Prospect of Peace With Utah

Prospect of Peace With Utah

1858-05-19

Clipping No. 2 found in the 1830 copy of the Book of Mormon

Public domain in the United States.

1.20 mb

Utah Tech University Special Collections.

Albany Evening Journal (1830-1925)

“Prospect of Peace With Utah,” Albany Evening Journal, Albany, NY, May 19, 1858.

News clipping

Twenty-eight years ago, Jo. Smith, the founder of this sect, and Harris, his first convert, applied to the senior editor of this Journal, then residing at Rochester, to print his "Book of Mormon", then just transcribed from the "Golden Bible", which "Jo." had found in the cleft of a rock to which he had been guided by a vision.
We attempted to read the first chapter, but it seemed such unintelligent jargon that it was thrown aside. "Jo." was a tavern-idler in the village of Palmyra. Harris, who offered to pay for the printing, was a substantial farmer. Disgusted with what we deemed a "weak invention of an impostor, and not caring to strip Harris of his hard earnings, the proposition was declined. but who would have anticipated, from such a bald, shallow, senseless imposition, such worlwide consequences? To remember and contrast "Jo. Smith," with his loafer-look, pretending to read from miraculous slate-stone placed in his hat with the Mormonism of the present day, awakens thoughts alike painful and mortifying. There is no limit, even in this most enlightened of all the ages of knowledge, to the influnece of imposture and credulity. If knaves, or even fools, invent creeds, nothing is too monstrous for belief. Nor does the fact--a face not denied or disguised--that all the mormon leaders are rascals as well as impostors, either open the eyes of their dupes, or arreset the progress of delusion.