By Curt Bench
Along with countless others in the Church, I owe Parley P. Pratt a debt of gratitude for several reasons. One is that he helped me on my mission—not personally, of course; despite what my kids think, I’m not that old! Instead, with his 1837 book, A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People . . . , he provided one of the first systematic and reasoned treatises on the basic tenets of Mormonism, one that had enormous impact on the early development of Mormon doctrine and the growth of the Church. By the time I reached the mission field, the book had gone through dozens of editions and printings. I acquired a paperback reprint as part of the assigned mission curriculum and read the book twice. I found myself in awe of Pratt, whom bibliographer Peter Crawley calls the “Father of Mormon Pamphleteering.” In their important new biography of Pratt, Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow point out that Voice of Warning “aspired to lay out in readable format the essence of Mormonism for member and non-Mormon alike. [It] had no peer and, for many decades, little competition” (114–15).
Little did I know then, not many years later, I would handle many more copies of that enormously important book—at first, paperback reprints, and later, first and other early editions. I was present at an auction in 1999 where an 1837 first edition sold for more than $40,000. Recently, I acquired the less valuable, but still quite scarce, second edition, which was published in 1839. Between the first and second editions, a number of changes were made to the text, but one of the most fascinating is the addition of a notice on the verso (reverse) of the title page:
$300
Is offered, by the author of this work, to any one who will successfully refute the principles of Theology herein set forth. The Scriptures being the test; and the decision to be made by three disinterested persons, who are not attached to any religious party.
In his first volume of A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, Crawley comments: “Given the latitude of scriptural interpretation, this notice must have caused Parley some anxious moments. At any rate it does not appear in any of the subsequent editions”(98). I have not discovered evidence of any serious claimants to the reward in Parley’s day, but had that challenge been extant when I was in the mission field in the deep South, I was acquainted with more than a few “concerned Christians” who would have been very happy to attempt refutation of the book’s claims and collect the reward.
Doubtless, Parley would have welcomed attempts from any challenger. In addition to more general missionary tracts, Pratt sometimes wrote spirited rejoinders to the publications of contemporary critics of the fledgling Church. Some of his titles are quite descriptive and entertaining, such as Mormonism Unveiled: Zion’s Watchman Unmasked, and its Editor, Mr. L. R. Sunderland, Exposed: Truth Vindicated: the Devil Mad, and Priestcraft in Danger! Another colorful tract bore the subtle title of: History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri Upon the Mormons, in Which Ten Thousand American Citizens Were Robbed, Plundered, and Driven from the State, and Many Others Imprisoned, Martyred, &c., for Their Religion, and All This by Military Force, by Order of the Executive. Most book titles we see today are downright boring and unimaginative (not to mention, much shorter) by comparison. I am also unaware of a single offer of a reward in any of today’s LDS books for the successful refutation of their content.
By the way, adjusting for inflation on $300 since 1839, the equivalent reward today would be $7250!
