Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-28
PITTSBURG'S GOOD MORMONs.
The Professor of Things in General Dis
covers Some Who Are Christians, Too
The Latter Day Bible Founded on

Novel.
| WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPATCH.l
1t is refreshing, in these days of half
belief and no-belief, to encounter now and
then a faithful soul, who believes not only
in the Bible but in the Book of Mormon
There are quite a number of Mormons resi-
dent here in Pittsburg. Once in awhile a
i Mormon elder makes them a visit, spends a
week or two in these parts, and holds prayer
meetings in their houses. These Pittsburg
| Mormons are, most of them, pretty good
Christians. met one of them the other day
at the West Penn Hospital. He had been
knocked off the top of a freight car at $50
that morning. One leg was cut off at the
thigh, and the other was horribly mangled
and the poor fellow died in the afternoon
But from what he, said, think he went to
just about the same place to which good
Christians hope to CO. have no doubt but
| that one of the many mansions" up above
i got new tenant that day, who probably
learned something in the first five minutes
after death about the Book of Mormon.
| The Pittsburg Mormons, however, let me
hasten to say, do not believe in polygamy.
/ There are two kinds of Mormons, the Latter
/ Day Saints and the Reorganized Latter Day
| Saints. The Pittsburg Mormons belong to
the reorganized party. This division Of Nor
| monism began after the death of Joseph
I Smith, and was revolt against Brigham
| Young, who had seized the succession to the
Presidency of the twelve apostles" These
\ good people had a revelation to the effect
I that the rightful leader was Smiths Oldest
! son, Joseph junior. They objected to
| polygamy. They refused to worship the
| new gods who had been set in the Mormon
| heaven; they declined to say their prayers
to Adam, TO Mohammed, to Joseph Cook or
to Brigham Young. They accepted the Book
of Mormon, but were quite content to stop
| with that.
The Good Mormons $4,000 Strong.
These reformed Mormons, who claim,
| and probably with reason, to be the only
true followers of original Mormonism, num-
Der about q, 900 people. Their headquarters
| are at Plano, Ill. They have communicates
| In places as remote as Scandinavia and
Australia and Switzerland. Their number
| is said to be increasing.
Pittsburg is not a bad place for an ortho-
| dox Mormon to live in, for Mormonism
really began, had its actual root, got its first
| insptration-so it is said-in this city. The
Mormon Bible, instead of being discovered
in Palmyra hill was discovered in Pitts
burg printing office. There may be some
people who have forgotten the part played
by this city at the beginning of this most
singular of all chapters in modern ecclesi-'
astical history.
There was '1ong-legged, tow-headed
boy living in Palmyra in the State of New
York, while this century was counting
its twenties. He spent most of his time,
the people said who knew him, fish
ing in the mill pond at Durfee's grist mill,
on Mud Creek. Everybody called him Joe
Smith, and accounted him a lazy fellow.
But boys brain may be buzzing like
train of cars though his hands be as idle as
the fingers OF craven image. And fishing
has always been known to be G. contempla-
tive occupation. Most anglers catch mora
thoughts than trout. Smith, sitting ON the
mill pond dam, was very busy thinking.
Joe Smiths Discovery of the Plates
One day Joe Smith disappeared from
his place by the grist mill. and took to
digging for hidden treasure in the Palmyra
hills. But nobody was much surprised at
this. It was like Smith. He was always
wanting to get rich without earning any
money. By and by, he declared that he had
seen an angel, ana that the angel had
showed him certain gold plates, "each plate
six inches wide and eight inches long, and
not quite so thick as common tin, filed
with engravings in Egyptian charac-
ters, and bound together in o volume
as the leaves of a book, with three rings
running through the whole" There was
also pair of most convenient supernatural
SpectacleS, accompanying bneSe Wf1tln
spectacles such as DR.. Lippincott never
dreamed of-curious, bright crystals set in
bows of silver. Whoever put on these silver
glasses could read Egyptian,-"reformed |
Egyptian" whatever that is. The people of |
Palmyra however, listened to this tale with |
more patience than credulity. Nobody paid |
much attention to it. 1t was one of Joe |
Smiths lies. Smith was a good deal of q |
LARA habit which fits in euriously with |
his fondness for f1shing,-and this was
simply large, elaborate and somewhat un-
usually ambitious lie. That was the meas
ure with which the honest Inhabitants of |
Palmyra "sized-up'' the Book of Mormon,
and its author.
Joe Smith was now grown to manhood, six
feet high, long of limb and huge of foot, his
hair turned from tow color to light auburn,
with large eyes of blueish gray, a prominent
nose, queer mouth, and an undesira BILE |
reputation. There was O school teacher
boarding at Smiths house named Oliver
Cowdery. Smith was not very good at read
ing and writing, but with the magic glasses
he made an excellent translator. So Cow
derry came to be amanuensis. He sat with
pen and paper on one side of a curtain, while
Smith on the other side read aloud what he |
saw through his supernatural spectacles.
The result was the Book of Mormon.
The Mormon Book Founded on a Novel.
Some years before this however Solomon
Spalding, a clergyman in the Presbyterian
Church had come to live in Pittsburg.
Spalding had lived in New Salem, Ashtabula,
county, Ohio. There were number of in
teresting mounds in Mr.. Spalding's parish
there, and their presence and his diggings
in them had turned his attention toward the
primeval Inhabitants of this country. He
conceived the idea of writing an his
torical romance, 'Iool1ing Backward"
in reality, with the scene laid
somewhere in the twentieth century, B. C.
The good man, besides his preaching, ran
forge and kept a tavern. In the winter
evenings in the tavern parlor, he used to
amuse his neighbors by reading to them
from the manuscripts of his progressing
novel. He wrote it so obtrusively in the
language of the King James version of the
Old Testament. with such frequent repeti-
tions of "Now it came to pass" that the IL
reverent youth of the neighborhood found
a nickname for him in his book. "Old Come
to-Pass" they called him. Mormon and
Nephi and Lehi were important names in
the story. Finally the good man, with his
writings in his trunk, moved here to Pitts
burg.
At that time, in the year 1914, Sidney Rig
don was pastor of the First Baptist Church.
Rigdon was restless theologian. Alexan-
der Campbell was o member of his
Rigdon afterward became
a Campbellite before casting in his for
tunes finally with Mormonism. The Rev Mr.
Spalding, meanwhile, had offered his manus-
cript to the printing firm of Patterson q
Lambdin, then doing business here Rigdon |
saw it in the Office borrowed it, took IL |