Mormons Cite Interest in Church Foe’s Documents

Mormon Church officials say they will “watch with interest” the study of documents a Houston man says were written by William E. McLellin, an early apostle who later turned against the faith and its founder, Joseph Smith.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said “considerable public interest” had been aroused by the discovery of letters and journals thought to have belonged to McLellin.

The collection is owned by H. Otis Traughber, who says the papers have been in his family’s possession for more than a century. (Many documents are handwritten copies of papers written by McLellin.) They are expected to be studied extensively.

Text of Letter

The church also released what it said was a text of a letter written by McLellin in 1880 in which he wrote that though he was a harsh critic of the church, his faith in the “divine truth” of the Book of Mormon was unshaken.

The Book of Mormon, along with the Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants and the Bible, make up the standard scriptural works of the church.

Police investigating two fatal October bombings have said a collection of McLellin’s writings may have figured in the slayings of Salt Lake City stockbroker Steven Christensen and Kathy Sheets, the wife of a Christensen associate, Gary Sheets.

Although charges have not been filed in the bombings, police continue to say that Mormon documents dealer Mark Hofmann is a prime suspect in the case. Investigators say Hoffman, who was injured in a blast in his car the day after the deaths, was trying to sell a McLellin collection shortly before the bombings.

Watching With Interest

In the church’s statement, spokesman Richard Lindsay said the faith would “watch with interest the study of the (McLellin) documents. . . .”

McLellin joined the church in 1831 and later was ordained an apostle, or a member of the church governing body from which a president is chosen. He had a falling-out with Smith and left the faith, becoming a bitter opponent of the man Mormons believe was directed by God to preach the “restored Gospel” to the world. McLellin remained a foe of the church until his death in 1883.

In a letter written to James T. Cobb of Salt Lake City on Aug. 14, 1880, now in possession of the New York Public Library’s rare books and manuscripts division, McLellin wrote that he had “more confidence in the Book of Mormon than any book of this wide earth.”