vinced me that, upon earth,
happiness was too scarce not to be enjoyed when presented to you. Yet
in the midst of pleasure I did not forget the duty I owed to my tribe,
and I sent letters to Joe Smith, the Mormon leader at Nauvoo, that we
might at once enter into an arrangement. Notwithstanding the bad
season, we had some few days of sunshine, in which pretty Miss Emma and
I would take long rambles in the woods; and sometimes, too, my host
would invite the hunters of his neighbourhood, for a general _battue_
against bears, deer, and wild cats. Then we would encamp out under good
tents, and during the evening, while smoking near our blazing fires, I
would hear stories which taught me more of life in the United States
than if I had been residing there for years.

"Dis-moi qui tu frequentes, je te dirai qui tu es," is the old French
proverb. Mr Courtenay never chose his companions but among the more
intellectual classes of the society around him, and, of course, these
stories were not only well told, but interesting in their subject.
Often the conversation would fall upon the Mormons, and perceiving how
anxious I was to learn anything about this new sect, my host introduced
me to a very talented gentleman, who had every information connected
with their history. From him I learned the particulars which gave rise
to Mormonism, undoubtedly the most extraordinary imposition of the
nineteenth century.

There existed years ago a Connecticut man, named Solomon Spalding, a
relation of the one who invented the wooden nutmegs. By following him
through his career, the reader will find him a Yankee of the true stock.
He appears at first as a law student then as a preacher, a merchant,
and a bankrupt; afterwards he becomes a blacksmith in a small western
village: then a land speculator and a county schoolmaster; later still,
he becomes the owner of an iron-foundry; once more a bankrupt; at last,
a writer and a dreamer.

As might be expected, he died a beggar somewhere in Pennsylvania, little
thinking that, by a singular coincidence, one of his productions (the
"Manuscript found"), redeemed from oblivion by a few rogues, would prove
in their hands a powerful weapon, and be the basis of one of the most
anomalous, yet powerful secessions which has ever been experienced by
the Established Church.

We find, under the title of the "Manuscript found," an historical
romance of the first settlers of America, endeavouring to shew that