the matter in the case. That which is conclusive to the proving of a fact, which fact establishes the conclusion of a proposition, cannot be overcome by an attempt to prove some other fact; for the reason that     		it is a controdiction to suppose that two facts exist and one the opposite if the other.

    To defeat my title to the land then, the defendant would be compelled to break the chain, and this would form a direct contest. In the discussion of the proposition before this audience, as the one affirming, I had the right to set out my claim; -- chain of title; make it full and complete under the law; and my opponent's right was to break this chain, and under the law he must do so or fail; for the conclusion of the law is, that he who comes bringing this chain is true, for no man can get hold of the chain unless he is the true and accepted one.

    God has set this seal upon it; man understands the things of man by the spirit of man which is in him; "even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 1 Cor. 2:11. For this reason in determining who are of God and who are not, you may safely rely upon the rule, "He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son," 2 John, 9th verse. He has established a law that man without the Spirit of God cannot look into his truth which is from above, and so select from it as to impress upon the people and at the same time conform to the truth. Jesus recognizes the rule as being correct in the 28th chapter of Matthew's gospel, wherein he tells his disciples if they teach all things whatsoever he has commanded them he will be with them to the end of the world. He did not even promise to be with Peter, and James, and John unless they proved their mission by abiding in the doctrine. Not a part of it, but all of it, for this rule was to be given to his people and the world to test the true from the false; true teachers from false teachers; true prophets from false prophets. "If any man think himself a prophet or spiritual," says the apostle, 1 Cor. 14:37, "let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord." Not acknowledge by mouth through dissimination simply, -- but let his teachings conform to the established test, and agree in all things with that which Paul had written. "He that is of God heareth God's words," and in all things. "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing; by their fruits you shall know them." Not judging their public acts by their doings in private life, nor by the lives of their followers; for this would destroy the entire list: -- Noah, Moses, Samson, David, Solomon, Elijah, Peter and Paul; and judging simply by the fruits of the followers, it would also prove as false, Jesus and the apostles; for all, except the twelve went back at one time; Judas one of those, turned traitor and sold Jesus; another, denied him and cursed and swore; all returned to their nets; and Thomas was so far gone that he said he would not believe, unless "he should first thrust his hands into his side," while some in the churches in a short time were guilty of such abominations as were not known, the apostle Paul says, among the Gentiles. Speaking




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    of those in Asia, Jesus signifies to his servant John, that some were so wicked and corrupt, that unless they reprented they should "be brought down to hell." To judge them in this way would be wrong; -- contrary to the word of God. I will show you the way to judge men by their fruits. If those principles they teach are bad; or men or women are bad who are living in accord with, and carrying out in their lives the principles taught, then it will prove the one bringing the message to be bad, and at the same time prove the message bad. The argument is often made that the Christian religion is bad because those professing Christianity are bad. This is not a correct premise. Before the conclusion follows, it must be further shown that, in bringing forth this bad fruit, they who call themselves Christians did these bad things by conforming to the principles and teachings of the Christian religion.

    Now, in this discussion, from the first, my opponent has chosen to leave the arguments of the affirmative and follow his own course; and he has attempted to crush me under the weight of the stories he had at his command against the character of Mr. Smith. What a ridiculous position! If my claim is true it is true, and no number of alibi's could affect it gotten up on life or character.

    But by taking this course he virtually admits the position of the affirmative to be unmoveable; because if he could move me, what is the use of his alibi? I am affirming and must make my case. He simply denies; and he does not in the proposition set up a counter case, claim or thing. And yet he has chosen to introduce the alibi of the old Spaulding Romance; (and a romance it is), and to rely upon that, either as a counter proof sufficient, or as a means of prejudicing the people against an investigation of the facts. Whatever the object it matters not to me; but I take it that by so doing he has admitted as true the position of the plaintiff in the contest and now rests his case upon character, and the "Spaulding Romance."

    Does he know that his very act in doing this is in itself another evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon? and in this making certain the application of     		another part of the prophecy of Isaiah, 29th chapter, the conditions of which I claim are complete in the Book of Mormon. The book spoken of there to come forth is to be fought in such a way. If the opposition was from a different standpoint the prediction would be incomplete. The prophecy sets out sufficient to show that it might have been properly tried under the rule, for it is to contain the doctrine of Christ; -- no mistaking this; verse 24: "They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine."

    But understanding this, it is shown conclusively in verses 15, 16, 20, and 21, that those who opposed the book would do so by turning things upside down; -- reversing the order of trying things under God's law, and use works which were "in the dark;" "scorn" the claims made by the one bringing the book, and "watch for iniquity;" -- try to find something against his character; -- "make a man an offender for a word," and lay a snare for him," for it was to be a work reproving the people for leaving the law; and finally, they were to "turn aside the just for a thing of nought." -- Preferring to the great facts of God's law and the justice exemplified therein, those things that are of little account, a tissue and a refuge of lies as referred to in the fifteenth verse of the 28th chapter, or in other words the "Spaulding Story." Now, singular as it is, I have never met a man as yet, in the consideration of this question, who has not tried the book from this standpoint. It was said of Jesus that "he was numbered with the transgressors," to fulfill the prediction of the prophet, made long before; and if the certainty of agreement of prophecy and its fulfillment is such, that he who was the upright and true, the humble and meek, the forgiving and pure of the city of Nazareth, must be charged with disobedience to law, stirring up of sedition, and treason to the State, and suffer the final affliction of death between two thieves, why should I complain to suffer to the contest of lies, and ways that are dark, whichthe prophet speaks of as being brought to oppose at some day the Lord's work.

    (Time expired.)

     


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    MR. BRADEN'S SEVENTH SPEECH.
    GENTLEMEN MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: -- We wish to call the attention to a fact strangely overlooked by former writers -- that Spaulding wrote several manuscripts. Our reasons for such a position are:  I. The length of time spent in writing his book. He began in 1809, and the manuscript was taken to Patterson's office in 1814. He spent five years on it.  II. Mrs. S, Spaulding, his wife, Miss Spaulding, his daughter, and J. N. Miller, declare that he had many manuscripts.  lII. The witnesses in Conneaut, with one exception, describe only the Nephite portion, showing that he had only written that, when reading to them. The Zarahemla and Jaredite portions were not written when he read to them.  IV. Spaulding stated to J. N. Miller that he would lead a retired life in Pittsburgh, and re-write his manuscript. Miller is the only one who describes the Zarahemla portion. He had added that to his second Mormon manuscript.  V. Patterson told him to rewrite it and prepare it for press. Jas. Miller says he did, and left this copy with Patterson, and that it was this, or his third Mormon manuscript, that Rigdon stole.  VI. The manuscript that Miss Spaulding read at the residence of her uncle, W. H. Sabin, was not large enough to constitute such a work as the publishers would publish. It was his first draft on his manuscript No. II. (Mormon I.)  VII. The contradictions between these portions as we will show, prove that they were written in different installments, and added to each other.  VIII. When Mrs. Harris destroyed 118 pages Rigdon was sent for and he replaced them from another Spaulding manuscript, one of the ones stolen by Smith from Mrs. Davidson's house in Hartwicke in 1827.  IX. Even after he failed to get his manuscript published and the copy he prepared had been stolen by Rigdon, he continued to write on to the last.  X. Spaulding's care in preserving his manuscript is seen in the fact that even the few leaves of his Roman manuscript were preserved, and found in his trunk in 1834.

    This removes the quibbling of Mormons about Rigdon's copying so much manuscript. He did not; he stole it. Spaulding so declared in 1815-16. Rigdon showed the manuscript to Winters, and stated that it was the manuscript that Spalding wrote -- that Spaulding had left it at Pattersons -- that he borrowed it -- not copied it. Rigdon told Jefries he took the manuscript from the printing office. It settles also all quibbling about the size of the manuscript Miss Spaulding read at her uncles. Rigdon had the one her father had prepared for press. She read the first draft or Manuscript No. II. (Mormon manuscript No. I.). It also puts an end to the three ID Joseph's talk that Spaulding's heirs had the     		manuscript in their care all the time. It puts an end to the challenge of Mormons: "Why did not the Spauldings bring out the manuscript and prove the theft and plagiarism by publishing the original manuscript?" Rigdon had stolen Mormon manuscript No, III  that Spaulding had prepared for press; Smith, in 1827 had stolen other manuscripts.

    Did Rigdon steal Spaulding's manuscript? We have proved that he was learning the tanner's trade in Pittsburg, when the manuscript was at Patterson's by Mrs. Eichbaum. That he was intimate with Lambdin and was about the office so much that Engles the foreman complained of it. That he was much interested in the Spaulding manuscript there was a great curiosity in the office, by Mrs. Spaulding. That the manuscript was stolen and Spaulding blamed Rigdon, by Jas. Miller, McKee and Dr. Dodd. That Rigdon showed the manuscript to Dr. Winters in 1823 declaring it was Spaulding's manuscript, left with a printer, that he borrowed it, and told what it contained, by Dr. Winter. That he had it in 1826, and declared it would be a great thing some day, by his niece Mrs. Dunlap. We have proved that he knew of the publication of the Book of Mormon, long before it appeared, and described it, by D. Atwater, A. Bently, Alexander Campbell, Green and Dille. We have proved that he was often absent from home while it was being prepared for press, by Z. R[ud]olph and others. That he was seen at Smith's while it was being prepared for press, by Tucker, Mrs. Eaton and McCauley, Chase and Saunders. We have proved that he prepared his congregation for the reception of the book and his ideas, and that his adherents went into Mormonism. We will, when we come to analyze the Book of Mormon, prove that there are Rigdonisms on nearly every page and several on many single pages. I do not know how a stronger case can be made.

    This constant jabber of Mormons calling on persons to tell when and how Rigdon came in contact with and obtained possession of the Spaulding manuscript, and when and how Rigdon and Smith came together, and concocted this scheme, and brought out this book, is an insult to common sense and every principle of law. If a man is arrested with stolen property in his possession, all the state has to do is prove  I. The rightful owner of the property,  II. That it has been feloniously taken out of his possession.  III. That it was found in the possession of the accused. That is sufficient to convict him of being a thief or a receiver of stolen goods, that the law holds as guilty as the thief. The state does not have to prove that he accused stole the property. Having convicted him of having




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    stolen property in his possession, he has to prove that he came by it innocently, or be committed as thief or receiver of stolen goods. We have proved that Spaulding owned the Manuscript Found, that it was found in possession of Rigdon, that it was offered to the public as his own property by Impostor Joe. Unless Mormons can prove that Rigdon and Smith came by it innocently, they are convicted as thieves, or as receivers of stolen goods. As lawyers the three ID Joseph and his man Kelley ought to know this.

    But we have gone far beyond what is necessary in order to convict Rigdon and Smith. Let me illustrate our work. Suppose that a man lives for years in Kirtland, who has a museum of rare relics. There are absolutely no duplicates of any of them. He is a sort of monomaniac over his museum, takes everybody to see it that he can in any way induce to look at it, and is constantly talking about it, and describing it. He moves away, and some years afterwards a couple of fellows come along and advertise a wonderful museum, that they claim an angel gave by miracle to one of them. People of Kirtland flock out to see this miraculous museum. No sooner do they cast eyes on it, than a shout goes up, "why this is the collection of 'Old come-to-pass,;" a nick-name they had given to their former neighbor. The two fellows are arrested for theft. The heirs of the old neighbor are locked looked up. They say that the collection is in a certain trunk. When the trunk is examined it is found that not a single article of the collection is in it. The trial comes on. The former neighbors of the original owner come in and testify, describing the articles in the collection of their old neighbor, and describe nearly all the leading articles in the museum. The museum is placed before them. They pick out all the leading articles, but reject some, saying, "he did not have these." The thieves would go to the penitentiary, unless they could show that they came by them honestly.

    But suppose the state proceeds to prove that the owner took his collection to a certain place to be prepared for exhibition. That one of the thieves was constantly around there, took great interest in them. That just before the owner's death, these relics disappeared, and that the owner and others blamed this fellow with stealing them. That a few years afterwards he showed them to persons saying that they were the deceased man's relics, that he had left them to be prepared for exhibition, and that he had borrowed them from the one who was to prepare them for exhibition, in order to examine them. That he was seen with them in his possession, and examining them years afterwards, declaring, "they would be a big thing some day." That soon afterwards he began to exhibit certain peculiar articles of his own manufacture, and to prophesy that an angel would give to the world a museum, with certain articles in it, describing the articles of the deceased     		man. That he was seen in company with his confederate. That the confederate began to tell that an angel had given to him a museum of such articles, and in a short time the two began to exhibit the museum containing the relics of the deceased, and the articles the first fellow had been exhibiting. The case would be made out as clearly as if a thousand men swore that they saw the theft.

    We have proven that Solomon Spaulding exhibited for years in Conneaut, and in other places, a cabinet of curiosities, that were absolutely no where else except in his Manuscript Found. That he was a sort of monomaniac over his Manuscript Found, forcing it on all he could get hold of, holding them like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. That his mania had caused persons to nickname him, "Old come to pass." We have proved that when the Book of Mormon was exhibited in Conneaut, that those who had, through Spaulding's mania, been made familiar with his Manuscript Found, recognized the Manuscript Found in the Book of Mormon. Squire Wright shouting out, "Old come to pass has come to life." His brother arose and denounced the theft and fraud on the spot. His old neighbors sent a messenger to his widow, who sent them to the trunk, where the manuscript was supposed to be, and it was not in the trunk. It had been stolen. We have introduced the clear positive testimony of seventeen witnesses, who in describing the Manuscript Found, give a better description of the Book of Mormon -- the historic part -- than the average Mormon preacher can give from memory. We have presented them the book of Mormon and they unite in picking out the historic portions as the part of the Manuscript Found and in rejecting others as not in the Manuscript Found. We have proved that one of the accused, Rigdon, was around the place where the manuscript Spaulding had prepared for the press was last seen. That he took a deep interest in it. That Spaulding told James Miller and McKee and Dr. Dodd that his manuscript had been stolen and Rigdon was suspected of the theft. We have proved that Rigdon in 1822 or 3 showed the manuscript to Dr. Winters, stating that it was a manuscript that Spaulding a Presbyterian preacher had left with a printer, for publication, and that he had borrowed it from the printer to read as a curiosity. It was a Bible romance, purporting to be a history of the American Indians. That he told Jeffries he took it from the printing office and gave it to Smith to publish. That he spent so much time over it in 1826, as to cause his wife to threaten to burn it, to which he replied, "that it would be a great thing some day." We proved by Alexander Campbell, A. Bently, and D. Atwater that Rigdon years before the Book of Mormon appeared stated that such a book would appear, it was dug out of the ground, was engraved on gold plates, contained a history of the aborigines of this continent, gave the history of the people




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    who constructed the antiquities of America, that it taught that the gospel was preached in America in the first centuries of our era, as the Disciples were then preaching it on the Reserve. We have proved that Rigdon preached the religious portions, the part that our witnesses did not recognize as Spaulding's. We have proved that Rigdon was away from home during the time that Smith was working on his pretended plates. That he was seen with Smith. That right after he began to visit Smith the latter began to tell about finding the plates and began his pretended translation of them. We have made our case.

    MORMON CHRONOLOGY

    1761

    Solomon Spaulding was born in Ashford, Connecticut.

    1785

    Solomon Spaulding graduated with the degree of A. B. at Dartmouth College.

    1787

    Solomon Spaulding graduated in Divinity. He received the degree of A. M. from Dartmouth College.

    1788

    Solomon Spaulding preaches as Congregational preacher till compelled to stop by ill health in 1800.

    1793

    Sidney Rigdon was born Feb. 19th near the village of Library, St. Clair township, Alleghany county, Pennsylvania

    1796

    Joseph Smith, Sen., and Luck Mack married in Tunbridge, Vermont.

    1800

    Solomon Spaulding moves to Cherry Valley, New York, and engages in merchandizing till 1805, and married Matilda Sabin.

    1805

    Impostor Joe Smith born Dec. 23, in Sharon, Windsor county, Vermont.

    1807

    Solomon Spaulding having failed in business moves to Coneaut, Ohio, and engages in business.

    1808

    He becomes very much interested in the mounds arount Coneaut, and has several opened. He begins a historical romance, assuming that their builders were the descendants of ship-wrecked Romans. His Manuscript No. 1. His Roman Manuscript.

    1809

    He abandons this idea as too near his own time and begins his Manuscript No. II (Mormon Manuscript No. 1.) He assumes that the aborgines of America were Israelites from Jerusalem. He fails in business and announces to his creditors, his purpose to publish his romance, as "Manuscript Found," and pay his debts.

    1810-11-12

    Spaulding continues to write on his romance, and to read to all that he can induce to listen to him. His monomania causes his neighbors to nick-name him "Old come to pass" on account of the absurd frequency of that expression in his manuscript. He begins Manuscript No. III (Mormon Manuscript No. 2), adding the Zarahemla portion. He moves to Pittsburg to prepare his manuscript for publication.

    A religious impostor in Vermont     		creates much excitement in the neighborhood of the Smiths. Mrs. Smith is very active in the excitement, and prophecies, that Joe, then a lad of seven, will be a prophet, and found a new religion. Joe is reared with that idea constantly before him. The family are all taught it.

    1813-14

    At the advice of Patterson, Spaulding prepares for press his Manuscript No. IV, (Mormon Manuscript No. 3). It is carried to Patterson's office for publication.

    Sidney Rigdon is learning the tanner's trade in Pittsburg. He is very intimate with Lambdin, a leading employee of Patterson. He is around the office so much, that Engles, the foreman, complains of it. He takes great interest in Spaulding's manuscript.

    Spaulding moves to Amity, Washington county, Pa., and his wife keeps tavern.

    1815

    The Smith's move to Palmyra, New York.

    1816

    Spaulding informs Jas.[sic] Miller, McKee, and Dr. Dodd, that his manuscript has been stolen from Patterson's office, and that Rigdon is blamed with the theft. Spaulding died October 20th, 181[6]. His widow collects his papers that she can find and takes them with her, in a trunk, to the residence of his [sic] brother, W. H. Sabin, Onondaga county, New York.

    1817

    Sidney Rigdon joins the Baptist Church on Piney Fork of Peter's Creek, May 31st.

    1819

    The Smiths squat on a piece of land belonging to minors in Ontario County, New York. Rigdon studies theology with Rev. Clark of the Regular Baptist Church in Beaver County, Pa.

    1819

    Rigdon is licensed to preach by the Connequessing Baptist Church.

    1820

    Rigdon goes to Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, where an uncle is a prominent member of the Baptist Church. He joins that church March 4th. He is ordained to preach by that church April 1st. Marries Phebe A. Brooks.

    Mrs. Spaulding, Spaulding's widow, goes to Pomfret, Connecticut.

    Rigdon preaches for the Baptist Church in Warren, and for others in the vicinity.

    1821

    Rigdon continues to preach for the Baptists in Warren. In this year, or in the year following, Mrs. Spaulding marries Mr. Davidson of Hartwick, Otsego County, New York, and goes there to live.

    1822

    Rigdon moves to Pittsburg. Is elected pastor of the First Baptist Church Jan. 28.

    During this year or the year following, he shows to Dr. Winter, a prominent teacher in Pittsburg, a Baptist preacher, and an intimate acquaintance, Spaulding's Manuscript No. IV,




    76                     THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                      

    Mormon Manuscript No. III. He says: "It is a Bible romance, purporting to be a history of the American Indians, that a Presbyterian preacher named Spaulding wrote, and left with a printer for publication. I borrowed it to read through curiosity."

    In digging a well for Willard Chase, Joseph Smith, senior, the father of Impostor Joe, found a stone of cloudy quartz, that singularly resembled a child's foot. Impostor Joe who was loafing around, stole it from Chase's children. This is the famous peer-stone of Impostor Joe, the Urim and Thummim of Mormonism.

    Rigdon had stolen its Bible, now, Impostor Joe stole its Urim and Thummim.

    1823

    Rigdon preaches for the Baptist Church until Oct. 11th when he is excluded for doctrinal heresies. He goes to the Court House and preaches to his followers.

    Impostor Joe begins his course as impostor. He pretends to witch for water with a witch hazel rod, and to find lost property, and hodden treasures and mines with his stolen peep-stone by putting it into his hat and holding his face into his hat.

    In September, while working for W. H. Sabin, where Miss Spaulding, Spaulding's daughter was living, with her father's papers in her care, Joseph Smith learns of the existence of the Spaulding manuscripts. This is the true interpretation of his wonderful vision of Sept. 23, 1823, when Moroni, now an angel, appears to him, and reveals to him the existence of the plates he -- Moroni -- had buried hundreds of years before, and lets Joe have a peep at them.

    Joseph Smith manufactured that story twenty years afterwards in 1843. He told of no such vision then. The true interpretation is he learned of the Spaulding manuscript while working for Sabin in Sept. 1823.

    1824

    Mrs Davidson has the trunk containing her husband's papers sent to her in Hartwicke, N. Y.

    Rigdon preaches for his adherants until the summer, in the Court House. He than quits preaching and works in a tannery, and begins revising his stolen manuscript. It was a period of great religious excitement and new parties were springing up continually. The excitement of the movement of the Campbells was beginning to be the chief topic in Western Pennsylvania. Rigdon had adopted some, but not all of their ideas. He saw he could not be a leader, in competition with them if he went into it. He conceived the idea of remodeling the Spaulding manuscript by interpolating portions of the Bible, and his own peculiar religious ideas, pretending that it was a record kept by the     		Israelites, who came to America, just as the Bible was kept by Israelites in Asia, and was as much a revelation as the Bible.

    He intended by such fraud to start a new religious movement with himself as prophet, and his stolen manuscript thus revised as its new revelation.

    1825

    Rigdon continues his revisions of his stolen manuscript and works in the tannery.

    Smith is in the height of his glory as impostor. He has a gang of loafing dupes and knaves digging through southern New York and northern Pennsylvania for buried treasures, mines of precious metals that he pretends to see through his stolen peep-stone. He extends his operations to Harmony, Pa. He makes the acquaintance of Emma Hale. Asks her hand in marriage. Is decidedly refused by her father on account of his bad character.

    1826

    In the latter part of winter Rigdon moves to Bainbridge, Geauga county, Ohio. He spent so much time on his stolen manuscript that his wife threatened to burn it. He replied; "that the manuscript would be a great thing some day."

    Smith is in full blast as impostor. He extends his operations until the extreme parts are 150 miles apart. The doings of Smith and his gang, and the peep-stone of Smith are extensively commented on by the press of the region.

    In June Rigdon preaches the funeral sermon of Warner Goodall in Mentor. He pleases the church, and it selects him as pastor and he becomes a Disciple preacher.

    1827

    Smith goes to Harmony, Pa., in the absence of Mr. Hale, runs off with his daughter and marries her in South Bainbridge, N. Y. The ceremony is performed by Tarbell, J. P., Jan. 18th.

    Rigdon tells Darwin Atwater that a book will soon appear giving an account of the aborigines of this continent and the origin of American antiquities.

    He tells A. Bently that a book was about to be published that was found engraved on plates of gold. A. Campbell testifies that he said also that it was dug out of the earth in New York. It contained an account of the aborigines of this continent. That it said that the gospel had been preached in America just as the disciples were then preaching it on the Reserve, during the first centuries of our era.

    Rigdon preached during this and the three succeeding years, the peculiar ideas that are in the Book of Mormon. He indoctrinated all of his hearers, that he could, with these ideas, and prepared for the coming of his new revelation.

    In the spring of 1827 a stranger was observed




                        THE   BRADEN   AND   KELLEY   DEBATE.                     77

    at Smith's house. Shortly after he made his appearance, the Smiths began to tell of the golden bible.

    People of Mentor began to notice that Rigdon was often absent from home for days, and no one knew where.

    Spaulding had intended to assume that his romance was a translation of a manuscript found in the earth. From 1818 to 1827, the papers contained accounts of finding glyphs of metallic plates, covered with unknown characters. In the spring of 1827, a story was started that a book of such glyphs had been found in Canada, and that it was called a "Golden Bible."

    Rigdon adopted this idea, and the scheme was concocted to pretend that Smith found a book of gold plates called the "Golden Bible." Smith was to pretend to translate it with his peep-stone, stolen from the Chases children. He was in reality to use Rigdon's tevision of the manuscript stolen from Spaulding, and pretend that it was a translation of the plates that he pretended that he had found.

    Smith informs Rigdon of the place where the rest of the Spaulding manuscripts could be found. The confederates dare not publish their fraud while they were in extistence. In September, 1827, Smith was loafing around Mrs. Davidson's neighborhood, superintending a gang digging for a silver mine, on the place of Stowell, and also a well or two were dug in the neighborhood.

    September 22 he succeeded in stealing some of the Spaulding manuscripts. This is the true interpretation of his wonderful vision of September 21-22, 1827. They had now, they supposed, all the Spaulding's Mormon manuscripts in their possession, and they supposed all means of detection were destroyed.

    Smith then began his pretended translation of his pretended plates.

    In the fall Smith moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania, to his father-in-law. While on the road his goods were     		searched twice for stolen property. His father's house was searched about the same time.

    1828

    Martha [sic] Spaulding, Spaulding's daughter, marries Dr. McKinstry and moves to Munson, Massachusetts to live.

    Rigdon makes a convert of P. P. Pratt, a teacher in Lorain county, Ohio, who begins to preach for the Disciples. He lets Pratt into his scheme, who goes into it and eventually becomes the Paul of Mormonism.


    Smith begins to translate. Martin Harris is his scribe. In July Smith lets Harris have 118 pages to take back to Manchester to use in making dupes and enlisting confederates in the fraud. Mrs. Harris who was bitterly opposed to the fraud, burned the 118 pages, without her husband's knowledge.

    Great consternation ensues. Rigdon comes and gets the Spaulding manuscript that Smith had stolen and reconstructs from this the portion that had been burned.

    Smith has a long revelation telling what had been done by malicious persons -- telling what no one had done or dreamed of doing. Smith did not know what had been done, and the Mormon God concocts a plan to circumvent a scheme that had never been even dreamed of.

    Smith returns to Waterloo, New York, in the fall. The angels plow seven acres of wheat and sow ten acres of plaster to enable Whitmer to go and move Smith.

    (1829). In March Oliver is made Smith's scribe. Rigdon comes and gives Smith what he has revised of the Spaulding manuscript, and translation proceeds.

    May 5th, John the Baptist appears to Joseph and Oliver, and gives to them the keys of the first priesthood, etc. Smith has a cave dug in which to hold levees with angels.

    Smith gives Harris a scrawl to take to Anthon in New York City. Harris returns and publishes a false statement about the interview.

    Early in June the translation is completed. In about two months Oliver Cowdery, an inexperienced blacksmith, wrote out at least two thousand foolscap pages, or an average of over thirty pages per day.




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