976

ADVENT OF MORMONS TO TIIE WEST.

1832.

by eight inches in width and length, being not quite as thick as common tin. They were filled on both sides with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, and fastened at the edge with three rings running through the whole.

"This volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters or letters upon the unsealed part, were small and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, as well as much skill in the art of engraving.

"With the records was found a curious instrument, called by the ancients, TJrim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set in two rims of a bow   this was in use in ancient times by persons called Seers   it was an instrument, by the use of which they received revelations of things distant, or of things past or future."

The story of his gold plates getting abroad, the holder was waylaid by robbers, and persecuted by fanatics, until he was forced to flee into Pennsylvania to his father-in-law:   there he began the work of translation. The issue of this work was, " The Book of Mormon." This book gives the history of Lehi and his posterity, from about 660 B. C. to 400 A. B.; these lived for the most part in America, Lehi and his sons having emigrated thither.

After the emigration, terrible wars took place between the Nephites or faithful, and the Lamanites or heathen, in which all the former were destroyed except Mormon, his sou Moroni, and a few others. Mormon and his son abridged the records of their ancestors, and added their own, and thus the book was completed.

An account referred to in the note, gives us reason to think this book was not written by Smith, but by one Spalding, as a sort of romance, and that it was seen and stolen by Sidney Rigdon, afterward Smith's right-hand man, and by him made known to the prophet.

Rigdon, however, had at first no open connection with Smith, and was converted by a special mission sent into his neighborhood in October, 1830. From the time of Rigdon's conversion the progress of Mormonism was wonderfully rapid, he being a man of more than common capacity and cunning. Kirtlaud, Ohio, became the chief city for the time being, while large numbers went to Missouri in consequence of revelations to that effect.

In July, 1833, the number of Mormons in Jackson county, Mis-