“Six hundred and thirty odd years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem, Christ, after his resurrection, appeared unto many of the Nephites, and established his church, chose disciples, and sent them throughout the land to preach his gospel, thus fulfilling the saying, ‘Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them I must go and bring also.’
“Individuals of the Lamanites, at times, were obedient to the faith. The Nephites, after Christ's appearance, were faithful for many years; but, in the third or fourth century, iniquity began to abound, and their love began to wax cold. Some dissented, and raised up churches for the sake of gain; and thus they were troubled with the spirit of pride and [pg 268] haughtiness. God commanded Mormon, who lived in the fourth century, to preach repentance to them, and foretell their destruction if they would not repent. The Lord, foreseeing that they would not repent, commanded Mormon to collect the writings of his forefathers,—their revelations and prophecies, &c.,—and make an abridgment of them, and engrave them upon new plates, (their manner of keeping records was to engrave them on metallic plates.) But in consequence of their wars, and their flight to the north, to escape the Lamanites, he did not live to finish this work; and, when the final destruction of the Nephites drew near, he gave the records to his son Moroni, who lived to see their final extermination, or destruction, by the hands of the Lamanites, and they, with his father, left to moulder on the plain.
“Thus a powerful nation, whose fathers were the favorites of Heaven, were cut off, and their names have faded into oblivion!
“The Indians of America are the descendants of the Lamanites, and, according to predictions that are in the Book of Mormon, they will yet lay down their weapons of war, and be converted unto the Lord.
“Moroni finished compiling and abridging the records of his fathers, which he engraved upon new plates, for that purpose, to use his own words, as follows:—‘And now, behold, we have written this record, according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian; being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And, if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and, if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.’
“He also engraved on them an account, called the ‘Book [pg 269] of Ether’ of a people who left the old world, and came to this continent at the time the language was confounded at Babel, which was a partial fulfilment of the saying, ‘So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth.’ (Gen. 11:8.)
“Moroni was then commanded to deposit this record in the earth, together with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, Interpreters, which were instruments to assist in the work of the translation, with a promise from the Lord that it should be brought to light by means of a Gentile nation that should possess the land, and be published to the world, and go forth to the Lamanites, and be one of the instruments in the hands of God for their conversion. It remained safe in the place where it was deposited, till it was brought to light by the administration of angels, and translated by the gift and power of God.”
The Mormon Bible contains five hundred and eighty-eight duodecimo pages, and purports to have been written at different times, and by the different authors, whose names the parts respectively bear. The following are the names of the different books, in the order in which they occur:—
1. First Book of Nephi.
2. Second Book of Nephi.