Note 198 — Chapter VIII · Excursions continued.

The Mormons quote two other prophecies both equally offensive to the United States, and both equally well known.

On the 26th of April, 1843, Mr. Joseph Smith distinctly declared, in the name of the Lord, that before the arrival of the Son of Man the “question of slavery would cause a rebellion in South Carolina,” and effect a “division of the Southern against the Northern States.” It was a calamity easy to be foreseen, but we look with anxiety to the unfulfilled portion, the “terrible bloodshed” which will result.

In 1846, when, humanly speaking, want and destitution stared the Saints in the face, Mr. Brigham Young predicted that within five years they would be wealthier than before. This was palpably fulfilled in 1849, when the passage of emigrants to California enabled the Saints to exchange their supplies of food for goods and valuables at enormous profits.

I commend these “uninspired prophecies” to the simple-minded translator of “Forewarnings, Prophecies on the Church, Antichrist (who was born, we are told, four years ago), and Revelations in the Last Times.” Messrs. Smith and Young’s vaticinations will be found quite as respectable as the “Visions of an Aged Nun” and the “Predictions of Sister Rosa Columba.” Prophecy, being the highest aim of human induction, is apparently universally and equally diffused.