Cold and Smith

Apologies for the hiatus. I was away at the weekend and, since coming back, have been afflicted with a stinking 'cold' – yes, just in time for the festivities, though I'm hoping it might be a short-lived one. Anyway, I see that today is the 220th birthday of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism and, ultimately, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. As it happens, I bumped into two missionaries for this Church in Lichfield the other day. Both young men were, as you'd expect, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and squeaky-clean (I read somewhere that the CIA recruits heavily from among the Mormons, as they are about the only candidates who can never be compromised). They made the mistake of asking me what I believed, and it was a pleasure to see the regret spreading over their faces. When I told them I had to be on my way, they were probably relieved.
  The young missionaries, unsurprisingly, assured me that those mysterious golden plates discovered by Joseph Smith were genuine, inscribed with a genuine archaic language, and entirely reliable in their account of the indigenous American tribe of Israel. Well, each to his own. Having had a look online, I now know that Smith, having run into all kinds of trouble from his opponents, was finally killed by an angry mob, and that his death made him the first American presidential candidate to be assassinated. You live and learn.