The Essential Parley P. Pratt (CLASSICS IN MORMON THOUGHT SERIES) - Hardcover

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 11.

A Dialogue Between Joe. Smith & the Devil!

(New York? Prophet Office? 1845)

[Enter Devil with a bundle of handbills, which he is in the act of posting.]

WANTED IMMEDIATELY,

All the liars, swindlers, thieves, robbers, incendiaries, cheats, adulterers, harlots, blackguards, drunkards, gamblers, bogus makers, idlers, busy bodies, pickpockets, vagabonds, filthy persons, hireling clergy, and their followers, and all other infidels and rebellious, disorderly persons, for a crusade against Joe Smith and the Mormons. Be quick, be quick, I say, or our cause will be ruined, and our kingdom overthrown, by that d—-d fool of an imposter and his associates, for even now all earth and hell is in a stew.

[Joe Smith happens to be passing, and hails his Majesty.]

Good morning, Mr. Devil. How now, you seem to be much engaged; what news have you got there?

DEVIL [slipping his bills into his pocket with a low bow]—

O! good morning, Mr. Smith; hope you are well, sir. Why—I—was just out—out on a little business in my line; or finally, to be candid, sir, I was contriving a fair and honorable warfare against you and your impositions, wherein piety is outraged, and religion greatly hindered in its useful course. For, to be bold sir, [and I despise anything underhanded,] I must tell you to your face that you have made me more trouble than all the ministers, or people of my whole dominion, have for ages past.

SMITH. Trouble! What trouble have I caused your Majesty? I certainly have endeavored to treat you, and all other persons, in a friendly manner, even my worst enemies; and I always aim to fulfil the Mormon creed, and that is, to my mind, my own business exclusively. Why should this trouble you Mr. Devil?

DEVIL. Ah! your own business, indeed. I know not what you may consider your business, it is so very complicated; but I know what you have done, and what you are aiming to do. You have disturbed the quiet of Christendom, overthrown churches and societies, you have dared to call in question the truth and usefulness of old and established creeds, which have stood the test of ages; and have even caused tens of thousands to come out in open rebellion, not only against wholesome creeds, established forms and doctrines, well approved and orthodox, but against some of the most pious, learned, exemplary, and honorable clergy, whom both myself and all the world, love, honor and esteem, and this is not all. But you are causing many persons to think who never thought before, and you would fain put the whole world a thinking, and then where will true religion and piety be? Alas! they will have no place among men, for if men keep such a terrible thinking and reasoning as they begin to do, since you commenced your business, as you call it, they never will continue to uphold the good old way in which they have jogged along in peace for so many ages; and thus, Mr. Smith, you will overthrow my kingdom, and leave me not a foot of ground on earth, and this is the very thing you aim at. But I, sir, have the boldness to oppose you by all the lawful means which I have in my power.

SMITH. Really, Mr. Devil, your Majesty has of late become very pious; I think some of your Christian brethren have greatly misrepresented you. It is generally reported by them that you are opposed to religion. But—

DEVIL. It is false; there is not a more religious and pious being in the world than myself, nor a being more liberal minded. I am decidedly in favor of all creeds, systems, and forms of Christianity, of whatever name or nature, so long as they leave out that abominable doctrine which caused me so much trouble in former times, and which, after slumbering for ages, you have again revived; I mean the doctrine of direct communion with God, by new revelation. This is hateful, it is impious, it is directly opposed to all the divisions and branches of the Christian Church. I never could bear it. And for this very cause, I helped to bring to condign punishment all the prophets and the apostles of old, for while they were suffered to live with this gift of revelation, they were always exposing and slandering me, and all other good pious men in exposing our deeds and purposes, which they called wicked, but which we consider as the height of zeal and piety; and when we killed them for these crimes of dreaming, prophesying, and vision-seeing, they raised the cry of persecution, and so with you miserable and deluded Mormons.

SMITH. Then, your most Christian Majesty is in favor of all other religions but this one, are you?

DEVIL. Certainly. I am fond of praying, singing, church building, bell ringing, going to meeting, preaching, and withal, I have quite a missionary zeal. I like also long faces, long prayers, long robes, and learned sermons; nothing suits me better than to see people who have been for a whole week oppressing their neighbour, grinding the face of the poor, walking in pride and folly, and serving me with all their heart. I say nothing suits me better, Mr. Smith, than to see these people go to meeting on Sunday, with a long religious face on, and to see them pay a portion of their ill-gotten gains for the support of a priest, while he and his hearers pray with doleful groans and awful faces, saying, “Lord, we have left undone the things we ought to have done, and done the things we ought not;” and then, when service is ended, see them turn again to their wickedness, and pursue it greedily all the week, and the next Sabbath repeat the same things. Now, be candid Mr. Smith; do you not see that these, and all others, who have a form and deny the power, are my good christian children, and that their religion is a help to my cause?

SMITH. Certainly, your reasoning is clear and obvious as to these hypocrites, but you would not be pleased with people getting converted either at camp meeting, or somewhere else, and then putting their trust in that conversion, and in free grace to save them–would you not be opposed to this?

DEVIL. Why should I have any objection to that kind of religion, Mr. Smith? I care not how much they get converted, nor how much they cry Lord, Lord, nor how much they trust to free grace to save them, so long as they do not do the works that their God has commanded them; I am sure of them at last, for you know all men are to be judged according to their deeds. What does their good Bible say? Does it not say, “not every one that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into my kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven.” No, no, Mr. Smith, I am not an enemy to religion, and especially to the modern forms of christianity; so long as they deny the power, they are a help to my cause. See how much discord, division, hatred, envy, strife, lying, contention, blindness, and even error and bloodshed, has been produced as the effect of these very systems. By these means I gain millions to my dominion, while at the same time we enjoy the credit of being pious christians; but you, Mr. Smith, you are my enemy, my open and avowed enemy, you have even dared in a sacrilegious manner, to tear the veil from all these fine systems, and to commence an open attack upon my kingdom, and this even when I had almost all christendom, together with the clergy, and gentlemen of the press, in my favor. How dare you venture thus to commence a revolution without reserve, and without aid or succor, and in the midst of innumerable hosts of my subjects?

SMITH. Why, sir, in the first place, I knew that I had the truth on my side, and that your systems and forms of christianity were so manifestly corrupt, that one had only to lift the veil from your fooleries on one side, and to present plain and reasonable truth on the other, and the eyes of the people could at once distinguish the difference so clearly that, except they...