LATTER-DAY SAINTS' EMIGRATION.
The publications of the church show that, commencing with the year 1840 and ending with the year 1883, there have been emigrated from the European countries to the United States, by the church emigration agencies, 78,219 souls, who have crossed the sea in 243 sail vessels and steamships.
These have come in companies of varied numbers, from a dozen or two at a time to as many as eight hundred or more, which latter number has embarked several times on double decked ships.
We regret our inability to give a tabulated statement of the number of persons from each country of their nativity. The greater proportions have been from Great Britain and Scandinavia, while Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Finland, East India, South Africa and other countries have contributed to make up the number.
A very remarkable feature in this work of gathering Israel is that of all these vessels that have gone to sea, no one with a Latter-day Saint on it has ever gone down. Some have been driven back to Port before they could get out of the Irish channel, one was dismasted before reaching New Orleans, but all have yielded up their precious souls and freight to the ports of their destination.
The organization, cleanliness and consequent health, peace and safety, have rendered the Saints' emigration notorious and proverbial among European shippers and ship captains, many of whom have been heard to say that a company of Mormon emigrants on their ship they considered better insurance than the underwriters at Lloyd's could give.
THE BOOK OF MORMON.
The Book of Mormon is the name of a record which was engraved upon plates of gold, about 400 years after the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by a celebrated prophet named Mormon. These plates were deposited by his son, Moroni, in a stone box, in a hill in the western part of the State of New York, called by the Nephites, Cumorah. The language in which this record was made was said by Mormon to be Reformed Egyptian. On the 22d of September, 1823, Moroni discovered the stone box which contained these plates, the Urim and Thummim, a sword and breastplate, to the young Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., and he, by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, translated the record from the plates into the English language. This is the most ancient, the most accurate and reliable history of America, its ancient inhabitants and its antiquities, that is now extant; and has since been translated from the English into the French, German, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Welsh, Kanaka, Hindostanee, Dutch and Spanish. It has also been printed and published in all those languages except Spanish, Hindostanee and Dutch, and will soon be published in the Spanish also.