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Show 356 Early Western Travels IVoL 26 to the goodness of our God than the gushing joyousness of the forest- bird! All day I continued my journey over hill and [ no] dale, creek and ravine, woodland and prairie, until, near sunset, I reined up my weary animal to rest a while beneath the shade of a broad- boughed oak by die wayside, of whose refreshing hospitality an emigrant, with wagon and family, had already availed himself. The leader of the caravan, rather a young man, was reclining upon the bank, and, according to his own account, none the better for an extra dram. From a few remarks which were elicited from him, I soon discovered - what I had suspected, but which he at first had seemed doggedly intent upon concealing - that he belonged to that singular sect to which I have before alluded, styling themselves Mormonites, and that he was even then on his way to Mount Zion, Jackson county, Mo. l By contriving to throw into my observations a few of those tenets of die sect which, during my wanderings, I had gathered up, the worthy Mormonite was soon persuaded- pardon my insincerity, reader - that he had stumbled upon a veritable brother; and, without reserve or mental reservation, laid open to my cognizance, as we journeyed along, " the reasons of the faith that was in him/' and the ultimate, proximate, and intermediate designs of the party. And such a chaotic fanfaronade of nonsense, absurdity, nay, madness, was an idle curiosity never before punished with. The most which could be gathered of any possible " account " from this confused, disconnected mass of rubbish, was the following: That Joe Smith, or Joe Smith's father, or the devil, or some other great personage, had somewhere dug up the golden [ i n ] plates upon which were graven the " Book of Mormon: 9' that this all- mysterious and much- to- be- admired book embraced the chronicles of the lost kings of Israel: that it derived its cognomen from one |
