From the Columbus (Ill.) Advocate

THE MORMONS.-These unfortunate beings-unfortunate in the estimation of the newspaper scribblers-are perhaps the subject of more notoriety than almost any thing else that has for the last year agitated our mundane sphere. All sorts of stories are afloat reflecting on their alleged wickedness and the dangers to which the citizens of Illinois are constantly exposing themselves by permitting them to hold an asylum on our territory. We saw it stated not long since-in the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser we think-that there had been a skirmish between the militia of the State of Illinois and the Mormon forces, in which the latter were severely beaten, sixteen lives lost and property confiscated by the ruthless mob who had collected from the neighboring counties, and the opposite side, Missouri. Another New York print states that Joe Smith has been kidnapped and taken, no one know where-that the greatest disorder and excitement pervade the Holy City. These stories, got up by the scullions of the press, may all do very well in the East, where alone a morbid taste for mystery and a delight for evil seems to be coeval with their existence. But it is passing strange to us how any well informed editor--Col. STONE for instance; can give publicity to these "idle tales, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Here in our own State, where Mormonism rears its bold front, these vague rumors and strange disclosures, only excite the ridicule and contempt they so justly deserve. Would it not be as well, if the eastern press would desist from their course, and bestow their sympathies upon the more charitable subjects who are the immediate causes of so much misery in their own vicinities? We think so.