Some of the Sayings and Predictions Made by the Prophet Joseph Smith--A Letter to Mr. Wentworth From the Prophet in Answer to a Request From Him for a Statement of Belief, To Be Published in the Chicago Democrat--The Prophet's Assassination; Extracts From Gov. Ford's History of Illinois Concerning the Martyrdom, With Comments. Compiled by Ben E. Rich. Josiah Quincy, from whose "Figures of the Past" we quote, was born in Boston in 1802. He was the Mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. He was graduated from Harvard in 1821 and took his master's degree in 1824. He died in 1882, soon after he wrote "Figures of the Past." The work was taken from his diary and from letters written at the time of his visit to Nauvoo. "If the foretelling of future events that could not possibly have been seen by human wisdom--events too, that from outward appearance were very unlikely to come to pass; if the prediction of such events and their subsequent fulfilment evidences a true prophet, then Joseph Smith must have been a true prophet." In 1844 Josiah Quincy visited the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo. They conversed upon questions of government and the Prophet offered a solution of the slavery question {4} which Josiah Quincy, in 1882, declared the history of our country justified. It is by no means impossible that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the 19th century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destiny of his countrymen? It is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. A man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was, and is to-day, accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High, such a human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. Fanatic, impostor, charlatan, he may have been; but those hard names furnish no solution to the problem he presents to us. Fanatics and impostors are living and dying every day, and their memory is buried with them; but the wonderful influence which this founder of religion exerted and still exerts, throws him into relief before us, not as a rogue to be criminated, but as a phenomenon to be explained. The vital questions Americans are asking each other to-day have to do with this man and with what he has left us. Is there any remedy heroic enough to meet the case, yet in accordance with our national doctrines of liberty and toleration, which can be applied to the doctrine now advanced by the sect which he created? The possibilities of the Mormon system are unfathomable. (Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past.)