sant feuds;
regulates the district peacefully, if slowly, deserves a handsomer
church, and would be quite willing, we believe, to be its architect
if one were ordered.

THE MORMONS.

There are about 1,100 different religious creeds in the world, and
amongst them all there is not one more energetic, more mysterious,
or more wit-shaken than Mormonism. It is a mass of earnest "abysmal
nonsense," an olla-podrida of theological whimsicalities, a saintly
jumble of pious staff made up--if we may borrow an idea--of
Hebraism, Persian Dualism, Brahminism, Buddhistic apotheosis,
heterodox and orthodox Christianity, Mohammedanism, Drusism,
Freemasonry, Methodism, Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, and Spirit-
rapping. We might go on in our elucidation; but what we have said
will probably be sufficient for present purposes. There are some
deep-swimming fish in the "waters of Mormon;" but the piscatorial
shoal is sincere enough, though mortally odd-brained and dreamy. On
the 22nd of September, 1827, a rough-spun American, named Joseph
Smith, belonging to a family reputed to be fond of laziness, drink,
and untruthfulness, and suspected of being somewhat disposed to
sheep-stealing, had a visit from "the angel of the Lord." He had
previously been told that his sins were forgiven; that he was a
"chosen instrument," &c., and on the day named Joseph found,
somewhere in Ontario, a number of gold plates, eight inches long and
seven wide, nearly as thick as tin, fastened together by three
rings, and bearing inscriptions, in "Reformed Egyptian," relative to
the history of America "from its first settlement by a colony that
came from the Tower of Babel at the confusion of tongues, to the
beginning of the 5th century of the Christian era." These
inscriptions were originally got up by a prophet named Mormon were,
as before stated, found by Joseph Smith, were read off by him to a
man rejoicing in the name of Oliver Cowdery, and they constitute the
contents of what is now known as the Book of Mormon. Smith did not
translate the "Reformed Egyptian" openly--if he had been asked to do
so, he would have said, "not for Joe;" he got behind a blanket in
order to do the job, considering that the plates would be defiled if
seen by profane eyes; and deciphered them by two odd lapidistic
transparencies, called "Urim and Thummin," which he found at the
same time as he met with the records. Report hath it that Joe's
"translation" of the sacred plates is s