are represented as able combatants—but the Universalist finally gets angry, and he draws his sword upon pious Gideon and kills him, which was the occasion of his being arraigned before his honor, Judge Alma. The declaration includes two counts—one of being guilty of priesteraft, and the other for attempting to enforce it by the sword. The murder of good old Gideon, was not set forth in the declararation, and therefore we suppose it was no crime to commit homicide in that early day, although it be a priest who is the victim. Nehor is, however, sentenced to die, as an example to those who might be guilty of the high crime of priesteraft, thereafter. But the sequel informs us that the ignominious death of Nehor, served no purpose in preventing priesteraft, and from that period the Nephites were greatly annoyed by impostors and preachers of the Devil.
The Book of Alma contains 204 pages and reaches down to the sixty-ninth year of the Judges, and is principally taken up in giving accounts of mighty wars and great generals. The civil, the military, and the ecclesiastial authoriy, were usually vested in the same individual; representing them as conducting the government much after the Mosaic polity. The miserable manner in which the story is told, renders it extremely irksome to the reader; but the knight errantry of Don Quixote bears no parallel, nor does the history of the Peloponnesian wars speak of such generals, nor of such brave achievements, as the book of Alma.—Besides, in the sixty-nine years, many large cities were founded and built, fortifications were erected, military costumes of great splendor were manufactured and worn.—Their implements of war consisted of swords, spears, scimitars, javelins, bows and arrows, slings, &c. We can see no propriety in the omission by the author of the use of guns and amunition. We think it would have been as credible as most of the events of the narrative, and would have been matter for Mormon credulity and admiration.
