BOOK OF MORMON. A work first pub lished by Joseph Smith in 1830, and alleged to be the English translation of an ancient record, embodying the history and more particularly the religious beliefs and practices, of the aboriginal peoples of the American continent. The period covered by the main history is proximately 1,000 years, beginning with • I t B.c., in which year a small company of Israelites left Jerusalem by Divine direction, under the leadership of the prophet Lehi. These people reached the Arabian shore, where they con structed a vessel In which they crossed the waters to the Western continent. The colony developed into two opposing nations, Nephites and Lamanites, named after their respective chieftains, Nephi and Laman. The Nephites cultivated the arts of civilization and kept a written history which was engraved by a suc cession of scribes on thin plates of gold. The Lamanites led a nomadic life, depended for subsistence mainly upon war and the chase, and in time degenerated into the dark-skinned race of which the American Indians are said to be the descendants. The Nephites were exterminated by their Lamanite foes about 400 A.D.
The voluminous Nephite records were abridged and summarized by Mormon, one of the later prophets, who gave to the abridgment his own name: hence the title of Mormon?) The original classification into distinct books, each designated by the name of its principal author, was preserved by Mormon in his shorter history; and the modern version appears as a compilation of 15 such books. Mormon's son, Moroni, survived the destruc tion of his people long enough to continue the record left by his father, with which he incor porated the (Book of Esther,' which appears as an abridged history of a colony that had been miraculously brought to America from the Tower of Babel soon after the dispersion. Moroni deposited the records together with certain other articles of sacred import in a stone box, and this he buried in a hill near Palmyra, Wayne County, in the State of New York, which hill is called in the text Cumorah.
Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, the official designation of which is CThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? solemnly affirmed that in September 1823 the existence of the records was made known to him by an angelic visitant, who an nounced himself as Moroni, the last historian and prophet of the extinct Nephite nation, and that four years later Moroni delivered to him the plates of gold with the commission to trans late certain portions, for which labor he had been qualified through the gift and power of God. With the plates were two stones, set in the ends of a bow of metal; these, as Moroni explained, were the Urim and Thummim; and Joseph Smith averred that by their aid he was enabled to translate the ancient characters into English. The of Mormon' comprises 623 pages, averaging 425 words to the page. From the English version translations have been made into 15 tongues.
Among the many assumptions advanced in purported explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon and in hostile denunciation of Joseph Smith's avowal, the most generally known is the Spaulding story. This repre sented the Book of Mormon as an adapted version of a romance written by Solomon Spaulding, a clergyman of Amity, Pa. The claim has been thoroughly disproved. The original manuscript of the Spaulding romance is preserved in the library of Oberlin College, Ohio, where it was deposited by the president of that institution, James W. Fairchild, who published an attestation of its genuineness and a statement to the effect that no assumption of its relationship to the 'Book of Mormon' is tenable. See MoitmoNs; SMITH, JOSEPH.