Mormonism: Its Origin and Doctrines 139 of Solomon Spaulding, and Mr. Joseph Miller, of Amity, Pa., where Spaulding died. The evidence clearly shows that the Book of Mormon grew out of Spaulding’s story, but the defenders of Mormonism lose their mental balance whenever this subject is mentioned, and they treat it dishonestly. They say: “We have the Spaulding manuscript in the Oberlin College Library, brought back from Honolulu in 1884 by President Fairchild, and there is no connection between it and the Book of Mormon”. Cer tainly not. No person well informed about the history of Mor monism ever claimed that there is any connection. But why say, “We have the Spaulding Manuscript” ? All that the facts warrant is, “There is a Spaulding manuscript in Oberlin”, and the possession of that manuscript will afford no help to the defenders of Mormonism against the plagiarism of the book until they do one thing which they are unable to do; namely, establish a general negative, and show that this manu script in Oberlin College Library is the only manuscript which Solomon Spaulding ever wrote. This can not be done, for there is conclusive evidence that he wrote three or four manu scripts, and one of them was the “Manuscript Found”, which he read to his neighbors, and which formed the basis of the Book of Mormon. So when the champions of Mormonism say: “The Book of Mormon could not have grown out of the Spaulding manuscript, for that manuscript is in Oberlin, and there is no connection between it and the Book of Mormon”, they take a dishonest position by falsely assuming that this is the only manuscript Spaulding wrote, whereas there is positive evidence that he wrote several manuscripts. The fact, there fore, is established by abundant evidence that the Book o f Mormon is a plagiarism from Spaulding’s religious romance. J"s t when Rigdon, Pratt, and Smith first met and con cocted the dishonest scheme of the buried plates is not alto gether clear, probably about 1827. A strenuous attempt has been made to show that Rigdon and Pratt had no knowledge
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