THE TASK OF THE PRESENT WRITER.
To prove the things here alleged becomes now the task of the present writer.
First then as to the matter of Spaulding's having re-written his story, "Manuscript Found;" in which, it is said, he changed the character of it by going further back with his dates, "and writing in the old scripture style, in order that it might appear more, ancient." Also he must have further changed the character of his story, giving the colony he brought to America an Israelite instead of a Roman origin, giving his characters the names of Lehi, Nephi, Laman, Moroni, etc., instead of Sambol, Hambock, Labanko, Moon-rod, Ulipoon, etc.; and the names of the people from Sciotans and Kentucks, to Nephites and Lamanites! This second manuscript and these changes are necessary both to the evidence and the argument of Mr. Schroeder—necessary to his whole theory; without the existence of this second manuscript and these changes that differentiate it from the manuscript at Oberlin, his "case" collapses. It is conceded by Mr. Schroeder and all through whose hands it has passed, including Mr. Fairchild, president of the Oberlin College, Ohio, and Mr. Rice, among whose papers the manuscript now at Oberlin was found, that this Oberlin manuscript, which beyond any doubt Spaulding wrote, could not have been the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon;[34] therefore a second Spaulding manuscript altogether different from this half ribald, silly "Manuscript Found" story must be had; and its mythical existence was brought about in the following manner:
[Footnote 34: President Fairchild I have already quoted (See Note 32). Mr. Rice says: "I should as soon think the Book of Revelation was written by the author of Don Quixote, as that the writer of this manuscript [the Spaulding Oberlin manuscript] was the author of the Book of Mormon." From a letter of Mr. L. L. Rice to Mr. Joseph Smith, President of the Reorganized Church—"History Church of Jesus Christ," Vol. IV, pp. 471-3.]