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THE BIBLE CONVENTION. This convention of sincere inquirers after truth, (as they probably consider themselves,) which was called some months since, met at the Masonic Tem ple on Tuesday morning at 100’clock. The number of persons in attendance did not exceed one hun dred, a majority of them were women, and, with a few accidental exceptions, they were the same indi viduals who have figured in various similar conven tions at the Chardon-street Chapel. The proceedings of the Convention on Tuesday were generally uninteresting. A good portion of the forenoon was spent in debating the form of the question or proposition to be held up for discussion, and it was not until several propositions were made and rejected that the following was adopted :— ‘¢What degree of credibility and authenticity is to be attached to the scriptures of the old and new testament ?’” The principal speakers—if the amount of time consumed is considered—were Abigail Folsom, El der Nickerson, the Mormon preacher, and Mr Wil liam West, a practical phrenologist and professed sceptic. When the convention was called to order in the morning, by Mr Edmund Quincy, Abigail opened her branch of the discussion by moving to give liberty to every person to introduce and discuss such topics as they pleased, and as they might con sider agreeable to God and their own consciences. She did not wait to obtain the sense of the meeting on this motion, but immediately proceeded to exer cise herself the degree of freedom which she was willing to extend to others, and talked at the top of her voice upon every subject which suggested itself to her mind until she was completely exhausted. No one attempted to oppose or interrupt her, and when she had established, into her own satisfaction that she had been ‘‘crucified’’ by the police officers of Boston, one of whom, after keeping her confined for some hours in the watch-house, “‘had, Judas like, asked her to take tea with him,’* she conclud ed by saying, ‘‘Now I think I can sew a few stitches to get a piece of bread to give to the poor.’’ She then sat down and resumed “her work,’’ and was as silent during the remainder of the day as any woman could be who had an equally vivid idea of what cumpanity expected of her. Mr William West, in derogation of the authorit of the bible, and in opposition to those who consid ered that they had established its credibility and au thority when they proved it to be the word of God, said that the first step in the argument which such persons ought to‘take was to estalish the existence of the Being to whose inspiration they attributed the work. He denied that there was a God—that there was any distinct spiritual existence. He did not rest his opposition to the bible here—he did not oppose it only because he believed it to be erro neous, but because the tendency of its doctrines was to occasion unhappiness to man. He examined the existing state of society, and in every department of it he saw the evil effects of Christianity. The insti tution of marriage, which he termed a system of *‘legalized prostitution,” came in for a particular share of his animalversion, and he condemned those laws as unjust which punished men and wo men who are unfaithful to their marriage vows. Such people, he held, instead of being punished, ‘‘should receive the meed of praise as true men and women.’? He was not content with proving that this world and all that appertains to it is bad, but went on to show how much better it might have been constructed, until in his zeal he exclaimed—‘‘ I could make a better world than this one ; I should like to have the power to make a world ; if I had, what a world it would be!’’ As to what kind of a world it would be, his hearers were left in the dark, for he was here called to order on the ground of irre t he fact of Mr William West’s being able to make a better world than the one we live in not having, it was argued, a direct bearing upon the truth or falsehood of the account which the bible furnishes of the creation of this imperfect and ill constructed globe. Elder Nickerson’s extravagances, on the other side, were nearly as extraordinary as West’s. It did not please him to go into a labored argument in defence of what he termed ‘‘the divine authenticity of the scriptures ;’? he knew that they were true—that their origin was divine ; not entirely as Falstaff knew some facts, ‘‘by instinct,’? but ** the spirit’’ had taught it to him. He had seen miraculous proofs of the divine authority of the Bible; the sick healed—the dead raised—angels had ministered to him—he had talked to God face to face. He as sured his hearers that it was only necessary for them to repent and be baptised, and receive the spirit, to see what he had seen, and to enjoy the same familiar and friendly conversations with heaven’s inhabitants. It was not required even to go to Nauvoo; he had established ‘‘a branch’’ at No. 82 Commercial street, Boston, where the bread of life was dispensed without money and without price, and where proofs of all the things of which he had spoken might be seen.* While Elder Nickerson was giving utterance to this nonsense, we noticed at a short distance from him, a gentleman who steadily kept his eye upon him and seemed to give to every word he uttered the most profound consideration. This was Mr Par sons, whose former controversy with the Mormon excited such intense interest in the theological world. As he now appeared in the convention, with the laurels set his previous conflict clustering on his brow, he was probably the only man in the city capable of answering the Elder, and the only man whom the Elder would fear to meet. On arising he assured the audience that had the Elder seen fit to have remained silent, he would not have opened his mouth, but it was morally impossible for him to sit still and hear such sentiments advanced. The Mor mon doctrines were all humbug, and their pretended miracles all imposture,as he had proved in his work on the subject, one thousand copies of which he had caused to be printed, and a part of which thousand he then held aloft in his hand. To satis fy himself perfectly on this point, Mr Parsons said he had made a pilgrimage to Nauvoo, where it was a common remark with the people that ‘‘they would not go a hundred rods to see a man raised from the dead, the thing was so common !** We will not at tempt to follow the course of reasoning by which he extinguished the Mormon—(it may probably be found in his book, and we would not run the risk of spoiling the sale of one copy of the thousand.) Be fore concluding, he administered a rebuke to Me West for the manner in which he advanced his athe istical sentiments, and informed the convention that he himself was a deist. The philosophers of the transcendental school were represented in the debates of the convention by Messrs A. Bronson Ascot and Nathaniel Whiting. They opposed the common views held by Christians in relation to the divine origin of the bible, in a manner peculiar to themselves. They admitted that what truths it contained were of God—but contend ed that the errors which it contained could not be In a conversation with the Elder, we learned that the Mormons have obtained a new book, called the book of Abra ham, which Jo Smith is now engaged in translating. This book, Jo says, was written by the patriarch whose name it bears, and was found in the catacombs of Egypt by an Eng lish gentleman who recently travelless in that country, such who brought away, as a proof of his veracity, eleven mum mies. Poor of those mummies, the Elder says, have been purchased by the church at Nauvoo, for the purpose of ob taining the bandages in which they are encased, which are covered with hieroglyphics. Jo will no doubt spin a pretty yarn from thore mnummies.
Newspaper Details
Boston Morning Post
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Thu, Mar 31, 1842
Page 1
Full Page
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Richard E.
USA 15 Jul 2026
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