In Spaulding's first writing of his manuscript story, he pretended to find a roll of parchment in a stone box within a cave. In the Latin language, this contained an account of a party of Roman sea voyagers, who, in the time of Constantine, were, by storms, drifted ashore on the American continent. One of their number left this record of their travels, of Indian wars and customs, which record Spaulding pretends to have found and to translate.[16] How that resembles a synopsis of the Book of Mormon!
[Footnote 16: "The Manuscript Found." For Howe's synopsis see "Mormonism Unveiled," 288. Whitney's "History of Utah," 49-51.]
In 1834, when E. D. Howe had in preparation his book, "Mormonism Unveiled," wherein the Spaulding story was first exploited, this first manuscript was given by Spaulding's family to D. P. Hurlburt, the agent of Howe. The Spaulding family, without having made any examination whatever of the papers delivered to Hurlburt, seem always to have believed,[17] though without any evidence, that he received and sold to the Mormons the rewritten story entitled "Manuscript Found," which will be more fully discussed hereafter. From Howe this first manuscript story went into the possession of one L. L. Rice, who bought out Howe's business, and later, with other effects of Rice's, it was shipped to Honolulu, and there, in 1884, accidentally discovered by President James H. Fairchild of Oberlin College.[18] This manuscript is now in the Oberlin library, and has been published by two of the Mormon sects as being a refutation of the Spaulding origin of the Book of Mormon. It can be such refutation only to those who mistake it for another story. Howe, in 1834, published a fair synopsis of the manuscript now at Oberlin[19] and submitted the original to the witnesses who testified to the many points of identity between Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" and the Book of Mormon. These witnesses then (in 1834) recognized the manuscript, secured by Hurlburt and now at Oberlin, as being one of Spaulding's, but not the one which they asserted was similar to the Book of Mormon. They further said that Spaulding had told them that he had altered his original plan of writing by going farther back with his dates and writing in the old Scripture style, in order that his story might appear more ancient.[20]
[Footnote 17: "New Light on Mormonism," by Mrs. Ellen F. Dickinson.]
[Footnote 18: Publisher's Preface to "The Manuscript Found," p. iv. Deseret News, 1886; Whitney's "History of Utah," p. 49; Talmage's "Articles of Faith," 278-9.]
[Footnote 19: Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 288; Whitney's "History of Utah," 49.]
[Footnote 20: Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 288.]
According to many witnesses, the re-written "Manuscript Found" (like the Book of Mormon) was an attempt at imitating the literary style of the Bible. So was the manuscript submitted to Patterson, according to his own statement.[21] No such indications are found in the Oberlin manuscript, which further evidences that it is not the manuscript of which the witnesses testified, and which Patterson says was submitted to him. The Oberlin manuscript also furnishes internal evidences of an improbability that it was ever submitted to a publisher by any man as sane and well educated as was Spaulding. The plot of the story is incomplete, and the manuscript is full of interlineations, alterations, careless or phonetic spelling, and misused capital letters. These are all easily explainable consistently with Spaulding's erudition, if we view the manuscript as a hasty and careless blocking out of his literary work, but it is not in such a condition as would make him willing to submit it to a publisher.
[Footnote 21: "The Spaulding Story Examined and Exposed," by John E. Page, 7; "Who wrote the Book of Mormon?" 7; "Mormonism Exposed," by Williams.]
If we bear in mind that from the beginning it was asserted that this manuscript now at Oberlin was not the one from which the Book of Mormon was alleged to have been plagiarized, then President Fairchild's conclusion that it disproves such plagiarism of course becomes absurd and only demonstrates his ignorance of the early testimony upon which was asserted the connection of the Book of Mormon and another manuscript. This also disposes of the Mormon argument most frequently urged against the theory here advocated.