Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Jesse Jasper Moss's Recollections of His Interactions with Latter-day Saints (Spring 1831)

Jesse Jasper Moss was a Campbellite preacher and early critic of the Church. He married a niece of E.D. Howe in November 1831. The following are his recollections from Spring 1831 (sharing this as portions are cited by critics):  


SPYING ON A MORMON MEETING

 

About this time a new supply of preachers came from New York with some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon among them Parley Pratt and Martin Harris. Soon afterwards they began to have visitations of angels among them. I was suspicious of these angels from the first. When they partook of the sacrament they always did so at night. In preparation for this they would exclude everybody from the room but their leaders and would then hang up blankets and quilts at the windows. When all was ready they would open the doors and let the people in. I determined to stay through one of their services of the sacrament, so a friend and I went to a meeting with that intention. He went to sleep just before the time to exclude the people, and I became possessed of a deaf-and-dumb devil and they could not make me understand anything. After a time they decided to leave us along and go on with their ceremony. My companion awakened and we saw the whole performance. I became satisfied that their power was in the wine, so I tried to steal a bottle and would have succeeded if I had been wearing the cloak I usually wore.

 

Persons coming from abroad were invited to stay with them overnight and were invariably baptized by them in the morning. Soon they began to invite residents to stay all night with them, and they were also baptized next day. In this way they began to make converts again and I wondered how it was. I asked some of them what had made them change their minds, and their answer was, "If you could see what we have seen you would be convinced too."

 

"But what have you seen?" I asked.

 

"Oh, we dare not tell!" they replied.

 

This aroused my suspicion still more, and I determined to ferret the matter out if possible. For this purpose I ceased all opposition to them and became very grave and sober in their meetings. Soon they began to entertain hopes of my conversation and my friends began to be very uneasy about me. Although they talked to me about it and solemnly warned me I kept my own counsel. I soon got an invite the Mormons to stay all night with them. As this was what I was working for I gladly accepted, but so many strangers came from abroad that they could not accommodate me. They, therefore, requested me to put off until the next night, and I reluctantly compiled. The next day Bro. Matthew Clapp came from Mentor to see me, and taking me into the field after school reasoned with me and pleaded apparently in vain. But when he wept and worked on my feelings and sympathies, I told him my suspicions and plans enjoining the strictest secrecy upon him until I should have the opportunity to test the matter. The next night the same difficulty occurred and I was again requested to wait until a later night. In the meantime Brother Clapp could not forbear to relieve the minds of some of the anxious brethren, and the story got out so that the Mormons heard it and the plot was spoiled.

 

I then stated publicly my suspicions. I said I had studied the black arts, or necromancy, and knew just how their angels were made, and showed how it could be done. I stated that if I had succeeded in getting to stay there all night, I would have had a wrestle with the angel, and that I was sure it would have been of flesh and blood. Perhaps, however, it was best that I failed in my plan and it may be that I was foolhardy, for they might have taken my life rather than be exposed.

 

THE ANGEL GOES UNDER

 

This incident and other that took place just at that time put a stop to their angel visits and their making converts by keeping them overnight. The other circumstance was this: As they went to the water to baptize at the close of an evening service, an angel appeared on the bank of the stream opposite the group and walked out on the water and stood viewing the scene. The next night they had some more to baptize and they announced beforehand that the angel would appear again and would speak to them. Some persons, suspecting a trick, examined the place and found a two-inch plank fixed in the manner of a spring board just beneath the surface of the water. They sawed the plank almost in two. Next evening, when the angel walked out upon the water the plank gave way, there was a splash and a shriek as the angel's bright and shining glory was extinguished beneath the waves. It proved itself very much flesh and blood as it scrambled desperately to get to shore. The young men who sawed the board were lying in wait to catch the angel, but it escaped by jumping down a high bank and disappearing.

 

[TO BE CONTINUED]

(Jesse Jasper Moss, “Autobiography of a Pioneer Preacher,” ed. M. M. Moss, in Christian Standard, January 15, 1938, 22-23)

 

[CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK]

 

It was getting near springtime and Joseph Smith sent these Mormons a revelation that their performance were of the devil and must cease. Accordingly they partook of the sacrament in the daytime, in the presence of all the people, and their conflicts with the devil, their preaching to the Indians and the visits of the angels all came to an end. None, however, but their members, were allowed to see their revelations. At one time a large company gathered at a pubic house to converse with Martin Harris, who had returned from New York with certain revelations. His hat sat upon the table in the room where we were gathered and in it I discovered a copy of the revelations. I quietly abstracted them and, whispering to Brother Jones and wife who were present, I took Brother Tanuer with me and left the house. We went directly to the home of Brother Jones and copied them entire. We then returned and I deposited the original revelations in Harris' hat without his having missed them. Soon there were copies of these revelations circulating among the people. It was always a great mystery to the Mormons how these revelations became known, and they could get no revelations to solve the mystery. I don't believe they have solved the problem up to this day.

 

MORMON BAIT

 

At the close of school I entered into a matrimonial contract with the girl who was to be my wife. In the meantime her mother and her aunt had joined the Mormons, so that when I went to get her mother's consent to our marriage, she refused. By this time Joseph Smith had come to Kirtland and she went to him for counsel on the matter. He got a revelation that I was to be converted to Mormonism and that I would become a bright and shining light in the Mormon church—a bait to my ambition. The revelation said that she might give her daughter to me with perfect safety, so she gave her consent. Time has shown the falsity of that revelation. Had it said that I was to convert the mother from Mormonism it would have been of more value as a prophecy. (Jesse Jasper Moss, “Autobiography of a Pioneer Preacher,” ed. M. M. Moss, in Christian Standard, January 22, 1938, 8)