The Rev. C. W. Lawrence's "Few Words from a Pastor to His People on the Subject of the Latter-day Saints," Replied to and Refuted by James Linforth
- Pamphlet
- Liverpool: Printed by J. Sadler, 1851
Liverpool: Printed by J. Sadler, 1851. Pamphlet. Very Good. 8pp. Octavo [22.5 cm]; unsewn pamphlet. Complete and sharp copy, lightly age toned and with minor staining and wear at edges and margins. We can locate ten institutional copies. According to Crawley "James Linforth was an assistant editor of the 'Millennial Star' and the book agent for the Liverpool Conference when he issued his response to Charles Washington Lawrence, the incumbent of St. Luke's Church in Liverpool. A few months earlier Linforth had published a five-part article in the 'Star,' "Baptismal Regeneration, or the Controversy in the Church of England," so he was undoubtedly primed to reply to Lawrence when he attacked the Saints. The 'Star' of July 1, 1851, ran the last two pages of 'The Rev. C.W. Lawrence's Replied and Refuted,' with the comment that it "was recently published in Liverpool" - suggesting that it was printed about June 1851. The European Mission financial records for the period do not mention the tract, so Linforth must have published and distributed it himself.
No copy of Lawrence's tract is located, but the quotations from it in the 'Rev C.W. Lawrence's Replied and Refuted' indicate that it was mainly an attack on the claims and character of Joseph Smith. Linforth defends Joseph Smith by noting that, although he had never known him, he knew eight of the Twelve, "for the purity of whose characters and lives I can vouch - who were personally acquainted with him, had lived with him, had been imprisoned with him, and one of them shot with him at Carthage, and their testimony to me is, that he was a man of God." He includes statements by John S. Reid, John C. Bennett, and O.H. Browning attesting to Joseph Smith's integrity, each cited in the 'Times of Seasons,' and summarizes the events surrounding his assassination, quoting Thomas Ford from the 'Times and Seasons.' He suggests that the character of the followers reflects that of Joseph Smith and gives excerpts from Thomas L. Kane's 'The Mormons' and Truman Smith's 'Speech of Mr. Smith....Delivered in the Senate of the United States, July 8, 1850' praising the Mormon people. In response to Lawrence's use of the Charles Anthon letter in E.D. Howe's 'Mormonism Unvailed,' he adds a long excerpt from the sixth part of Orson Pratt's 'Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon.' In the last two pages Linforth attacks Lawrence's priestly authority and the Church of England's practice of infant baptism. The Reid and Smith quotations appear to have been taken from James F. Bell's 'Reply to a Bare Faced Falsehood and Misrepresentations of Mr. John Theobold." Crawley 585. Flake/Draper 4943.
No copy of Lawrence's tract is located, but the quotations from it in the 'Rev C.W. Lawrence's Replied and Refuted' indicate that it was mainly an attack on the claims and character of Joseph Smith. Linforth defends Joseph Smith by noting that, although he had never known him, he knew eight of the Twelve, "for the purity of whose characters and lives I can vouch - who were personally acquainted with him, had lived with him, had been imprisoned with him, and one of them shot with him at Carthage, and their testimony to me is, that he was a man of God." He includes statements by John S. Reid, John C. Bennett, and O.H. Browning attesting to Joseph Smith's integrity, each cited in the 'Times of Seasons,' and summarizes the events surrounding his assassination, quoting Thomas Ford from the 'Times and Seasons.' He suggests that the character of the followers reflects that of Joseph Smith and gives excerpts from Thomas L. Kane's 'The Mormons' and Truman Smith's 'Speech of Mr. Smith....Delivered in the Senate of the United States, July 8, 1850' praising the Mormon people. In response to Lawrence's use of the Charles Anthon letter in E.D. Howe's 'Mormonism Unvailed,' he adds a long excerpt from the sixth part of Orson Pratt's 'Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon.' In the last two pages Linforth attacks Lawrence's priestly authority and the Church of England's practice of infant baptism. The Reid and Smith quotations appear to have been taken from James F. Bell's 'Reply to a Bare Faced Falsehood and Misrepresentations of Mr. John Theobold." Crawley 585. Flake/Draper 4943.