enlightened, Christian land, so clumsy an imposture should be attempted and succeed. That an obscure and illiterate man, without position or character even in his own humble circle, should make the stupendous claim of inspiration from God; should travesty the sacred and antique dialect of the Bible, and foist his wretched compositions upon the world, with all the sanction of a new revelation; and that unauthenticated by any signs or wonders, such as have always attested a divine Herald, he should be accepted upon his own naked testimony as a true prophet.—these are statements we must receive, however antecedently improbable, simply because they are facts of contemporaneous history. It may not surprise us that this upstart religion, excommunicating the whole Christian church in one sweeping anathema, and superseding her canonical writings with its own tripping inspiration, should suffer violence and persecution. But after enduring protracted horrors, such as only the religious sentiment can outlive, that the miserable refugees should assemble, at a concerted signal, across a thousand miles of pathless desert, and in three short revolving seasons, should plant fields, erect mills, establish schools, build cities, and institute all the arts of civilized life,—in a word, that they should lay the foundation of a new empire, and with one hand upon the articles of confederation, should with the other be almost knocking for admission into this family of States: these are achievements over-topping the fictions of Eastern romance; at least, resembling more the gorgeous dreams of Arabian fancy, than the sober facts of real life. But the cap-stone of this wonderful history, the climax of its marvels, is, that in a religion not old to wear.a beard, and in an empire not yet out of swaddling clothes, we should be presented with the only American State-church, and witness an effort partially successful to re-produce the Asiatic type of civilization.
I have thus, gentlemen, sketched the contour of Mormonism, and sought to place you at a point from which you may take in, at one view, both its pretensions and its achievements, in order, if possible, to abate your merriment when I announce it as the theme of the present lecture. Perhaps in uncasing this stupendous fraud, the moralist, the
