The curious career of the Prophet of Mormonism has sometimes been contrasted with that of this great leader [Muhammad]. But the contrasts affords but slight parallel. When "Joe Smith"—as the Mormon Prophet was always designated in his youth (a title which stuck to him through life)—began his career at Palmyra in the State of New York, his motives were not honest, nor was he prompted by either revenge or ambition. His untutored and feeble intellect had not yet grasped at anything beyond mere toying with mysterious things. It is evident that he had at first no higher purpose in view. He was one of those indolent and illiterate young men, too numerous in all communities, who hope to shun honest labor, and who have imbibed the pernicious doctrine embraced in the phrase: "The world owes me a living." Any means that would enable him to obtain that living he was ready to employ. Hence we find him at an early age, trying his skill at little tricks to impose on the credulity of his ignorant associates. As he grew in years, searching for lost treasure became one of his favorite employments; for was it not better, he reasoned, to obtain the golden thousands from the nooks and crevices of the earth, where Captain Kidd and the pirates and robbers had secreted them, and live in ease and idleness, than to obtain a small competency by the slow and uncertain processes of honest labor? And thus he plodded on, till accident opened a new career for him. A petty theft, by himself or one of his co-workers, placed the Spalding "Manuscript Found" in his hands; and then it was that the idea of a new sect, a new creed, a new and deeper play upon popular ignorance and and credulity, and consequent power, and place, and fortune, were gradually developed and boldly and persistently and most wickedly carried forward—aided by confederates as bad as himself and with similar purposes in view.

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Knowing that ex-Governor [Stephen S.] Harding, later a judge in Indiana, had been in his early life a resident of Palmyra, N.Y., and acquainted with the Smith family and the other originators of the Book of Mormon, we addressed him on the subject, and received the following lengthy and interesting reply.

At the date of this letter—February, 1882,—and several years later, Judge Harding was residing in Indiana, an octogenarian in age and feeble health, but with a remarkable memory of the events of his long and distinguished life. . . .

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In the summer of 1829, I resolved to return to the place of my nativity, in the vicinity of Palmyra, N. Y. . . .

When I left my home in the West, I had never heard of Mormonism, by that name. When I was a student at Brookville, in the fall of 1827, the Brookville Enquirer was laid upon my table, when my eye fell upon a paragraph, credited to some Eastern paper, of the finding of a book of metallic plates, called the ‘ Golden Bible.’ It was found by a young man by the name of Joe Smith, who had spent his time for several years in telling fortunes and digging for hidden treasures, and especially for pots and iron chests of money, supposed to have been buried by Captain Kidd. This paragraph interested me more at the time from the fact that all this had happened near the village of Palmyra, N. Y. I had at the time no certain recollection as to who this ‘Joe Smith’ was ; but remembered having seen a long-legged, tow-headed boy of that name, who was generally fishing in the mill-pond at Durfee’s grist-mill, on Mud Creek, when my elder brother and I went to mill. This boy was about three years older than myself, and it turned out that he was the veritable finder of the ‘ Golden Bible.’

Of course the paragraph in the Enquirer passed without further notice at the time, and the whole subject was forgotten, until I found myself in the very neighborhood where the thing had happened. At that time the Book of Mormon had not been printed, and no Mormon church had been organized. 1 do not believe that such a thing as the latter had ever been seriously contemplated, and that the publication of the Book of Mormon had for its object only the making of money, by publishing and putting on sale a book that could be readily sold as a curiosity at a high profit. Nevertheless, there was something so unusual in the affair, that it excited a good deal of curiosity and comment. The fact that such a man as Martin Harris should mortgage his farm for a large sum, to secure the publisher for printing the book, should abandon the cultivation of one of the best farms in the neighborhood, and change all his habits of life from industry to indolence and general shiftlessness, was truly phenomenal. He, at the same time, was the only man among all the primitive Mormons who was responsible in a pecuniary sense for a single dollar.

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Mormon and Moroni’s plates — abridgments only of the great encyclopedia of American history — were of the precious metal, and they were the only ones revealed. The others are presumed to be — if we put faith in the story — if not in the hill Cumorah, certainly in some “ placer ” in the vicinity ; and the wonder is that the faithful have not been “ prospecting ” for them. Should these, or a considerable portion of them, also be of gold, their value is great ; as there should be more than a dozen of these bundles of plates, besides some other valuables, “ hid up” somewhere about Palmyra. Those alone obtained from the stone box, and hidden away again, as described, would make a solid block of gold of two hundred cubic inches, worth many thousand dollars for the metal alone. The wonder is, that while excavating for the treasure hid by Kidd and the pirates, the youthful prophet did not bring to light more of these precious relics of antiquity. As evidence of faith in the story, “Mormon Hill ” should have been thoroughly prospected long ago.