Gifts Of Tongues And Miracles

In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of
tongues," and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet.* Under
the new system, Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, would call on
some brother, or sister, saying, "Father A., if you will rise in
the name of Jesus Christ you can speak in tongues." The rule
which persons thus called on were to follow was thus explained,
"Arise upon your feet, speak or make some sound, continue to make
sounds of some kind, and the Lord will make a language of it." It
was not necessary that the words should be understood by the
congregation; some other Mormon would undertake their
interpretation. Much ridicule was incurred by the church because
of this kind of revelation. Gunnison relates that when a woman
"speaking in tongues" pronounced "meliar, meli, melee," it was at
once translated by a young wag, "my leg, my thigh, my knee," and,
when he was called before the Council charged with irreverence,
he persisted in his translation, but got off with an
admonition.** At a meeting in Nauvoo in later years a doubting
convert delivered an address in real Choctaw, whereupon a woman
jumped up and offered as a translation an account of the glories
of the new Temple.

* This ceremony has fallen into disuse in Utah.

** "The Mormons." p. 74.


At the conference of June 4, 1831, Smith ordained Elder Wright to
the high priesthood for service among the Indians, with the gift
of tongues, healing the sick, etc. Wright at once declared that
he saw the Saviour. At one of the sessions at Kirtland at this
time, as described by an eye-witness, Smith announced that the
day would come when no man would be permitted to preach unless he
had seen the Lord face to face. Then, addressing Rigdon, he
asked, "Sidney, have you seen the Lord?" The obedient Sidney made
reply, "I saw the image of a man pass before my face, whose locks
were white, and whose countenance was exceedingly fair, even
surpassing all beauty that I ever beheld." Smith at once rebuked
him by telling him that he would have seen more but for his
unbelief.

Almost simultaneously with Smith's first announcement of his
prophetic powers, while working his "peek-stone" in Pennsylvania
and New York, he, as we have seen, claimed ability to perform
miracles, and he announced that he had cast out a devil at
Colesville in 1830.* The performance of miracles became an
essential part of the church work at Kirtland, and had a great
effect on the superstitious converts. The elders, who in the
early days labored in England, laid great stress on their
miraculous power, and there were some amusing exposures of their
pretences. The Millennial Star printed a long list of successful
miracles dating from 1839 to 1850, including the deaf made to
hear, the blind to see, dislocated bones put in place, leprosy
and cholera cured, and fevers rebuked. Smith, Rigdon, and Cowdery
took a leading part in this work at Kirtland.** To a man nearly
dead with consumption Rigdon gave assurance that he would recover
"as sure as there is a God in heaven." The man's death soon
followed. When a child, whose parents had been persuaded to trust
its case to Mormon prayers instead of calling a physician,***
died, Smith and Rigdon promised that it would rise from the dead,
and they went through certain ceremonies to accomplish that
object.****

* For particulars of this miracle, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIV,
pp. 28, 32.

** While Smith was in Washington in 1840, pressing on the federal
authorities the claims of the Mormons for redress for their
losses in Missouri, he preached on the church doctrines. A member
of Congress who heard him sent a synopsis of the discourse to his
wife, and Smith printed this entire in his autobiography
(Millennial Star, Vol. XVII, p. 583). Here is one passage: "He
[Smith] performed no miracles. He did not pretend to possess any
such power." This is an illustration of the facility with which
Smith could lie, when to do so would serve his purpose.

*** The Saints were early believers in faith cure. Smith, in a
sermon preached in 1841, urged them "to trust in God when sick,
and live by faith and not by medicine or poison" (Millennial
Star, Vol. XVIII, p. 663). A coroner's jury, in an inquest over a
victim of this faith in London, England, cautioned the sect
against continuing this method of curing (Times and Seasons,
1842, p. 813).

**** For further illustrations of miracle working, in Ohio, see
Kennedy's "Early Days of Mormonism," Chap. V.


The lengths to which Smith dared go in his pretensions are well
illustrated in an incident of these days. Among the curiosities
of a travelling showman who passed through Kirtland were some
Egyptian mummies. As the golden plates from which the Mormon
Bible was translated were written in "reformed Egyptian," the
translator of those plates was interested in all things coming
from Egypt, and at his suggestion the mummies were purchased by
and for the church. On them were found some papyri which Joseph,
with the assistance of Phelps and Cowdery, set about
"translating." Their success was great, and Smith was able to
announce: "We found that one of these rolls contained the
writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph.* Truly we
could see that the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of
truth." That there might be no question about the accuracy of
Smith's translation, he exhibited a certificate signed by the
proprietor of the show, saying that he had exhibited the
"hieroglyphic characters" to the most learned men in many cities,
"and from all the information that I could ever learn or meet
with, I find that of Joseph Smith, Jr., to correspond in the most
minute matters." * When the papyri were shown to Josiah Quincy
and Charles Francis Adams, on the occasion of their visit to
Nauvoo in 1844, Joseph Smith, pointing out the inscriptions,
said: "That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the
Faithful. This is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were
written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest account
of the creation, from which Moses composed the first Book of
Genesis."--"Figures of the Past," p. 386.

Smith's autobiography contains this memorandum: "October 1, 1835.
This afternoon I labored on the Egyptian alphabet in company with
Brother O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, and during the research the
principals of astronomy, as understood by Father Abraham and the
Ancients, unfolded to our understanding. "When he was in the
height of his power in Nauvoo, Smith printed in the Times and
Seasons a reproduction of these hieroglyphics accompanied by this
alleged translation, of what he called "the Book of Abraham," and
they were also printed in the Millennial Star.* The translation
was a meaningless jumble of words after this fashion:--

* See Vol. XIX, p. 100, etc., from which the accompanying
facsimile is taken.


"In the land of the Chaldeans, at the residence of my father, I,
Abraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place
of residence, and finding there was greater happiness and peace
and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the Fathers, and
the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same,
having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring to be
one also who possessed great knowledge, and to possess greater
knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness."

Remy submitted a reproduction of these hieroglyphics to Theodule
Deveria, of the Museum of the Louvre, in Paris, who found, of
course, that Smith's purported translation was wholly fraudulent.
For instance, his Abraham fastened on an altar was a
representation of Osiris coming to life on his funeral couch, his
officiating priest was the god Anubis, and what Smith represents
to indicate an angel of the Lord is "the soul of Osiris, under
the form of a hawk."* Smith's whole career offered no more brazen
illustration of his impostures than this.

* See "A Journey to Great Salt Lake City", by Jules Remy (1861),
Note XVII.


A visitor to the Kirtland Temple some years later paid Joseph's
father half a dollar in order to see the Egyptian curios, which
were kept in the attic of that structure.

A well-authenticated anecdote, giving another illustration of
Smith's professed knowledge of the Egyptian language is told by
the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., who, after holding the
Professorship of Divinity in Kemper College, in Missouri, became
vicar of a church in England. Mr. Caswall, on the occasion of a
visit to Nauvoo in 1842, having heard of Smith's Egyptian lore,
took with him an ancient Greek manuscript of the Psalter, on
parchment, with which to test the prophet's scholarship. The
belief of Smith's followers in his powers was shown by their
eagerness to have him see this manuscript, and their persistence
in urging Mr. Caswall to wait a day for Smith's return from
Carthage that he might submit it to the prophet. Mr. Caswall the
next day handed the manuscript to Smith and asked him to explain
its contents. After a brief examination, Smith explained: "It
ain't Greek at all, except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek
is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very
valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics. These
figures (pointing to the capitals] is Egyptian hieroglyphics
written in the reformed Egyptian. These characters are like the
letters that were engraved on the golden plates."*

* "The City of the Mormons," p. 36 (1842).


Next: Smith's Ohio Business Enterprises

Previous: Growth Of The Church

	Report Privacy
ADD TO EBOOK

Viewed 4384