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Show wicked a man as the historic record and the personal testimony of scores of his neighbors show that Joseph Smith was. But we have men high in the priesthood who, in the great tabernacle and elsewhere, from week to week, lift up this false prophet as a true and worthy prophet of God, and recklessly trample well-known facts concerning his wicked life under foot, in order to perpetuate their official power, secure the church vote and further their opportunities for official promotion. It is a serious thing that the Bible teaches that those who uphold a false prophet are equally guilty with the false prophet himself, and equally deserving the just judgments of Almighty God. <br><br> How Distinguish a False From a True Prophet? <br> But how are we to distinguish a false prophet from a true prophet, so that ourselves and others may not be deceived. I answer that the Bible is our primary source of information about true and false prophets, and taking the Bible as our guide, in connection with the character of false prophets, we find that there are certain definite and distinguishing marks of the two kinds of prophets. The false prophets have some or all of these marks: They are utterly lacking in moral character; they use their alleged gifts to enrich and aggrandize themselves; they take advantage of their pretended claims to concentrate in their hands great power and authority to which they are not entitled; their teachings are not in harmony with the teachings of the Bible and bring forth mischievous fruits; and their pretended predictions of future events are shrewd, deceiving guesses, or thoroughly false. (Deut. 13. Jer. 23, 29. Ezekiel 13.) <br><br> Marks of False Prophet in Joseph Smith. <br> Now, which one of these Bible marks of a false prophet was lacking in Joseph Smith? Not one of them. And the first mark, without the rest, is sufficient to condemn him forever as a false and deceiving prophet, namely, his entire lack of worthy moral character. This is not a question of opinion, but a question of facts and evidence. And right here is where my friends, Bishop Whitney and Judge King, and B. H. Roberts, and all other defenders of the false prophet fall down and absolutely fail. They try to make it a question of opinion and not one of facts and evidence. <br> Undoubtedly an expert pettifogger and ingenious sophist like B. H. Roberts, could get up an ingenious defense of Benedict Arnold, even as a few have attempted a defense of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his Master. But what would an ingenious defense of Arnold amount to in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him? <br><br> Usual Defense Convinces Nobody. <br> So the ingenious defense of Joseph Smith as a prophet of God convinces nobody who has studied the evidence. And those of us who have no axes to grind, who do not want to retain or receive any official position in the Mormon church, and who do not wish for the Mormon vote nor for Mormon patronage, must depend upon the evidence in forming our conclusions about Joseph Smith as a prophet. And right here I may say that one reason why intelligent and patriotic men and women are repelled from the Mormon system is because of the audacious way in which its chief defenders trample under foot the laws of evidence, and outrage the common sense of intelligent people by eulogizing such a man as Joseph Smith, either as a patriot or as a prophet of God, a prophet of God, in the face of well-known facts against him. The personal testimony, showing that Joseph Smith was a false prophet, etc., and a most dishonest and immoral man, is simply overwhelming. So is the historical evidence. So is the documentary evidence. I have room to barely touch on these points. <br><br> Personal Testimony Showing Smith a False Prophet. <br> Take, first, the personal testimony. If anyone had ample opportunity to know just what kind of a man Joseph Smith was, it was that truthful and reliable woman, Mrs. Orson Pratt, the first and legal wife of the Apostle Orson Pratt. Her husband joined the Mormon church in 1830 and became one of the apostles in 1835. She was with him in Kirtland, in Missouri and Nauvoo, and came with him to this city, where she died in 1888, respected by all who knew her. But she had nothing more to do with the Mormon church after her husband began, in 1852, to advocate Joseph Smith's bogus revelation establishing polygamy, and began to put that criminal and odious system into practice. <br> [Continues on next page.] <br><br> |
