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80 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES.
9. A new sect sprung up in the United States of America,
only a few years since. They were called Mormons, or Latter-
Day Saints. It is very generally believed along the sea-board
of the States, that the buccaneers of the seventeenth
century,
and the loyalists
in the late revolution, buried large sums of
money, and that all traces of the place of concealment were lost
by their death. Several idle persons have taken up the trade of
exploring for this concealed treasure, and are known by the name
of
"
Money Diggers," calculating, like the alchymists of old, on
the avaricious credulity of their dupes. The prophet and founder
of Mormonism, Joe Smith, followed this
profession. Not he
alone, but his whole family, were remarkable for a total absence
of every quality which constitutes honest men. Smith was well
aware, from his former profession, of the credulity of many of
his countrymen ; so he gave out that he had a revelation from
above that he was received up into the midst of a blaze of
light, and saw two heavenly personages, who told him his sins
were forgiven that the world was all in error in religious
matters and that, in due season, the truth would be revealed,
through him. It was next revealed to him, that the aborigines,
the
"
red men," of America were a remnant of the tribes of
Israel, whose colour was miraculously changed, as a punishment
for their sins, and whose prophets deposited a book of Divine
records, engraved on plates of gold, and buried in a stone chest,
in a part of the State of New York. Smith searched for the
treasure, and found it, but was not allowed to remove it, until he
had learned the Egyptian language, in which it was written. In
1 827, he was, at last, allowed to take possession of it, and pub
lished an English version, in 1830. His father and others were
partners in the scheme. The rhapsody made a deep impression
on the uncultivated minds of many especially among the lower
orders in the States, and a congregation was formed, usually
called Mormonites, from the Book of Mormon, as Smith called
it, or, according to the name by which they designated them
"
selves, The Church of Jesus Christ of Saints."
Latter-Day
The book, such as it is, is supposed to have been written by a
person of the name of Spaulding, as a sort of novel, and offered
to a publisher, who declined having anything to do with it, and
it eventually fell into the hands of one Rigdon, a friend of