In concluding this chapter, I shall make some remarks on the Mormons, that being one of the last sects, of any importance, which have arisen, professing the Christian faith. They also profess, or their leaders, at least, to be specially moved by the Holy Spirit; in other words, that they are the recipients of divine inspiration. Whatever other denominations of Christians may think of their claims to supernatural gifts, they are founded on quite as reasonable grounds as were the pretensions of the prophets of old, not even excepting Moses, the Jewish legislator; as a brief history of their rise and progress will prove. The following account, the writer had from some of the principal preachers of the Mormon faith:—“About the year 1827, or ’28, Joseph Smith, a young man of obscure parentage, presented to the world a production which he called the Book of Mormon, or the Golden Bible; and of which, according to his own account, he became possessed in the following manner:—When about fifteen years of age, being under religious impressions, he used to retire to the fields and thickets in the neighborhood of his home, to exercise himself in prayer. One day, while thus engaged, an angel appeared to him, and informed him that the Lord had a great and important work for him to perform, but that the time had not yet arrived for its consummation. Then, after telling him that he would be again visited, and urging him to pursue a godly life, disappeared. A few years after this, the angel re-visited Joseph, repeating his declaration respecting the contemplated work, and disappeared as before. At length, on a third appearance, the angel directed Joseph to go to a certain spot and dig in the earth, telling him that he would there find something of vast importance. Joseph did as the angel commanded, and found a number of golden plates, on which were impressed characters in a language to him altogether unknown. Having copied a portion of the characters, he sent the copy, by a friend, to a teacher of the dead languages, in New York, in order to ascertain the meaning; but his friend returned without having obtained the desired information. The Holy Spirit then enabled Joseph to translate the inscriptions, and the translation is, denominated the ‘Book of Mormon,’ being named after the person who, fourteen hundred years before, had, by Divine command, deposited it in the earth.” This book can be obtained of the Mormon preachers.