The Mormons - A Popular History, From Earliest Times to the Present Day #262819

A vision of Moroni appeared to him, as an angel from the dead, for the special purpose of revealing where these wondrous plates were hidden, and assisted Joseph Smith to translate them. These translations were published in 1830, as the Book of Mormon, which is the keystone of that religion, on which the whole superstructure is built. A picturesque story this, but another tale as to the book's origin is given by the Gentiles; differing from the Mormon accounts. A Presbyterian minister, Solomon Spalding, in 1812, conceived the idea of writing an historical romance about a people superior to the race first discovered in America. Stories of this fabulous sect were supposed to have been discovered in some famous mounds near Ohio, and he entitled his book The Manuscript Found.