Mormonism: Its Origin and Doctrines 119 of the Book of Mormon until its publication, and they go through the wretched farce of pretending to be converted to Mormonism after the Book of Mormon had been published, which they say they knew nothing about before, although evidence shows that they both had been in the scheme to pub- lish it since 1827. What a set of deceivers ! The one important fact is thé plagiarism of the Book of Mormon from the Spaulding romance, entitled “Manuscript Found”. I t is not specially important to know who edited the Spaulding story, and developed it into the present Book of Mormon. But all the evidence points to Sidney Rigdon, and it points to no one else. The evidence shows the following things: That a copy of the Spaulding manuscript was in the printing office of Patterson and Lambdin, in Pittsburg, for a good while after 1814; that Rigdon and Lambdin were on intimate terms from 1818 to the death of Lambdin in August, 1825 ; that more than two years before the publication of the Book of Mormon, Rigdon had spoken to several of his friends about the coming publication of a book from golden plates, which would produce a great religious revolution. During these two years Rigdon was preaching wild and startling doctrines, afterwards found in the Book of Mormon. Any one familiar with the peculiar Campbellite doctrines of that time can not read far into the Book of Mormon with- out discovering that the author had been a Campbellite. His “speech bewrayeth” him in the employment of phraseology to which he had become accustomed while associated with the brethren of that denomination. Furthermore, the book is full of Rigdon’s own peculiar views. He deserves credit, however, for making the Book of Mormon condemn polygamy, and for condemning it himself, which brought him into sharp conflict with both Joseph Smith and his successor, Brigham Young. (3) Mormonism imposes upon the people a counterfeit priesthood, which it calls the “Melchisedek and Aaronic priest- hood”, although there never was any Melchisedek order of
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