have escaped from the rifles of his murderers by confessing his imposture, he would have done so without hesitation; and would the next day have received a revelation, directing the faithful to seek safety in recantation when threatened by the Gentiles. But his enemies knew him too well to give him such an opportunity. We must also protest against the attempt to represent this vulgar swindler as a sincere enthusiast. "There is much in his later career," says Mr. Mayhew, "which seems to prove that he really believed what he asserted -that he imagined himself the inspired of heaven and the companion of angels." The reason given for this charitable hypothesis is, that "Joseph Smith, in consequence of his pretensions to be a seer and prophet, lived a life of continual misery and persecution;" and that, if he had not been supported by "faith in his own high pretensions and divine mission," he would have "renounced his unprofitable and ungrateful task, and sought refuge in private life and honourable industry." The answer to such representations is obvious: First, so far from Joseph's scheme being "unprofitable," it raised him from the depths of poverty to unbounded wealth. Secondly, he had from his earliest years shrunk from "honourable industry," and preferred fraud to work. Thirdly, so far from his having lived in "continual misery and persecution," he gained by his successful imposture the means of indulging every appetite and passion. During the fourteen years which intervened between his invention of Mor monism and his death, the only real persecution which he suffered was, when his bankruptcy at Kirtland compelled him to share the fortunes of his followers in Missouri. And as to the risks of life and limb to which he was exposed, they were nothing to those which every soldier encounters for a shilling a day. It is inexplicable how any one who had ever looked at Joseph's portrait, could imagine him to have been by possibility an honest man. Never did we see a face on which the hand of heaven had more legibly written rascal. That self-complacent simper, that sensual mouth, that leer of vulgar cunning, tell us at one glance the character of their owner. Success, the criterion of fools, has caused many who ridicule his creed to magnify his intellect. Yet we can discover in his career no proof of conspicuous ability. Even the plan of his imposture was neither original nor ingenious. It may be said that, without great intellectual power, he could not have subjected so many thousands to his will, nor formed them into so flourishing a commonwealth. But it must be remembered, that when subjects are firmly persuaded of the divinity of their sovereign, government becomes an easy task. Even with such advantages, Smith's administration was by no means successful. He was constantly involved in difficulties which better management would have avoided, and which the policy of his successor has overcome. are inclined to believe that the sagacity shown in the construction of his ecclesiastical system, belonged rather to his lieutenants than to himself; and that his chief, We if not his only talent, was his gigantic impudence. This was the rock whereon he built his church; and his success proves how little ingenuity is needed to deceive mankind. The men of Illinois imagined that the death of the false prophet would annihilate the sect; and the opinion was not unreasonable. For it seemed certain that there would be a contest among the lieutenants of Joseph for his vacant throne; and it was probable that the Church would thus be shattered into fragments mutually destructive. Such a contest, indeed, did actually occur; and four claimants, Sidney Rigdon, William Smith, Lyman Wight, and Brigham Young, disputed the allegiance of the faithful. But the latter was unanimously supported by the Apostolic College, of which he was chairman. This body was obeyed by the great majority of the inhabitants of Nauvoo; and a General Council of the Church, summoned about six weeks. after Joseph's death, excommunicated the other pretenders, and even ventured to "deliver over to Satan" the great Rigdon himself, although their Sacred Books declared him equal with the Prophet; who had, however, latterly shown a disposition to slight and humble him. The Mormons throughout the world acquiesced in this decision; and Brigham Young was established in the post of "Seer, Revelator, and President of the Latter Day Saints." The first months of the new reign were tolerably peaceful. The enemies of Zion were satisfied with the fatal blow which they had dealt; and the saints were suffered to gather the harvest of that year without disturbance. But in the following winter it became evident to the independent electors of Illinois, that the sect, far from being destroyed, was becoming more formidable than ever. New emigrants still continued to pour into Nauvoo; and the temple was daily rising above the sacred hill, in token of defiance. Exasperated by these visible proofs of their failure, the inhabitants of the nine adjoining counties met together, and formed an alliance for the extermination of their detested neighbours. Henceforward it was evident that, while the Mormons continued to inhabit Nauvoo, they must live in a perpetual state of siege, and till their fields with a plough in one hand and a rifle in the other. Moreover, experience had shown that elements of disunion existed. even among themselves. So long as they were established in any of the settled States, they could not exclude unbelievers from among them. There must always be Gentile strangers who would intrude among the saints for lucre's sake, and form a nucleus round which disappointed or traitorous members might rally, and create internal conflict. This could only be avoided by the transplantation of the Mormon commonwealth. beyond the reach of foreign contact. Actuated by these reasons, the leaders who met to deliberate on the steps demanded by the crisis, came to a decision which, adventurous as it seemed, has proved no less wise than. bold. They resolved to migrate in a body far beyond the boundaries of the United States, and to interpose a thousand miles of wilderness between themselves and the civilized world. In the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, the Alps of North America, they determined to seek that freedom, civil and religious, which was denied them by their countrymen. In a hymn composed for the occasion, they express this Phocæan resolution as follows: "We'll burst off all our fetters, and break the Gentile yoke, No more shall Jacob bow his neck; Henceforth he shall be great and free In Upper California. Oh, that's the land for me! Oh, that's the land for me!"-(Hymns, 353.) Their decision was announced to the saints throughout the world by a General Epistle, which bears date Jan. 20, 1846. It was also communicated to their hostile neighbours, who agreed to allow the Mormons time to sell their property, on condition that they should leave Nauvoo before the ensuing summer. A pioneer party of sixteen hundred persons started before the conclusion of winter, in the hope of reaching their intended settlement in time to prepare a reception for the main body by the close of autumn. But the season was un usually cold, and their supply of food proved inadequate. Intense suffering brought on disease, which rapidly thinned their numbers. Yet the survivors pressed on undauntedly, and even provided for their friends who were to follow, by laying out farms in the wilderness, and planting them with grain. Thus they struggled onwards, from the Mississippi to the Missouri, on the banks of which they encamped, beyond the limits of the |