MR. SCHROEDER'S STATEMENT OF HIS CASE.
These preliminary remarks ended, I proceed now with the consideration of Mr. Schroeder's evidence and argument. Mr. Schroeder states the "case" he proposes to prove, item by item, as follows:
"It will be shown that Solomon Spaulding was much interested in American antiquities, that he wrote a novel entitled the 'Manuscript Found,' in which he attempted to account for the existence of the American Indian by giving him an Israelitish origin;
"That the first incomplete outline of this story, with many features peculiar to itself and the Book of Mormon, is now in the library of Oberlin college, and that while the story as rewritten was in the hands of a prospective publisher, it was stolen from the office under circumstances which caused Sidney Rigdon, of early Mormon fame, to be suspected as the thief;
"That later Rigdon, on two occasions, exhibited a similar manuscript which in one instance he declared had been written by Spaulding and left with a printer for publication.
"It will be shown further that Rigdon had opportunity to steal the manuscript and that he foreknew the forthcoming and the contents of the Book of Mormon;
"That through Parley P. Pratt, later one of the first Mormon apostles, a plain and certain connection is traced between Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith and that they were friends between 1827 and 1830.
"To all this will be added very conclusive evidence of the identity of the distinguished features of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found," and the Book of Mormon.
"These facts, coupled with Smith's admitted intellectual incapacity for producing the book unaided, will close the argument upon this branch of the question, and it is hoped will convince all not in the meshes of Mormonism that the Book of Mormon is a plagiarism."[17]
[Footnote 17: I have taken the liberty of throwing the several propositions into separate paragraphs.]