Dialogue between a Latter-day Saint and an Enquirer after Truth. (Reprinted from the Star of January 1.) To which is added, a Solemn Warning to the Methodists. By one who was formerly a Preacher among them.
Manchester: Published by P.P. Pratt, [1842]. 4pp. Octavo [22.5 cm] This work has not been sewn. Minor age toning. We are able to locate five institutional copies. Item #35144
According to Crawley " The first three and half pages of this tract, containing the dialogue between Enquirer and Saint, were printed from a rearrangement of the same typesetting used to print the dialogue in the Millennial Star of January 1842. Thomas Smith's 'Interesting Letter from Cheltonham', which is dated December 30, 1841, occupies the last half of the fourth page and appears only in the tract. Apparently this letter reached Parley Pratt after the January issue of the Star had been struck off, and since Smith had asked that his letter be printed and it made an appropriate companion piece for the dialogue, Parley issued the two together on pamphlet form.
Dialogue directly attacks the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, and especially the Methodist Church, without a specific anti-Mormon work in mind, and thus marks a departure from earlier Mormon publications. Undoubtedly it arose out of the clergy's continuing anti-Mormon barrage, which the Star of December comments upon. The dialogue defends immersion as the proper mode of baptism and argues at length against baptizing infants; since the traditional churches erroneously administer this ordinance, it contends, they must be in a state of apostasy. Latter-day Saints avoid these errors, the dialogue concludes, because their doctrines were received by divine revelation. Thomas Smith's letter describes his conversion from Methodism to Mormonism and warns the Methodists not to 'oppose the work of the Lord.'" Crawley 138. Flake/Draper 6567.
Price: $3,500.00