But it is time to return from this digression. In addition to showing what the attitude of the Spauldings was to this document, through Mrs. Dickinson, I appeal from the conflicting testimony of the Reverend D. R. Austin and the venerable Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson, to the Davidson statement itself as evidence that it is not the product of "an aged woman, and very infirm." [80] I ask any person capable of forming any kind of a literary judgment, to take the statement signed with Mrs. Davidson's name, and then say, honor bright, if that is the statement of a woman in private life, much less of one "aged and infirm." Its introduction, almost ideal from a literary standpoint, when the purpose of the document is considered; the movement thence to the introduction of the evidence and its discussion; thence to the conclusion--so potent, and so desirable to a minister whose church had been invaded by successful Mormon missionaries, but so unlike a woman in private life, _viz:_ "I have given the previous narration, that this work of deep deception and wickedness may be searched to the foundation and the authors exposed to the contempt and execration they so richly deserve." All this too plainly proclaims the professional hand to leave anyone in doubt as to where the truth lies as between the Haven-Davidson statement and the Clark-Storrs-Austin story and argument in "Gleanings by the Way," which Mr. Schroeder so warmly commends to us as settling the "dishonesty of the original publication" of the Haven interview. Parley P. Pratt was right when in an article published in the New Era (New York, Nov., 1839), he said: [Footnote 80: "Gleanings by the Way," p. 265. The statement is the Rev. Dr. Austin's. The New Haven statement represents her as "about seventy years of age and somewhat broke." _Times and Seasons,_ Vol. I, p. 47.] "A judge of literary production, who can swallow that piece of writing as the production of a woman in private life, can be made to believe that the Book of Mormon is a romance. For the one is as much like a romance as the other is like a woman's composition. The production, signed 'Matilda Davidson' is evidently the work of a man accustomed to public address." [81] [Footnote 81: _New Era,_ impression of November 25, 1839. Same is copied into the _Times and Seasons,_ Vol. I, p. 47.] Mr. Schroeder reaches the same conclusion, and that largely too from the literary style of the article. Listen to this comment: