Dear Sir: -- I received your's of the 2d instant, and heartily thank
you for the favor. It revives afresh in my recollections the scenes of past
years, upon the remembrance of which I dwell with a mixture of pleasurable and
painful sensation. I arrived at my home on the 1st of the present month,
having finished my tour to the west, since which time the scenes and events in
the history of my life, for the last few months, have passed in review before
my mind.
You are not, it is probable, ignorant of the designs of my most singular and
romantic undertaking: sufficient to say, it was for the purpose of exploring
the promised land -- laying the foundation of the City of Zion, and
placing the corner-stone of the Temple of God. A journey of 1000 miles to the
west, has taught me far more abundantly, than I should probably have learned
from any other source. It has taught me quite beyond my former knowledge, the
imbecility of human nature, and especially my own weakness. It has
unfolded in its proper character, a delusion to which I had fallen a
victim, and taught me the humiliating truth -- that I was exerting the
powers of both my mind and body, and sacrificing my time and property to build
up a system of delusion, almost unparalleled in the annals of the world.
If God be a God of consistency and wisdom, I now know Mormonism to be a
delusion; and this knowledge is built upon the testimony of my senses. In
proclaiming it, I am aware I proclaim my own misfortune -- but in doing it, I
remove a burden from my mind, and discharge a duty as humbling to
myself, as it may be profitable to others. You had heard the story of
my wanderings, and "was induced to believe that I had been visited with a
species of mental derangement," and therefore, you "had given me up, as one
among those friends of early association, who in the lapse of time, would be
as though they had not existed." You had concluded that the magic charm of
delusion and falsehood, had so wrapped its sable mantle around me, as to
exclude the light of truth, and secure me a devoted slave. But, thanks be to
God! the spell is dissipated, and the "captive exile hasteneth that he may be
loosed, and not die in the pit."
When I embraced Mormonism, I conscientiously believed it to be of God. The
impressions of my mind were deep and powerful, and my feelings were exerted to
a degree to which I had been a stranger. Like a ghost, it haunted me by night
and by day, until I was mysteriously hurried, as it were by a kind of
necessity, into the vortex of delusion. At times I was much elated; but
generally, things in prospect were the greatest stimulants to action.
On our arrival in the western part of the State of Missouri, the place of our
destination, we discovered that prophecy and visions had failed,
or rather had proved false. This fact was so notorious, and the evidence so
clear that no one could mistake it -- so much so, that Mr. Rigdon himself said
that "Joseph's vision was a bad thing." This was glossed over,
apparently, to the satisfaction of most persons present; but not fully to my
own. It excited a suspicion that some things were not right, and prepared my
mind for the investigation of a variety of circumstances, which occurred
during my residence there, and indeed, to review the whole subject from its
commencement to that time. My opportunities for a thorough examination, were
far greater than they could have been, had I remained at home; and therefore I
do not regret that I made that journey, though I sincerely regret the cause of
it. Since my return, I have had several interviews with Messrs. Smith, Rigdon
and Cowdery, and the various shifts and turns, to which they resorted, in
order to obviate objections and difficulties, produced in my mind additional
evidence, that their's is nothing else than a deeply laid plan of craft and
deception.
The relation in which Smith stands to the church, is that of a Prophet, Seer,
Revealer and Translator; and when he speaks by the Spirit, or says he knows a
thing by the communication of the Spirit, it is received as coming directly
from the mouth of the Lord. -- When he says he knows a thing to be so, thus
it must stand without controversy. A question is agitated between two Elders
of the church -- whether or not a bucket of water will become heavier
by putting a living fish in it? Much is said by each of the disputants; when
at length, Smith decides in the negative, by saying -- "I know by the Spirit,
that it will be no heavier." Any person who chooses, may easily ascertain by
actual experiment, whether the Prophet was influenced in this decision by a
true or false Spirit.
It is not my design at this time, to enter into particulars relative to the
evidence, upon which my renunciation of Mormonism is founded. This evidence is
derived from various sources, and is clear and full, and the conviction which
it produces, at least on my mind, is irresistible. You are not aware of the
nature of this deception, and the spirit that uniformly attends it; nor can
you ever know it, unless you yield to its influence, and by experience learn
what it is to fall under its power: "from which my earnest prayer is, that you
may ever, ever escape."
There probably never was a plan better suited to lead the sinner and the
conscientious, when in an unguarded hour they listen to its fatal
insinuations. The plan is so ingeniously contrived, having for its aim one
principal point, viz.: the establishment of a society in Missouri, over which
the contrivers of this delusive system, are to possess the most unlimited and
despotic sway. To accomplish this, the Elders of the Church, by commandment
given in Missouri, and of which I was both an eye and an ear witness, are to
go forth to preach Mormonism to every creature; and now, said Mr.
Rigdon -- "The Lord has set us our stint; no matter how soon we perform
it -- for when this is done, he will make his second appearance."
I do in sincerity, and I trust in deep humility, return unfeigned gratitude to
the God of infinite mercy, who, in condescension to my weakness, by a peculiar
train of providences, brought me to the light, enabled me to see the hidden
things of darkness, and delivered me from the snare of the fowler, and from
the contagious pestilence which threatened my entire destruction. The scenes
of the past few months, are so different from all others in my life, that they
are in truth to me "as a dream when one awaketh." Had my fall affected only
myself, my reflections would be far less painful than they now are. But to
know -- that whatever influence I may have possessed, has been exerted to draw
others into a delusion, from which they may not soon be extricated, is to me a
source of sorrow and deep regret. They are at this moment the object of my
greatest anxiety and commiseration. I crave their forgiveness, and assure
them, that they will ever have an interest in my addresses to the throne of
grace. It shall be my endeavor to undo as far as possible, what I have done in
this case, and also to prevent the spread of a delusion, pernicious in its
influence, and destructive in its consequences to the body and soul -- to the
present and eternal interests of men.
I am through restoring mercy and grace, as in former years, though unworthily,
yet affectionately your's in Christ. EZRA BOOTH.
Note 1: This letter, written by former LDS Elder, Ezra Booth, was the first of
a series articles he penned upon the subject of the early Mormons. The series
was published first in Lewis L. Rice's Ohio Star, with the ninth and
final letter appearing there on Dec. 8, 1831. The Booth letters were reprinted
with only slight changes in Eber D. Howe's Painesville Telegraph,
beginning on
Oct. 25,
1831. See
Chapter XV
in Howe's 1834 Mormonism Unvailed> for a reprinting of the entire
series of Booth's letters. The series was also reprinted in the Norwalk, Ohio
Huron Reflector, without additional comment, beginning on Nov. 21,
1831.
Note 2: Booth reproduces a most interesting quotation from Sidney Rigdon: "The
Lord has set us our stint; no matter how soon we perform it -- for when
this is done, he will make his second appearance." It is almost without doubt
that Rigdon truly believed his own words in this regard. Today the original
Mormon plan, to establish the Kingdom of God in the Missouri "Zion," has been
almost entirely forgotten. In mid-1831 that plan was very much alive,
imparting massive energy to the Mormon drive to prepare for (and help bring
on) the millennial reign of Christ, with Joseph Smith, Jr. serving as Christ's
vicegerent upon Earth. Modern students of Mormonism can little imagine the
fantastic and wildly compelling atmosphere that surrounded the pioneer core of
the very earliest Mormons -- God's Chosen People, the New Israelites -- called
to claim and possess a new Promised Land in the American West. Had the Mormon
occupation of Missouri gone according to plan, the Saints would have converted
and enlisted as armed allies the dispossessed American Indians, converted or
run off the frontier gentiles, seized control of the lucrative Sante Fe
Trail-head trade, and positioned themselves to conquer New Mexico all the way
westward to the California coast. Brigham Young's later conception of the
"State of Deseret" was but a rump remnant of the original 1830 plan for a
Millennial Mormon Empire in the American West. Such an "empire," given a large
enough influx of blindly devoted converts, might well have gained enough power
to precipitate a civil war in the United States -- not a political war between
South and North, but a religious war between West and East.