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
"At this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or 'Joe
Smith,' as he was universally named, and the Smith family, they were
popularly regarded as an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless,
irreligious race of people--the first named, the chief subject of this
biography, being unanimously voted the laziest and most worthless of
the generation. From the age of twelve to twenty years he is distinctly
remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy noted
only for his indolent and vagabondish character, and his habits
of exaggeration and untruthfulness. Taciturnity was among his
characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to any one outside
of his intimate associates, except when first addressed by another;
and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his word was
received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. He could
utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvellous absurdity with the
utmost apparent gravity. He nevertheless evidenced the rapid development
of a thinking, plodding, evil-brewing mental composition--largely given
to inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and
false and mysterious pretensions. In his moral phrenology the professor
might have marked the organ of secretiveness as very large, and that of
conscientiousness omitted. He was, however, proverbially good natured,
very rarely, if ever, indulging in any combative spirit toward any one,
whatever might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh.
Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, who has been
heard to boast of him as the 'genus of the family,' quoting his own
expression."*
* "Remarkable Visions."
The second (drawn a little later) is by Daniel Hendrix, a resident of
Palmyra, New York, at the time of which he speaks, and an assistant in
setting the type and reading the proof of the Mormon Bible:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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