| 491 to lay hands on those whom he had baptized, for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and at the same time he acknowledged that he had not got the Holy Ghost himself, by praying that he might receive it (Query, How can a man communicate that which he is not in possession of?), and he now calls his church 'The Church of Latter Day Saints.'
"Thus has Mr. Matthews been running about from Bedford to Liverpool, from Liverpool to Northampton, from Northampton to Bedford, and other places, crying aloud in public and private that the Latter Day Saints and their doctrines came from hell; at the same time has been preaching the same doctrines, calls his church by the same name, is administering in the same ordinances, just as though he fully believed that the doctrines and sacraments of hell would be sanctified and made holy and heavenly when administered by the tongue and hands of an impostor.
"About the time that Mr. Matthews rejected the truth in Bedford his son (as Mr. Matthews called him), the Rev. Robert Aitkin, commenced his attack on the principles of righteousness in Preston; and while furiously pounding his pulpit with the Book of Mormon and warning his people to beware of the Latter Day Saints and their doctrines, saying that they and their record came from hell, called upon his people to use all their efforts to put down the work of God or stop the progress of the Latter Day Saints; and if it could not be put down without, prayed that God would smite the leaders; and from that time to the present his prayer has been answered on his own head.
"After Mr. Aitkin had preached against the corruptions of the Church of England for years, and established many flourishing chapels in Liverpool, Preston, Manchester, Burslem, London, etc.; after he had been visited by the elders of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and acknowledged to them at one time that baptism was right, but he could find no man who had authority to baptize; and at another time that he was afraid of them, and rejected their testimony; and last of all would not receive the elders into his house;-after all this, and deserted by a part of his flock, he has fled from the remainder because he was an hireling and
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