of the false prophets of the Jewish age, the diviners, soothsayers, the magicians, and all the ministry of idols among the Gentiles, by which the nations were so often deceived, the Impostors which have appeared since the Christian era, would fill volumes of the most lamentable details. The false Messiahs which have afflicted the the Jews since their rejection of Jesus Christ, have more than verified the predictions of the "true and faithful witness." No less than twenty-four distinguished false Messiahs have disturbed the Jews. Many were deceived, and myriads lost their lives through their impostures. Some peculiar epochs were more distinguished for the number and impudence of those Impostors. If the Jews had fixed upon any year as likely to terminate their dispersion, and as the period of their return, that year rarely failed to produce a Messiah. Hence in the 12th century, no less than ten false Messiahs appeared. Numerous have been the impostors among Christians, since the great apostacy began; especially since and at the time of the reformation. Munzer, Stubner and Stork were conspicuous in the 16th century. These men taught that among Christians, who had the precepts of the Gospel to guide them, and the spirit of God to direct them, civil offices and laws were not only unnecessary, but an unlawful encroachment upon their spiritual liberty; that all Christians should put their possessions into common stock; and that polygamy was not incompatible with either the Old or New Testaments. They related many visions and revelations which they had from above, but failing to propagate their doctrines by these means, they attempted to enforce them by arms. Many Catholics joined them, and in the various insurrections which they effected, one hundred thousand souls are said to have been sacrificed.

"Since the millennium became a subject of much speaking and writing, Impostors have been numerous. In the mem

ory of the present generation, many delusions have been propogated and received, to a considerable extent. The Shakers, styling themselves the "Millennium Church," a sect instituted by ANN LEE, in 1774, still maintain a respectable number. This "elect lady," as they sometimes styled her, was the head of the party, and gave them a new bible. They asserted that she spoke seventy-two different tongues, and conversed with the dead. Through her all blessings flowed to her followers. She appointed the sacred dance and the fantastic song; and consecrated shivering, swooning, and falling down, acts of acceptable devotion. They hold all things in common, rank marriage among the works of the flesh, and forbid all sexual intercourse.

In 1792, Richard Brothers published a book of prophecies and visions, and an account of his daily intercourse with God, in London. He too had his followers; and among them a member of the British Parliament, a profound scholar and one of the most learned men of his time. He even made a speech in the House of Commons, declaring his full belief in one of the craziest pieces of absurdity that was ever presented to a British populace.

Joanna Southcott, the most disgusting old hag that ever pretended to 'set up for herself,' in the business of blasphemy and dupe-making, was countenanced and encouraged by respectable and wealthy individuals in England; who, not only believed in the divine origin of her ministration, but swallowed with most implicit faith, her "Dialogue with the Devil," a farrago of filthy licentiousness that would suffuse the face of a fisherwoman. By her arts of deception she succeeded in procuring the certificate of a respectable physician that she was pregnant of the Holy Ghost.

In Scotland a few years since, a Miss Campbell pretended to have come back from the dead, having the "gift of tongues," was believed in by many of the Clergy and Bar,

and carried along with her a numerous train of lesser note. The pretensions of Jemima Wilkinson, the Barkers, Jumpers and Mutterers, of our own time and country, are also well remembered.

But at these things we only intended to hint, in this place, in order to prepare the mind for a detailed account of the more recent, more absurd, and, perhaps more extensive, delusion of MORMONISM. It will present in somewhat a new light, to the enquiring mind, the depths of folly, degradation and superstition, to which human nature can be carried. It will show that there is no turning a fanatic from his folly-that the distemper is more incurable than the leprosy—that the more glaring the absurdity, the more determined the tenacity of its dupes-and the more apparent you can render the imposture, the stronger become its advocates.

Our object, therefore, in the present undertaking, will not be so much to break the spell which has already seized and taken possession of great numbers of people in our enlightened country, as to raise a warning voice, to those who are yet liable, through a want of correct knowledge of the imposition, to be enclosed within its fetters.

We make no pretensions to literary merit, and anticipate adding but little to the common stock of useful information. What is related, is in a plain, unvarnished style; such as we hope will be the more beneficial to those who are most usually obnoxious to religious impositions.

MORMONISM.

CHAPTER I.

CONTAINING A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE CHARCTERS OF THE MODERN PROPHET AND HIS FAMILY, AND SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN THE IMPOSITION.

WITH the exception of their natural and peculiar habits of life, there is nothing in the character of the Smith family. worthy of being recorded, previous to the time of their plot to impose upon the world by a pretended discovery of a new Bible, in the bowels of the earth. They emigrated from the town of Royalton, in the State of Vermont, about the year 1820, when Joseph, Jun. was, it is supposed, about 16 years of age. We find them in the town of Manchester, Ontario county, N. Y. which was the principal scene of their operations, till the year 1830. All who became intimate with them during this period, unite in representing the general character of old Joseph and wife, the parents of the pretended Prophet, as lazy, indolent, ignorant and superstitioushaving a firm belief in ghosts and witches; the telling of fortunes; pretending to believe that the earth was filled with hidden treasures, buried there by Kid or the Spaniards. ing miserably poor, and not much disposed to obtain an honest livelihood by labor, the energies of their minds seemed to be mostly directed towards finding where these treasures were concealed, and the best mode of acquiring their posses

Be