in the cavity of a rock; secret combinations; war in all the land; King Gilead murdered by his high priest; the high priest murdered by Lib; Lib slain by Coriantumr; dead bodies cover the land and none to bury them; 2,000,000 men slain; hill Ramah; cries rend the air; sleep on their swords; Coriantumr slays Shiz; Shiz falls to the earth; records hidden by Ether.
‘Book of Moroni. Christ's words to the twelve; manner of ordination; order of sacrament; order of baptism; faith, hope and charity; baptism of little children; women fed on their husbands' flesh; daughters murdered and eaten; sufferings of women and children; cannot recommend them to God; Moroni to the Lamanites; 420 years since the sign; records sealed up (Moroni); gifts of the spirits; God's word shall hiss forth.’
From a manuscript furnished at my request by Franklin D. Richards, entitled The Book of Mormon, I epitomize as follows: Several families retaining similar forms of speech were directed by God to America, where they became numerous and prosperous. They lived righteously at first, but afterward became sinful, and about 600 B. C. broke up as a nation, leaving records by their most eminent historian Ether. During the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, two men, Lehi and Mulek, were warned of God of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and were directed how they and their families could make their escape, and were led to this land where they found the records of the former people. Lehi landed at Chili. His people spread to North America, became numerous and wealthy, lived under the law of Moses which they had brought with them, and had their judges, kings, prophets, and temples. Looking confidently for the coming of Christ in the flesh, in due time he came, and after his crucifixion organized the church in America as he had done in Judea, an account of which, together with their general history, was preserved on metallic plates in the language of the times. An abridgment was made on gold plates about A. D. 400 by a prophet named Mormon, from all the historical plates that had come down to him. Thus were given not only the histories of the Nephites and Lamanites—his own people—but of the Jaredites, who had occupied the land before them, and his book was called the Book of Mormon. Destruction coming upon the people, Mormon's son, Moroni, was directed of God where to deposit the plates, the urim and thummim being deposited with them so that the finder might be able to read them. And as Moroni had left them so were they found by Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon was translated in 1851 into Italian, under the auspices of Lorenzo Snow, and into Danish under the direction of Erastus Snow; in 1852 John Taylor directed its translation into French and German, and Franklin D. Richards into Welsh. In 1855 George Q. Cannon brought out an edition in the Hawaiian language at San Francisco; in 1878 N. C. Flygare supervised its publication in the Swedish, and Moses Thatcher in 1884 in the Spanish language.
In December 1874, Orson Pratt, at that time church historian, prepared an article for insertion in the Universal Cyclopedia, a portion of which is as follows: ‘The first edition of this wonderful book was published early in 1830. It has since been translated and published in the Welsh, Danish, German, French, and Italian languages of the east, and in the language of the Sandwich Islands of the west. It is a volume about one third as large as the bible, consisting of sixteen sacred books… One of the founders of the Jaredite nation, a great prophet, saw in vision all things from the foundation of the world to the end thereof, which were written, a copy of which was engraved by Moroni on the plates of Mormon, and then sealed up. It was this portion which the prophet, Joseph Smith, was forbidden to translate or to unloose the seal. In due time this also will be revealed, together with all the sacred records kept by the ancient nations of this continent, preparatory to the time when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the great deep.’ Deseret News, Sept. 27, 1876. Orson Pratt afterward stated that the book of Mormon had been translated into ten different languages. Deseret News, Oct. 9, 1878. See also Taylder's Mormons, 10. For further criticisms on the book of Mormon, see Millennial Star, xix., index v.; Times and Seasons, ii. 305–6; Pratt's Pamphlets, i. to vi. 1–96; Hyde's Mormonism, 210–83; Olshausen Gesch. der Mormen, 15–29; Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, 17–123; Salt Lake City Tribune, Apr. 11, June 5 and 6, and Nov. 5, 1879; Juvenile Instructor, xiv. 2–3; Reynolds' Myth of the Manuscript Found, passim; Lee's Mormonism, 119–26; Clements' Roughing It, 127–35; Pop. Science Monthly, lvi. 165–73; Bennett's Mormonism Exposed, 103–40. See letter from Thurlow Weed, also statement by Mrs Matilda Spaulding McKinstry in Scribner's Mag., Aug. 1880, 613–16.
