The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901Linn, William Alexander
History
The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901
Linn, William Alexander
Latter Day Saints -- History; Utah -- History
records, by means of which there shall be a gathering together of the
children of Israel. It finally seemed to Corrill that the Mormon Bible
corresponded with the record of Joseph referred to by Ezekiel, the Holy
Bible being the record of Judah.
Not fully satisfied, he finally decided, however, to join the new
church, with a mental reservation that he would leave it if he ever
found it to be a deception. Explaining his reasons for leaving it when
he did, he says, "I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been
our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, and plan after
plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event
till too late."
The two other most prominent converts to the new church in Ohio were the
Rev. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of more than ordinary culture, of
Mantua, and Symonds Ryder, a native of Vermont, whom Alexander Campbell
had converted to the Disciples' belief in 1828, and who occupied the
pulpit at Hiram when called on. Booth visited Smith in 1831, with some
members of his own congregation, and was so impressed by the miraculous
curing of the lame arm of a woman of his party by Smith, that he soon
gave in his allegiance. Ryder had always found one thing lacking in the
Disciples' theology--he looked for some actual "gift of the Holy Spirit"
in the way of "signs" that were to follow them that believed. He was
eventually induced to announce his conversion to the new church after
"he read in a newspaper, an account of the destruction of Pekin in
China, and remembered that, six weeks before, a young Mormon girl had
predicted the destruction of that city." This statement was made in
the sermon preached at his funeral. Both of these men confessed their
mistake four months later, after Booth had returned from a trip to
Missouri with Smith.
Among the ignorant, even the most extravagant of the claims of the
Mormon leaders had influence. One man, when he heard an elder in the
midst of a sermon "speak with tongues," in a language he had never
heard before, "felt a sudden thrill from the back of his head down
his backbone," and was converted on the spot. John D. Lee, of Catholic
education, was convinced by an elder that the end of the world was near,
and sold his property in Illinois for what it would bring, and moved to
Far West, in order to be in the right place when the last day dawned.
Lorenzo Snow, the recent President of the church, says that he was
"thoroughly convinced that obedience to those [the Mormon] prophets
would impart miraculous powers, manifestations, and revelations," the
first manifestation of which occurred some weeks later, when he heard a
sound over his head "like the rustling of silken robes, and the spirit
of God descended upon me."*
* Biography of Snow, by his sister Eliza.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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