thing notable. The true sacred books of the Mormons are their own chronicles. They have histories comparable with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. They lived in "bondage," they suffered ferocious persecution, they wandered in the wilderness, they entered "the land of Canaan," they built a tabernacle to their God, and the story of these deeds is a moving, heroic and often majestic portion of our national narrative, which deserves all the reverence due to any great chapter in the tearstricken, blood-stained annals of mankind.
It is to be remembered, however, that Joseph Smith's "revelations" were not a substitute for the Bible in Mormon culture, but a supplement to it. They had a special work to perform in their time. They worked! They achieved their purpose. In the minds of Joseph Smith's followers, they established as flaming truths two grand propositions which were of utmost value in converting a democratic mob into a marching militant nation: that God still lived and spoke to men; and that Joseph Smith was his prophet and must be obeyed to the letter.
Mr. Werner, after expressing his skepticism of prophets, appropriately quotes Carlyle's heated assurance that no hollow quack ever founded a religion. Joseph Smith was a quack, but not hollow. He gripped with both hands two mighty principles of order: the principle of absolute authority and the principle of absolute obedience; and he held them fast, through all his vagaries, till he was assassinated in the jail at Carthage, Illinois, in 1844. His apostles recognized that Joseph had got hold of something invaluable, and they upheld him through thick and thin. On the rock of his principles, Joseph Smith built his church, organized his militia, governed his curiously chartered
