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the world, would be to profess myself a convert to his doctrines, and join him at the seat of his dominion. I felt confident that from my standing in society, and the offices I held under the state of Illinois, I should be received by the Mormons with open arms; and that the course I was resolved to pursue would enable me to get behind the curtain, and behold, at my leisure, the secret wires of the fabric, and likewise those who moved them.

I was quite aware of the danger I ran, should I be suspected or detected by the Mormons; and I also anticipated the probability of being received by many of my fellow-citizens with disbelief and obloquy, when the time came to throw off the mask, and proclaim to the world the discoveries I felt certain I should make. But none of these things deterred me. Impelled by a determination to save my country and my countrymen from the evils which menaced them through the machinations of the Prophet, I was rendered insensible to the risk I incurred. There was, it was evident, no other way of thwarting the Impostor and his myrmidons, and the plan I proposed to myself could not possibly, so far as I could foresee, fail of complete success.

I found in history a distinguished example of a somewhat parallel case,—that in which Napoleon, for the furtherance of the views of the French government upon Egypt and the East, had nominally adopted the Moslem creed. The following is the passage in his Life to which I refer:—

"Buonaparte entertained the strange idea of persuading the Moslems that he himself pertained in some sort to their religion, being an envoy of the Deity, sent on earth, not to take away, but to confirm and complete, the doctrines of the Koran, and the mission of Mahomet. He used, in executing this purpose, the inflated language of the East, the more easily that it corresponded, in its allegorical and amplified style, with his own natural tone of composition; and he hesitated not to join in the external ceremonial of the Mahommedan religion, that his actions might seem to confirm his words. The French general celebrated the feast of the Prophet, as it recurred, with some Sheik of eminence, and joined in the litanies and worship enjoined by the Koran. He affected, too, the language of an inspired follower of the faith of Mecca, of which the following is a curious example:—

"On entering the sepulchral chamber in the pyramid of Cheops, 'Glory be to Allah,' said Buonaparte; there is no God but God,