Far from being the fruit of an obsession, the Book of Mormon is a useful key to Joseph's complex and frequently baffling character.... Any theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon that spotlights the prophet and blacks out the stage on which he performed is certain to be a distortion. For the book can best be explained, not by Joseph's ignorance nor by his delusions, but by his responsiveness to the provincial opinions of his time. [1]

Emma [Smith] overstated the case for Joseph's illiteracy, claiming that he "could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter, let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon." Certainly, Smith had less schooling than his wife, but he managed to write reasonably well. After examining several letters from the early period of Smith's life (1831-1832), historian Dale Morgan concluded that they exhibit "a flair for words, a measure of eloquence, and a sufficient degree of schooling." ...Smith's talent lay not in correct orthography but, while telling a story, in his sense of narrative and ability to create memorable images.

The book Joseph dictated abounds with examples of his poor grammar and Yankee dialect as well as his penchant for digression, redundancy, and wordiness. Rarely are his characters' inner moral conflicts reflected. Most often we encounter flat, uncomplicated, two-dimensional heros and villains... [2]

Dictating to scribes mostly impromptu and without the aid of notes, the narrator was not entirely unprepared. God's dealings with Native Americans was, after all, a topic that had preoccupied him [Joseph Smith] for more than five years. He had been rehearsing the stories since at least 1823 when he held his family spellbound with his accounts of the area's original inhabitants. [3]

He [Solomon Spalding] then told me he had been writing a book, which he intended to have printed... The book was entitled the "Manuscript Found," of which he read to me many passages. -- It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America, endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jews, or the lost tribes. It gave a detailed account of their journey from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America, under the command of NEPHI and LEHI. [6]

I was personally acquainted with Solomon Spalding, about twenty years ago. I was at his house a short time before he left Conneaut; he was then writing a historical novel founded upon the first settlers of America... The lapse of time which has intervened, prevents my recollecting but few of the leading incidents of his writings; but the names of Nephi and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory,... I have no manner of doubt that the historical part of it, is the same that I read and heard read, more than 20 years ago. [7]

I was soon introduced to the manuscript of Spalding,... From this he would frequently read some humourous passages to the company present. It purported to be the history of the first settlement of America... I have recently examined the Book of Mormon, and find in it the writings of Solomon Spalding, from beginning, to end, but mixed up with scripture and other religious matter,... The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact all the principal names, are bro't fresh to my recollection, by the Gold Bible. [8]

I first became acquainted with Solomon Spalding in 1808 or 9, when he commenced building a forge on Conneaut creek. When at his house, one day, he showed and read to me a history he was writing, of the lost tribes of Israel, purporting that they were the first settlers of America, and that the Indians were their descendants. Upon this subject we had frequent conversations. He traced their journey from Jerusalem to America, as it is given in the Book of Mormon, excepting the religious matter.... the names more especially are the same without any alteration. He told me his object was to account for all the fortifications, &c. to be found in this country,... [9]

Now, whether the souls and the bodies of those of whom has been spoken shall all be reunited at once, the wicked as well as the righteous, I do not say; let it suffice, that I say that they all come forth; or in other words, their resurrection cometh to pass before the resurrection of those who die after the resurrection of Christ.

About this time [1811] my husband's mind became much excited upon the subject of religion; yet he would not subscribe to any particular system of faith, but contended for the ancient order, as established by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and his Apostles. [19]

Near the west Bank of the Coneaught River there are the remains of an ancient fort. As I was walking... I hapned to tread on a flat Stone. This was at a small distance from the fort: & it lay on the top of a small mound of Earth exactly horizontal... With the assistance of a leaver I raised the Stone -- But you may easily conjecture my astonishment when I discovered that its ends and sides rested on Stones & that it was designed as a cover to an artificial cave. -- I found on examining... that it is was about eight feet deep... Here I noticed a big flat Stone fixed in the form of a doar,... Within this cavity I found an earthan Box with a cover which shut it perfectly tite -- The Box was two feet in length... When I had removed the cover I found that it contained twenty eight sheets of parchment. & that when * * * appeared to be manuscripts written in an elegant hand with Roman Letters & in the Latin Language.... The Roll which principally attracted my attention contained a history of the authors life & that part of America which extends along the great Lakes & the waters of the Missisippy. [20]

Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a

stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box.... Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them. [22]

Joseph Smith was certainly not the first to claim the discovery of a stone box, metal plates, or an Indian book. It was known that the Indians sometimes buried their dead in stone boxes similar to the one described by Joseph Smith. In 1820, for example, the Archaeologia Americana reported that human bones had been discovered in some mounds "enclosed in rude stone coffins." A similar stone box, described by John Haywood of Tennessee, was made by placing "four stones standing upright, and so placed in relation to each other, as to form a square or box, which enclosed a skeleton." Stone boxes of various sizes and shapes had reportedly been found in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, New York, and other places.

According to various accounts, some of the North American mounds also contained metal plates. Plates constructed by the Indians were usually made of hammered copper or silver and were sometimes etched. Plates made of other metals were most likely of European manufacture. In 1775 Indian trader James Adair described two brass plates and five copper plates found with the Tuccabatches Indians of North America. According to Adair, an Indian informant said "he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to them by the man we call God; that there had been many more of other shapes,... some had writing upon them which were buried with particular men."...

Perhaps such discoveries of metal plates encouraged the persistent legend of a lost Indian book. The legend, as related by Congregational minister Ethan Smith [in his 1825 book, View of the Hebrews] of Poultney, Vermont, held that the Indians once had "a book which they had for a long time preserved. But having lost the knowledge of reading it, they concluded it would be of no further use to them; and they buried it with an Indian chief." [23]

In this saga, Enoch, the seventh patriarch, the son of Jared, and the great-grandfather of Noah, according to Masonic tradition, became disgusted with wickedness surrounding him. Fleeing to the "solitude and secrecy of Mount Moriah"... the Shekinah (sacred presence) appeared to him with instructions to preserve the wisdom of the antediluvians to their posterity. He then made a gold plate and engraved in characters the true, ineffable name of Deity. The plate was then placed in a specially prepared subterranean vault, along with other treasure, and covered with a stone door. Enoch was then only allowed to visit the site once a year. [24]

The history of the discovery of the Manuscript can be told in a few words. D. P. Hurlbut, an apostate, the originator of the fabrication that the Book of Mormon originated in Mr. Spaulding's tale, wrote a bitter assault on the Latter-day Saints in 1836 [1834], entitled "Mormonism Unveiled," which was published in the name of, and by E. D. Howe, of Painesville, Ohio. During the time Hurlbut was gathering material for this work, he obtained from the family of the then deceased clergyman the original of the "Manuscript Story," but discovering that it would, if published, prove fatal to

his assumptions, he suppressed it; and from that time it was entirely lost sight of until about two years ago [1884], when a Mr. L. L. Rice, residing at Honolulu, Sandwich Islands [Hawaii], found it among a numerous collection of miscellaneous papers which he had received from Mr. Howe, the publisher of Hurlbut's "Mormonism Unveiled," when in 1839-40, he, with his partner, purchased from that gentleman the business, etc., of the Painesville Telegraph.

In 1884 President James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, Ohio, was paying a visit to Mr. Rice,... and discovered a packet marked in pencil on the outside, "Manuscript Story -- Conneaut Creek," which, to their surprise, on perusal, proved to be the veritable, long-lost romance of Dr. Spaulding... [25]

it should be noted that if, as seems most likely, there was only one Spaulding manuscript, there were certain similarities between it and the Book of Mormon which, though not sufficient to justify the thesis of common authorship, might have given rise to the conviction of Spaulding's neighbors that one was a plagiarism of the other.... it should be remembered, as President Fairchild pointed out in his analysis of the problem, that "the Book of Mormon was fresh in their minds, and their recollections of the 'Manuscript Found' were very remote and dim. That under the pressure and suggestion of Hurlbut and Howe, they should put the ideas at hand in place of those remote and forgotten, and imagine that they remembered what they had recently read, would be only an ordinary example of the frailty of memory." [26]

The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection by the Golden Bible. When Spalding divested his story of its fabulous names by a verbal explanation, he landed his people near the Straits of Darien, which I am very confident he called Zarahemla... [29]

because they testified particular concerning us, which is the remnant of their seed.... And those things which testifies of us, are they not written...

because they testified particularly concerning us, who are the remnant of their seed.... And these things which testify of us, are they not written...

they were drowned up in the depths of the sea.

they were drowned in the depths of the sea.

which there were so much wickedness (1830, p. 463, 3 Nephi 5:6)

both Alma and Helam was buried in the water (1830, P. 192, Mosiah 18:14)

And thus ended the record of Alma, which was wrote upon the plates of Nephi. (1830, p. 347, Alma 44:24)

they did prepare for to meet him (1830, p. 225, Alma 2:12)

we depend upon them for to teach us the word (1830, p. 45, Helaman 16:21)

Droll Tom was rewarded for his benevolent proposal with one of the most sprightly rosy dames in the company. -- Three other of the most cheerful resolute mariners were chosen by the other three buxhum Lasses -- [32]

it came to pass that the Lord spake unto him again, saying that it was not meet for him, Lehi, that he should take his family into the wilderness alone; but that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise. (1 Nephi 7:1)

Hold out the hand of kindness and friendship to thy neighbour -- consider him when reduced to indigence & distress -- he is as dear to the great and good being as what thou art [& now thou hast an opportunity to manifest the disposition of thy heart] To afford him relief will be pleasing to thy maker & an expression of thy gratitude Envious & malicious souls are almost incurably contaminated with that hellish poison which first disordered the soul of man -- partake not of their guilt by joining them in the malignant work of slander & detraction."

The family name I sustain is Fabius, being decended from the illustrious General of that name -- I was born at Rome and received my [tuition] education under the tuition of a very learned Master -- At the time that Constantine arived at that city & had overcome his enimies & was firmly seated on the throne of the Roman empire I was introduced to him as a young Gentleman [litera] genius & learning and as being worthy of the favourable notice of his imperial majisty -- He gave me the appointment of one of his Secritaries, and such were the gracious intimations which he frequently gave me of his high approbation of my conduct that I was happy in my stations. [34]

there were actually two Spaulding manuscripts, one might reasonably expect stylistic similarities between the Book of Mormon and the extant manuscript ["Manuscript Found"], since the latter was full of unmistakable literary mannerisms of the kind that are more easily acquired than shed. Spaulding was heir to all the florid sentiment and grandiose rhetoric of the English Gothic romance. He used all the stereotyped patterns -- villainy versus innocent maidenhood, thwarted love, and heroic valor -- thickly encrusted with the tradition of the noble savage. The Book of Mormon had but one scant reference to a love affair, and its rhythmical, monotonous style bore no resemblance to the cheap cliches and purple metaphors abounding in the Spaulding story. [35]

I well remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every other sentence with "and it came to pass" or "now it came to pass," the same as in the Book of Mormon, and according to the best of my recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother Solomon wrote... [36]

And it came to pass that he began to cry unto the people, saying: Behold, I am guilty, and these men are spotless before God. And it came to pass that he began to plead for them, from that time forth;...

And it came to pass that he began to cry unto the people, saying: Behold, I am guilty, and these men are spotless before God. And he began to plead for them from that time forth;...

Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews -- even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world. (1 Nephi 10:4)

And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land;... (Alma 48:15)

And there began to be men inspired from heaven and sent forth, standing among the people in all the land, preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people, and testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people, or in other words, the resurrection of Christ;... (3 Nephi 6:20)

And because he said unto them that Christ was the God, the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him the image of man, and it should be the image after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of God... (Mosiah 7:27)

The same pattern is present in the Doctrine and Covenants:

And if God giveth him power again, or if he translates again, or, in other words, if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them; (D&C 10:17)

Lift up your hearts and rejoice, for unto you the kingdom, or in other words, the keys of the church have been given. (D&C 42:69)

And let the higher part of the inner court be dedicated unto me for the school of mine apostles, saith Son Ahman; or, in other words, Alphus; or, in other words, Omegus; even Jesus Christ your Lord. Amen. (D&C 95:17)

It is now three score and two years, since the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, caused the proclamation to go forth among the people of the continents, that the people of this nation should be free, and that over them, "kings should not rule, and princes decree authority;" and all this, preparatory to the great work which he had designed to accomplish in the last days, in the face of all people, in order, that the Son of God, the Savior of the world, should come down from heaven, and reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously; according to the testimony of all the holy prophets, since the world began. And it is eight years, two months, and twenty eight days, since this church of the last days was organized, by the revelations of that same Jesus, who is coming to reign before his ancients gloriously: then consisting of six members only."

Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore, there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God... (2 Nephi 2:12)

There is one final consideration that is really fatal to the identification of [Spalding as the author]. When Joseph was producing the Book of Mormon he met with a very disastrous event. Mrs. Harris... managed to get hold of 116 pages of the opening portion of the Book of Mormon manuscript... Had Joseph been dictating from a manuscript provided for him by Rigdon, it should have been easy for him simply to have read off the same portion again. Likewise, even if he had read his translation from the words God had caused to appear on his Seer Stone (as the early Book of Mormon witnesses described his translating process), it should also have been no problem for God to restore the lost pages in identical words. However, it seems more likely that Joseph had simply dictated his material as it came to his mind. This meant that he could not reproduce word-for-word what he had already dictated on those 116 missing pages. The way out of this embarrassing predicament was given in a "revelation" in which he was informed that there was a second set of plates... References to that second set of plates appear, therefore, in the part of the Book of Mormon which replaced the purloined manuscript, explaining that it was for "a wise purpose" that this second set was being made. One of the passages mentioning this second set of plates that rescues Smith from his problem occurs right in the middle of [1 Nephi 9]... This makes sense if Smith dictated it, but there is no explanation why Spalding should introduce a second set of plates into his story where it serves no purpose.... How can the preoccupation with religious topics in these ... pages be explained when Spalding's novel was said by the earliest witnesses to have had little religious content? ...Why should Spalding introduce, with no apparent need for it in the plot, a second set of plates, just where Joseph would need so badly a second set of plates to avoid being discredited by his inability to reproduce the identical words of the missing 116 pages? [41]

old prophet Mormon, fifteen hundred years ago, should happen to discover these other plates of Nephi, and thus change the entire first part of his book, at the precise spot in king Benjamin's history where Martin Harris stole the 116 pages of manuscript?

And thus prophesied Joseph, saying: Behold, that seer will the Lord bless; and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded;... And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto me; for the thing, which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand, by the power of the Lord shall bring my people unto salvation. (2 Nephi 3:14-15)

Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer. (Mosiah 8:13)

And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.

And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God.

But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known. (Mosiah 8:15-17)

We frequently met with great mounds of earth, either of a circular, or oblong form, having a strong breast-work at a distance around them, made of the clay which had been dug up in forming the ditch on the inner side of the inclosed ground, and these were their forts of security against an enemy... About 12 miles from the upper northern parts of the Choktah country, there stand... two oblong mounds of earth.... in an equal direction with each other... A broad deep ditch inclosed those two fortresses, and there they raised an high breast-work, to secure their houses from the invading enemy. [46]

Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land. (Alma 48:8)

And he also placed armies on the south, in the borders of their possessions, and caused them to erect fortifications that they might secure their armies and their people from the hands of their enemies. (Alma 50:10)

And he caused that they should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers; and thus they did cause the Lamanites to labor until they had encircled the city of Bountiful round about with a strong wall of timbers and earth, to an exceeding height. (Alma 53:4)

[Ethan] Smith's is by far the most important and interesting work dealing with the origin of the American Indians and the mound builders. Smith quotes from many other writers, both American and European, to support his thesis that the first settlers of the New World were the lost ten tribes of Israel... Several times he repeats the notion that the mound builders were destroyed by the Indians... His ten tribe theory forces him to develop the hypothesis that the Indians had degenerated from a civilized condition to,. their wild and savage state. He also mentions the Indian legend of the lost book of God which would one day be returned. [48]

In 1823, seven years before the Book of Mormon was published, Ethan Smith, had written View of the Hebrews, a compilation of popular opinions about the origins of the American Indians, who supposedly descended from the Hebrew tribes.... Ethan Smith was a Congregational minister living in Poultney, Vermont, Oliver Cowdery's home until 1825 when he moved west and met Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith's own birthplace, Sharon, Vermont, was only 40 miles from Poultney. But View of the Hebrews, which was expanded in the 1825 edition, was also read widely in New York...

Ethan Smith had collected reports about the Hebrew origin of the Indians from missionaries and traders who had lived among them. [49]

View of the Hebrews circulated widely in New York. It was also condensed in Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence, one of the more widely circulated books of the Manchester rental library in 1827. [50]

According to Roberts's later studies, some features of View of the Hebrews are paralleled to the Book of Mormon. (1) Indians buried a book they could no longer read. (2) A Mr. Merrick found some dark yellow parchment leaves in "Indian Hill." (3) Native Americans had inspired prophets and charismatic gifts, as well as (4) their own kind of Urim and Thummim and breastplate. (5) Ethan Smith produced evidence to show that ancient Mexican Indians were no strangers to Egyptian hieroglyphics. (6) An overthrown civilization in America is to be seen from its ruined monuments and forts and 'mounds. The barbarous tribes -- barbarous because they had lost the civilized arts -- greeting the Europeans were descendants of the lost civilization. (7) Chapter one of View of the Hebrews is a thirty-two page account of the historical destruction of Jerusalem. (8) There are references to Israel's scattering and being "gathered" in the last days. (9) Isaiah is quoted for twenty chapters to demonstrate the restoration of Israel. In Isaiah 18 a request is made to save Israel in America. (10) The United States is asked to evangelize the native Americans. (11) Ethan Smith cited Humboldt's New Spain to show the characteristics of Central American civilization; the same are in the Book of Mormon. (12) The legends of Quetzacoatl, the Mexican messiah, are paralleled in the Book of Mormon by Christ's appearing in the western hemisphere.... Roberts came to recognize that, at least in the case of Ethan Smith's book, such works were widely available." [52]

Those who are most conversant with the public and private economy of the Indians, are strongly of opinion that they are the lineal descendants of the Israelites, and my own researches go far to confirm me in the same belief.

In the year 1810, I opened,... one of the flat mounds,... in Ohio,... we found the skeletons of a number of

bodies,... all deposited directly due east and west, the heads to the west; precisely as is the practice in Christian burials.

The Aborigines... are fast dwindling away, and will soon be buried in the depths of that oblivion which conceals the history and fate of a people who (judging from the traces discovered of the progress which they had made in civilization, and the arts and sciences, as developed by the western antiquities) must have been but a little behind the present generation in many respects. When we look at the straggling Indians who... reveal the ravages of intemperance and almost every other loathsome vice, we can hardly persuade ourselves that they are remnants of the powerful race of people who, as it were but yesterday, stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific... we may picture them in our minds as a flourishing and mighty nation... powerful in wealth and natural resources; combining moral and political excellence ... and we may suppose that some dreadful plague, some national calamity swept them from the face of the earth; or perhaps that like Sodom and Gomorrah of old, their national sins became so heinous, that the Almighty in his wrath utterly annihilated them...

Decyphering of Hieroglyphics. -- Professor Seyffarth of Leipsig, who has been employed in decyphering the Egyptian Antiquities at Rome, states,... that he has found... a Mexican manuscript in hieroglyphics, from which he infers, that the Mexicans and the Egyptians had intercourse with each other from the remotest antiquity, and that they had the same system a mythology. [53]

WONDERFUL DISCOVERY -- A few days since was discovered in this town [Albion], by help of a mineral stone, which becomes transparent when placed in a hat and the light excluded by the face of him who looks into it, provided he is fortune's favorite, a monstrous POTASH KETTLE in the bowels of Mother Earth, filled with the purest bullion. Some attempts have been made to dig it up, but without success. His Satanic

Majesty, or some other unseen agent, appears to keep it under marching orders, for no sooner is it dug onto in one place, than it moves off like "false delusive hope" only to re-appear in some remote place. But its pursuers are now sanguine of success. They have entrenched the kettle all around, and driven a steel ramrod into the ground immediately over it, to break the enchantment. Nothing now remains but to raise its ponderous weight and establish a mint that it may be coined into federal money. Good news indeed for these hard times....[58]

Mr. Stowell was at this time at old Mr. Smith's, digging for money. It was reported by these money-diggers, that they had found boxes, but before they could secure them, they would sink into the earth. A candid old Presbyterian told me, that on the Susquehannah flats he dug down to an iron chest, that he scraped the dirt off with his shovel, but had nothing with him to open the chest; then he went away to get help, and when they came to it, it moved away two or three rods into the earth, and they could not get it. [59]

Joseph Smith's anti-Masonic stance at the time the Book of Mormon was dictated can be explained by the fact that his father, a member of Ontario Masonic Lodge No. 23 (Canandaigua, NY) since 1817, left the craft in the aftermath of the notorious 1826 abduction of anti-Masonic crusader William Morgan and was considered a seceder Mason. [61]

The excitement respecting Morgan, instead of decreasing, spreads its influence and acquires new vigour daily. Scarcely a paper do we open without having our eye greeted by accounts of meetings, together with preambles and resolutions, some of them of a cast still more decided and proscriptive than any we have yet published...

The Freemason, too -- not only those who took off Morgan, but every one who bears the masonic name -- are proscribed, as unworthy of "any office in town, county, state, or United States!" and the institution of masonry,... is held up as dangerous and detrimental to the interests of the country! [62]

A few references from contemporary newspapers confirm an early anti-Masonic perception of the Book of Mormon. On 15 March 1831, the Geauga Gazette of Painesville, Ohio, stated that "the Mormon Bible is Anti-masonick" and that "every one of its followers... are anti-masons." This newspaper quoted Martin Harris as saying that the Book of Mormon was an

The Book of Mormon image of prophets being martyred at the hands of "secret combinations" could be loosely inspired by Morgan's death (Al. 37:30; 3 Ne. 6:19-30). Regardless, the principle upon which anti-Masons believed Morgan's murder had been carried out is expressed: "And whosoever of those who belonged to their band should reveal unto the world of their wickedness and their abominations, should be tried, not according to the laws of their country, but according to the laws of their wickedness, which had been given by Gadianton and Kishkumen" (Hel. 6:24). Later, as he worked on his Inspired Revision of the Bible in October 1830, Joseph Smith would make an addition to Genesis with a more direct comparison to the Morgan affair. His revision disclosed that Lamech murdered Irad, the son of Enoch, "for the oath's sake," because Irad began to reveal secret oaths to the sons of Adam (Moses 5:47-50). This undoubtedly reminded many in western New York of Morgan's violent murder. [64]

That Mr. Scott should feel disposed to charge Mr. Stone with a want of gravity... is rather surprising, more particularly as he has been such a champion for free investigation... (Jan., 1836)

What a moral governor thus requiring his subjects to seek after his will and more particularly when he wants them to serve and obey him how strange this is. (June, 1836)

Had this band of persecuting Campbellites came out like men and attacked the religion of the saints... but instead of this... more particularly since they have fallen in the pit which they had dug for others. (Jan., 1837)