T. C. Smith 
 
 The Credentials of the 
 Booh of Mormon and 
 • Mormoniss 
 
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 237 WEST FIRST AVENUE, DENVER, COLORADO 
 
Zo tbe IReaber 
 
 This work is a Compendium of Mormonism, its history, 
 its prophet, its book and its status of today. It proposes 
 to put into the hands of Christians, in a cheap and por- 
 table form, such data as will be an answer to the claims 
 of the Mormon Missionary and an antidote to his doctrines. 
 
 The American people are stolidly indifferent to the 
 persistent Mormon propaganda carried on among them. 
 Twelve to fifteen hundred missionaries, constantly at 
 work, have distributed 175,000 copies of the Book of Mor- 
 mon and millions of pieces of literature, in the United 
 States. Something of their activity may be demonstrated 
 by any minister asking his congregation how many have 
 been called upon by the Mormon Missionary, and seeing 
 the great number of hands that will go up. 
 
 Another and indeed a principal purpose in writing 
 this work has been to make it a missionary force in 
 Utah. One thousand copies of this number have been set 
 aside to send to Mormon readers as soon as their names 
 and addresses can be obtained. The Latter Day Saints 
 may help further this purpose by sending names of friends 
 whom they would like to have read them. The number is 
 limited, and "first come first served." 
 
 The pamphlet form has been chosen instead of a book 
 because of the advantage it offers of wide distribution. 
 Each number will have a completeness, or finality of its 
 own, so that each will be a definite message. Ten to fif- 
 teen copies of this number may be sent out for the price 
 of a book, speaking to ten times as many people. 
 
 And many people will be persuaded to buy and read 
 a pamphlet, who would not think of buying the book. 
 
 The writer has many friends among the Mormons. 
 6ome of them will remember the friendly tilts they had 
 with him, both in public and private. They will not be 
 offended at receiving this, for it is the message of a 
 friend, not the attack of an enemy. Read it, and answer 
 back in kind, if the spirit moves to do so. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The writer offers no apology for this book. Mormonism is a per- 
 petually live question, and will remain so for years. It has an im- 
 pressive vitality. It is bold, aggressive, intolerant. It can make no 
 compromise with Christianity, nor Christianity with it. They are in- 
 compatible, as much so as freedom and slavery. The Mormon church 
 is founded upon theocracy, the church of God upon democracy. No 
 freedom of discussion is possible under a priesthood that graduates 
 up from the lowest to the highest, which highest is God's sole mouth- 
 piece. When God speaks, all discussion must cease. It is either sub- 
 mission or apostasy. 
 
 This study goes far beyond any preceding attempt to get at the 
 origin, character and matter of the Book of Mormon. It confines it- 
 self as closely to that one thing as the nature of the examination will 
 permit. 
 
 Joseph Smith comes under investigation as author and his his- 
 tory is given and his character delineated only so far as his history 
 reflects light on his book, and his book reveals him. The later history 
 of the people, their peculiar customs, the political questions involved, 
 the system of religious socialism which binds the members together 
 and their peculiar doctrines and practices are discussed incidentally, 
 and only where they elucidate the book under examination. 
 
 The objective point is the Book of Mormon. Is it true, or false? 
 If true, Mormonism is true and invulnerable. If false, neither logic, 
 nor faith, nor prayer, can save it. Mormon writers have often con- 
 ceded this. They accept the alternative; so must we all. 
 
 "If the origin of the Book of Mormon could be proved to be 
 other than that set forth by Joseph Smith; if the book itself 
 could be proved to be other than it claims to be, * * * then 
 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its mes- 
 sage and doctrines, * * must fall; for if that book be other 
 than it claims to be; if its origin be other than that ascribed 
 to it by Joseph Smith, then Joseph says that which is not 
 true; he is a false prophet of false prophets; and all he 
 taught, and all his claims to inspiration and divine authority, 
 are not only vain, but wicked; and all that he did is not only 
 useless, but mischievous, beyond human comprehension." — 
 Eld. B. H. Roberts: Preface to New Witness for God. 
 There are two ways of stating a case or of arguing a matter. One 
 is the method of the controversialist, who is striving for victory, 
 but not searching for truth. We do not follow that. The 
 other is the method of the seeker after truth. He is calm, dispas- 
 
sionate, clear, tearless, but never vindictive nor supercilious. He 
 gives his opponent credit for honesty as to his convictions and faith, 
 and weighs his reasons conscientiously. 
 
 This study may be, doubtless will be, a disappointment to the 
 ultras of both sides. There is no malice in it, no vituperation, no in- 
 vectives, no hysterics. It would be useless to claim that prejudice has 
 no place in it. Our prejudices are our second nature. They are in- 
 evitable. A presentation of a matter of this kind, without influence 
 from former convictions, would be superhuman, divine. 
 
 Mormons will not like the book, for it takes a straight course 
 through a tangled maze, having for its one aim, the discovery of the 
 eternal boundary lines. 
 
 Truth and error, though they may be mingled in human state- 
 ments, never lie within the same limitations; they always occupy 
 different and antagonistic positions. 
 
 The arguments that Mormons advance to justify their belief, have 
 been carefully considered, weighed, and their values estimated. These 
 have not been taken up, specifically, except in a few instances, but 
 they all have their place in the general argument. 
 
 The Book of Mormon must come to us not only untainted by 
 proved fraud or deception, but also free from the suspicion of it. 
 There must be no room for imposture. For if it be true, its appear- 
 ance in the world is as momentous a fact in human history, as that 
 of the New Testament. A world's salvation by restoration, depends 
 upon it. Its credibility, therefore, as a divine revelation, must be 
 absolutely unimpeachable. 
 
 At every step of this investigation we are virtually asking this 
 question: Could Joseph Smith, with the help of other men, or with- 
 out it, have written or done this? Was God a necessary part in the 
 transaction? 
 
 If we find that the Book of Mormon can be accounted for by 
 human agency, without divine assistance, if its marvels rest upon 
 mere credulity and are not sustained by sound reasons — that is if 
 one must lay aside his common sense and stultify his intelligence to 
 believe them — the book must and will be rejected by people of in- 
 telligence. 
 
 This first number is the preface to our Study. It is an examina- 
 tion of the External Evidences of the Book of Mormon, a critical sur- 
 vey of the history preceding and accompanying its coming forth. We 
 take up the book itself in the next number. 
 
 The designation, Mormon, is used in no invidious sense, but be- 
 cause it is short, expressive and accepted by that people. 
 
 In writing, the members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints 
 in Utah are in mind. 
 
THE COMING FORTH OF THE BOOK 
 OF MORMON. 
 
 It is only fair that one accused as Joseph Smith has been, should 
 be permitted to speak for himself. We, therefore, give his own ac- 
 count of himself and his book, abridged somewhat, but not to the 
 prejudice of his story — as we find it in his Autobiography: 
 
 "I was born Dec. 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vt. My father, Joseph 
 Smith, moved to Palmyra, N. Y., when I was in my tenth year; after 
 about four years in Palmyra, he moved to Manchester in the same 
 county. 
 
 "Some time after we moved to Manchester, there was an unusual 
 religious excitement, beginning with the Methodists, but soon became 
 general among all sects. The whole country was affected and great 
 multitudes united with the different churches. 
 
 "This created no small division among the people, some crying, 
 'Lo, here!' and others 'Lo, there!' These converts expressed great 
 love for one another and the clergy manifested great zeal to get every- 
 body converted, yet when the converts began to file off, some to .one 
 party and some to another, these good feelings were shown to be 
 more pretended than real, priest contending with priest and convert 
 with convert, and their good feelings, if they had any, were entirely 
 lost in strife of words and contest of opinions. 
 
 "I was at this time in my fifteenth year, and my father's family 
 was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, four of them, my mother, 
 Lucy, my brothers, Hyrum and Samuel, and my sister. Sophronia, join- 
 ing that church. 
 
 (1) "I was called to serious reflections and suffered great uneasi- 
 ness. Still I kept myself aloof from all parties, though I attended 
 meetings as occasion would permit. 
 
 "In time I got somewhat partial to the Methodists and I felt some 
 desire to join them; but so great was the confusion and strife, that 
 it was impossible for a person as young as I was and unacquainted 
 with men and things to come to any certain conclusion who was right 
 and who was wrong. 
 
 "In the midst of this tumult I often said to myself, what is to be 
 done? Who of these parties are right and who wrong, or are they all 
 wrong? If any one of them is right, how shall I know it? 
 
 "While laboring under this difficulty, I was one day reading the 
 
Epistle of James 1:5: "If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, 
 who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be 
 given him." Never did any scripture come with more power to the 
 heart of man, than this to mine. I reflected on it again and again, 
 knowing that if any one needed wisdom from God, I did. 
 
 "At last I came to the conclusion that I must remain in darkness, 
 or else ask of God. This I determined to do. 
 
 (2) "In accordance with this determination to ask of God, I retired 
 to the woods on the morning of a beautiful day in the spring of 1820. 
 It was the first time in my life I had ever made such an attempt, for 
 amid all my anxiety I had never as yet made the attempt to pray 
 vocally. 
 
 "Reaching the place I had in mind to go, and looking around to 
 see that I was alone, I kneeled down and began to pray. 
 
 (3) "I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon 
 by some power which entirely overcame me, so great indeed as to 
 bind my tongue so that I could not speak. 
 
 "Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a 
 time I was doomed to sudden destruction. Exerting all my powers to 
 call upon God to deliver me, just when I was ready to sink in despair, 
 just at this moment of my greatest alarm, I saw a pillar of light ex- 
 actly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended 
 gradually until it fell upon me. 
 
 (4) "Immediately I found myself delivered from the enemy that 
 bound me, and I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory 
 defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spoke 
 to me, calling me by name, and, pointing to the other, said. "This is 
 my beloved Son, hear him.' 
 
 "No sooner could I speak than I asked them which of all the sects 
 was right, and which I should join. His answer was that I must 
 join none of them for they were all wrong; their creeds were an 
 abomination and those professors were all corrupt. 
 (3) "When I came to myself again, I found myself, lying on my 
 back and looking up to heaven. 
 
 "A few days after this vision, I gave a Methodist preacher an ac- 
 count of it. I was greatly surprised at his behavior, for he treated 
 my story not lightly, but with contempt, saying it was all of the devil, 
 there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days. 
 
 (5) "My telling the story excited much prejudice against me 
 among professors of religion, and caused me much persecution. And 
 although I was only an obscure boy, yet men of high standing took 
 
sufficient notice to excite the public mind against me, and create a 
 bitter persecution. It caused me serious reflection and often has since, 
 that an obscure boy doomed to get his livelihood by daily labor, 
 should be thought a character of sufficient importance to attract the 
 attention of the great ones of the most popular sects, in such a man- 
 ner as to excite the spirit of the most bitter persecution. 
 
 "Nevertheless it was a fact that I had seen a vision and I felt 
 like Paul, who related how he saw a light and heard a voice, although 
 few believed him. 
 
 "So it was with me. I was hated and persecuted for saying I had 
 seen a vision, yet it was true. And while they were reviling and 
 persecuting me, I said in my heart, 'Why persecute me for telling the 
 truth?' Who am I that I could withstand God?' . . . 
 
 "I continued to perform my common vocations of life until Sept. 
 21, 1823, all the time suffering persecutions. 
 
 (6) "During the time from the vision to 1823, having been forbid- 
 den to join any religious sect and being of tender years, persecuted 
 by those who ought to have been my friends and to have entreated 
 me kindly, and if they believed me to be deluded to have endeavored 
 kindly to have reclaimed me, I was left to all kinds of temptations; 
 and mingling with all kinds of society, I frequently fell into many 
 foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth and the foibles 
 of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into diverse temp- 
 tations, offensive in the sight of God. Often I felt condemned for my 
 weakness and imperfections; when on the evening of the above men- 
 tioned 21st of September, after I had retired to my bed, I betook my- 
 self to prayer to Almighty God for forgiveness, and also a manifesta- 
 tion of my state and standing before Him. 
 
 (4) "While in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light in 
 my room, increasing in brilliancy until the room was lighter than 
 noonday. Immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing 
 in the air. He had on a loose rode of whiteness above anything 
 earthly I had ever seen, and his whole person was glorious beyond 
 description. 
 
 (7) "He called me by name, and said he was a messenger sent 
 from God, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for 
 me to do, and that my name should be had for good or evil among 
 all nations, kindred and tongues. 
 
 "He said there was a book written upon gold plates, giving an 
 account of the former inhabitants of this continent and their origin, 
 and containing the fulness of the gospel; also two stones in silver 
 
bows fastened to a breastplate, called the Urim and Thummim, were 
 with the plates. The possession of these stones constituted a "seer" 
 in ancient times and they were for the purpose of translating the 
 plates. 
 
 "He quoted prophecies of the Old Testament, first the third chap- 
 ter of Malachi, and also the fourth chapter with a little variation 
 from our Bible. In addition to these he quoted the 11th chapter of 
 Isaiah, saying it was about to be fulfilled; also the 22nd and 23rd 
 verses of the 3rd chapter of Acts. 
 
 "He also quoted Joel 2: IS to close, saying this was not yet ful- 
 filled but soon would be. He told me that when I got those plates, 
 for the time was not yet, I should not show them to any person, 
 neither the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim, except as 1 
 should be commanded; if I did I should be destroyed. 
 
 "While he was talking, I saw in a vision the place where the 
 plates were deposited. The light of the room grew dim and I saw him 
 ascend in a conduit of light and disappear. 
 
 (The vision and charges with some additions, were repeated three 
 times.) 
 
 "Again he ascended, the cock crowed, and I found our interview 
 had lasted the whole night. 
 
 (4) "I rose and went to work as at other times, but was unable 
 for lack of strength; seeing which my father told me to go home. I 
 started, but in attempting to cross the fence out of the field, my 
 strength failed me, and I fell helpless to the ground where I lay for 
 a time, unconscious of anything. 
 
 "The first thing I recollect was a voice speaking to me, calling 
 my by name; and on looking up I saw the same messenger standing 
 over me, surrounded by light as before. 
 
 "He again related to me all he had related before, and com- 
 manded me to go to my father and tell him all 
 
 "I obeyed, returned to my father and rehearsed the whole matter 
 to him. He assured me it was of God and told me to do as the mes- 
 senger commanded. 
 
 "I left the field and went to the place the messenger had told me 
 the plates were deposited, which I knew in an instant. 
 (8) "Near Manchester, Ontario County, New York, is a hill of con- 
 siderable size, the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the 
 west side of the hill, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates 
 in a stone box. The stone was thick and rounding on the upper side, 
 thinner at the edges, the middle part exposed. 
 
"Removing the earth, I fixed a lever under the edge and raised 
 the rock, and there I saw the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and 
 the breastplate. I made an effort to take them out but was forbidden 
 by the messenger, and was told that the time to get them would not 
 be until four years from that time. I was to come to the place one 
 year from that time when he would meet me again. 
 
 "At the end of each year, I went and at each time found the mes- 
 senger there and received instruction and intelligence from him re- 
 specting what the Lord was going to do, and how his kingdom was 
 to be conducted in the last days. 
 
 (9) "* * * In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old 
 gentleman, Josiah Stoal, of Chenango County. He had heard some- 
 thing of an old silver mine once opened by the Spaniards, in Harmony, 
 Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and had been digging to discover 
 it. He took me with the rest of his hands, to dig for the mine, at 
 which I continued to work for nearly a month, without success, and 
 finally I prevailed with him to cease digging for it. Hence arose the 
 very prevalent story of my having been a money digger. 
 
 "During the time I was thus employed, I was put to board with a 
 Mr. Isaac Hale, and there I first saw my wife (his daughter) Emma 
 Hale. On the 18th of June, 1827, we were married, while I was yet 
 employed in the service of Mr. Stoal. 
 
 "Owing to my continuing to assert I had seen a vision, persecu- 
 tion still followed me, and my wife's family were very much opposed 
 to our marriage, for which reason we went and were married at the 
 house of Squire Tarbill, in South Bainbridge, N. Y., and immediately 
 went to my father's, and farmed with him that season. 
 
 "The time arrived at length for obtainnig the plates, the Urim 
 and the Thummim and breastplate, and on the 22nd day of September, 
 1827, the heavenly messenger delivered them to me. 
 
 (10) "I soon found out why I had received such strict charge to 
 keep them safe, for no sooner was it known that I had them than the 
 most strenuous exertions were made and stratagems employed to get 
 them from me. Multitudes were on the alert continually, but by the 
 wisdom of God they remained safe in my hands, and when, according 
 to arrangement the messenger called for them I delivered them up to 
 him and he has them in charge until this day, May 2, 1838." 
 
 The foregoing record has been given quite fully, because it covers 
 the most important incidents in the early history of the book. The 
 following further statement as to the plates is appended: 
 
(11) The records were engraved on plates which looked like gold, 
 six inches by eight inches, and not quite so thick as tin, bound to 
 gether like the leaves of a book, three rings running through the 
 whole. The volume was about six inches thick, and a part of the 
 leaves were sealed. The characters, the engravings, were small but 
 beautiful in form. 
 
 With the records was the Urim and Thummim, two transparent 
 stones set in the rim of a bow and fastened to a breastplate. 
 
 II. 
 
 REVIEW OF FOREGOING STORY. 
 
 Having given Joseph the opportunity to speak for himself, since 
 we can not cross-question him, we will examine some parts of his 
 testimony. The figures in parenthesis refer back to like figures in 
 his story. (1) We have here presented to us a boy not fifteen years 
 of age, inexperienced and even non-religious, hitherto, very unlettered, 
 seriously debating in his own mind as to which of the sects was right 
 and which were wrong, with all the gravity and seriousness of a 
 mature man. He does not seek to learn about them, he does not go 
 to any minister or experienced Christian to find out, as would have 
 been most natural for him to do. 
 
 Next, he betrays indifference as to his own personal relation to 
 God; he hasn't offered up a single prayer, not so much even as to say, 
 "Lord be merciful to me." There is no sign of repentance or con- 
 fession. He is in deep perplexity, not as to himself, but as to others. 
 So he goes to God, not to inquire what he must do to be saved, but to 
 find out which church was right. We know, from the character of the 
 preaching of that day, that he had listened to many earnest pleas to 
 repent of his sins and turn to God who will have mercy. 
 
 His course was so unnnatural, so unusual with youths who are 
 very sensitive to sin, and so affected by the story of Christ's suffering 
 for them, that they have no thoughts about creeds and sects, but 
 simply long to be Christ's. To all these influences, this boy in his 
 fifteenth year, presents an unfeeling heart, and is absorbed in the 
 question, "Which sect is right?" 
 
 We must be excused from accepting this as being true about the 
 boy; it was a characteristic after-thought of the man. 
 
 Fortunately he gives us the approximate time of writing this — 
 May, 1838. The language confirms us in this opinion, for it is the 
 language of maturity, not of youth. 
 
 8 
 
(2) Passing on further, he assures us he had never before at- 
 tempted to pray vocally. His mother says he had never read the 
 Bible through in his life and was less inclined to reading books than 
 her other children. If Joseph speaks the truth, his home was not a 
 home of prayer, and his mother had never taught him any of those 
 simple forms of petition, which open the doors to God and fix the 
 habit of prayer, in children. 
 
 Evidently he was not fit to join any church, although he assures 
 us he was inclined to the Methodists. He was not, to use his own 
 afterwards often repeated phrase, "born of God." 
 
 So, when he did attempt to pray, it was not for a new heart, but 
 "Lord, who is the biggest hypocrite?" The answer he says he got 
 was "they are all wrong, their creeds are an abomination, and these 
 professors are all corrupt." 
 
 This is a reflection of Joseph's sentiments of 1830 and onward. 
 His method of warring against all churches, was to arraign them for 
 heresy, to charge them with apostasy and as having no authority 
 from God to minister in His name, and to claim that he alone was the 
 messenger whom Heaven had ordained to restore the lost gospel, to 
 re-establish the church of Christ, to usher in a new dispensation, and 
 to save mankind. For eight years he had been uttering these pre- 
 sumptuous claims, and now, in 1838, he seeks to bring in the testi- 
 mony of God, to confirm his word. Someone — note that he does not 
 say it was God, although he would have us infer it — declares in un- 
 mistakable terms of the whole Christian world, "they are all wrong and 
 corrupt." Then he turns to his followers and says, "Haven't I been 
 telling you so?" 
 
 We shall find, in the course of this study, that Joseph manufac- 
 tured scripture and gave forth revelations to suit himself and to con- 
 firm his claims; that he even changed his own revelations, when 
 changed conditions demanded something different. 
 
 (3) The physical phenomena accompanying his visions, have raised 
 the scientific question whether Joseph was not, by heredity, subject 
 to some form of epilepsy. The feeling of dread, the spasmodic struggle 
 with the spirit of evil, the appearance of light about him, bright per- 
 sonages and voices, unconsciousness, and his lying upon his back, are 
 suggestive of epilepsy. Prof. Riley has treated this matter fully in 
 his Psychological Study of Joseph, the Mormon Prophet. 
 
 It is well to remember that Joseph Smith is only one of many 
 comparatively recent persons who have claimed visions of God and 
 revelations fully as remarkable as his, and who have been deceived, 
 
 9 
 
by subjective delusions, or were unmitigated frauds. The ■ religious 
 obsession, either that the person is a special messenger from God, or 
 even God Himself, is a frequent symptom of dementia of the most 
 obstinate and incurable form. Such claims do not call for faith but 
 for scientific investigation. If Joseph Smith was a true prophet of 
 God, he differs altogether from those prophets who helped to make 
 up the line of prophets from Samuel to John the Baptist. 
 
 One fact impresses us deeply, the omission of independent testi- 
 mony of his mother who wrote a history of her prophet son, but fails 
 to corroborate his story. What mother would have been so remiss, 
 if these things had been "hid in her heart?" 
 
 Yet she contents herself, when it comes to all these marvelous 
 visions, with copying Joseph's own record. 
 
 (5) The early persecutions which he pictures in high colors, as 
 following him from 1820, onward, have very little historic basis for 
 belief. He was very likely ridiculed, and became the butt of satircal 
 remarks by his boy companions — if he told that marvelous story — 
 for that would be quite natural. But that "multitudes" conspired to 
 persecute him, that "men of high standing," "the great ones of the 
 most popular sects," excited the country community against him and 
 led them to follow him with harsh persecutions, is incredible. Be- 
 sides, Joseph's confession that he fell, through mingling with all 
 classes, into sins that were heinous in the sight of God, is a contradio 
 tion of his charge. 
 
 All of this was written after he got to be a man of 33 with a body 
 of devoted people around him, and so far away from the scenes of his 
 boyhood, that there was little possibility of denial and disproof. 
 
 His father does not say he was persecuted, and his mother refers 
 to it in a paragraph of five lines, very much as Joseph had given it. 
 Why did they not give specifications of time, place and persons, if 
 Joseph was persistently hounded by enemies? 
 
 (G) The proof that was gathered in 1834 of the general reputation 
 of the Smith family and of Joseph in particular, that he was lazy, un- 
 truthful, intemperate and given to exaggeration, demonstrates one of 
 two things; either their charges were true, or the more than sixty 
 witnesses were unconscionable liars. 
 
 In this case, the community said the whole family were undesir- 
 able citizens, and Joseph, Jr., the worst of all. If it were left so, we 
 might hold our judgment in suspense, but Joseph confesses judgment. 
 He was guilty of things "offensive in the sight of God," which was 
 all the community alleged, the difference being, Joseph plead guilty 
 
 10 
 
to the general indictment, while the community entered specifications. 
 
 (7) Moroni, Joseph's good angel. This choice was neither a happy 
 nor a logical one. Moroni did nothing more than write the concluding 
 books of the Book of Mormon. He was the son of an illustrious 
 father from whom he received certain plates, and hid them up with 
 his own, in Cumorah, convenient for Joseph, 1,400 years afterwards. 
 When he took his departure from the earth where all his kindred 
 and people were sleeping unburied, it was without any hint he should 
 ever return. On the contrary, he declares "he is soon to rest in the 
 paradise of God until his spirit and body reunited, he is to be brought 
 forth triumphant through the air to meet Jew, Gentile and the Seed 
 of Joseph, at the pleasing bar of God." Moroni, though a prophet, 
 did not expect to appear to Joseph. 
 
 The Book of Mormon relates that three of the Nephite disciples 
 of Jesus were left to mingle with men, not seeing death nor transla- 
 tion until their Lord should return; they were to do "great and mar- 
 velous works," before that day, "yea, even among the Gentiles." Here 
 was Joseph's chance to be taken into the apostolic office by living 
 apostles; he might also have enlisted the disciple whom Jesus loved, 
 for according to Joseph, John is still waiting on the earth for the 
 advent. 
 
 These could have revealed the hiding place of the plates, and 
 given him a flesh and blood ordination as the apostle of "the new dis- 
 pensation." Joseph seemingly forgot them, and brought in Moses, 
 and Elijah, and Elias, and John Baptist, and Peter, James and John, 
 to give him his "keys." 
 
 Joseph does make use of one of these three Nephites, it seems, 
 but it was only to walk and carry one hundred and ninety-four pounds 
 of gold plates from Harmony, Penn., to Fayette, N. Y., a distance of 
 one hundred miles, while Joseph rode in the wagon with young David 
 Whitmer. 
 
 Here was their opportunity to introduce a lost salvation to a mis- 
 guided and lost world. Joseph certainly did them an injustice and 
 failed to fulfill the prophecy spoken of them, by neglecting to call 
 them in. 
 
 (8) Joseph's mother, in her interesting history, gives us a side 
 light into the experiences of Joseph, on his second visit to Cumorah, 
 and confirms a piece of the testimony which came out in 1834. 
 
 Two of Joseph's companions, young men, gave Joseph's story of 
 his find in the box. As they relate the story Joseph told them, he 
 found the place in "a dream"; Joseph says he saw it "in a vision." 
 
 11 
 
When he attempted to get them, "he was knocked down." On look- 
 ing up he saw a man, a Spaniard in appearance, wearing a long beard, 
 his throat cut from ear to ear, and blood streaming down, who told 
 him he could not get them alone. That was Joseph's tale to them. 
 
 Now, Joseph's mother tells us that, on attempting to get the con- 
 tents of the stone box "he was hurled violently to the ground." Joseph 
 also related, according to his mother's account, that on another occa- 
 sion the angel gave him at Cumorah the severest punishment he had 
 ever received in his life. Unconsciously, he confirms the two boys. 
 
 (9) Joseph is too modest. He had a reputation far and wide "as 
 the possessor of means by which he could discern things invisible to 
 the natural eye." These are his mother's words, to explain why Mr. 
 Stoal came from his home over one hundred miles away, to hire him 
 
 to help find the lost silver mine. And Isaac Hale says that 
 "he looked for the money diggers with the stone in his hat 
 and his hat over his face." "He gave them great encourage- 
 ment at first, but when they had arrived in digging near to 
 the place where he had stated an immense treasure would be 
 found, he said the enchantment was so strong that he could 
 not see." 
 
 That Joseph used a stone which they call a "seer stone," in trans- 
 lating the plates, is conceded by the highest Mormon authority, as 
 we shall show. 
 
 Where did Joseph get that stone? How came he to know it pos- 
 sessed magic power? He does not say, but others do. It was the 
 reputation he got by means of that, long before he thought of trans- 
 lating the book, and while he was using it as a common fortune- 
 teller, that brought Mr. Stoal to solicit his help. 
 
 (10) How much effort was really made by "the wicked and the 
 ungodly" about him to get possession of his plates, it is now impossi- 
 ble to determine. The pretense of great secrecy, however, on the 
 part of Joseph and his family, is hardly credible. His mother says 
 that the very next day a neighbor came and made inquiries about the 
 
 plates, but that "no one had ever heard anything from us re- 
 specting them, except Joseph's father, two or three years 
 before, had spoken to a confidential friend about them." And 
 
 this old whispered secret is pointed to as the vent through which the 
 
 report of the discovery escaped them. 
 
 The evidence is very strong to the contrary. The members of 
 
 the family not only told it but boasted of it; and the news spread 
 
 12 
 
rapidly, east and west, and was the subject of mucn comment by the 
 newspapers. 
 
 Conspiracies were formed, in the wake of these rumors, to get 
 possession of them, so Joseph tells us, but like nearly all his record, 
 it is overdrawn, and the pranks of young men were exaggerated into 
 warlike and hostile attacks upon him by "multitudes." 
 
 Joseph was not averse, at any time, to publicity. He knew per- 
 fectly well that the advertising he was getting, and the consequent 
 notoriety, would be his chief capital, when his book should come 
 forth. It was his winning card. 
 
 (11) Plates of record. This was not an original conception, alto- 
 gether, yet it was a new thing under the sun to have an entire Bible 
 engraved on brass plates. 
 
 The Egyptians had used papyrus, tablets of wax, and flat and 
 cylindrical tablets of clay; the old Babylonians wrote much of their 
 history on clay — on the bricks they built into their walls, or on those 
 kept for public record; the Jews used papyri, and afterwards the skins 
 of animals, for their sacred books and for their chronicles; but ex- 
 tensive records, containing all the Old Testament to Jeremiah, and 
 the genealogy of the tribe of Joseph, inscribed on brass plates; Ether's 
 history of the Jaredites for 1,600 years on gold plates; and the book 
 of gold plates, which Joseph unearthed from Cumorah, containing the 
 sacred things of the Nephites for a thousand years, and the unsealed 
 part to the end of time, was a new thing under the sun. Solomon 
 was wrong. He had not fathomed the fertile imagination of this mod- 
 ern man, who assembled such a magnificent array of metal tablets, 
 brass and gold, as the whole world had never dreamed of before. 
 
 The Jews had some plates of brass and gold; brass plates on the 
 base of the laver, and the holy crown of the high priest was a plate 
 of gold fastened to his miter and banded his forehead. On it was 
 engraved, like the engraving of a signet, "Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 The Egyptians and Babylonians had gold, but they made their 
 records on cheaper materials. Plates of bronze were used in decorat- 
 ing, here and there, palace or temple, and the Hittite version of the 
 treaty between Pharaoh and the king of the Hittites was upon a 
 tablet of silver, not engraved, but incised, or cut in, so as to leave the 
 characters in relief, as we do on grave stones; but no such method 
 of writing history as Joseph describes has been discovered. The 
 statement lies within the limits of possibility, but its improbability 
 will be seen at a glance. If the Nephites followed the custom exclu- 
 sively of engraving everything in Egyptian hieroglyphics on plates of 
 
 13 
 
brass or gold, they chose the most difficult, the most laborious and 
 the costliest method possible. They were prolific writers, for we 
 have many plates mentioned; the plates of Laban containing the Old 
 Testament to Jeremiah. The genealogy of the tribe of Joseph; the 
 plates of Lehi; two complete sets of plates by Nephi, one large, the 
 other small; plates of various kings and prophets from Jacob to IV 
 Nephi, covering a period of 1,000 years; plates of Mormon and plates 
 of Moroni; plates of Zeniff; plates of Limhi; plates of the colonists 
 who went northward; plates of Jared; and of writers who followed 
 him for 1,600 years; plates of Ether; and lastly the abbreviated plates 
 of Mormon and Moroni, from which we have the record in the Book 
 of Mormon. Moreover, copies were made of the Scriptures, from the 
 plates of Lehi and Nephi, and widely disseminated among the 
 Nephites and some of the Lamanites. There were, therefore, thousands 
 of them. 
 
 Not one of them, however, has ever come to light, to bear its 
 testimony to the Book of Mormon, whereas there ought to have been 
 frequent discoveries of them made, if that book be true. 
 
 CART LOADS OF PLATES. 
 
 In Journal of Discourses, Vol. 19, P. 3G, in a sermon by Brigham 
 Young, we have an account of cart loads of these plates. Here is his 
 statement: 
 
 "There were a great many treasures hid up by the 'Ne- 
 phites. * * * I lhed right in the country where the plates 
 were found. I believe I will take the liberty to tell you of an- 
 other circumstance that will be as marvelous as anything can 
 be. * * * Joseph did not translate all the plates, there was a 
 portion sealed. * * * When Joseph got the plates, the angel 
 instructed him to carry them back to Cumorah, which he did. 
 Oliver (Cowdery) says that when he and Joseph went there, 
 the hill opened, and they walked into a cave in which there 
 was a large spacious room. * * * They laid the plates on a 
 table; it was a large table that stood in the room. Under 
 this table there was a large pile of plates as much as two 
 feet high, and there were altogether in the room more plates 
 than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in 
 corners and along the walls." . 
 
 14 
 
III. 
 
 JOSEPH'S SEERSTONE. 
 
 The first stone Joseph used was the property of Jack Belcher, of 
 Gibson, who obtained it in Salina, N. Y., while hauling salt. He 
 brought it home because he thought it a "seeing" stone. It was green 
 with irregular brown spots on it, a little longer than a goose egg, and 
 about as thick. It was very likely a green jade stone of inferior qual- 
 ity. His little boy was the first to look into it. As he did so, he first 
 said he saw a candle, and the next time he cried out, "I have found 
 my hatchet," lost two years— and imediately went to the place shown 
 and got it. This stone got quite a local reputation and Joseph Smith 
 got it and used it about two years when he changed to the stone found 
 in digging the well of Willard Chase. This last was the stone he 
 used when in the employ of Mr. Stoal in trying to locate the silver 
 mine, and this same stone he used in translating the plates, and in 
 making his revelations, up to April, 1830. There is no doubt that 
 Joseph's seer-stone was first used for ordinary fortune-telling and 
 treasurer-hunting, and afterwards for translating. Afterwards he gave 
 it to Oliver Cowdery, saying he had no more use for it. He discarded 
 the instrument of the "seer," for "the spirit of revelation and 
 prophecy." 
 
 The stone is said to be in the possession of the Mormon church, 
 in Salt Lake, at this time. 
 
 WHAT NEED HAD HE OF THE STONE? 
 
 Without the aid of his "interpreters," Joseph afterward "trans- 
 lated and corrected the Holy Scriptures" (our English Bible) and 
 translated the Egyptian rolls, the Book of Abraham, now called the 
 Pearl of Great Price, the fourth "inspired" book of the Mormons, "by 
 the spirit of revelation." 
 
 How he explained this translation, if he ever did, we know not, 
 but the question will arise: Did he need the stone, in translating 
 Reformed Egyptian, when he was able, without it, to translate Egyp- 
 tian? Where was the difference? 
 
 Joseph also gave a partial translation by the spirit of revelation 
 of some copper plates, discovered (?) at Kinderhook, Illinois, declar- 
 ing that they contained the history of the person with whose skeleton 
 they were found, that he was a descendant of Ham through the loins 
 of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, etc. See Millennial Star, Vol. 21. 
 
 15 
 
How a son of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and a descendant of Ham, 
 and a king also, got into America, is a nut Joseph did not attempt 
 to crack. Can any Mormon solve the problem? The Kinderhook 
 plates were only a hoax, as was afterwards fully proven. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE WITNESSES TO THE BOOK OF 
 MORMON. 
 
 On opening the Book of Mormon, we find two certificates, follow- 
 ing the Preface, one signed by three men, the other by eight. 
 
 The first declares "that we, through the grace of God and 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain 
 this record; . . . and we also know that they have been 
 translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath 
 declared it unto us; and we also testify that we have seen the 
 engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been 
 shown to us by the power of God and not of man. An angel 
 of God came down from heaven and brought and laid (them) 
 before our eyes; and we know that it is by the grace of God 
 the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ that we beheld and 
 bear record that these things are true; and it is marvelous in 
 our eyes, nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us . 
 that we should bear record of it. * *" 
 
 Mormons quote this testimony with that of the eight, which fol- 
 lows, with much assurance; and well they may, for they are the only 
 testimony, outside of Joseph's own word, that is worthy the name of 
 evidence. 
 
 But notice: 
 
 1. They give neither date nor place, of this revelation. That 
 disqualifies it as legal evidence. 
 
 2. They testify to what was not then an accomplished fact. 
 David Whitmer says this occurred the last of June, 1829. Oliver 
 Cowdery began translating April 7, so that the translation had been 
 going on about seventy-five days, subject to interruptions, about nine 
 pages per day, or 4,000 words, if every week day had been so em- 
 ployed. 
 
 A fairly rapid penman can write about 800 words per hour, but 
 it is impossible to continue this more than five hours per day. In 
 translating, Joseph kept his face submerged in his hat, read off the 
 
 16 
 
sentences as they appeared, which Oliver copied down; then he read 
 his copy to Joseph to see if it was correct. 
 
 This was slow, laborious and painstaking, and could be accom- 
 plished only with far less rapidity, than copying from manuscript, 
 lying under one's eyes. Besides, Martin Harris in about sixty days 
 wrote only 116 pages of manuscript, probably 150 pages of the B. M., 
 but not the same matter. It is therefore extremely improbable that 
 the translation was finished by the last of June. Their testimony 
 therefore was not true. The plates were not all translated. 
 
 3. The witnesses were instructed in a revelation given that same 
 month, D. and C. 17:1, 5, G, that they should have a view of the plates, 
 and also the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thum- 
 
 mim'-'and the magical directors; * * "And ye shall testify that 
 
 you have seen them, even as my servant Joseph has seen 
 
 them." * * * 
 
 Therefore their testimony is imperfect, since they do not certify 
 that they saw the other articles named in the revelation. 
 
 This is not unimportant, for if the other historic objects had ap- 
 peared with the plates, it would have strengthened their confidence 
 as to the reality of the vision. 
 
 4. The three sign the same certificate, although Martin Harris 
 was not with the other two. This shows Martin a very complaisant 
 witness, and suggests that, if there was deception, Martin may have 
 played the part of the angel. 
 
 Note: — The author has in his possession a manuscript written by 
 a man who was once a devout and conscientious Mormon. He emi- 
 grated to Utah, leaving his wife in the home land, because she refused 
 to become a Mormon. 
 
 He was sent on a mission to Australia, where he married a Chris- 
 tian woman whom he had proselyted to his faith, and returned with 
 a party of converts to Utah. 
 
 He spent all that he and his wife had in helping poor saints to 
 make the journey, and they landed in San Francisco witti only fifty 
 cents. 
 
 For years he observed very conscientiously the requirements of 
 his religion, but was finally convinced that the whole thing was false, 
 by seeing the dishonesty of his neighbors in their tithing, the easy 
 and indifferent life of the higher officials who lived off the tithing of 
 the people, and especially by the teaching of the church as to polyg- 
 amy and "proxy husbands," which were zealously taught them in their 
 secret priesthood meetings. 
 
 17 
 
He revolted and became as intense in his opposition as he had 
 before been loyal in his service. 
 
 In the article referred to, evidently prepared with thought and 
 care, he maintains that Sidney Rigdon acted the part of the angel to 
 these witnesses, and that he got his idea from one of the higher de- 
 grees of masonry, where a man plays the part of an angel. 
 
 5. By taking the testimony, using D. and C. 17 as our guide in 
 the study of this certificate, we find such qualifications and evasive 
 instructions, as to destroy all its value as testimony. 
 
 "It is by faith you shall obtain a view of them, even that 
 
 faith which was had by the prophets of old." 
 
 Abraham saw the day of Christ, and was glad. Isaiah saw the 
 kingdom of Christ, and prophesied its glory. • 
 
 Ezekiel saw the flood of gospel waters breaking forth from the 
 threshold of the temple and flowing eastward with ever deepening 
 and accelerated flood. 
 
 But none of these prophets saw those things with the natural 
 eyes, but with the eye of faith — a spiritual vision. 
 
 These witnesses were promised a vision of the plates, by faith, 
 "even that faith which these prophets of old had." 
 
 Was that what they meant, when they certified, they "have 
 seen the plates" containing the record? If they had respect to the 
 revelation, that was all. 
 
 The opening words of the revelation imply the same. 
 
 "Behold you must rely upon my word which if you shall do, 
 
 * * you shall have a view of them." "My word," came from 
 
 Joseph's lips, not from the lips of Jesus Christ. 
 
 That they were instructed and coached beforehand, can not be 
 denied. And this obscurity and qualification of statement, makes it 
 doubtful whether they meant a spiritual vision, or a physical seeing. 
 
 Even if they used the term "see" in its natural sense, not in a 
 figurative, psychical one, 
 
 They Were Incompetent Witnesses. 
 
 Their testimony that they saw plates and engraved characters on 
 them, may be accepted as true, and yet they could not tell whether 
 they were ancient or modern, genuine or counterfeit. There was room 
 for fraud, whether fraud was present or not. Martin Harris was not 
 present with the others, but he was somewhere near. 
 
 Another explanation is plausible. The evidence is strong that 
 Joseph continually used hypnotism. His was a strong, masterful, 
 
 18 
 
self-assertive nature, a temperament which qualified him to act the 
 part of such. He knew nothing of hypnotism, as an occult science, 
 but he was proficient in it as an art, as we shall see further along. 
 Anyone who has witnessed the delusions which hypnotists impose 
 upon their subjects, can easily believe that all that the witnesses 
 certify to, as occurring that day, may have seemed to them realities, 
 but were mere delusions. 
 
 6. Their testimony was written out for them beforehand. Joseph 
 wrote the certificate, as surely as he wrote Section 17, D. and C, for 
 therein the very form of their testimony is given them. "By 
 your faith you shall have a view of them," and you shall tes- 
 tify it was by the power of God." 
 
 "Wherefore you have received the same power, the same 
 faith, and the same gift like unto him," (Joseph) 
 When, therefore, Joseph wrote out what and how he had "seen 
 by faith," they signed it. 
 
 More: Martin Harris was forbidden to give any independent 
 testimony. "He shall say no more unto them concerning 
 these things, except he shall say I have seen these things 
 and they have been shown unto me by the power of God, and 
 these are the words he shall say."" Yet he violated that 
 commandment, and certified he saw the angel and heard the 
 voice, and declares ''These things are true." 
 
 We have an independent testimony of David Whitmer, as given 
 by a reporter of the Kansas City Journal, a part of which we insert 
 here. 
 
 "When did you see the plates?" 
 
 "It was in the latter part of June, 1S29, Joseph. Oliver 
 Cowdery and myself were together and the angel showed 
 them to us. We not only saw the plates of the Book of Mor- 
 mon, but he also showed us the brass plates (?) of the book 
 of Ether, and many others. 
 
 They were shown to us in this way. Joseph, Oliver and 
 I were sitting on a log, when we were overshadowed by a 
 light more glorious than the sun. In the midst of this light, 
 but a few feet from us, appeared a table, upon which were 
 many gold plates, also the sword of Laban and the directors. 
 I saw them as plain as I see you now, and distinctly heard 
 the voice of the Lord proclaiming that the records of the 
 plates of the Book of Mormon were translated by the gift 
 and power of God." 
 
 19 
 
,l Who also saw the plates at this time?" 
 
 "No one. Martin Harris, the other witness, saw them the 
 
 same day, and the eight witnesses saw them the next day." 
 "Smith made fac-similes of some of the plates and sent 
 
 them by Martin Harris to Professors Anthon and Mitchell of 
 
 New York. They pronounced the characters Reformed Egyp- 
 tian, but were unable to read them." 
 
 One can not but regret that Joseph did not let these men write 
 out their independent testimonies, instead of confining them to his 
 program. It certainly would have been far more interesting and 
 might have been more instructive, as the above proves. 
 
 That there are some errors in the above testimony, is clear. The 
 plates of Ether were gold, not brass. 
 
 Prof. Anthon did not pronounce the characters Reformed Egyp- 
 tian, in his testimony, and Joseph Smith says that Martin reported to 
 him that he said they were true "Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and 
 Arabic." These characters pretended to be of COO B. C; Reformed 
 Egyptian belongs to 400 A. D. 
 
 Whitmer says the two professors could not read them, but Martin 
 reported that Prof. Anthon pronounced the translation correct. Here 
 are direct contradictions, and impossible statements. 
 
 Had the reporter understood the points in controversy, at that 
 time, respecting the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and had got 
 Mr. Whitmer's answers to questions covering them, we would have 
 testimony of great value, now forever sealed to us. 
 
 Or, if a skillful modern reporter had got on Joseph's track during 
 the first few years of his career as a prophet, he would have shown 
 up the whole matter in a convincing light. Joseph's pretensions 
 seemed to the world so preposterous, and himself so insignificant, 
 that they excited nothing more serious than ridicule or contempt, and 
 he was practically let alone. Being let alone, the error grew. 
 
 Testimony of Eight. 
 
 Immediately following this testimony of three, is another signed 
 by eight men. It follows: 
 
 "Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown 
 us the plates which have the appearance of gold; and as 
 many of the leaves as he has translated we handled with our 
 haHds; also we saw the engravings thereof, all of which has 
 the appearance of ancient work of curious workmanship. 
 
 "This we bear record with words of soberness, that the 
 
 20 
 
said Smith has shown us, for we have seen and hefted, and 
 
 know of a surety that he has got the plates of which we 
 
 have spoken." 
 
 For the first time, and the last, Joseph got his head out of the 
 clouds of mysticism and his feet on the ground, and gave us a purely 
 human testimony. Nothing supernatural, nothing miraculous, no 
 magic nor hypnotism, about that. Let us play him fair, and accept 
 this testimonial for all it is worth. He did not require these men 
 to have faith like unto the faith of the prophets of old, nor 
 were the plates so sacied that they must be shown by an angel who 
 came down from heaven for that purpose; nor was there a voice de- 
 claring the translation true. Common, ordinary men saw and hefted 
 the plates which looked like gold, in the sensible way men usually 
 follow in examining things of the earth. The sum of their testimony 
 is that they were permitted to handle the translated leaves, they saw 
 the engravings, and they hefted the book of plates; therefore they 
 say, we know "he has got the plates of which we have spoken." But, 
 two questions arise here, which need to be answered: 
 
 (1) Why so much miracle and magic, in the first view of them, 
 since ordinary men saw them in so natural a way, the very next day? 
 
 (2) If men who knew nothing of antiquity, who were able to 
 read only English, and therefore could not know the nature of the 
 engravings, were permitted to handle and test the weight of the metal 
 book, why did not Joseph submit the same to men who could have 
 told at once whether they were gold or mere glitter, and whether the 
 engravings were genuine character writing, or mere senseless marks? 
 
 To put the two questions into one, why did not Joseph submit 
 his plates to competent witnesses, instead of to men who, from their 
 lack of knowledge, were incompetent to testify in the matter, save 
 that they saw and hefted them? One leaf of the plates, if submitted 
 to the proper witnesses, with the translation, would have been suffi- 
 cient, either to confirm his claims, or to shatter his dream. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove fraud, but simply to show that Joseph 
 pursued a course that protected him from exposure, if he was prac- 
 ticing deception. 
 
 If, in answer, our Mormon friends refer us to the fact that Martin 
 Harris did place some of the characters before a learned man, that 
 he pronounced them true characters, the reader is referred to the 
 letters of Prof. Anthon, which are found in all current Mormon litera 
 tare, the summary of which is as follows: 
 
 Harris' Account: Harris submitted two sets of characters to 
 
 21 
 
Prof. Anthon, one of them translated, the other untranslated. Of the 
 first Prof. Anthon declared the translation correct, "more so than any 
 he had seen translated from the Egyptian." Of the second set, Prof. 
 Anthon said they were "Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic, and 
 were true characters." 
 
 He gave Martin a certificate, certifying to the above. As he was 
 Ic3ving, Prof. Anthon called him back and asked how the young 
 man found out that there were gold plates in the box. Upon receiv- 
 ing the answer that an angel of God revealed it, the professor said, 
 "Let me see the certificate." Harris gave it to him, when Prof. 
 Anthon tore it up, saying that there is no such thing as ministering 
 of angels, but if Harris would bring him the plates, he would trans- 
 late them. Then Harris told him the plates were sealed and he was 
 forbidden to bring them, and Anthon answered him: "I cannot read 
 a sealed book." Harris also states that he then went to Prof. Mit- 
 chell, who sanctioned what Prof. Anthon had said as to both the 
 characters and the translation. See History of Mormon Church, S. L., 
 P. 20. 
 
 Prof. Anthon's Account: Letter to Mr. Howe, in 1834. 
 
 "The whole story about my pronouncing the Mormon in- 
 scription to be reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics is perfectly 
 false. Some years ago, a plain farmer called on me with a 
 note from Dr. Mitchell of this city, requesting me to decipher, 
 if possible, the paper which the farmer would hand me. Upon 
 examining it, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a 
 trick — perhaps a hoax When I asked him how he obtained 
 it he gave the following account: A gold book with an enor- 
 mous pair of spectacles had been dug up in northern New 
 York. The spectacles were so large that a person could use 
 one of them only, but whoever examined the plates through 
 the glasses, was enabled to read them and understand them. 
 Placed behind a curtain in a garret, and thus concealed from 
 view, the young man to whom this knowledge was confined, 
 looked through these glasses occasionally, and having de- 
 ciphered the characters and committed some of them to 
 paper, handed copies to those who stood outside. Not a word 
 was said about their being deciphered by the gift of God, but 
 everything was done by the glasses. 
 
 "The farmer added that he had been requested to contrib- 
 ute a certain sum of money toward the publication of the 
 
book, the contents of which would, he was told, produce an 
 entire change in the world and save it from ruin; that he 
 intended to sell his farm and give the amount needed to pub- 
 lish the plates. As a last precaution, he had resolved to 
 come to New York and get an opinion of the learned, as to 
 the characters, although no translation had at that time been 
 made by the young man. On hearing this I changed my mind, 
 and viewed the matter no longer as a hoax, but part of a 
 scheme to cheat the farmer of his money. I told him my 
 suspicions, and advised him to beware of rogues. 
 
 "He requested an opinion of me in writing which, of 
 course I declined to give. He left, taking his paper with him. 
 * "The paper was a singular scroll; singular characters dis- 
 posed in columns, evidently prepared by some one who had 
 before him at the time a book containing various alphabets, 
 Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes; Roman 
 letters inverted or placed sideways and the whole ended with 
 a rude circle divided into compartments arched with various 
 strange marks, evidently copied after the Mexican calendar 
 by Humboldt, but evidently disguised as to its source. 
 
 "The paper contained anything else but Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics. Some time afterwards the farmer came again with 
 the printed book, offering it for sale. I referred again to the 
 roguery I had suspected and asked him what had become of 
 the gold plates. He said they were in a trunk with the spec- 
 tacles. I advised him to go to a magistrate and have the 
 trunk examined. He said the curse of God would rest upon 
 him, if he did. On pressing him to take this course, he told 
 me he would open the trunk if I would take this curse upon 
 myself. I told him I would willingly do so and would incur 
 any risk of that nature, if I could extricate him from the 
 grasp of the rogues He then left me." 
 
 In 1841, Prof. Anthon wrote Rev. T. W. Coit, in answer to some 
 inquiry of his, in which are two seeming contradictions to his first 
 letter. These we quote, because they are emphasized by Eld. Roberts 
 in his New Witness for God, and made the basis for impeaching the 
 truth of Prof. Anthon's statements. They follow: 
 
 "I have often heard that the Mormons claimed me for an 
 auxiliary, but as no one until the present time has even re- 
 quested from me a statement in writing, I have not deemed 
 it worth while to say anything publicly on the subject. What 
 
 23 
 
I do know of the sect relates to some of the early move- 
 ments; and as the facts may amuse you, while they will fur- 
 nish a satisfactory answer to the charge of my being a Mor- 
 mon proselyte, I proceed to lay them before you in detail." 
 
 "On my telling the bearer of the paper that an attempt 
 had been made to impose on him and defraud him of his 
 property, he requested me to give him my opinion in writing 
 about the paper he had showed me. I did so without hesita- 
 tion, partly for the man's sake, and partly to let the indi- 
 vidual behind the curtain, see that his trick was discovered. 
 The import of what I wrote was, as far as I can now recol- 
 lect, that the marks were merely the imitation of various al- 
 phabetical characters, with no meaning at all connected wit'h 
 them." 
 
 First, as to the seeming contradiction between the well-known 
 fact that Prof. Anthon wrote to Mr. Howe in 1S34, which letter was 
 published in full in Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, and the above 
 statement that "no one until the present time has even requested 
 from me a statement." 
 
 If we had the inquiry which Rev. Mr. Coit wrote Prof. Anthon, 
 we would, no doubt, have a complete explanation. Inasmuch as we 
 do not have that, we can only judge of Coit's letter, by the answer 
 Prof. Anthon gave, and that explanation we have in the first para- 
 graph quoted. 
 
 The rumor was prevalent, evidently, that Prof. Anthon was a 
 proselyte to Mormonism and working with them to extend the faith. 
 Notice his words: 
 
 "I have often heard that the Mormons claimed me for an 
 auxiliary" — that is a confederate, or ally. 
 
 "The facts will furnish a satisfactory answer to the 
 charge of my being a Mormon proselyte." 
 
 It is clear that Mr. Coit did not ask him about the truth of Martin 
 Harris' report, as to the interview described in Prof. Anthon's first 
 letter, but as to the truth of the claim the Mormons were making 
 that he, Prof. Anthon, had become a proselyte to their faith. 
 
 Prof. Anthon's last leter says, in effect, I knew that they were 
 publishing this, but inasmuch as up to this time no one has written 
 me about that, I have not thought it worth while to make a public 
 statement. 
 
 That it is false, the facts I now give you, will prove. Then, to 
 clinch the denial, he gives the facts as to Martin Harris' call upon 
 
 24 
 
him and adds: "Of their doctrines I know nothing whatever, nor 
 have I ever heard a single discourse from any of their preachers." 
 
 Mr. Howe wrote Prof. Anthon about Martin Harris' visit; the 
 first letter of Prof. Anthon's answered that. Rev. Mr. Coit wrote 
 asking him about his becoming a Mormon; Prof. Anthon's second 
 letter answered that. 
 
 There is no contradiction whatever. 
 
 As to the second apparent contradiction, wherein Prof. Anthon 
 says, in the first letter, he declined to give Harris an opinion in writ- 
 ing, and in the second that he did so without hesitation, we have no 
 perfectly satisfactory answer. Prof. Anthon in writing the second 
 time may have forgotten that he did not give it, or in the first that 
 he did give it, a mere lapse of memory. Or Harris may have asked 
 for a certificate twice, once that the characters were true, which 
 Anthon would not give, and a second time in the course of their con- 
 versation, he asked Mr. Anthon's real judgment as to the character 
 of the paper, which the Professor willingly gave. An interval of five 
 or six years lies between Harris' visit ft and Prof. Anthon's first letter, 
 and of seven years between Prof. Anthon's two letters. 
 
 Let us examine Martin Harris' testimony as Joseph Smith re- 
 ported it. • 
 
 1. He says Prof. Anthon told him the translation was correct," 
 more so than any he had before seen from the Egyptian." 
 
 Prof. Anthon says no translation was given him, as no decipher- 
 ment had as yet been made. 
 
 Martin is too willing a witness, he goes too far This is acknowl- 
 edged by Eld. Roberts, who, after quoting Harris' statement given 
 above, says: "The writer is of the opinion that there is in this state- 
 ment too wide a scope given to what Prof. Anthon said of the transla- 
 tion." That is a mild way of putting it. In fact, Harris' statement 
 could not be true. 
 
 Eld. Roberts gives "too wide a scope" as to what Prof. Anthon 
 said in his letters, concerning the characters. Mr. Roberts: "It will 
 be seen by his leters, that he (Prof. A.) acknowledges that the char- 
 acters submitted to him were true characters." "Too wide a scope," 
 is too gentle a characterization of that statement. Prof. Anthon says 
 distinctly that "the paper contained anything else but Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics"; "Greek, Hebrew and all sorts of letters, more or less 
 distorted, "intermingled with sundry delineations of half moons, stars 
 and other natural objects, ending with a rude delineation of the Mex- 
 
 25 
 
ican calendar." Read again what Mr. Roberts says and see if he did 
 not misrepresent Prof. Anthon,with the two letters before him. 
 
 2. Harris reports Prof. Anthon as saying that the characters in 
 the second paper were "Egyptian, Chaldean, Assyriac and Arabic." 
 
 Of course Prof. Anthon said no such thing. Look at the "carac- 
 tors" given on page following and you can find almost anything in 
 them, except "Egyptian." Two or three resemble Hebrew letters, 
 some have a resemblance to Arabic; but, inasmuch as the Arabic let- 
 ters were not in use until after the plates were buried, the resem- 
 blances were merely accidental, or were copied from a modern book. 
 
 3. Harris said he went from Mr. Anthon to Mr. Mitchell, who 
 confirmed what the former said. Prof. Anthon says that Harris came 
 from Mitchell to him, with a note from him requesting him (Prof. A.) 
 to decipher, if possible, the characters. 
 
 There is no question as to which is right, as to this fact. Did 
 Harris suffer a lapse of memory, or was he determined to get two 
 certificates that the characters were true, out of one statement that 
 they were meaningless? 
 
 Other Proof Should Have Been Demanded. 
 
 That the eleven witnesses were incompetent and too credulous is 
 clearly shown in this: 
 
 Joseph Smith reported that he found the plates in a stone box 
 on a certain hill. He described the location with exactness. 
 
 That box was a very substantial thing and might have been mado 
 to bear strong corroborative testimony to the truth of his statement, 
 or to have disproved it. 
 
 The box was there, if ever, intact, when the witnesses signed the 
 certificates. They do not seem to have thought it worth while :o 
 verify Joseph's statement, by examining the hill — a very easy matter. 
 
 Instead, they accepted Joseph's unsupported word, when as pru- 
 dent, careful, self-poised men, they should have demanded an exam- 
 ination. 
 
 Joseph himself should have suggested this test and said to them, 
 "Come and see where these ancient plates were laid." 
 
 Mormons lived in the contiguous country for years, yet none of 
 them ever hunted for that stone box. 
 
 On the contrary, they seem to have looked upon the hill as 
 "Taboo" — too sacred to investigate. 
 
 Eld. Edward Stevenson, in his "Reminiscences of Joseph the 
 Prophet," tells us that this hill, the Ramah of the Jaredites and 
 
 2G 
 
Cumorah of the Nephites, was the treasure hill of the two nations; 
 that soon after Smith found the gold Bible a Rochester company 
 searched it for hid treasure, but "the only results of their efforts were 
 the holes they left on the hillside;" then he adds, significantly: 
 "When they (the untranslated plates) are translated much useful in- 
 formation will be brought to light. But till that day arrives, no 
 Rochester adventurers shall ever see them or the treasures, although 
 science and mineral rods testify they are there. At the proper time, 
 when greed, selfishness and corruption shall cease to reign In the 
 hearts of the people, these vast hoards of hidden treasure shall be 
 brought forth to be used for the cause and kingdom of Jesus Christ." 
 By this he informs us that these treasures are there, but held 
 under some enchantment which protects them from the unbelieving, 
 but will yield them up to some one of the Latter Day Saints, in the 
 fulness of time. How generally this superstition is held by Mormons 
 it is impossible to the writer to say; but it does not commend itself 
 to hard, common-sense people. It sounds too much like the juggler's 
 formula: "Presto! Change! Now you see it; and now you DON'T! 
 
 v. 
 
 WHY THE PLATES WERE NOT SUBJECT 
 TO SCIENTIFIC TEST. 
 
 . Mormons themselves, at least those who intelligently follow the 
 history of the Book of Mormon and are independent enough to ask 
 questions, realize keenly that the story of the plates is open to just 
 criticism, particularly because they were screened from impartial in- 
 vestigation, on the claim that they were too "sacred" for profane 
 hands to touch, or the eyes of the skeptical to look upon; that the 
 reverence and obedience demanded for them, therefore, rests upon 
 credulity and superstition, and not upon scientific proof. 
 
 The refusal or neglect to submit them to competent and disin- 
 terested men, is a fatal defect in the chain of proof, and subjects the 
 author to the suspicion of fraud, and Mormon writers have been 
 profuse in offering reasons to justify Josepn in his secreting them. 
 
 As far as the writer's investigation has discovered them, the rea- 
 sons given are: 
 
 1. It would not validate Joseph's claim to show them to 
 
 men. Not one in a thousand could read them, very few of the 
 
 earth could see them, and, therefore, in the last analysis, the 
 
 27 
 
people would have to rest their faith on the testimony of 
 others. 
 
 2. Many thousands of Saints are staking their eternal 
 salvation on the principles revealed in the records, are sat- 
 isfied and happy in their faith in Joseph Smith, and these 
 people are the intellectual and moral peers of those who do 
 not agree with them 
 
 3. The church which Joseph Smith founded finds she 
 does not need this independent proof for success; that she is 
 not able to bear off her portion of labor called for to meet 
 all the demands that come to her for help. 
 
 4. Many recent scientific discoveries relative to the 
 people whose history the Book of Mormon gives, confirm, unequivo- 
 cally, the credibility of the book. 
 
 5. A half million of devout men and women have risen up during 
 the past few years, to declare, in the fear of God, that they know, by 
 the testimony of the Holy Spirit, that Joseph Smith was a messenger 
 from God, and, therefore, the plates must have been what he testified 
 they were. 
 
 G. There is no reason why the Mormon plates should 
 be singled out as an exception. The Bible goes back only to 
 copies of the originals, and Christians are satisfied with that. 
 If we had the orginals of the Bible, or of the Book of 
 Mormon, the exhibition of them would only pander to a 
 morbid curiosity, and give some an opportunity to display 
 their learning. They could serve no good and wholesome 
 purpose. 
 
 7. The plates were sacred, and to exhibit them to the 
 world would be as great a crime, as to make a public exhibi- 
 tion of the Dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 VI. 
 
 REVIEW OF ABOVE REASONS. 
 
 The foregoing reasons appear in an article in the Semi-Weekly 
 News, March 8, 1906, in a lengthy article, which brings together all 
 the conceivable arguments for withholding the plates from impartial 
 examination. The author, Mr. Thomas W. Brookbank, has given us, 
 in his carefully prepared paper, the strongest presentation that can 
 be made. 
 
 Doubtless he satisfied those whose faith in Joseph Smith over- 
 
 28 
 
balances their judgment, for we are all easily persuaded to believe 
 what we want to believe; but the honest seeker, who is after the 
 truth only, will answer him readily, with more weighty reasons. Let 
 us first carefully examine the conditions that confront us. 
 
 Joseph Smith, professing to be a prophet, declares he is in pos- 
 session of ancient records, some of them over 2,000 years old, and 
 that their contents overturn all the existing forms of Christianity, 
 and introduce a new dispensation of grace. Because, therefore, their 
 coming forth is fraught with such momentous and universal import- 
 ance, involving nothing less than a world-wide revolution, his testi- 
 monials should be unimpeachable; they should satisfy every honest 
 mind and confound the most skeptical. 
 
 What is his astonishment, therefore, to find that while he pro- 
 fessed to have these ancient tablets in his possession from Sept. 23, 
 1827, to July, 1830, he kept them secreted and urged in justification, 
 that they were so "sacred" that God Himself had commanded him to 
 show them to no one except He ordered it, and that they were seen 
 only twice, and only to select companies of his own friends. The 
 claim itself raises the presumption of fraud. 
 
 Any honest man, coming into possession of plates of whose 
 antiquity he was absolutely sure, would not only not fear the most 
 searching and critical investigation, but he would invite it; nay de- 
 mand it. 
 
 We might leave the whole answer in this general proposition; 
 but to satisfy the Saints themselves, we take up the reasons for re- 
 fusing to exhibit their records, seriatim. 
 
 1. "It would not validate Joseph's testimony." 
 
 That is exactly what it would have done, if Joseph's testimony 
 had been true. But the dilemma is, it would have proved him an im- 
 poster, if his testimony was false. 
 
 2. The answer to the second reason is easy and cogent. There 
 are other people in the world staking their salvation upon the prin- 
 ciples contained in their holy books; not merely thousands of them, 
 but millions. 
 
 Mohammedans trust in their Koran; have unquestioning faith in 
 its precepts; prove its authenticity, tracing it historically to Moham- 
 med, their prophet. 
 
 Another answer is ready. Mormonism is a corrupted form of 
 Christianity. The Articles of Faith it publishes to the world, agree, 
 verbally, with the general faith of Christians. Who probes deep 
 
 29 
 
enough will find the covert errors that hide beneath the fair exterior. 
 But the ordinary mind will not. 
 
 There are thousands of Mormons who are far more Christian 
 than Mormon; whose faith rests just where the faith of Christians is 
 fixed, in Christ. Their hope of salvation is not in Joseph Smith, but 
 in Jesus, and they are trusting Him and Him alone, as their Savior. 
 
 Every one who has labored as a Christian missionary in Utah 
 has discovered this fact, and found many to whom Mormonism is only 
 a name, but Christ Jesus is their hope and joy. 
 
 3. The writer disputes this reason in toto. If there ever was an 
 unpopular religion, it is Mormonism. Its missionaries go out to 
 preach it by compulsion. By that he would not be understood as 
 charging the church with using force, or commanding them to go; 
 but it is undeniable that very, very few of their missionaries go con- 
 strained by the love of Christ, or by their faith in Joseph Smith, but 
 because such conditions exist in Utah that custom and the good will 
 of the authorities and one's standing in the community where they 
 expect to spend their lives require them to give the cusomary time 
 to this work. 
 
 When they go, it is to communities that have not called for them 
 and do not want them, and they make thousands of calls at homes 
 where they are kindly told the people do not wish to have any con- 
 versation with them about their religion. 
 
 4. As to the alleged fact that many scientific discoveries relative 
 to the ancient inhabitants of America have confirmed the Book of 
 Mormon, it is pure "buncombe." 
 
 The Mormon church is challenged to make a presentation of these 
 proofs and submit it to the scientific world. Many scientists would 
 just as soon Mormonism were true as Christianity, and would be just 
 as impartial to one as to another. 
 
 Let Mormon scientific men gather all these discoveries and pre- 
 sent them in positive statements, with the proof they have, and if it 
 stands the cold, merciless, analytic examination scientists make of it, 
 merely to determine the cogency of their arguments, and these men 
 who seek merely for truth, approve the presentation, Mormons may 
 then reiterate their claim with some show of probability. 
 
 5. The spiritual proof of the truth of the B. M., the inner, un 
 written testimony of the Holy Spirit, is without evidential value, save 
 as to spiritual things. This is fully discussed under The Mormon's 
 Ultimate Test of Truth. Suffice it to say here, the testimony of the 
 
 30 
 
spirit is never proof of material facts. To accept it as such is to ab- 
 dicate reason, and enthrone credulity and superstition. 
 
 Faith has its foundation in reason; credulity is belief, without in- 
 tellectual proof, or against proof. 
 
 6. The sixth reason is a very unfortunate one for the author. 
 No one asks to make an exception of the plates. His illustration of 
 the original autographs of the Bible, is more unfortunate still. 
 
 The cases are not parallel. A good illustration would be where 
 some one claimed to have in his sole possession an original manu- 
 script of one of the books of the Bible, say the autograph letter which 
 Paul wrote with his own hand to the Galatians. Instead, however, of 
 showing it, he hides it away from all except some intimates who 
 never saw an ancient manuscript and know nothing of Greek; claims 
 it "sacred," and finally declares it was taken away by an angel; and 
 to prove he was not guilty of falsehood, but was speaking the truth, 
 he gives out a pretended translation of that letter, which, when exam- 
 ined, proves to be nothing more than a copy of our English transla- 
 tion with a few unimportant changes. What would be that man's 
 standing among Biblical scholars? How much credence would be 
 given his story by men of intelligence? 
 
 Just as much as Joseph Smith deserves, who did exactly so as 
 we have supposed this other man to do. He would be a "candidate 
 for ridicule and contempt," and sure of his election. 
 
 7. The last reason is the most unreasonable of all. The plates 
 were "sacred" and to exhibit them would be a crime. Can you find a 
 parallel in all the dealings of God with his ancient people? The 
 nearest like it is the ark with the tables of the law. But these were 
 seen and handled by scores of people, and for five hundred years 
 offered the opportunity of verification. The law was not hidden in 
 an unknown tongue, but was written in the speech of the people, 
 copied and widely disseminated. 
 
 The claim that the plates were sacred is pure fiction. They were 
 made of unsacred gold, or of a metal that looked like gold, by men. 
 (Martin Harris, "that wicked man," declared that he handled the 
 plates on his knees for an hour and a half, one day.) Nearly every 
 one who helped to write the records, made his own plates. The 
 language was not sacred, but the idolatrous language of Egypt. 
 
 The engravings were not sacred, for Joseph copied some of them 
 and showed them to men. In truth he sought to secure a certificate 
 of their genuineness from a learned man, who pronounced them "any- 
 thing but Egyptian." 
 
 31 
 
What was written on the plates was not sacred, for Joseph has- 
 tened to translate it, print and bind it in a book and sell it for $1.50. 
 
 The man himself was not sacred, for he confesses he fell into 
 many foolish errors and was "led into temptations offensive in the 
 sight of God." 
 
 The box was not sacred, for it was made of ordinary stones, 
 buried in common earth and covered with a stone. 
 
 Nephi does say that he doesn't write anything on them but what 
 he considers "sacred"; that is, he wrote two sets of plates, one the 
 secular, or profane, the history of wars, governments and practices of 
 his people; the other, the small plates, containing the prophecies, the 
 preaching and the ministries of his people. In that sense the plates 
 were sacred — sacred history — but in no other. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE NEPHITE PLATES. 
 
 The Book of Mormon speaks frequently of the plates and the en- 
 gravings on them. It is said that these characters were in "Reformed 
 Egyptian"; but this can not be true of the first books the original plates 
 of Nephi, for he made the record "in the language of the Egyptians." 
 In the course of a thousand years, the characters may have changed 
 somewhat, so that Mormon can call them "reformed Egyptian." 
 
 Joseph Smith says, in his autobiography, concerning them: "They 
 (the plates) were filled with engravings in Egyptian characters." He 
 also gives their size as six by eight inches, and the block of plates, 
 about six inches thick. 
 
 This w r ould make a block of gold containing 288 cubic inches. 
 Allowing one-tenth for loss of weight by being separated into leaves, 
 the gold bible would weight one hundred and ninety-five pounds 
 avoirdupois, and be worth $58,500. 
 
 Joseph's story makes it appear that he treated this weight as a 
 light matter. His mother says that he took them from the place 
 where he first hid them, wrapped them in his linen frock, placed them 
 under his arm, and started for home; that on his way he left the road 
 and came to a large windfall, when, as he was jumping over a log, a 
 man sprang up from behind it and gave him a heavy blow with a gun. 
 Joseph turned around, knocked the man down, and then ran at the top 
 of his speed. A half a mile further on, he was attacked again in like 
 manner, knocked this man down also, and ran again. The third time 
 he was assailed, and struck the man, dislocating his own thumb. 
 
 32 
 
When he came near to the house, he threw himself down in a fence 
 corner, to get his breath, and when he reached home he was speech- 
 less from fright and fatigue. 
 
 VIII. 
 THE NEPHITE CHARACTERS 
 
 We give herewith a fac-simile copy of some of the Nephite char- 
 acters, which once belonged to David Whitmer, but are now a part of 
 the Berrian collection of Mormon historic works in the Lenox Library, 
 New York. Their genuineness has never been questioned. Plate I 
 gives us the characters as they appear drawn by Joseph's own hand. 
 Note the word "Caractors" as he wrote it. By selecting the familiar 
 characters out of those in Plate I we get A of Plate II, and by clas- 
 sifying them and combining them we have B of Plate II. 
 
 Summarizing them we have seventeen letters of the Roman Al- 
 phabet; all the Roman numerals except the figure 7; four of our com- 
 mon punctuation marks; three arithmetical signs; eight printer's 
 signs; tally marks of five and ten; the sign of the English pound, and 
 
 tr J-C if. cr ££ (i 4 £ t Ai-i ))c %->X TV 2<z>l»> 
 
 -> "/'in,, j A r j ^ £. CJ.Q ^ uy £$ £ 1?. &&+Z f $CZ 
 Picxtc I. 
 
 that of the ounce, Apothecary weight; six combinations of figures; 
 and most convincing of all we have JOE, upside down, and JOS up- 
 side down and backwards. When we study the meaningless char- 
 acters, we find a few that resemble Greek, some Hebrew, some Arabic, 
 but they are all chance resemblances. 
 
 These "caractors" are gravely held forth to the world as Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphics, written GOO B. C. 
 
 The Mormons have many educated men, men of wide scholarship 
 and of eminent reputation as men of unimpeachable moral character. 
 
 33 
 
If any one of them will undertake to show that the foregoing is unfair 
 or illogical, or if he prefers to prove them true characters and even 
 near-Egyptian, he may use space in our September number, not to ex- 
 ceed 1,500 words. 
 
 Study Plate I carefully, turning in your hand so as to place the 
 characters in columns, and then upside down, and you will make such 
 discoveries as justify Prof. Anthon's characterization of them: 
 
 3k *£ &> L4 7 C't A+J I'C&'A 2 So) 
 • D l~ 3 CJ~£ L 2g* iLUMJJJ c* l*M+** 
 
 B. 
 
 ' 3 3 4-5 <*&<jQ i Z-' Jo It °k ^ u 
 
 P/rttc M 
 
 The entire question of the genuineness of the so-called Nephite 
 characters, and consequently the genuineness of the Book of Mormon 
 as the records of the Nephites, might rest here. 
 
 The "caractors" disprove the claim of Joseph, and fasten upon 
 him the attempt to feist upon the world a set of Egyptian hiero 
 glyphics that dares not meet even a common sense test. 
 
 IX. 
 THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 "Relative to the manner of translating the B. M. the 
 prophet himself has said but little. 'Through the medium of 
 the Urium and Thummim I translated the record by the gift 
 and power of God,' is the most extended published statement 
 made by him upon the subject." Roberts. 
 Joseph did not seem to sense the importance of a clear statement 
 
 34 
 
as to his method of translation, a matter of really great im- 
 portance. Oliver Cowdery says: "I wrote with my own pen 
 the entire B. M. (save a few pages) as it fell from the lips of 
 the Prophet Joseph Smith, as he translated by the gift and 
 power of God, by the means of the Urim and Thummim, or 
 as it is called by that book, 'Holy Interpreters.' " 
 While Joseph and Oliver both attribute the translation to the 
 aid of the Urim and Thummim, yet the evidence is altogether in proof 
 that this was a late invention. The translation was by the stone. 
 
 Oliver Cowdery's statement was made in 184S. The term Urim 
 and Thummim, is found only in later Mormon literature, does not ap- 
 pear in the Book of Commandments, published in 1833, and is dis- 
 puted by every one of the witnesses. 
 
 That he used the stone is the testimony of all who have spoken. 
 He could not translate without his "interpreters." 
 
 Had he translated solely by the gift and power of God, without 
 the use of the interpreters, the problem would be simple and two 
 hypotheses only would be necessary: (1) That Joseph himself was 
 inspired of God to understand the characters and to render them into 
 English; or (2) The gift and power of God was directed to the char- 
 acters, and converted them into English, before his eyes. 
 
 Under the first hypothesis, Joseph would have been the inspired 
 translator; under the second, it is God, by means of the stone. 
 
 But it was not done in so simple a manner, although that was 
 the method of God's prophets of old, as is seen in the interpreting of 
 the writing by Daniel; but a material medium was necessary to Joseph. 
 Without the stone, he was helpless; by means of it he translated. No 
 reference is made anywhere to the Holy Spirit, as inspiring the man. 
 God had no part in it, personally or independently of the material 
 means. The power was in the stone. 
 
 A familiar illustration is found in the art of photography. Just 
 as in the translation we have the man, the interpreters and the plates, 
 so in picture-making we have the man, the camera and the object. 
 The artist is helpless without his instrument, for the power to take 
 the picture resides in that. So Joseph was helpless without the seer- 
 stone, for the power to translate was in that. When, therefore, he 
 says, "I translated the plates by the gift and power of God," he means 
 that the "interpreters" was the gift of God and the power to translate. 
 This is not conjecture, nor hypothesis. The "interpreters" is fully 
 explained in the Book of Mormon. In Mos. 28:13, 14 we learn these 
 facts about it: Mosiah had "wherewith" he can look and translate 
 
 35 
 
all records of an ancient date; and "it (the wherewith he can loo 1 ; 
 and translate) is the gift of- God." 
 
 The magic power was altogether in the interpreters, for any one 
 could look in and "see things," although, if not commanded, "he might 
 look for what he ought not, and so perish." 
 
 Whoever was commanded to look in them, could know of "past 
 things and things to come; secret things, and things not known might 
 be revealed." 
 
 The "interpreters" had been handed down from generation to 
 generation, for the purpose of interpreting language. Mosiah, by its 
 means, translated the plates of Ether from the language of the Jared- 
 ites, to that of the Nephites. 
 
 This magic instrument is called in the Book of Mormon "a stone," 
 "directors" and "interpreters." 
 
 Alma 27:23 affords us another proof. This is a prophecy, 
 
 in which the Lord said, "I will preserve unto my servant Ga- 
 
 zelem, a stone which shall shine forth in darkness unto light." 
 Joseph appropriated the name "Gazelem" to himself, D. and C. 104:26, 
 and he used the stone for the purpose which the Lord named. In 
 translating he put the stone in his hat, and then immersed his face in 
 the hat and drew it close about his face to exclude the light, and "in 
 the darkness a spiritual light shone" and Joseph saw the characters 
 and the translation. 
 
 x. 
 
 JOSEPH USED ONLY THE STONE. AND 
 
 TRANSLATED WITHOUT 
 
 THE PLATES. 
 
 Those who speak from personal knowledge, all, save Oliver Cow- 
 dery above noted, and his testimony dates back to 1848 only, unite in 
 testifying to this fact. Martin Harris, his first scribe: 
 
 "By the aid of the seer-stone, sentences would appear and 
 were read by the prohet and written by Martin and when fin- 
 ished he would say Written, and if correctly written that 
 sentence would disappear and another would appear in its 
 place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, 
 so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the 
 plates, precisely in the language then used." 
 
 Harris wrote one hundred and sixteen pages of the first transla- 
 te 
 
tion, the pages that were lost, and is competent to testify from per- 
 sonal knowledge. 
 
 Emma Smith, who wrote for her husband before Oliver Cowdeiy 
 came, gave this testimony to her son Joseph: ( 
 
 "In writing for your father, I frequently wrote day after 
 day, often sitting at a table close by him, he sitting with his 
 face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating 
 hour after hour with nothing between us." 
 
 David Whitmer, one of Joseph's earliest and firmest friends, in 
 whose father's house much of the translation was made, and whose 
 brother John was one of Joseph's scribes, gives us very clear and 
 very explicit testimony: 
 
 "Joseph Smith would put the seer-stone into a hat, draw- 
 ing it closely about his face to exclude the light; and in the 
 darkness a spiritual light would shine. A piece of something 
 resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared 
 the writing. One character at a time would appear and under 
 it was the translation in English. 
 
 Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cow- 
 dery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written 
 down and repeated to Joseph, to see if it was correct, then it 
 would disappear and another character with the interpreta- 
 tion would appear. Thus the B. M. was translated by the gift 
 and power of God, and not by the power of man." 
 This testimony was fixed in the faith of the first Mormons and 
 it prevailed for seventy-five years. They believed, they preached and 
 their literature maintained that the stone translated the Nephite 
 records. It is inextricably interwoven into their arguments. If there 
 was any error in this early belief, Joseph never corrected it. 
 
 Eld. Geo. Reynolds makes use of it in his Myth of the Manu- 
 script Found, p. 71, to account for the brief time required for the 
 translation of the B. M. 
 
 "It must be remembered that the translation was accom- 
 plished by no ordinary means. It was done by divine aid. * * * 
 All was simple as when a clerk writes from dictation. The 
 translation of the characters appeared on the Urim and 
 Thummim, sentence by sentence, and as soon as one was cor- 
 rectly transcribed the next would appear." 
 
 Other quotations might be given, but this is unnecessary, for all 
 early authorities agree. The stone did it all, and Joseph was merely 
 the reading clerk. 
 
 37 
 
When intelligent men began to read the B. M., no longer be- 
 wildered by the glamour of their first enthusiasm, they discovered 
 that the book was crude in style, words were misspelled and used in- 
 correctly, the rules of grammar and rhetoric were flagrantly violated, 
 modernisms were abundant, many plagiarisms marred it as an orig- 
 inal message, and whole chapters were quoted literally from our 
 English Bible. Hence they began to ask the reason for these things: 
 and "Who is responsible?" 
 
 Oliver Cowdery may have been responsible for the misspelled 
 words, but God was responsible for all the rest, for the book was a 
 correct copy of the language of God. 
 
 The early defenders of the book met these charges and the ridi- 
 cule which logical criticisms evoked, with sublime indifference. It 
 was God's book and "His own voice had proclaimed that the transla- 
 tion was correct; what is man that he should reply to God?" 
 
 Men of better education followed them who were sensitive to 
 these flings, and they sought a way of escape. Recently, Eld. B. H. 
 Roberts, whose skill as a writer and controversialist is recognized 
 by all, the ablest apologist of Mormonism the church has produced, 
 has invented a new theory. He confesses he was driven to this by 
 the necessities of the conditions that confronted him. 
 
 Speaking of the old theory as to the translation— which, by the 
 way is not a "theory" but a historical fact attested by the 
 original witnesses — he declares that "to advocate it before 
 intelligent and educated people, is necessarily to invite ridi- 
 cule and make of those who advocate it candidates for con- 
 tempt." 
 
 He adds, as if there is no room to dispute his statement, there 
 is "no use in resisting the matter, the old theory must be abandoned." 
 How did he reach this revolutionary conclusion? Has he discov- 
 ered any new testimony? None whatever. Has he received a revela- 
 tion from God, correcting some stupid blunder of former churchmen 
 of high and low degree? No; the heavens are shut up again and the 
 "prophets, seers and revelators" have had no message from the Al 
 mighty for over sixty years. 
 
 He is driven by pure reason, by cold logic, by the fear of ridi- 
 cule, to abandon one of the strongholds of his church. 
 
 Tn retreating from this position he impeaches the infallibility of 
 the priesthood, "a higher degree of priesthood," to use his own defini- 
 tion, than his own. 
 
 If he is correct, then reason, intelligence and a decent respect 
 
 33 
 
for the opinions of educated and intelligent men are a better help to 
 truth, than all their "inspiration." The change is demanded, not by 
 "the spirit of revelation and prophecy" which they claim to possess, 
 but by their sensitiveness to intelligent criticism, from without. The 
 leaven has been a long time working, but it has worked. 
 
 Alexander Campbell exposed this absurdity, Eld. John Hyde 
 proved it, and Rev. Mr. Lamb illustrated it. 
 
 The Mormon world "do move," and we may hope that in less 
 than another seventy-five years, some other bright, logical mind and 
 sensitive soul will rise up and persuade the Mormon Authorities to 
 abandon another "old theory," one that is much more the subject of 
 ridicule by learned nad educated men, viz., that The Book of Mormon 
 is true. 
 
 XI. 
 ELDER ROBERTS' NEW THEORY. 
 
 In justice to Mr. Roberts, whom we have named, we give his ex- 
 planation: 
 
 "It should not be supposed, however, that this translation, 
 though accomplished by means of 'Interpreters,' and the seer- 
 stone, was a mere mechanical procedure, that no faith, or 
 mental or spiritual effort was required on the prophet's part; 
 that the instrument did all while he who used them did 
 nothing but look and repeat mechanically what he saw there 
 reflected. * * * 
 
 "The translation required the utmost concentration of 
 mental and spiritual force possessed by the prophet, in order 
 to exercise the gift of translation through the means of the 
 sacred instrument provided for that work." 
 
 Compare this theory, merely a supposition of Eld. Roberts, with 
 the statement of facts given by Harris and Whitmer, already quoted. 
 Either his theory is wrong or their testimony is false. 
 
 Mr. Roberts is attempting, by the invention of his new theory, to 
 lift the responsibility of the many errors of the book from God and 
 to lay them upon the lack of knowledge and the limited language of 
 Joseph. He realized his dilemma; but his own prophet disputes him: 
 "November 28, 1841. In council with the twelve Joseph 
 Smith said, T told the brethren that the Book of Mormon 
 was the most correct of any book on earth.' " Compendium, 
 p. 273. 
 
 39 
 
Test the Book of Mormon by either theory of translation and 
 the dilemma is equally fatal. 
 
 Nephi, the man that bulks largest in the Book of Mormon, in re- 
 porting the revelation of the Spirit to him, records the angel as 
 
 saying: "Behold the Virgin whom thou seest is the Mother 
 
 of God, according to the flesh." (1st Ed.) 
 
 That this was an error is confessed by the change which has 
 been made by some reviser in later editions, to read, "the Mother of 
 the Son of God." 
 
 When Joseph gave that out as the translation of certain charac- 
 ters, Cowdery wrote it and then read it to Joseph, and the magic 
 stone approved it, by the sentence fading away and another taking 
 its place. According to the old theory God was responsible for that 
 untruth, since it was "by His gift and power," the translation was 
 made. 
 
 If Mr. Roberts is right and the error was due to Joseph's ignor- 
 ance of the doctrine of God, it vitiates the credibility of his whole 
 translation. The gift and power of God was not potent enough to 
 keep him from falling into palpable error; then the whole translation 
 falls to the plane of Joseph's limited knowledge. Let us apply the 
 test in another instance. This same Nephi wrote, or Joseph trans- 
 lated it and Cowdery wrote: 
 
 "Adam fell that men might be"; how do we know that he was 
 not as much in error there, as in the former translation? Again: 
 Over in the Book of Ether, Joseph found something that he translated 
 
 thus: "They did make all manner of tools to till the earth, 
 
 both to plough and to sow, to reap and to hoe, and also to 
 
 thrash." 
 
 Was that in the old Jaredite records, a people who left "the rest 
 of mankind at the great tower, Babel, and lived separate from the 
 race, or did Joseph weave in a colloquialism of western New York? 
 
 If his translation is true, then long before the Christian era, they 
 had in America, plows and seed-sowers and reapers and hoes and 
 threshing machines, and factories to make them. 
 
 Evidently he found nothing of the kind there. It is as flagrant 
 an anachronism, as it would be if attributed to the ancient Assyrians. 
 
 Again we find in the Book of Mormon, lengthy quotations from 
 our English Bible. 1st Nephi, 600 to 545 B. C, quotes seventeen 
 chapters of Isaiah. Comparing them with our Bible, we find them so 
 nearly an exact copy, that no other conclusion is possible than that 
 they were copied literally. How does that come? Eld. Robert's ex- 
 
 40 
 
planation is, that the work of translation required the concentration 
 of all powers, mental and spiritual, resulting in mental weariness. 
 
 When, therefore, Joseph saw that the Nephite record was quoting 
 the Scriptures, that the Bible and the record paralleled each other, 
 "he adopted our English translation," to ease himself of the labor of 
 translating, and because "The English translation was superior to his 
 own." 
 
 The first is the recourse of a lazy man, and in Joseph's case was 
 criminal. He was shirking a sacred duty. If the second reason is 
 valid, it is a fatal confession of failure. 
 
 Joseph claimed to have a gift from God to translate; but Eld. 
 Roberts concedes that the work of men who had only consecrated 
 learning to aid them, gave a better expression to the Scriptures than 
 he, the heaven-endowed translator, could do. 
 
 Mr. Roberts' explanation raises other difficulties. If he did not 
 translate, but copied, how did he know when it ended, and how did he 
 catch those slight changes and variations he introduced? 
 
 And how comes it that his principal quotations recognize our 
 modern divisions of the Bible into chapters, the beginnings and end- 
 ings of our chapters being the beginnings and endings of his quota- 
 tions? It would be a marvelous thing, if the old Nephite Bible was 
 divided into chapters, and these exactly coincided with the divisions 
 of our Bible made by Cardinal Hugo in the thirteenth century, A. D. 
 Marvelous? Yes, too marvelous for belief. 
 
 These contradictions of history with hypothesis, the difficulties 
 which go with both, the oonclusions and inferences, which follow, not 
 only bar the way to a belief in the Book of Mormon and the divinity 
 of the mission of Joseph Smith, and make it impossible for men of 
 learning and integrity to become Latter Day Saints, but these ques- 
 tions will also eventually be taken up by higher critics among the 
 Mormons themselves. And, mark this prediction, the result will be 
 to throw over both history and theory, leaving no foundation for 
 Mormon faith to rest upon, but blind infatuation. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE STONE SUPPLIED BOTH THE TEXT 
 AND THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 The plates were not in the hat when Joseph was translating. They 
 couldn't be put into his hat — Emma says he used "his" hat — if he had 
 tried. The plates were six by eight inches, or twenty-eight inches 
 
 41 
 
around them, and six inches thick. They wouldn't go into any hat 
 but one of very extraordinary size, and then the stone, which was 
 nearly as large as a goose egg, was to go in, too. 
 
 Read Whitmer's and Joseph's wife's testimony again, and they 
 prove that the plates could not have been in the hat, although they 
 do not mention them. But Isaac Hale gives positive testimony on 
 this point. 
 
 "The manner in which he (Joseph) pretended to read and 
 
 interpret the plates was the same as when he looked for the 
 
 money diggers, with the stone in the hat and his hat over his 
 
 face, while the book of plates was at the same time hid in 
 
 the woods." 
 
 Mr. Hale knew Joseph well for he boarded him while the latter 
 was employed by Mr. Stoal to hunt for secret treasure, and Joseph 
 ran away with his daughter and married her. 
 
 He knew his method of translating, for Joseph and Emma lived 
 with him for a time after returning from Palmyra, while the transla- 
 tion was going on. His testimony is clear, explicit and convincing. 
 
 Orson F. Whitney, one of the apostles, acknowledges (Eighty- 
 second Annual Conference, 19,12, p. 49), that Joseph "could sit in his 
 father's humble cottage, while the record was secreted at a distance, 
 and could read what was on the plates." 
 
 All of this leads us to the serious question: 
 
 What was the use of all that pother to get possession of the 
 plates and to keep his enemies from robbing him of them after he 
 had got them; for Joseph could have translated them as they lay in 
 the box, as well as when they were hid out in the woods? 
 
 Then ,as to his witnesses, after his translation was completed,. 
 he could have taken the witnesses out to Cumorah and with Moroni, 
 his angel, with Moses and Elijah and Elias and John the Baptist, and 
 Peter, James and John, the apostles, he could have shown them the 
 whole assortment and received all his "keys" at once, for "the new 
 dispensation." 
 
 That would have been a demonstration worth while, and fully 
 as creditable as the program he followed. 
 
 XIII. 
 THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEPHITES. 
 
 The Nephites were Jews, inheritors of a thousand years of her- 
 edity. Behind them lay a history which began with Abraham, their 
 
 42 
 
father; their people were solidified into a homogeneous nation under 
 the power of the Egyptian oppressor; they had Moses for their leader, 
 their lawgiver, the wisest and strongest ruler time has yet enrolled; 
 theirs were the fathers, w r ho were baptized unto Moses by the cloud 
 and in the sea, who marched from Sinai, where Jehovah had veiled 
 His majesty in thick cloud, and uttered His voice in the thunder that 
 shook the mountain to its foundations, to Jordan, where they crossed 
 over as they had passed through the sea, dry shod; under Joshua 
 they had w r rested their land from the Canaanite and builded their 
 cities and developed their lands; David was their king and psalmist, 
 and Solomon, their pride and glory. 
 
 Jerusalem, "beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth," 
 was their home. Thrice every year they had seen the tribes come up 
 from near and distant lands, unto the testimony of Israel;" daily, 
 they witnessed the temple service, and its stately worship w r as one of 
 the most familiar things to them of all their life. 
 
 The Nephites shared fully in that momentum which has kept 
 the Jews an unchanged race, although they have become parts of 
 many nations, their religion and their pride surviving two thousand 
 years of dispersion and oppression. But the Book of Mormon repre- 
 sents the Nephites as being of an altogether different fiber of char- 
 acter. 
 
 They left Jerusalem and native land without a recorded syllable 
 of regret; they turned their backs upon the promises and prophecies 
 of Isaiah and Jeremiah of a return and restoration of the nation, with 
 a future glory far excelling even the greatest splendor of the past; 
 they broke away from the old religion, and wandered half the circuit 
 of the earth, to a new, unsettled continent with perpetual isolation 
 from their kindred, and counted it a compensation to have escaped 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of their people. They 
 came to the new world absolutely free to follow in the footsteps of 
 their fathers, to develop to perfection the heritage of their nation's 
 past. 
 
 Immediately, however, and without any sufficient cause, they de- 
 velop two characteristics that were utterly anti-Jewish, viz., they 
 begin to follow Christ, and finally develop a Christian church 150 
 years before Christ came, and also discard the language in which 
 their Holy Scriptures had always been written, and adopt instead the 
 idolatrous language of Egypt. 
 
 They brought, so the Book of Mormon tells us, a freak copy of 
 the Jewish Scriptures, in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and with it the 
 
 43 
 
genealogy of Joseph's family engraved on brass plates. 
 
 Only one person in the colony, Lehi, could read this profane 
 record. Instead of translating it into the language of Abraham and 
 Moses and David and the prophets, he perpetuated the monstrosity 
 and fixed the custom of having all copies of it made in the same idol- 
 atrous language, and all records of their subsequent history pre- 
 served in the same way. Yet the people used the Hebrew, their 
 "mother tongue," in all their daily life. It follows, therefore, that the 
 Nephites were a bi-lingual people for a thousand years. Now it is a 
 teaching of history that where two languages are forced upon one 
 people, and this has happened many times, a conflict is at once begun 
 which results either in the victory of one tongue over the other, or an 
 assimilation of the two into a third language which supplants both. 
 
 Yet the written Egyptian and the spoken Hebrew lived in perfect 
 amity among the Nephites for ten centuries. Another anomalous 
 condition also confronts us, in this supposed event. 
 
 The Hebrew was the more expressive and perfect language. 
 Written language was first by means of rude pictures, the written lan- 
 guage of primitive man; the last and most perfect form is alphabetic, 
 wherein a sound is represented by an arbitrary sign. Under the first, 
 the meaning is always imperfectly expressed, and is limited to a very 
 small vocabulary. Under the last, every vocal sound of the human 
 voice is registered, and writing becomes co-extensive with human 
 speech. 
 
 The Egyptian hieroglyphics are ideographic, a form of writing 
 midway between the two, and therefore imperfect. 
 
 The Hebrew was the most versatile, sympathetic language in ex- 
 istence, 600 B. C. It responded accurately to the human voice, so 
 that to read one of the Psalms gave the reader all the meaning and 
 passion of the writer, as perfectly as if he had heard David recite it. 
 
 The Egyptian hieroglyphics were utterly incapable of this. We 
 are, therefore, asked to believe that a prophet of God caused his 
 people to degrade their language, to go backward in recording their 
 holy scriptures, rejecting the language in which that scripture had 
 been kept for a thousand years. 
 
 The alleged fact would not only be abhorrent and sacriligious to 
 a Jew. but as a de-volution, an evolution backwards, absolutely un- 
 thinkable. 
 
 Such a change as the Book of Mormon represents must have had 
 a purpose in the mind of the writer. It is not a mere fancy, wrought 
 into a fabulous story without design. What was it? Why is this 
 
 44 
 
unnatural and impossible fact (?) wrought into the very beginning 
 of the Book of Mormon? The answer is found in the anticipated 
 necessities of the coming forth of the book. 
 
 The invention was made in 1830 A. D. and not in 600 B. C. The 
 plates must be written in a language which "none other people 
 knoweth," by "means prepared for the interpretation thereof," which 
 means no other man on earth but Joseph Smith could use. It fits 
 into the very necessities of Joseph's venture, albeit it is at war with 
 all the lessons of history and with common sense. 
 
 No one could read the characters except Joseph, and therefore 
 no one could dispute his translation. 
 
 Do Mormons feel any embarrassment on account of these sus- 
 picious conditions? Some do not, but many have a feeling down deep 
 in their hearts, in spite of their hereditary faith, a fear that the Book 
 of Mormon is a deception. 
 
 XIV. 
 JOSEPH AS A TRANSLATOR, A FAILURE. 
 
 The first task which Joseph had in hand, after he got possession 
 of his plates, was to translate them into English. For this he had no 
 natural fitness whatever. The natural gift differs altogether from 
 that of a seer, or prophet. It needs no supernatural endowment, or 
 divine gift. It requires a thorough knowledge of the two languages, 
 of their idioms, their genius, their delicate shades of thought, and an 
 ability to transfer the meaning and the literary character of the orig- 
 inal into its new dress. 
 
 Joseph pretended to none of these natural qualifications of a 
 translator, but he claimed to have a special gift from God. That this 
 gift was inadequate, his work amply proves, for wherever it was pos- 
 sible, he ceased translating, and copied, because it was better than 
 he could do. 
 
 There are two general objections to his translation. The first 
 has reference to its literary character. As this has been more fully 
 treated in the chapter on the Book of Mormon as Literature, it will 
 suffice to say here, that it is impossible to believe that a book written, 
 presumably, by twenty or more different authors, covering the history 
 of a people for a thousand years, could exhibit the uniformly one 
 style characteristic of the Book of Mormon. 
 
 Nor does it answer this objection to reply that we do not have 
 the original writings of the authors, but abridgements only, for at 
 
 45 
 
least eight of the books were not touched by Mormon and Moroni. 
 Even if they were all abridged, the objection would hold. 
 
 When we compare the writings of which Joseph was the un- 
 doubted author, with the above, we find the same style, the same re- 
 dundancy of words, the same repetitions innumerable, just as the 
 kaleidoscope gives us many figures by means of a few bits of colored 
 glass. 
 
 If the plates which Joseph claimed to translate, were filled with 
 the writings of men of individuality and genius, then he has robbed 
 them of all their merit, and by the poverty of his own language and 
 his lack of literary skill, he is a failure, as a translator. 
 
 The second objection is a more serious one, one that can not be 
 controverted. He failed to appreciate and meet* the extraordinary op- 
 portunity his plates gave him. 
 
 Bible scholars, for centuries, have been seeking to discover au- 
 thentic and ancient copies of the Scripture. When such a discovery 
 has been made, as that of the ancient manuscript in a monastery at 
 the foot of Mt. Sinai by Tischendorf in IS 59, it creates great excite- 
 ment in the whole Christian world. Tischendorf, finding himself in 
 possession of this invaluable treasure, could not sleep, so great was 
 his ecstasy. 
 
 At the first opportunity he, with the help of two others, copied 
 with religious care, the 110,000 lines of the Codex and noted more 
 than 12,000 changes made by later hands. As soon as possible the 
 entire manuscript was printed and given to the world. 
 
 Now Joseph Smith claimed to be the sole custodian for more 
 than two years, of the Egyptian translations of twenty full chapters 
 of the Old Testament, a new version of these parts of the word of 
 God, eighteen of them having been brought from Jerusalem 600 years 
 before Christ. Tischendorf's manuscript was not earlier than 340 
 A. D., or nearly 1,000 years subsequent to the date of Joseph's copy. 
 
 Joseph claimed to possess another advantage over the men of 
 Tischendorf's day. They were compelled to depend, for the correct- 
 ness of their translation, upon their knowledge of the Greek lan- 
 guage, and their ability to transfer the contents of the Codex, into 
 English. Their human qualifications and their fidelity in performing 
 their task, no one questions. 
 
 But Joseph had "a gift from God" for this work. He was divinely 
 endowed to translate. Therefore, if he spoke the truth as to his 
 plates and himself, we will have from him the inspired translation of 
 these authentic and most ancient Scripture. 
 
 46 
 
Our interest in them is enhanced when we find that two of these 
 chapters, Mai. 3 and 4, got into the Nephite record, through the mouth 
 of Jesus Christ. Therefore these two chapters are not only ancient 
 and genuine, but they have been authenticated by the very highest 
 authority, that of the Son of God. 
 
 Joseph sat down to his task, with these precious documents in 
 his possession, and translated them "by the gift and power 01 God." 
 
 When he handed out his work, it was discovered to be a slavish 
 copy — words, punctuations, even italics were included — of the English 
 Bible Joseph owned. 
 
 If, as Mr. Roberts says, the old theory of translation must be 
 abandoned, before intelligent and educated people, because it merits 
 ridicule, what, in justice, can be said of this man who meets such a 
 marvelous opportunity of adding to the world's treasury of Bible 
 knowledge, and does no better than a mere school-boy can. 
 
 The truth, stated in the mildest terms possible, is, Joseph 
 "flunked;" he fed down flat; he was "weighed, measured and "found 
 wanting as a translator. And what adds to our amazement is, the 
 man did not seem to sense his ridiculous failure! 
 
 To say that Joseph eased himself from the mental and spiritual 
 concentration the translation required, is not to excuse him, but to 
 exaggerate his fault. 
 
 Nay! It was more than a fault; it was a crime. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 That the reader may follow the author intelligently, in this dis- 
 cussion, the explanations of names, etc., are given. 
 
 Jaredites. The ancient people who came from the tower of Babel 
 to North America, grew to be a numerous people, and 600 B. C. com- 
 mitted national suicide, annihilating twelve to fifteen millions of 
 people, save two men. This slaughter occurred near Manchester, 
 Joseph Smith's home. 
 
 Jared; the man from whom the people were named. 
 
 The Brother of Jared; the real leader, the Moses of the Jaredite 
 exodus. His name is not given. 
 
 Coriantumr; the commander of one faction, and the only sur- 
 vivor out of millions, who fought at Ramah. 
 
 Ether; last of the Jaredite writers. He took no part in the battle, 
 but hid himself in the cavity of a rock. He wrote a comprehensive 
 history of the Jaredites on twenty-four gold plates and hid them in 
 the hill Ramah, where the Nephites found them 400 years afterward. 
 
 Nephites; the descendants of Lehi, Ishmael and Zoram, who left 
 
 47 
 
Jerusalem, 600 B. C, in the first year of Zedekiah, migrated to 
 America, and became a great nation. 
 
 They soon divided into two nations, known as Lamanites and 
 Nephites, named for their respective kings. They all were converted 
 to Christ and lived as one Christian people for a century; finally all 
 apostalized, and became "totally depraved," not only in religion but 
 also in morals and civilization. They divided again and lought under 
 their old names, and in 400 A. D. the Nephites were annihilated and 
 the Lamanites were left in full possession of the land. 
 
 Their descendants are the aborigines of the two Americas. 
 Lehi; a Jewish prophet, and the leader of the colony. 
 Laman; his oldest son, who opposed Nephi, and became the leader 
 of one faction of the divided people and gave them his name. 
 
 Nephi; Lehi's fifth son, the founder of the Nephite nation, who 
 holds the most conspicuous place in their history. 
 
 Alma; the first High Priest, the founder of the Church of Christ 
 in America, about 150 B. C. 
 
 Mormon; the last general of the Nephites, who fell with his 230,- 
 000 soldiers in the battle of Cumorah, with all the Nephite people, 
 400 A. D. 
 
 Moroni; son of Mormon, who escaped the battle, finished the 
 Nephite record and hid the plates in the hill Cumorah, the Ramah of 
 the Jaredites, two miles distant from Joseph's home. 
 
 Book of Mormon; the translation by Joseph Smith of the gold 
 plates he found in Cumorah. The popular edition has 623 pages, con- 
 taining about 275,000 words. 
 
 Book of Commandments; a small book printed in 1833, in Inde- 
 pendence, Mo., containing Joseph's revelations to September, 1831. 
 These were destroyed by the mob in July, 1S33, only a few copies 
 escaping the fire. 
 
 The first edition of the Book of Mormon and the surviving copies 
 of the Book of Commandments are rara Americana, and command 
 fabulous prices. 
 
 Doctrine and Covenants; a republication of the revelations con- 
 tained in the Book of Commandments, with changes and additions; 
 first published in 1835. Subsequent editions have appeared. 
 
 Pearl of Great Price; the last "inspired" book put forth by Joseph 
 Smith, containing the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham and some 
 of the writings of Joseph. 
 
 The Sacred Books of the Mormons are: 
 
 The Bible, King James Translation, The Book of Mormon, 
 The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. 
 
 48 
 
Stye $\tml Wnxb 
 
 (J This pamphlet has not only a message, but it 
 is an appeal. It asks to be sent out, to be sown 
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 9 It wants to be made a part of the Mission Study 
 Circle of the Women, to supplement Dr. Kinney's 
 Text-Book for the year; to get into the program of 
 Young People's Societies, into the Studies of Min- 
 isters and all Professional Men, and to find its 
 way into the country, wherever the Mormon 
 Missionary goes— which is almost everywhere, 
 fl Subscribe for it; persuade others to subscribe; 
 send copies to your friends and into isolated com- 
 munities. Sow Utah with them. Keep them 
 moving and doing good. 
 
 TERMS: Complete Set Ten Numbers, $1.00 One 
 Copy, 15 Cents* To One Address, Four Copies 50 Cents; 
 Ten Copies $i.00. 
 
T"*HE NEXT NUMBER—; 
 
 which will appear Septem" 
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 1 A Study of Joseph Smitkj 
 His Heredity, Environment and; 
 "Call" to tke Office of a Propket.; 
 
 2 An Analysis of the Con- 
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 3 Its Prokakle Origin. 
 
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