General News.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3675, 5 October 1880, Page 3

General News.

In a number of Scribner's Magazine, just issued, a lady contributor makes an interesting addition to the solution of that bibliographical puzzle known as the Book of Mormon. It has frequently been asserted that the founders of the Church of the Latter-day Saints had obtained the substances oi their pretended revelation from an historical romance written by the Her. Solomon Spaulding. Miss Dickenson, the writer of the article, is the grandniece of this clerical novelist, and has obtained from his daughter, Mrs M. S. M'Minstry, a sworn statement of the circumstances, so far as they were known to her. Spaulding, who was born in 1761 and educated in Dartmouth College, preached a few years, but finally gave it up on account of ill health. He appears to have been a man of imaginative temperament, and deeply impressed with a fanciful theory that the "Indian tribes of the American continent are the remnant and descendants of the lost ten tribes. During a residence in Ohio the excavation of an earth mound containing skeletons and other relics of pre historic man appears to have excited his imagination, and he began to write and read to his family and friends a visionary chronicle of the peopling of America by the chosen people. This literary effort to which he gate the title " Manuscript Found," made him a man of some distinction in the neighbourhood. He sought to have his book published, and offered it to a Pittsborg printer, who however declined to speculate in the matter. It is suggested that while there the MS. was copied by Sydney Eigdon, who was then in the office, and who was afterwards one of the early associates.of Joseph Smith. MrsM'ltinstry has still a vivid recollection of hearing her father read portions of his tale, and the names Mormon, Moroni, and Nephiare still fresh in her mind. Of the general identity of Spaulding's romance and Smith's pretended revelation there appears little doubt. Smith whose character was none of the best, saw in the wild story of the ex-clergyman the materials out of which to construct a new religion, and fearlessly made use of them. Liberal-minded people have been recently amused at tne measures adopted in Sydney to prevent Mr E. Proctor from giving lectures on Sunday evenings. Considering the manner in which freethinkers have been treated in New . South Wales, Mr Proctor may, perhaps, congratulate himself that nothing was done to him by way of punishment for daring to attempt to attract a God-fear-ing public from church. It is not ten years ago since a Mr W. L. Jones, f<r characterising the Bible as an immoral book, was sentenced to be imprisoned for two years with hard labor, and to pay a fine of £100! We are inclined to think that Mr Jones was speedily released, and the fine remitted, but we forget whether District Judge Simpson, of Paramatta, who passed the sentence, was removed from the Bench. A London journal, commenting upon this case, remarked that the jury who convicted Mr Jones without a minute's consultation, were probably actuated by the motive .which influenced the judge who passed sentence —a desire to check infidelity. They have done their best to promote it. The instruments adopted were used of old to check Christianity, and in later days to check the Eeformation. They fatally damage every cause in which they are employed. If religious liberty means anything, it means the right of men io hold opinions on critical or speculative subjects which may be untrue in themselves, and repulsive to their neighbours; to give them the most pointed expression in which they can clothe them, and to defend them by such arguments as are in their power. The more unreasonable and revolting the sentiments are which* are thus advanced, the less necessary is it to have recourse to other weapons than those of reason and right feeling in repressing them. The Sydney Bulletin has the following : —"Business is bad in New Zealand. One Dunedin Bank, which carries on business in a gorgeous pile in the city's centre, has on its ledgers at least a hundred accounts the happy proprietors of which never get overdrafts, and never have cash balances exceeding £5. In fact, down there it is a very common practice for a fellow to draw a cheque for £2, suddenly recollect that he has only £1 at credit, and after borrowing 25s from his nearest ' uncle,* to rush the big financial institution in order that his 'credit' may not bo damaged, and that the majesty attaching to the ownership of a bank account of any kind may be properly sustained. The general manager receives £2200 per annum, and the clerks all round the building an average of about £10 per month. They're working the bank with very young Scotchmen,' City of Glasgow' men chiefly, just now ; and so long as ' screws' keep up to their present splendid proportions, not a single bank clerk will object to the importation of Chinese cheap labor. 1' Our contemporary had better try again. At & meeting of the Ballarat Miners' Association the following resolution was passed.—" That this association is of opinion that not less than four men shall be employed to the acre of land occupied from the' Crown for quartz mining, whether held by lease or under miner's rights, and each claim shall not exceed ten acres, superficial measure, the length and breadth to be equal." The company appointed for the revision of the authorised version of the Old Testament concluded their 64th session online 9th August. The revision of the EJ|£ of Job was continued as far as chapter xxxviii., 35. In the Athenaeum of June 12 it is stated that the revised version of the New Testament would appear during the autumn. That journal now states that the publication will not take place until the spring of 1881, when the Greek texts, which are being prepared for the Universities by Archdeacon Palmer and Prebendary Scrivener, will no doubt be completed. The Tree of Liberty, planted at Paris in 1792, in what is now the Eve Geoffroy-. Saint-Hilaire, and which was decorated for the national fete, is a poplar, still green and flourishing.