Who can say whom the finger of God will touch?

Joseph Morris could. Problem is, he was wrong.

Morris was one of those myriad prophets, visionaries, and kooks who litter the American religious tradition. Born in England, he came to America, was inspired by Mormonism, went to Utah, proved to be utterly unlucky in love, decided he was a prophet, founded his own sect -- and got into a war with the Mormons which ended with Morris dead and his sect dispersed. A few small groups of believers survived for decades, but it was never the same after Morris declared that the world was going to end and it didn't. (Except for Morris, anyway, since he was spouting prophecies of rescue just hours before his death.)

This book tells the story in a fairly straightforward way, and is the only popular book on the subject. If you want to know the story of one particular bunch of religious nuts, this is the book for you.

It leaves a lot of questions, though. It seems pretty clear that Morris believed his nonsense, for instance -- he wasn't Joseph Smith out to make a name for himself. But what put the nonsense into his head? And why, if he was so unsuccessful as a human being, was he able to get people to join his ridiculous sect? Plus, what exactly was the role of the Mormon hierarchy in suppressing the Morrisites?

That last one is likely unanswerable; the Mormons just don't reveal the records of the Brigham Young-era church. And we can't very well send a psychiatrist back in a time machine to try to diagnose Morris. But the one thing I really missed in this book was a better understanding of why things happened. Yes, it would have been speculation. But it would have made the whole thing seem more real. As it is, the whole story just seems inexplicable. ( )