The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt: One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry, and TravelsPratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker)
Religion
The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt: One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Embracing His Life, Ministry, and Travels
Pratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Apostles -- Biography; Pratt, Parley P. (Parley Parker), 1807-1857
We then returned to San Francisco, and about the 10th of July
the other missionaries arrived from San Barnardino. I met Brothers
Tanner and McBride, who had been on a mission to the Sandwich isles
and had returned. Brother Tanner had purchased a vessel in order to
transport the Elders both ways and to emigrate the Saints; but we
could not pay for it and fit it for sea, notwithstanding I ran in
debt to help him, so we had to sell it at a great loss.
We now commenced holding meetings, circulating books, tracts,
and in every way we could, to notify and warn the people.
I devoted the time I could spare from the ministry to writing my
history and for the press.
Some time in August, Elders George Q. Cannon, J. Hawkins, Bigler
and Farran, of the Island Mission, landed, and Brother Cannon
assisted me some forty days in copying my autobiography.
About the last of August the following was published in a weekly
paper, called the _Chronicle_, of San Francisco:
A PROPHET IS AMONG US.
Mr. Parley P. Pratt, of Salt Lake notoriety, is among us, and we
knew it not. He has just addressed a letter to Mr. J. S. Hittell,
whose "proposed course of lectures _against_ Christianity"
appears to have caught the Prophet's attention.
As Mr. Pratt's letter, which is written on the blank leaf of a
printed Latter-day Saint's circular, is curious and characteristic,
we give a copy of it. We also give a copy of the circular itself.
To enable the reader to understand Mr. Pratt's allusions in the
letter, he had better first glance over Mr. Hittell's advertisement
in another column. One would scarcely have thought that Mr. Pratt
could seriously expect to make converts to his faith in this
"desperately wicked" California--the very hell on earth of the
"Mormons." But so it seems to be. We give him and his cause all the
publicity we can, by publishing his circular gratuitously.
SAN FRANCISCO, _September 1st, 1854_.
MR. JNO. S. HITTELL.
_Sir_--What do you mean by the term "Christianity?" If
you mean the system taught by Christ and His Apostles, as recorded
in the "New Testament," you need give yourself or the public no
uneasiness, for no such system has troubled the earth for the last
thousand years at least, so far as we have any knowledge, except in
the single instance of its restoration in the United States by the
Prophet Joseph Smith; and even this has been misnamed "Mormonism,"
and driven to the mountains of Utah.
In short, this Christianity of the New Testament is a system of
visions, angels, revelations, prophesyings, gifts, miracles, etc.
Such system you can never oppose--it speaks and acts for itself;
its votaries know what they experience, see, hear and feel.
As to the modern systems--the forms without power, they are not
worth opposing; they are dying of themselves before the power and
intelligence of truth made manifest by "Mormonism."
I am happy to subscribe myself
The friend of truth and man,
PARLEY P. PRATT.
CIRCULAR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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