the only extant specimen of his talents, that he should have been thus unfortunate both in the pulpit and at the counter. After his double failure the luckless man, who imagined (according to his widow's statement) that he had "a literary taste," thought to redeem his shattered fortunes by the composition of an historical romance. The subject which he chose was the history of the North American Indians; and the work which he produced was a chronicle of their wars and migrations. They were described as descendants of the patriarch Joseph, and their fortunes were traced for upwards of a thousand years, from the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, down to the fifth century of the Christian era. This narrative purported to be a record buried in the earth by Mormon, its last compiler, and was entitled "The Manuscript Found." A manuscript, indeed, it seemed likely to remain. Its author vainly endeavoured to persuade the booksellers to undertake the risk of its publication. Nor does their refusal surprise us; for we do not remember, among all the ponderous folios which human dulness has produced, any other book of such unmitigated stupidity. It seems inconceivable how any man could patiently sit down, day after day, to weary himself with writing sheet after sheet of such sleepcompelling nonsense. Its length is interminable, amounting to above five hundred closely printed octavo pages. Yet, from the first to the last, though professing to be composed by different authors, under various circumstances, during a period of a thousand years, it is perfectly uniform in style, and maintains the dryness with

out the brevity of a chronological table. Not a spark of imagination or invention enlivens the weary sameness of the annalist; no incidental pictures of life or manners give colour or relief to the narrative. The only thing which breaks the prosaic monotony is the insertion of occasional passages from Scripture; and these are so clumsily brought in, that they would seem purposely introduced to show by contrast the worthlessness of the foil in which they are imbedded. Nor is dulness the only literary offence committed by the writer of the book of Mormon. It is impossible to read three pages of it without stumbling on some gross violation of grammar, such as the following:-"O ye wicked ones, hide thee in the dust." "It all were vain." "We had somewhat contentions." "I should have wore these bands." "Why persecuteth thou the Church?” "He has fell." "The promises hath been." "Our sufferings doth exceed." "All things which is expedient." These blunders are so uniformly interspersed throughout the work, that they must be ascribed to its author, and not (as they have sometimes* been) to a subsequent interpolator. Yet this worthless book, which its writer could not even get printed in his lifetime, is now stereotyped in the chief languages of Europe, and

This hypothesis has been resorted to because people cannot understand how an educated teacher of religion should be capable of such blunders. But in America the literary qualifications for ordination are necessarily reduced to a minimum. In our researches among the Mormonite authors, we have found several examples of ci-devant "Ministers," who not merely write bad grammar, but cannot even spell correctly.

is regarded by proselytes in every quarter of the globe as a revelation from heaven.

This extraordinary change of fortune was brought about by the successful roguery of a young American named Joseph Smith, the son of a small farmer in Vermont. From an early age this youth had amused himself by practising on the credulity of his simpler neighbours. When he was a boy of fourteen, there occurred in the town of Palmyra, where he then lived, one of those periods of religious excitement which are called in America Revivals. The fervour and enthusiasm which attends these occurrences often produces good effects. Many excellent men have traced the sincere piety which has distinguished them through life, to such an origin. But there is a danger that the genuine enthusiasm of some should provoke hypocrisy in others. So it happened on this occasion in Palmyra. Half the inhabitants were absorbed in the most animated discussion of their deepest religious feelings. Any extraordinary "experience" was sure to attract the eagerest interest. Under these circumstances, young Joseph amused himself by falling in with the prevailing current, and fixing the attention of his pious friends upon himself, by an experience" more wonderful than any of theirs. He gave out that while engaged in fervent. prayer, he had been favoured with a miraculous vision. "I saw," says he, "a pillar of light above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually upon me. It no sooner appeared, than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light

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rested upon me, I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air." He goes on in his "Autobiography" (from which we quote) to say, that these heavenly messengers declared all existing Christian sects in error, and forbade him to join any of them. This statement, however, was no doubt an afterthought. At the time, he probably only proclaimed that his "deliverance from the enemy" had been effected by a supernatural appearance.

Such precocious hypocrisy, however painful, is no extraordinary phenomenon, Probably every outburst of kindred excitement develops some similar instance of childish imposture. Examples will occur to those who are familiar with the early history of Methodism. And we remember lately to have seen a narrative published by a believer in the "Irvingite" miracles, detailing a case where a boy of only seven years old pretended to inspiration, and kept up the farce for many weeks, duping all the while his infatuated parents, and having the impudence seriously to rebuke his old grandfather for unbelief, Children are flattered by the notice which they excite by such pretensions; and, if the credulity of their elders gives them encouragement, are easily tempted to go on from lie to lie. For there is perhaps no period of life nrore sensible than childhood to the delights of notoriety.

It was, probably, only a desire for this kind of distinction which originally led Joseph Smith to invent his vision. At first, however, he did not meet with the success which he expected. On the contrary, he complains

that the story "had excited a great deal of prejudice against him among professors of religion," and that it drew "persecution" upon him. We may suppose that his character for mendacity was already so well known in his own neighbourhood as to discredit his assertions. At all events, he seems thenceforward to have laid aside, till a later period, the part of a religious impostor, and to have betaken himself to less impious methods of cheating. For some years he led a vagabond life, about which little is known, except that he was called "Joe Smith the Money-digger," and that he swindled several simpletons by his pretended skill in the use of the divining-rod. In short, he was a Yankee Dousterswivel. Among the shrewd New-Englanders one would have thought such pretensions unlikely to be profitable. But it seems there were legends current of the buried wealth of bucaniers, and Dutch farmers possessing the requisite amount of gullibility; and on this capital our hero traded.

His gains, however, were but small; and he was struggling with poverty, when at last he lighted on a vein of genuine metal, which, during the remainder of his life, he continued to work with ever-growing profit. This was no other than the rejected and forgotten manuscript of poor Solomon Spalding, which had either been purloined by Smith's associate, Sidney Rigdon, (who had been employed in a printing-office where it was once deposited), or had been stolen out of the trunk of Mrs. Spalding, who lived about this time in the neighbourhood of Smith's father. In one way or