Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate/Volume 1/Number 9/Letter to Oliver Cowdery from Orson Pratt (May 18, 1835)
Freedom, Cateraugus Co. N. Y.
MAY 18, 1835. }
ELDER O. Cowdery:—
In perusing the journal of my travels and preaching during the past winter and present spring, I noticed some conversation which passed between myself and L. H. Jameson, a Campbellite preacher. Some of the particulars of which; I will communicate to you in this letter, and if you consider it worthy of a place in the Advocate, you may publish it. It is well known to some, if not many, that the Campbellites profess to be the reformers of modern times; the restorers of the ancient order of things, and the Harbingers of the Millen[n]ium. It is also well known that their advocates are very forward in protesting against the improprieties of all the sects of the present day, (which they can do with all propriety;) they are very anxious to meet them in public debate; very famous for their controversies, and sometimes quite expert in their arguments, and come off shouting victory: but no sooner do they come in contact with the elders of the church of the Latter Day Saints, than they set up a most prodigious cry of Delusion! false Prophet! Imposture! and almost every other evil epithet which they can invent—and if perchance they are requested to take the scriptures and from them bring forward some testimony and show to the people wherein consists the great delusion and thus satisfy the minds of the public, they will immediately fly off in a tangent, and refer the people to some bundled of falsehoods or nonsense, published in some newspaper, or pamphlet, or Millen[n]ium Harbinger—endeavoring thereby to make the people think it must be a delusion!—But as it happens, many of the inhabitants of our country are of more noble principles, and men of too good sense to believe a system to be true or false, upon no other testimony than mere assertion, or a slanderous report.
I now proceed to give you a short relation of the conversation which I had with Mr. Jameson in a public congregation, in the village of Commingsville, six miles from the city of Cincinnati, and four from the village of Carthage, Ohio, on the 1st of March, 1835.
After delivering three discourses to the people in Commingsville, upon the subject of the doctrine believed by the church of the Latter Day Saints, I was requested to have some conversation with Mr. Jameson, who was expected to preach that evening in the village. I was informed that he was a very talented man, almost if not quite equal to Mr. Walter Scott, the Editor of the Evangelist: I answered that I was willing to converse with any reasonable man upon the subject of religion. I also understood that he was generally open and free to investigate the same with any of the sects. Therefore, I attended his meeting with a determination, if necessary, to converse with him at the close of the same. After the dismission of the meeting most part of the congregation tarried, and I was requested by some one to speak for myself; I replied before the congregation, that I was willing to meet him, or Mr. Scott, or any other man of character and respectability, in the village of Carthage, or any other place in that vicinity, and investigate, publicly, the subject of Spiritual Gifts; and I would pledge myself to prove from the scriptures that miracles, gifts of healing, prophecies, revelations, and all the spiritual gifts which were in the church, in the days of the Savior and Apostles, were necessary for the church of Christ now; and that there never was nor never would be a true church on the earth, in a state of mortality without them.—Mr. Jameson said that he would find a man to meet me; and as I had some appointments in Cincinnati, he agreed to inform me by letter, more concerning the meeting and the day on which we should meet, &c. The congregation then broke up and returned to their homes;—while on their way some said one thing, and some another: some said that he would get Mr. Scott, or Dr. Wright to meet me; others said that he would meet me himself, while others said they believed he would back out, &c. Two or three days after this, I called at the post-office in Cincinnati, and took out a letter which reads as follows:
Carthage, Ohio, March 2, 1835.
MR. PRATT:—When the Apostles bore testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God confirmed their testimony by miracles; your impudent story lacks this confirmation. Indeed you have nothing new to tell us, unless it be the lately engendered falsehoods of Joseph Smith—and it would be as far impossible for God to confirm them as it would be for him to lie. Do you know what a miracle is? I am bold to say you do not, nor would I believe that a person guilty of such wilful slander of the religion that I profess, does know what a miracle is, even if he were to seem to perform one. You may come to Carthage, or you may go to Missouri, or where you please, I have nothing to do with Joseph Smith, the Imposter [Impostor] who palmed this imposition on you;—I have nothing to do with you who are imposed upon—I would not believe the book of Mormon, though you should apparently perform a miracle, which I am firmly persuaded you, nor any other man living can do.
L. H. JAMESON.
I must confess that I was somewhat surprised on reading this letter, that Mr. Jameson, after saying publicly that he would find a man who would investigate the aforementioned subject with me, should then creep out so dishonorably, without producing in his letter, so much as one reason for so doing but filling it up with the cry of imposition and Imposter [Impostor], &c. But this is nothing very marvellous, for doubtless he learned the cry from Mr. Campbell's Millen[n]ial Harbinger, which is famous for crying false prophet.
I remain your brother in testimony of the word of God.
ORSON PRATT.
TO O. COWDERY, ESQ.