afterward discovered by Columbus and named American Indians.

The last writer in the ancient record, and the one who hid away
the plates in the hill Cumorah, was Moroni--the same personage
who appeared as a resurrected being in the nineteenth century, a
divinely appointed messenger sent to reveal the depository of the
sacred documents; but the greater part of the plates since
translated had been engraved by the father of Moroni, the Nephite
prophet Mormon. This man, at once warrior, prophet and
historian, had made a transcript and compilation of the
heterogeneous records that had accumulated during the troubled
history of the Nephite nation; this compilation was named on the
plates "The Book of Mormon," which name has been given to the
modern translation--a work that has already made its way over
most of the civilized world. The translation and publication of
the Book of Mormon were marked by many scenes of trouble and
contention, but success attended the undertaking, and the first
edition of the work appeared in print in 1830.

The question, "What is the Book of Mormon?"--a very pertinent one
on the part of every earnest student and investigator of this
phase of American history--has been partly answered already. The
work has been derisively called the "Mormon Bible," a name that
carries with it the misrepresentation that in the faith of this
people the book takes the place of the scriptural volume which is
universally accepted by Christian sects. No designation could be
more misleading, and in every way more untruthful. The
Latter-day Saints have but one "Bible" and that the Holy Bible of
Christendom. They place it foremost amongst the standard works
of the Church; they accept its admonitions and its doctrines, and