Читать книгу Essentials in Church History - Joseph Fielding Smith - Страница 176

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The next day the trial began before three justices. The most able help had been secured to prosecute the case while the defense was again represented by Esquires Reid and Davidson. Many witnesses were called who bore false and contradictory testimony. Newel Knight was placed upon the stand and questioned in ridicule by one of the lawyers, named Seymour, in relation to the casting out of a devil from his person, but the testimony turned to the discomfiture of the prosecution.

At the close of the testimony the court deliberated for about thirty minutes, although it was then nearly two o’clock a.m. and they had been in session since the morning of the previous day. The prisoner was brought before the court and the presiding justice said: “Mr. Smith, we have had your case under consideration, examined the testimony and find nothing to condemn you, and therefore you are discharged.” The judges then proceeded to reprimand him severely, “Not because anything derogatory to his character in any shape had been proved against him by the host of witnesses that had testified during the trial,” said Mr. Reid, “but merely to please those fiends in human shape who were engaged in the unhallowed persecution of an innocent man, sheerly on account of his religious opinions.”