The second (drawn a little latter) 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:

"Every one knew him as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra a few years previous to my going there from Rochester. Joe was the most ragged, lazy fellow in the place, and that is saying a good deal. He was about twenty-five years old. I can see him now in my mind's eye, with his torn and patched trousers held to his form by a pair of suspenders made out of sheeting, with his calico shirt as dirty and black as the earth, and his uncombed hair sticking through the holes in his old battered hat. In winter I used to pity him, for his shoes were so old and worn out that he must have suffered in the snow and slush; yet Joe had a jovial, easy, don't-care way about him that made him a lot of warm friends. He was a good talker, and would have made a fine stump speaker if he had had the training. He was known among the young men I associated with as a romancer of the first water. I never knew so ignorant a man as Joe was to have such a fertile imagination. He never could tell a common occurrence in his daily life without embellishing the story with his imagination; yet I remember that he was grieved one day when old Parson Reed told Joe that he was going to hell for his lying habits."1

To this testimony may be added the following declarations, published in 1833, the year in which a mob drove the Mormons out of Jackson County, Missouri. The first was signed by eleven of the most prominent citizens of Manchester, New York, and the second by sixty-two residents of Palmyra :

"We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with the family of Joseph Smith, Sr., with whom the Gold Bible, so called, originated, state: That they were not only a lazy, indolent set of men, but also intemperate, and their word was not to be depended upon; and that we are truly glad to dispense with their society."

"We, the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family for a number of years, while they resided near this place, and we have no hesitation in saying that we consider them destitute of that moral character which ought to entitle them to the confidence of any community. They were particularly famous for visionary projects; spent much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in the earth, and to this day large excavations may be seen in the earth, not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time in digging for hidden treasures. Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son Joseph were, in particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious habits." 2

1 San Jacinto, California, letter of February 2, 1897, to the St. Louis GlobeDemocrat.

2 Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 261.

Finally may be quoted the following affidavit of Parley Chase :

"Manchester, New York, December 2, 1833. I was acquainted with family of Joseph Smith, Sr., both before and since they became Mormons, and feel free to state that not one of the male members of the Smith family were entitled to any credit whatsoever. They were lazy, intemperate, and worthless men, very much addicted to lying. In this they frequently boasted their skill. Digging for money was their principal employment. In regard to their Gold Bible speculation, they scarcely ever told two stories alike. The Mormon Bible is said to be a revelation from God, through Joseph Smith, Jr., his Prophet, and this same Joseph Smith, Jr., to my knowledge, bore the reputation among his neighbors of being a liar."1

The preposterousness of the claims of such a fellow as Smith to prophetic powers and divinely revealed information were so apparent to his local acquaintances that they gave them little attention. One of these has remarked to me in recent years that if they had had any idea of the acceptance of Joe's professions by a permanent church, they would have put on record a much fuller description of him and his family.

1 Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 248.

CHAPTER III

HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER

THE elder Smith, as we have seen, was known as a moneydigger while a resident of Vermont. Of course that subject was a matter of conversation in his family, and his sons were of a character to share in his belief in the existence of hidden treasure. The territory around Palmyra was as good ground for their explorations as any in Vermont, and they soon let their neighbors know of a possibility of riches that lay within their reach.

The father, while a resident of Vermont, also claimed ability to locate an underground stream of water over which would be a good site for a well, by means of a forked hazel switch,1 and in this way doubtless increased the demand for his services as a well-digger, but we have no testimonials to his success. The son Joseph, while still a young lad, professed to have his father's gift in this respect, and he soon added to his accomplishments the power to locate hidden riches, and in this way began his career as a money-digger, which was so intimately connected with his professions as a prophet.

Writers on the origin of the Mormon Bible, and the gradual development of Smith the Prophet from Smith the village loafer and money-seeker, have left their readers unsatisfied on many points. Many of these obscurities will be removed by a very careful examination of Joseph's occupations and declarations during the years immediately preceding the announcement of the revelation and delivery to him of the golden plates.

1 The so-called "divining rod” has received a good deal of attention from persons engaged in psychical research. Vol. XIII, Part II, of the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research" is devoted to a discussion of the subject by Professor W. F. Barrett of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, in Dublin, and in March, 1890, a mmission was appointed in France to study the matter.

The deciding event in Joe's career was a trip to Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, when he was a lad. It can be shown that it was there that he obtained an idea of vision-seeing nearly ten years before the date he gives in his autobiography as that of the delivery to him of the golden plates containing the Book of Mormon, and it was there probably that, in some way, he later formed the acquaintance of Sidney Rigdon. It can also be shown that the original version of his vision differed radically from the one presented, after the lapse of another ten years spent under Rigdon's tutelage, in his autobiography. Each of these points is of great incidental value in establishing Rigdon's connection with the conception of a new Bible, and the manner of its presentation to the public. Later Mormon authorities have shown. a dislike to concede that Joe was a money-digger, but the fact is admitted both in his mother's history of him and by himself. His own statement about it is as follows:

"In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the name of Josiah Stoal, who lived in Chenango County, State of New York. He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, and had, previous to my hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After I went to live with him he took me, among the rest of his hands, to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued to work for nearly a month, without success in our undertaking, and finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging for it. Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a moneydigger."1

Mother Smith's account says, however, that Stoal "came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye"; thus showing that he had a reputation as a "gazer" before that date. It was such discrepancies as these which led Brigham Young to endeavor to suppress the mother's narrative.

The "gazing" which Joe took up is one of the oldest-perhaps the oldest form of alleged human divination, and has been called "mirror-gazing," "crystal-gazing," "crystal vision," and the like. Its practice dates back certainly three thousand years, having been noted in all ages, and among nations uncivilized as well as civilized. Some students of the subject connect with such

1 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 6.

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Joseph's silver cup "whereby indeed he divineth” liv. 5). Others, long before the days of Smith and dvanced the theory that the Urim and Thummim were clear cry ce stals intended for "gazing" gazing" purposes. One writer remarks of the practice, "Eschylus refers it to Prometheus, Cicero to the Assyrians and Etruscans, Zoroaster to Ahriman, Varro to t he Persian Magi, and a very large class of authors, from the Christian Fathers and Schoolmen downward, to the devil.” 1 An act of James I (1736), against witchcraft in England, made it a crime to le pretend to discover property "by any occult or crafty science. As indicating the universal knowledge of "gazing," it tin may be further noted that Varro mentions its practice among the Roman and Pausanias among the Greeks. It was known to the ancient Peruvians. It is practised to-day by East Indians, Africans cluding Egyptians), Maoris, Siberians, by Australian, Polynesia, and Zulu savages, by many of the tribes of American Indians, and by persons of the highest culture in Europe and America/ Andrew Lang's collection of testimony about vision's seen in crystals by English women in 1897 might seem convincing to any one who has not had experience in weighing testimony in regard to spiritualistic manifestations, or brought this testimony alongside of that in behalf of the "occult phenomena" of Adept Brothers presented by Sinnett.3

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"Gazers" use different methods. Some look into water contained in a vessel, some into a drop of blood, some into ink, some into a round opaque stone, some into mirrors, and many into some form of crystal or a glass ball. Indeed, the "gazer" seems to be quite independent as to the medium of his sight-seeing, so long as he has the "power." This "power" is put also to a great variety of uses. Australian savages depend on it to foretell the outcome of an attack on their enemies; Apaches resort to it to discover the whereabouts of things lost or stolen; and Malagasies, Zulus, and Siberians "to see what will happen." Perhaps its most general use has been to discover lost objects, and in this practice the seers have very often been children, as we shall see was the case in the exhibition which gave Joe Smith his first idea on the subject. In

1 "Recent Experiments in Crystal Vision," Vol. V, "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research." 3 "The Occult World."

2 Lang's "The Making of Religion," Chap. V.

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