pierce] ORIGIN OF THE •• BOOK OF MORMON" 68 1
the printer, even though the printer be a " scrub " and does not have a trades union to see to it that the pay is always forthcom- ing. The manuscript is complete ; the plates have been " shewn " unto the eight witnesses and handled with their hands, and the same eight witnesses have " hefted M the plates and seen the engravings thereon, all of curious workmanship and of the ap- pearance of ancient work — but there is no money in the Smith family to pay the printing bills. There is a little printing office in Palmyra, but no angel can be invoked to subsidize the printer. The gold plates might have been an acceptable equivalent for the work done, but they could not be thus utilized, for they had been " hidden up " again, as soon as they had been translated.
Finally, a convert to the new faith is found in a well-to-do farmer, Martin Harris, who, having been in succession a Quaker, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Redemptorist, and last of all a Universalist, now becomes security for the publication of the manuscript, and lo, we have the Book of Mormon ! Of this edi- tion five hundred copies were issued and the propaganda was started. The breastplate, with its Urim and Thummim attach- ment, was miraculously provided as the instrument through which the prophet, seer,, and interpreter should translate the Adamic characters on the golden plates into the English tongue. Notwithstanding this divine instrument, a more than accidental
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trace of the vernacular of the backwoods of western New York is found on every page of the work. Solecisms which would delight the heart of the modern dialect writer crop out in every sentence. In turning the leaves a well-nigh new orthography stares the reader in the face. Out of its 588 pages I venture to assert that barely one is free from one or more cacographic examples.
And that the Urim and Thummim breastplate did not aid the grammarless translator, or his uninspired amanuensis, or even his village printer, is evident from such eccentric irregularities and bold departures from the "well of English undefiled " as:
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