The Founder of Mormonism/Chapter 8

Before considering the 'great manifestations of spirits' among the Latter-day Saints, it is desirable to note some of the outward and visible signs of growth, some of the causes of success, and some of the records and documents of the organization.

'We review his career, and behold him from the poor, despised visionary of Manchester, rising in the short space of fifteen years, to the presidency of a church numbering not less than 200,000 souls.'^[1] A gentile visitor at Nauvoo, in 1844, thus eulogized the prophet. His statement was welcomed by the Mormons as proof of their divine origin; for all that their spread was truly remarkable. In the Middle West they had their struggle for existence; the Church was persecuted, its founder killed. Then began the wholesale emigration under Brigham Young. Unusual executive ability was displayed in this flight of the Mormon tribe, and astonishing fortitude in crossing the Rockies and the alkali ​plains. At last, in the far West there came a chance for unrestricted development. In a secluded valley of Utah the polygamous Saints attached themselves to the soil, and increased with the rapidity of an isolated germ culture. As a bit of historical pathology, the growth of Mormondom is unique and merits thorough investigation. But since a biographical study deals, perforce, with inward causes and individual origins, it is necessary to return to the infant church, as it was affected by the personality of its founder.

Mormonism contained, from the start, the elements of denominational success. In the first place, no other American sect could point to a Bible of its own manufacture. As the Latter-day poet exclaimed: 'embalmed records, plates of gold, glorious things to us unfold.'^[2] But the acceptance of the Book was due to more than the archaic embellishments of the author. It is the old story of a territory already prepared. The locality, where Joseph brought forth the 'ancient engravings of Nephi,' was the locality where the Cardiff giant hoax was perpetrated. But although first readers of the Book of Mormon were credulous, they had a patriotic streak in their archæological interests. As Oliver Cowdery said 'a history of the inhabitants who peopled this continent, previous to its being dis​covered to Europeans by Columbus must be interesting to every man.'^[3]

Another element of success was that no other native sect had revelations in such profusion and in such business-like form. As compiled in the Book of Commandments these form the rarest of all original Mormon sources,^[4] and, at the same time, the most valued of their inspired writings. It is the Book of Mormon 'backed up' by this 'other book taken to the Lamanites' that forms the real Mormon Canon.^[5] As the prophet queried: 'Take away the Book of Mormon and the Revelations, and where is our religion?'^[6] As an​other curiosity of Mormon literature the history of this volume may be briefly sketched. Joseph's youthful prophecies have been preserved only in the narrative of his mother; but the vaticinations of the year 1829 proved so successful, that they were thought worth preserving; so on April 6th, 1830, there came this revelation: 'Behold there shall be a record kept among you, and in it thou shalt be a seer, a translator, a prophet.'^[7] Within a score of weeks the prophet created a monopoly of oracular responses,—'no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church, excepting my servant Joseph.'^[8]

The Book of Commandments comprises fifty-five chapters and runs to September, 1831. The council ordered that three thousand copies be printed in the first edition. David Whitmer says that he warned Smith and Rigdon against this, 'for the world would get hold of the books and it would not do.' He adds that, from the time some of the copies slipped through the hands of the unwise brethren, the ill-feeling against the Saints increased.^[9] Whether this is true ​or not, on July 20th, 1833, the Mormon printing office in Independence, Missouri, was torn down by the mob, but not before the book was completed.^[10]

The relation of this supplementary brochure to the Book of Mormon has been compared with that of the Talmud to the Old Testament.^[11] The comparison is too dignified. The Mormon theocratic code, such as it was, is here presented, but there is besides a welter of undefinable utterances. The Gemara added to the Mishna gives no idea of this curious mixture of religion and business.

The Book of Commandments is, in part, a book of discipline, wherein the 'Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ' are given at length.^[12] But the ​pamphlet offers not only rules of action, but food for thought; in addition to the duties of the Elders or of the Seventies, there are scattered throughout rare bits of scriptural interpretation. An entire alphabet of mystic exegesis is here set forth, from Aaronic Priesthood, Baptism for the Dead, Celestial glory and the Devil before Adam, down to Questions and Answers on the Apocalypse. Thus in its confusion of contents the work has a general semblance to Joseph's former monument of misplaced energy. Its biographical and personal character is also evident from the author's communings with himself. Yet the book is not merely a private journal, it is a sort of public ledger; as the church increased, the prophet opens up an account with each new member. There were in particular celestial orders upon converts with cash; thus: 'My servant Martin should be an example to the church in laying his moneys before the bishop of the church, and my servant Edward should leave his merchandise and spend all his time in the labors of the church.'^[13]

The names of the ecclesiastical customers were not given in full in the first instance; it is the change towards particularity that denotes the emended edition of the Book of Commandments. The revamped and enlarged edition is entitled The Doctrine and ​Covenants.^[14] It consists, for the most part, of revelations to Joseph Smith, junior, 'for the building up of the Kingdom of God in the last days'; it also contains an account of 'the martyrdom of the prophet,' and lastly the 'Word and will of the Lord given through President Brigham Young, January 14th, 1847.' The Commandments and the Covenants together give an external history of the Church, while the material alterations of the former into the latter betray some of the state secrets. As usual, many hundred emendations have been discovered.^[15] One instance is enough to disclose the trend of these changes; their mercantile purpose is to be seen from a single italicized word. A revelation was given in July, 1830, to the prophet's wife. The first edition reads: 'Emma thou art an elect lady and thou needest not fear, for thy husband shalt support thee from the Church;'^[16] the second edition reads: 'thy husband shall support thee in the Church.'^[17]

​So much for the significance of the documents. With the Book of Mormon printed and the Book of Commandments started, Mormonism had both canonical and prophetical elements of success. The further causes of its spread may be regarded in so far as they are common to both founder and follower. The hardest thing to grasp in the entire propaganda is that curiously narrow attitude of mind which regarded this as the ushering in, not of a mere new denomination, but of a new dispensation. Perhaps the first thing to appeal to the dissatisfied religionist was the prophet's announcement of a 'plain and simple gospel.'^[18] As previous analysis has shown, complexity and not simplicity was the mark of Joseph's doctrine. But to minds whose distinctions comprised no differences, this very confusion was effective. As a magazine of mixed proof texts the Book of Mormon appealed to all sects. To paraphrase the words of Benjamin Franklin,—the author's heterodoxy was everybody's orthodoxy. So in spite of all the talk about liberality,^[19] this unsectarian society was only another sect in process of formation. Its principles were grand enough, but its beginnings were very small. There were eleven ​witnesses to the Record, but only six charter members of the Church.^[20] That 'Church of Christ,' as yet without the full title of Latter-day Saints, was organized, according to law, in Fayette, New York, on April 6th, 1830. From that time, says the prophet, the work 'rolled forth with astonishing rapidity.'^[21]

Of the mental calibre of Joseph's fellow-workers something more must be said,—something to explain the paradox of their making puny Mormonism equivalent to a new dispensation. An ethical traveler in America remarked that strong interest in religion was popularly held to mean conversion to a ​particular creed.^[22] Such is only a general explanation of the particular fallacy of taking a part for the whole. More precise reasons are to be found. The leanness of understanding in the first believers was to be expected from the poor food their wits were fed on. The blame was not wholly theirs but lay upon their spiritual guides. The education of the backwoods clergy did not extend beyond the elements of a common English education.^[23] The most influential class of preachers, the Methodists, relying on the advice of Wesley, gloried in a 'saddle bags' education.^[24] It is unjust to disparage the itinerant missionaries who, for the sake of their religion, forded icy rivers and penetrated dark forests. This was the van of the army, there were also the camp followers,― the sectarian adventurers whom the settled clergy roundly denounced as 'evangelists destitute of classical and theological furniture, of feeble natural abilities, boisterous, vulgar, irreverent, fanatical.'^[25] These were the men behind the revivalistic excesses, and yet the people came miles to hear them, hanging on their words day after day, forgetting the cares of business and the very wants of the body.^[26] ​The eagerness of the people to hear something new and strange was matched by the opposition of the older churches. As Joseph's mother said, even before the Book of Mormon was printed, 'the different denominations are very much opposed to us.'^[27] All this fostered the rise of new sects; for the persecution of the larger bodies aroused the spirit of the smaller.

The pride of the sectary, the search for novelty, and mental impoverishment were some of the natural reasons magnifying the importance of the Mormon cult in the eyes of its votaries. In addition there were abnormal forces; at work as Joseph described the matter:—

It is here that Smith added to his previous claims the function of exorcist. His clever opportunism was shown in the natal month of the church. In April, 1830, says the official chronicle, 'the devil ​was cast out of Newel Knight through the administration of Joseph Smith, junior, in Colesville, Broom County, New York. This was the first miracle which was done in this Church, or by any member of it, and it was not done by men nor by the power of man, but it was done by God, and the power of godliness.'^[29]

There now begins a series of performances seemingly out of place in nineteenth century America,—the Salem witchcraft of a century and a half before reappears in the western wilds. There was the same belief in demoniac possession, the same class of neurotic and hysterical sufferers, the same clerical zeal in making capital out of the preternatural. Fortunately Joseph Smith was not a reincarnation of Cotton Mather. The severest mania took place under another's auspices, and, possibly from motives of jealousy, Smith did what he could to suppress this 'work of the Devil.'

The preconditions of the first 'miracle' were like those of the previous abnormalities. Reaction brought belief. As fast as apostolic 'gifts' were denied by the orthodox, the Latter-day Saints affirmed their restoration. Such mental habit was found in the first Mormon demoniac. 'By reading and searching the Bible,' says Newel Knight, 'I found that there would be a great falling away from ​the gospel, as preached and established by Jesus; that in the last days God would set His hand to restore that which was lost.'^[30] Soon after hearing the first public gospel sermon of this dispensation,^[31] and while in a state of mental and physical prostration, Knight was attacked by the power of Satan' and underwent 'curious actions while thus afflicted.'^[32] Smith himself tells how he met the crisis:—

Of the therapeutic aspect of this case more will be said later. As the history of obsession shows, it is the exorcist's mental suggestion, conscious or unconscious, that effects these 'miraculous cures.' As regards the psychic state of the patient, the presence of an hallucinatory image was afterwards admitted by Knight himself: Being 'cross-examined as to the devil cast out, I said to the lawyer "it will be of no use for me to tell you what the devil looked like, for it was a spiritual sight and spiritually discerned, and of course you would not understand if I were to tell you of it."'^[33]

The highly neurotic condition of the young body of believers was manifest in the first conference of the Church, a month later,—'many prophesied, others had the heavens opened to their view.' In the nature of things the prophet did not lose the advantage of the Saints' 'unspeakable joy.' As Knight recounts, 'to find ourselves engaged in the very same order of things as were observed and practiced by the holy apostles of old, combined to create within fresh zeal and energy in the cause of truth, and also to confirm our faith in Joseph Smith being the instrument in the hands of God, to restore ​the Priesthood again to man on earth and to set up the Kingdom of God.'^[34]

Six months after this came the Kirtland frenzy, when many many were 'strangely handled by the spirits.' It must be said that Smith did what he could to suppress the spasmodic attacks. But the people looking on the ecstasy as a 'sign,' the indirect results were of prime importance in the growth of the Church. A backbone was now put into the flabby embryo. One hundred members were added to the struggling Church and, more than all, there was brought on the scene the Reverend Sidney Rigdon, the so-called brains of Mormonism.^[35]

​A brief history of the latter is called for. An ex-Campbellite preacher and founder of a communistic body in Ohio, Rigdon was deemed learned in history and literature, and gifted in his flowery eloquence. He was first received with open arms by Smith, but became later 'a millstone on his back,' and was finally shaken off in 1843. If the Mormon accounts are further to be believed, Rigdon was the stormy petrel of the Church;—where he was, there was trouble. It was a Fourth-of-July oration of his that roused to fury 'the uncircumcised Philistines of Missouri.' As to Rigdon's undue influence over Smith much might be said on both sides.^[36] On the ​one hand, Joseph announced that Sidney was the messenger 'sent to prepare the way' before him, and not long after he ordained him prophet, seer and revelator. On the other hand, in 1841, Rigdon was ordered by revelation, to stay in Nauvoo; while in 1844, in the trial before the council, Smith openly charged him with 'wallowing in filthiness and corruption.' On expulsion from the Church, Rigdon withdrew to Pittsburg and published an anti-Mormon paper, the Messenger and Advocate of the Church of Christ.

In comparing the two men, a friend of both said that Rigdon 'did not possess the native intellect of Smith, and lacked his determined will.'^[37] There is, furthermore, reason for believing that Rigdon was mentally unsound. In old age, he writes that he ​was afflicted with paralysis; in boyhood, his brother said that he was injured in the head by falling from a horse; in 1832, long before their ecclesiastical partnership was dissolved, Smith described Rigdon as 'delereous.' On March 25th, the two had been 'severely mobbed' in Hiram, Ohio. 'The next morning,' narrates the prophet, 'I went to see Elder Rigdon, and found him crazy, and his head highly inflamed, for they had dragged him by his heels, and those too, so high from the earth he could not raise his head from the rough frozen surface which lascerated it exceedingly.' In 1840 Rigdon wrote 'my attendant physician has forbid my using any exertions, either mental or physical, as it will endanger my life.' Rigdon's erratic tendencies were cast in his teeth by his colleagues. Orson Hyde thus apostrophized him, in 1844: 'Mr. Rigdon, do you not remember how you came into a certain council about the 1st of April or latter part of March last, that had been organized by Joseph Smith; and also how you danced and shouted, and threw your feet so high that you came well nigh falling backwards upon the stove? Certainly you must remember this; for you frothed at the mouth like a mad man, and gave glory to God so long and loud that you became entirely hoarse and exhausted.' Whatever judgment may be passed on Rigdon morally, mentally his character was one of extremes ​and, as such, had an abnormal influence on early Mormondom; as Bishop Whitmer put it: 'He was always either in the bottom of the cellar or up in the garret window. At the time his license was taken in Kirtland he was more sanguine than he is now. The people were excited very much at that time.'

From all sides it is clear that Rigdon was the moving spirit in the Kirtland frenzy; but there were also deeper underlying causes at work; before considering these, a description of the trouble is needful. Rigdon's colleague, Parley Pratt, another influential Mormon convert, gives this account:—'As I went forth among the different branches some very strange spiritual operations were manifested, which were disgusting rather than edifying. Some persons would seem to swoon away, and make unseemly gestures, and be drawn or disfigured in their countenances. Others would fall into ecstasies, and would be drawn into contortions, cramps, fits, etc. Others would seem to have visions and revelations, which were not edifying, which were not congenial to the doctrine and spirit of the gospel. In short, a false and lying spirit seemed to be creeping into the Church.'^[38]

A general reason for these phenomena was the ubiquitous revival. In New York State the condi​tion of the audience at the protracted meetings is described as a condition of panic.^[39] In the West about 1800 the movement was more widespread and more severe. 'It was not confined to one denomination,' says the historian, even phlegmatic New England Presbyterians of the Reserve were influenced.^[40] Matters went so far that the convulsions were popularly classified into the falling, jerking, rolling and dancing varieties. The commonest state was one of ecstasy, a loss of muscular power and of consciousness of external objects like protracted catalepsy. The most alarming manifestation was the 'jerking exercise' in which several hundred of both sexes were seized with involuntary contortions, while their bodies hurried over fallen trunks or pews and benches. No one restrained them, for restraint was thought to be resisting the Spirit of God. The spasms were involuntary, because 'wicked men would be seized while guarding against them and cursing every jerk.'^[41] Such were the more remote causes of the later mania, for, in the same place, the same conditions were aroused by the frenzied preaching of Rigdon.

What occurred in 1830 was stranger than the events of a generation before. An account of an eyewitness presents the whole gamut of abnormal ​psychology:^[42]—'On the conversion of Rigdon, a most successful starting point was thought to have been obtained. Cowdery and his associates then began to develop the peculiarities of the new imposition. Scenes of the most wild, frantic and horrible fanaticism ensued. They pretended that the power of miracles was about to be given to all those who embraced the new faith, and commenced communicating the Holy Ghost, by laying their hands upon the heads of the converts, which operation, at first produced an instantaneous prostration of body and mind. Many would fall upon the floor, where they would lie for a long time, apparently lifeless. Thus they continued these enthusiastic exhibitions for several weeks. The fits usually came on, during or after their prayer meetings, which were held nearly every evening.—The young men and women were more particularly subject to this delirium. They would exhibit all the apish actions imaginable, making the most ridiculous grimaces, creeping upon their hands and feet, rolling upon the frozen ​ground, go through with all the Indian modes of warfare, such as knocking down, scalping, ripping open and tearing out the bowels. At other times, they would run through the fields, get upon stumps, preach to imaginary congregations, enter the water and perform all the ceremony of baptizing, etc. Many would have fits of speaking all the different Indian dialects, which none could understand. Again, at the dead hour of night, the young men might be seen running over the fields and hills in pursuit, as they said, of the balls of fire, lights, etc., which they saw moving through the atmosphere.'^[43]

The rest of the account may be condensed, for the subsequent 'spiritual phenomena'—less violent than these, took place under Smith's own auspices. There was first 'the gift of tongues,'—unconscious articulations declared by Joseph to be 'the pure Adamic,'^[44] but by an old trapper to be snatches of Indian dialects.^[45] There was next the gift of ​interpretation,'^[46]—carried away in the spirit the subject would profess to read the Bible in different languages. There was also the 'gift of prophecy,'—mounted on a stump the ecstatic would fancy themselves haranguing their red brethren, and would imitate the Indian in look and manner. Finally there were alleged acts of clairvoyance,—young men would pretend to read celestial messages on the palms of their hands and the lids of their Bibles.^[47]

​Another apostate, eight years an elder among the Mormonites, has given an account of similar doings among the Saints in England.^[48] He explains 'tongues' as due to ignorance, excitement, and a lack of vocabulary.^[49] Physiologically considered, this psychic Volapük is another case of decentralization: the higher brain centres having temporarily lost their sway, there ensues a loss of rational self-​control. In general the psycho-physical state of the Kirtland convulsionists was that to be found in a collection of religious visionaries.^[50] One young man admitted that he knew not what he did for two or three weeks. The general mental state is typified in the narrator's case: 'When I embraced Mormonism,' says Booth, 'I conscientiously believed it to be of God. The impressions of my mind were deep and powerful, and my feelings were excited 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.' To turn to Smith's connection with these matters: if he was the originator of the abnormal performances in New York, he was only the director of events in Ohio. Of the Kirtland branch, he says in his Journal, 'strange notions of false spirits had crept in among them. I soon overcame them with some wisdom.'^[51] Despite this superior attitude, there is abundant evidence of the primitiveness of his own notions; he held nearly the animistic view ​of the savage:^[52] to him, as to the Indian medicine man, it was not the soul of the sufferer but the soul of a demon, which entered in and caused the havoc. The elements of such belief, as sustained by popular mythology,^[53] and reinforced by a literal interpretation of Scripture, are present in Mother Smith's account. Speaking of the Kirtland branch of nearly one hundred members she cites,

Smith the opportunist again stands forth. Out of the morbid anatomy of his followers he drew hieratic authority to himself. He warns the Saints against being seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils';^[55] and then goes on to inquire:—

'Who can drag into daylight and develop the hidden mysteries of the false spirits that so frequently are made manifest among the Latter-day Saints? We answer that no man can do this without the Priesthood, and having a knowledge of the laws by which spirits are governed.'^[56]

In the meanwhile, through these signs and wonders in Ohio, and through the exodus of Saints from New York^[57] and the surrounding branches, the Church numbered two thousand. The fourth con​ference was held at Kirtland and several brethren were called by revelation to the office of High Priest.^[58] There now occurred further manifestations of the prophet's influence. June 4th, 1831, was set apart for 'mighty works.' The Saints had been prepared by fasting and prayer, and by the prophecy that they would see the Lord face to face.^[59] It is not asserted that the theophany came to pass, but other things did. By long speaking Smith and some others became much excited, hands were then laid on Elder Wright who arose and 'presented a pale countenance, a fierce look, with his arms extended, and his hands cramped back, the whole system agitated, and a very unpleasant object to look upon.'^[60] Nevertheless, the success in producing the ecstasy was not uniform. Some of the candidates felt the weight of Joseph's hands thrice before the thing was rightly done; finally the work got beyond his control and, as an eyewitness declared,—'then ensued a scene, of which you can form no adequate conception; and which, I would forbear relating, did not the truth require it. The elder moved upon the floor, his legs in​clining to a bend; one shoulder elevated above the other, upon which the head seemed disposed to recline, his arms partly extended; his hands partly clenched; his mouth partly open, and contracted in the shape of an italic O.'

Without prolonging the agony of quotation it is happily evident that, within two months, Smith had learned how far to go in these matters. On August 3d, at the dedication of the temple, as one of the number relates, 'hundreds of Elders spoke in tongues, but many of them, being young in the Church, and never having witnessed the manifestation of this gift before, felt a little alarmed. This caused the Prophet Joseph Smith to pray the Lord to withhold the spirit.'^[61]

Tracing the inception and development of obsession in the Mormon Church, it may safely be said that, as an exorcist, Smith at last reached the common sense standpoint of repression. It was not so with his followers. From the acts of the Mormon apostles, at home and abroad, a complete popular demonology might be reconstructed. A few examples may be cited to show that, although the prophet had ordained and dispatched his missionaries,^[62] he exercised little control over their doings. ​But it is better worth while to note how all this was preparatory to a wider rôle, how it all played into the hands of Joseph the faith healer. From the delusions of the patients and the misconceptions of the operators, one can get an idea of the material there was to work upon.

To take certain typical cases, in their order: Parley Pratt narrates that in 1836, near Toronto, Canada, he found a woman prostrated by some power and in an agony of distress. She was drawn and twisted in every limb, and, despite repressive measures, would be so drawn out of all shape as to only touch the bed with her heels and head. She often cried out that she could see two devils in human form, who would bruise and pinch her, and she could hear them talk. But as the bystanders could not see them, but only the effects they did not know what to think. 'Finally,' says Pratt, 'she runs to me for she said she knew she could be healed if she could but get a sight of the man of God.^[63]

How the Mormon leaders lugged in an enginery of spirits to explain a group of morbid symptoms is further exemplified in Elder Kimball's letter of 1837, on a 'singular circumstance.'^[64] The scene was laid in Lancashire, England; when Kimball ​attempted to lay hands on a brother afflicted with evil spirits, he began to 'tremble and reel to and fro, and fell on the floor like a dead man.' Then, as another elder explains, 'the devils were exceeding angry because we attempted to cast them out; they made a powerful attempt upon Elder Kimball and struck him senseless. But we laid our hands on him, he recovered his strength in part, and we could very sensibly hear the evil spirits rage and foam out their shame. Br Kimball was quite weak for a day or two after.'

The medieval point of view, the utter ignorance of natural causes, the reading in of preconceived notions are all to be found in the parallel accounts.^[65] ​Moreover the operators were but once on the outskirts of the truth,—that the mental influence of the bystanders has something to do with the matter. Curiously enough the latter instance happened in the year in which a London physician was utilizing in his practice the suggestive side of mesmerism.^[66] In 1839, in his mission to England, Elder Woodruff tried to cast a devil from a woman, 'but,' he explains, 'the unbelief of the wicked present was so great that we could not cast the devil out of her, and she raged worse than ever; when the room was cleared succeeded, she was cured and fell asleep.'^[67]

It was by virtue of 'faith' that Smith affected some alleviations of non-organic troubles; he had ​learned by experience the prime value of the subject's attitude of trust. It was much less so with his ministers of healing. In 1844, in Virginia,^[68] after a Sunday service of baptism and confirmation, six elders had a 'contest with evil spirits.' It was presumably a case of hysterics, which ultimately spread and alternately affected three girls for thirty-​six hours. The narrator, at first, blundered into success,—without thinking, he commanded the devil to depart, and the girl was restored to her normal condition. When the hysteria became collective, and the imps seemed to play tag from one poor creature to another, the Mormon elders were as helpless as were the Puritan divines before the Salem witches.

One more example will show the aboriginality of the Latter-day Saints belief. Elder Hill, while a missionary among the Shoshone and Bannock Indians, found eight or nine of them possessed of the evil one.^[69] In attempting to bestow upon them 'baptism for the health,' he found that they had been practicing too much witchcraft and black art.

Without entering upon the psychology of the ​Lamanites, or citing more of these 'early scenes in church history,'^[70] one can understand how a regular Mormon demonology came, after a manner, to be ​formulated. Thus Whitmer avowed, 'False spirits, which come as an Angel of Light, are abroad in the world,'^[71] and Woodruff announced,—'after a powerful attack of the enemy,—I estimate one hundred evil spirits to every person on earth whose whole mission and labor is to lead men to do evil.'^[72]