Professor Turner of Illinois College, thus addresses Joseph Smith.
"I have charitably sought to find some ground for believing that you
and your comrades were only a new species of religious maniacs. I
have sought in vain. A man, however kindly disposed to think well of
you, after a thorough examination of your career, might as well
attempt to believe your religion, as to regard you in any other
light than that of a deliberate, cold-blooded, persevering deceiver.
I do not pretend that in the outset you even anticipated the final
result. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that at first
your aims rose no higher than those of ordinary vagrants and
jugglers. You have not even the poor merit of either talent or
originality. Your highest aim has ever been to crawl among the
droves of reptile impostors who have preceded you, and though your
ignorance and utter incapacity have not suffered you to turn aside
from their loathsome track, your fortunate union with others of
greater ability, who have entered into your secrets, and the
lamentable credulity of the times, have enabled you to attain a more
signal and desolating success than most of your predecessors."
PAGE 44. "Mahomet" &c.
In the course of the trial of Joseph Smith and others, for high treason
against the state of Missouri, George M. Hinkle testified as follows:
"I have heard Joseph Smith say, that he believed Mahomet was a good
man; that the Koran was not a true thing, but that the world belied
Mahomet as they belied him, and that Mahomet was a true prophet."
John Corrill also testified that he had heard Joseph Smith say publicly,
"that if people molested him he would establish his religion by the
sword; and that he would become to this generation a second Mahomet."