Another suggestion may be argued that would tend to break down the probability of the origin of the "Everlasting Gospel" suggesting the origin of the Book of Mormon; and that is: Had Sidney Rigdon or any one else taken the story of the revelation of the Book of Joachim to Cyril and from it invented the account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he would very likely have taken other ideas attributed to this very worthy but over-zealous and weak-minded man of the thirteenth century. As, for example, Linn himself declares that the "Everlasting Gospel was offered to the Church as supplanting the New Testament, just as the New Testament had supplanted the Old," etc., a theory that would very likely have caught the fancy of such a man as Linn conceives Rigdon to have been. Yet Mormonism is as far removed from any such conception as this, as the east is from the west; for Mormonism gives full force to the present authority of both the Old and New Testaments as containing the word of God, and the Book of Mormon nowhere supplants these existing scriptures. Neander presents a more elaborate view of some of the theories of this same Joachim, and represents him as teaching the following:

The times of the Old Testament belong especially to God the Father; in it, God revealed himself as the Almighty, by signs and wonders; next, followed the times of the New Testament, in which God, as the Word, revealed himself in his wisdom, where the striving after a comprehensible knowledge of mysteries predominates; the last times belong to the Holy Spirit, when the first of love in contemplation will predominate. As the letter of the Old Testament answers to God the Father, the letter of the New Testament more especially to the Son, so the spiritual understanding, which proceeds from both, answers to the Holy Spirit. As all things were created by the Father through the Son; so in the Holy Spirit, as love, all were to find their completion. To the working of the Father—power, fear, faith, more especially correspond; to the working of the Son—humility, truth, and wisdom; to the working of the Holy Spirit—love, joy, and freedom.^[42]

In like manner he takes up the Apostles Peter, James, and John as in a way representing in the earth, respectively, the three periods in the process of the development of the Church. I insist that if Sidney Rigdon had become acquainted with that story of the "Everlasting Gospel," as it is told by Draper, he would unquestionably also have come to the knowledge of these theories of Joachim's; and if Sidney Rigdon was the kind of character that Linn represents him to be, he would unquestionably have taken up some of these vagaries and exploited them, either in the Book of Mormon or in the subsequent development of the Church and its system of doctrine. It is scarcely necessary to say that none of these ideas of the thirteenth century man is to be found in Mormonism, nor are any other of Joachim's ideas found in the Latter-day dispensation of the Gospel. The mere matter of using the phrase, "Everlasting Gospel," by the early Elders of the Church—and for matter of that by the present ministry of the Church—in their discourses and books, scarcely rises to dignity of a coincidence, since we have the phrase suggested in the remarkable prophecy on the restoration of the Gospel in the Revelations of St. John,^[43] without referring to any circumstance of the thirteenth century and the obscure literature concerning the Book of Joachim.

This whole theory of the suggested origin of the Book of Mormon from the story of the Book of Joachim, however ingenious it may be regarded, breaks down as the Spaulding-Rigdon theory does, under the absolute inability of all these speculators to show any connection, or collaboration, between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon previous to the publication of the Book of Mormon. Their inventions fail; their speculations amount to nothing. It is impossible to show any contact between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon before the Book of Mormon was published, therefore, whatever opportunity Sidney Rigdon may have had to become acquainted with the story of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel," that knowledge could play no part whatever in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

V. Woodbridge Riley's Theory of the Origin of the Book of Mormon.

This theory may be said, in a way, to be a reversion to that of Alexander Campbell's; that is, a return to the theory that Joseph Smith was the "author" of the Book of Mormon. Mr. Riley's book, of 446 pages, is a well written thesis on the "Founder of Mormonism." It was published by Dodd, Mead & Company, 1902. It is a psychological study of Joseph Smith the Prophet. The purpose of the work is set forth in the author's preface, as follows:

The aim of this work is to examine Joseph Smith's character and achievements from the standpoint of recent psychology. Sectarians and phrenologists, spiritualists and mesmerists have variously interpreted his more or less abnormal performances—it now remains for the psychologist to have a try at them.

The work also has an introductory preface by Professor George Trumbull Ladd, of Yale University, in which Mr. Riley's essay is very highly praised. Indeed the work was offered to the Philosophical Faculty of Yale University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and before this the matter of the essay had been utilized in 1898 for a Master of Arts thesis, under the title of "Metaphysics of Mormonism," so that from these circumstances we may venture the remark that Mr. Riley's book is of highly scientific character, at least in its literary structure, and has already attracted some considerable notice in the world.

To the Latter-day Saints it will be interesting, and of value at least in this, that they may accept it as one of many manifestations that the other theories accounting for the origin of the Book of Mormon are regarded as inadequate, if not exploded, since the learned find it necessary to set forth now a new theory, both for the origin of the Book of Mormon, and the life work of the Prophet Joseph.

Mr. Riley's conclusions, after patient consideration of what he regards as the elements entering into the composition of the Book of Mormon, are thus stated:

In spite of a continuous stream of conjectural literature, it is as yet impossible to pick out any special document as an original source of the Book of Mormon. In particular the commonly-accepted Spaulding theory is insoluble from external evidence and disproved by internal evidence. Joseph Smith's "Record of the Indians" is a product indigenous to the New York "Wilderness," and the authentic work of its "author and proprietor." Outwardly, it reflects the local color of Palmyra and Manchester, inwardly, its complexity of thought is a replica of Smith's muddled brain. This monument of misplaced energy was possible to the impressionable youth constituted and circumstanced as he was.^[44]

As for the process by which the book was produced, our author conceives it thus:

It was in western New York that the son of an obscure farmer gazed in his magic crystal, automatically wrote "a transcription of gold plates," dictated the Book of Mormon, and after strange signs and wonders, started his communistic sect.^[45]

Our author makes an extended pathological study of the prophet's ancestry, and arrives at the conclusion that their mental peculiarities and defects, culminate in epilepsy in Joseph Smith the Prophet. So that we may say, roughly speaking, that Mr. Riley's explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon, and Mormonism, is that it has its source in an epileptic, whose-hallucinations are honestly mistaken for inspired visions, and who possesses partly conscious and partly unconscious hypnotic power over others. And this theory is presented seriously to one of the first institutions of learning in America as a rational explanation of "Mormonism!"

Unfortunately for Mr. Riley's theory, however, another writer, an authority in his chosen field of investigation, a writer of text books for higher institutions of learning on this very subject, has spoken with marked emphasis not only with reference to epilepsy in general and the milder forms of its manifestation under the head of Paranoia, but has spoken of it with special reference to Joseph Smith, and distinctly separates him from such class of persons. Following are passages from Mr. Dana's works upon the subject:

A certain rather small per centage of epileptics become either demented or insane. True epilepsy is not compatible with extraordinary intellectual endowments. Caesar, Napoleon, Peter the Great and other geniuses may have had some symptomatic fits, but not idispathic [primary] epilepsy.^[46]

Again:

Paranoia is a chronic psychosis characterized by the development gradually and soon after maturity of systematized delusion, without other serious disturbances of the mind and without much tendency to dementia. * * * With some the systematized idea takes a religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission, or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take a devotional turn and the patient become an acetic. It is not, however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religious and novel social ideas are paranoics. Many of these are simply the natural developments of ignorance and a somewhat emotional and unbalanced temperament. The characteristics of the paranoic is that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to receive. I do not class successful prophets and organizers like Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as paranoics. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak and lack persistence in purpose or power of execution.^[47]

It is not possible in this writing to enter into an extended consideration of this theory. Neither indeed is it necessary. One consideration alone is sufficient to overthrow these fanciful speculations of Mr. Riley. "Hitherto," says Renan in his Life of Christ, "it has never been given to aberration of mind to produce a serious effect upon the progress of humanity."^[48] As stated by Dana, the work of the paranoic is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas impractical and absurd. I believe that doctrine. The dreams and hallucinations of the epileptic end in mere dreams and hallucinations; they never crystallize into great systems of philosophy or into rational religious institutions. They never result in great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men, such as Mormonism has done over a large body of people, and resulted in permanent institutions. There is much glamor of sophistry, which may be taken by some for profound reason and argument, in Mr. Riley's book, but one word answers this so called philosophical accounting for our Prophet: The work accomplished by him, the institutions he founded, destroy the whole fabric of premises and argument on which this theory is based. Great as was the Prophet Joseph Smith—and he was great; to him more than to any other man of modern times was it given to look deep into the things that are; to comprehend the heavens, and the laws that obtain there; to understand the earth, its history, and its mission. He looked into the deep things of God, and out of the rich treasure of divine knowledge there, he brought forth things both new and old for the instruction of our race, the like of which, in some respects, had not been known in previous dispensations. But great as Joseph Smith was, rising up and towering far above him is the work that he accomplished through divine guidance; that work is infinitely greater than the Prophet, greater than all the prophets connected with it. Its consistency, its permanency, its institutions, contradict the hallucination theory advanced to account for its origin.^[49]

This theory of Mr. Riley's may be said to now occupy the attention of men, but as the theories of Campbell, the Spaulding theory, and the Rigdon theory of origin have one by one been discarded as untenable, and inadequate for the purposes for which they were invoked, so, too, will this epilepsy and hallucination theory of Mr. Riley's be discarded, since it will fail to give an adequate accounting for the Book of Mormon, which, so long as the truth respecting it is unbelieved, will remain to the world an enigma, a veritable literary Sphinx, challenging the inquiry and speculations of the learned. But to those who in simple faith will accept it for what it is, a revelation from God, it will minister spiritual consolation, and by its plainness and truth draw men into closer communion with God.

Footnotes

1. "Limits of Religious Thought," Mansel, Preface.

2. Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 35.

3. Mr. Campbell's criticism of the Book of Mormon was published in the "Millennial Harbinger," Vol. II, pp. 86-96, February, 1831.

4. The same phrase appears in the testimony of the Eight Witnesses, as published in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, and the preface published in the first edition, but omitted in all other editions, is signed "The Author."

5. See announcement of copyright privileges in first edition of the Book of Mormon 1830. It is also copied into the History of the Church, Vol. I, pp. 58, 59.

6. Yet, in a work as late as 1902, on the subject of Mormonism, published by Dodd, Mead & Co., great importance is attached to this "author and proprietor" phrase, and indeed much of the force of the author's argument is based upon it. See "Founder of Mormonism" I, Woodbridge Riley, chapter iv.

7. See Vol. II., chapter ix.

8. See Vol. II., chapter vii.

9. See "Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate," Vol. II, p. 242, where Mr. Campbell is represented as recommending Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," which first set forth and was mainly devoted to the Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon.

10. Mormonism Unveiled, (Howe), pp. 278-287.

11. See Church History, Vol. I., chapter xxv; Vol. II., chapter iv.

12. By some, it is claimed that Mrs. Davison's statement was put forth in the "Boston Recorder" as an affidavit, but I have never seen it in the form of an affidavit. All versions of it that have fallen into my hands are merely in the form of a signed statement.

13. See Thompson's "Evidences," pp. 176-7.

14. Times and Seasons, Vol. I., p. 47.

15. See Preface to "New Light on Mormonism."

16. See "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 278-280.

17. When this fact was brought to light in the early controversy over the subject, it was claimed by Messrs. Austin—Storrs—Clark, who were responsible for this forgery, that "Woman" in the text was a typographical error and should be "Mormon." See Clark's Gleanings "By the Way."

18. The orthography is the affidavit's.

19. See letters of Mr. Rice to Mr. Joseph Smith, President of the "Reorganized Church," "History of the Church of Jesus Christ," [Reorganized] Vol. IV., pp. 471-473.

20. This is confirmed by a letter written by Hurlburt himself, in 1881, at the request of Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, as follows:

Gibsonburg, Ohio, January 10, 1881.

To all whom it may concern:

In the year eighteen hundred and thirty-four (1834) I went from Geauga Co., Ohio, to Munson, Hampden Co., Mass., where I found Mrs. Davison, late widow of the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, late of Conneaut, Ashtabula Co., Ohio. Of her I obtained a manuscript, supposing it to be the manuscript of the romance written by the said Solomon Spaulding, called "The Manuscript Found," which was reported to be the foundation of the "Book of Mormon." I did not examine the manuscript until I got home, when, upon examination, I found it to contain nothing of the kind, but being a manuscript upon an entirely different subject. This manuscript I left with E. D. Howe, of Painsville, Geauga Co., Ohio, now Lake Co., Ohio., with the understanding that when he had examined it he should return it to the widow. Said Howe says the manuscript was destroyed by fire, and further the deponent saith not.

(Signed) D. P. HURLBURT.

21. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 245.

22. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288.

23. He refers to the witnesses living at Conneaut Creek, the substance of whose testimony is previously quoted in his book, pp. 357-8.

24. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288, (first edition, 1834).

25. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289, 290. "This manuscript received by Hurlburt and by him given to Howe is the only Spaulding manuscript written by Spaulding, making any reference to the antiquities of America. It is the simon-pure and only "Manuscript Found." Against this it is urged by our opponents that "no such title is discoverable anywhere upon or in the body of the manuscript in the Oberlin library. (American Historical Magazine, Sept. 1906, p. 386). And yet with strange inconsistency the writer himself a few pages further on admits—"It is even possible that this first manuscript [meaning the one now at Oberlin], may at sometime have been labeled "Manuscript Found." But what is better than any "label" on the manuscript inside or outside; better than any admission of our opponent, is the fact that this manuscript is the one Mr. Spaulding feigned to have found, and that he pretended to translate into English. It is the "found" manuscript, and the only one that Spaulding pretended or feigned to have found. It is the one that Mrs. McKenstry says she had in her hands "many times" at Sabine's after 1816; and that "on the outside of this manuscript were written the words, "Manuscript Found." (American Historical Magazine, March, 1909, pp. 190, 191.)

26. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289-290.

27. Ibid p. 289. Lambdin died 1826.

28. "Braden and Kelly Debate," p. 44.

29. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 289.

30. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 62.

31. Ibid p. 71.

32. Myth of the "Manuscript Found" (1883), pp. 35, 36. See also an exhaustive treatise on the "Origin of the Book of Mormon", in the "American Historical Magazine," published in New York by the American Historical Society, during the years 1906-7; 1908-9. The articles in support of the Spaulding theory are by Mr. Theodore Schroeder; and the answer to these papers are by the author of this work, who hopes to publish the discussion in his second volume on the "Defense of the Faith and the Saints," now in course of preparation.

33. "Boston Journal." See also Smucker's "History of the Mormons," where the letter is given in full, pp. 45-8.

34. New Witnesses, Vol. II., pp. 250, 251.

35. "Late Persecutions," etc., Introduction, p. xi, xii.

36. "Church History," Vol. I., p. 122, 123.

37. Published by McMillan Co., 1902.

38. "The Story of the Mormons," Preface, p. vi.

39. "Story of the Mormons," Chapter ix, p. 74.

40. Vol. II, chapter iii.

41. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church," Vol. IV, pp. 618-20.

42. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church," Vol. IV, p. 227.

43. Revelations xiv: 6,7.

44. "The Founder of Mormonism," p. 172.

45. Ibid, p. 11.

46. "Nervous Diseases, Text Book on" (third edition), p. 408.

47. "Text Book of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry" (sixth edition), pp. 649-50.

48. "Life of Christ," p. 105.

49. During the October conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Salt Lake City, October, 1903, this writer then made some remarks in criticism of Mr. Riley's book, at the close of which remarks President Joseph F. Smith said:

"I have been delighted with the most excellent discourse that we have listened to; but I desire to say that it is a wonderful revelation to the Latter-day Saints, and especially to those who were familiar with the Prophet Joseph Smith, to learn in these latter days that he was an epileptic! I will simply remark, God be praised, that there are so many still living who knew the Prophet Joseph well, and who are in a position to bear testimony to the truth that no such condition ever existed in the man."

See also "Defense of the Faith and the Saints." pp. 42-61.