There are two or three reasons why the Mormon delusion has spread so rapidly, and which will probably continue to give it more or less currency. One cause is, that it fully and cordially admits the truth of the sacred Scriptures. Did it discard all previous revelation,--pour contempt upon the Saviour of the world, and set up an independent claim for a revelation wholly new, it would have gained comparatively few adherents. But recognizing the truth and credibility of the sacred Scriptures, and retaining as it does, many doctrines which are held in common by different denominations of Christians, and covering its own absurdities with imposing forms and lofty pretensions, it opens a winning asylum for all the disaffected and dissatisfied of other persuasions, and contains much that is congenial to almost every shade of radicalism, or erratic religious character. Another cause which has contributed to the rapid spread of this imposture, is, that it appeals strongly to the love of the marvellous,--to that thirst and anxiety, so rife with a certain class of mind, to know more than God would have us know,--to find some discovery that will carry us farther than revelation,--to get some one to come back from the grave, and tell us what is in eternity,--to see with our own eyes a miracle, and obtain some new glimpse of the invisible world. There is manifestly existing in a certain order of men, in every part of the world, and in every period of time, a strong propensity of this sort. What but this propensity would have given such potent and almost irresistible influence to _Joan d' Arc_, who, from an ostler maid in an obscure country inn in France, by claiming heavenly inspirations, and pretending to see visions, and to hear divine voices calling her to re-establish the throne of France, and to expel the foreign invaders, rose to such surprising eminence and power, as to be the very pivot upon which the destinies of the whole nation turned!--as to be invested with the military conduct of the French army,--directing and raising sieges,--inspiring the troops with invincible courage, and spreading disaster and defeat through all the ranks of the British army, so that the Duke of Bedford, after all the previous success and triumph of the English arms at Verneuil and Orleans, and with all his tact and ability, could scarcely keep any footing in France? What but this deep-rooted propensity could have prepared men to have received the dreams, and reveries, and pretended revelation of Emanuel Swedenborg, or of Ann Lee; or to have yielded up their reason to a belief in the clairvoyance of animal magnetism? And not to multiply instances abroad, what but such a propensity as the one to which we have now referred, attracted the New Jerusalemites around _Jemima Wilkinson_, and gave her so much power over a large community of men and women? What but this, opened the way for the monstrous claims set up by the execrable _Mathias_, who drew after him, as by the