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to be thought, the marks of likeness in its origin and principles to the imposture that went forth from Mecca, would supply material for a lengthened dissertation. Joseph Smith might in a long train of respects be taken for Muhammed redivivus-risen from the dead.

Physically and mentally, there is no question that the Arabian was superior to the American,-a more finished and fascinating man; and such is the softening hue which distance of time and place has imparted to the son of Abdallah and Amina, and so identified is he with that military, and even literary, lustre which attended the career of his Caliphs, that it may be repulsive even to cultivated christian readers to have such a comparison distinctly broached. Yet the materials for a very explicit one are furnished by well-known facts, the juxtaposition of which will justify what has been advanced. Both men were imperfectly versed in the elements of a common education; and Muhammed was able to boast of being more broadly and profoundly ignorant than Joseph Smith; and so far as they were alike in what they did not know, they were not slow to alledge this, in contrast with what they effected, as a sign of the divinity of their mission. Each again professed to receive his revelations through angelic agency, and under circumstances of secresy, harmonizing well with the conduct of men who love darkness rather than light. Both were naturally shrewd and dexterous in turning passing, and even unfavourable events, to a good personal account; and each perseveringly laboured against those obstacles and that bodily danger, which were consequent on the age and society in which they lived.

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Their first converts were of their own family connexions; and Smith found in his Emma, no doubt, another cheerful Cadijah, and in his father and brothers, ready witnesses to his celestial ordination. Both men brought forth their systems under the pretext of existing corruptions and divisions, and both borrowed the best portions of their 'faith' from that word of the Lord which abideth for ever. Both indeed only professed to supplement and complete what Christ had left unsaid and undone; and the Muhammedanism of the East, was as respectful to the Saviour as the Mormonism of the West. were expert at making their revelations correspond to the wants of the moment, without regard to the internal consistency of the oracles, and both were never forgetful of aught relating to their individual aggrandizement. Muhammed might appeal to the conversions accomplished by the purity of the diction in which the Kuran was composed; but without this advantage, Smith could appeal to the effect produced by his invisible plates and verbal assumptions. Both had peace' on their lips till they were strong enough to challenge and threaten their enemies; and whether from natural inclination, or policy, each was liberal in promises of conquest to be gained, and secular boons to be bestowed. Neither of them rested his personal claims on his miraculous powers; and the excuses which the wily Arab made when defied to perform a prodigy, are the same as those which the American Pretender and his survivors advance in a similar condition. Not in the face of enemies, but only among the faithful,' does the modern supernaturalism consent to act. And to conclude, where more might be said, they were not unlike in

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the premature character of their decease; for Muhammed was brought to an untimely end after a lingering illness, by partaking of some poisoned mutton, and Smith breathed out his life in the hands of cruel assassins.

V.

THE INTELLECTUAL GENIUS OF MORMONISM Is dry and scanty. Putting aside Mr. Orson Pratt's metaphysics and his controversial abilityour opinion of which was diminished by the perusal of a pamphlet which ran over with the craft and cant of a partizan debater-even the polemical literature of this heterogeneous society has been of a poor and paltry kind; and from the ranks of the Mormons during their twenty-three years propagandism, there has not arisen one great mind embalming its "precious life-blood" in a "good book.” Their architectural designs have evinced most originality and skill; but a nation's intelligence and mental culture have sometimes been lowest when architecture, as an art, has been flourishing among them. The cathedrals of England were erected in the night time of our intellectual history. Mormon poetry can only claim the name by courtesy. The hymn book published by Brigham Young, the present Grand Liama, Mufti, or Pope, is never destined to rival the Psalms of David, or the Lyrics of Watts. The hymns are not all strictly religious. A friendly critic extracts one "which is sometimes sung on shipboard prior to the departure of Mormon emigrants," which he pronounces to be, "in point of literary merit, among the best in the volume." It is pathetic, and the versification is smooth; but there is an absence of that power of idealizing the

real and realizing the ideal which separates metre from poetry, and gives the poet sovereignty over the imagination and the heart. The first verse runs,

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Can I leave thee,

Far in distant lands to dwell?"

One in the same volume addressed to the "Twelve Apostles," is strained and windy. The fifth verse requires Joseph's translating glass to make it clear"Listen ye islands of the sea,

For every isle shall hear the sound;
Nations and tongues before unknown,

Tho' long since lost, shall now be found."

Surely it will require all the acuteness of even a Mormon to find these eccentric "nations and tongues" which are yet unknown, but the fact of whose existence and their having been "long lost," is known to the sapient bard! The islands may well list at this oracular announcement. The degrading conceptions of the Divine Majesty inculcated by the Mormon catechism must amply react in inducing an irreverent flippancy utterly uncongenial with exalted genius. Their "poetry" is polluted with this spirit. In the "Times and Seasons," a paper edited by Smith, and published in the Illinois "Zion"-Nauvoo,--there occurs the subjoined piece of wretched doggrelized blasphemy--which would not be quoted except to show what a pernicious influence the system generates and sanctions

"The sky, the sky, the clear blue sky,
Oh, how I long to gaze upon it;

The upper realms of deep, on high,
I wonder when the Lord begun it.”

VI.

THE EVIDENCES OF MORMONISM

As they are pompously termed, could never beguile any thoughtful mind. Every truly pious heart must revolt at the unscriptural tenets it propounds; every independent spirit must spurn its demand to exercise faith before evidence, and to submit to a priesthood more domineering and despotic than has ever insulted the birthrightliberty of man; and every clear-sighted observer must detect the most convincing signs of cunning, rapacity, and imposition, in the whole history of the system. What do its advocates present as 'evidences,' which shall warrant their fellow-men rejecting the sufficient authority of Scripture, and believing in the institution of a New Dispensation?

(1.) A Golden Bible, (the basis of which is a Romance,) pervaded by ignorance, and bedecked with borrowed forms of speech; and the witnesses to which, were men since denounced by their former associates as fools or scoundrels!

(2.) Revelations, which meekly claim acceptance as divine on the veracity of one man, whose interests they are manifestly and disgustingly intended to promote.

(3.) Miraculous Gifts, which refuse to come to the light, that they may be proved whether they are derived from God, and are therefore sure to produce only works of darkness and "lying wonders."

(4.) An Appeal to Ancient Prophecy, in which the most glaring perversions and mutilations are committed, and weakness of argument strengthened by audacity of assertion. But a very important inquiry here springs up-must not this pertinacious

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