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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 81
Smith ; and, as it was written something in the style of the Old
Testament, and purported to be an account of the adventures of
a portion of the Tribe of Joseph, who sailed for America, under
the guidance of a Prophet, called Nephi, and became the fathers
of the Red Indians, they determined to pass
it off as a new
Revelation. It is evidently the production of a very ignorant
person, whose whole knowledge of antiquity was acquired from
the English Bible. The sect became so numerous in a little
time, that a settlement was made in the State of Missouri ; but
the sturdy people of the West rose up against them, and
banished them. They next settled down in Illinois, and founded
a city, which they called Nauvoo, near the Mississipi. A temple
on a magnificent
scale was commenced, and a residence for the
Prophet, who took especial care that his revelations should all
turn to his own profit. He established two Orders of Priest
hood the Order of Melchizedec, consisting of High Priests and
Elders, and the Order of Aaron, containing Bishops, Priests, and
Deacons ;
but
"
my servant, Joseph Smith," was, of course, the
autocrat of the whole system, and the others were but his tools.
Not alone from the States, but even from the manufacturing
districts of England, did multitudes flock to the land of promise.
Disputes, however, arose. The Prophet, Joe Smith, was killed
by a mob last year, at Carthage, in Illinois, and most of his
fanatical followers are dispersed. Numbers have emigrated to
California, and intend forming establishments in that country,
and time alone will tell whether the delusion will have any
duration. The temple remains unfinished, like the Tower of
Babel, a standing monument of human folly.
10. The German Catholic Church. Such was the designa
tion adopted by a party raised up within the two last years in
Germany ;
but the reader will perceive what little right it has to
such a title, when, at the last meeting, held at Schneidemuhl, they
not only rejected the Dogmas and Sacraments, which peculiarly
distinguish the Catholic Church from the various Protestant
sects, but openly renounced even the Apostles Creed, denied the
Divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and, in fact, their
whole Creed now consists, we may say, of one article to believe
in the existence of God. The origin of this party was thus : In
the Cathedral of Treves, it is piously believed, the seamless