kept for ages by a miracle, dug from the ground by a miracle, and translated by a miracle, was stolen by some one, so that even a miracle could not restore it; and thus were the designs of the Lord counteracted by "Satan putting it into their hearts to tempt the Lord."
CHAPTER III.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
"The Book of Mormon," is divided into a number of books, each one purporting to have been written by different individuals upon plates of brass, so far as the history of Lehi, the founder of the vast settlements which were situated on the isthmus of Darien, were concerned; and upon plates of gold, so far as it relates to one Jared and his posterity, who were not confounded at the destruction of Babel, but were miraculously navigated by the hand of the Lord across the ocean. The history of Lehi and his posterity, commences in the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah, six hundred years before the Christian era, and ends about four hundred years afterwards, which concludes the history, or fiction. The whole work is written in a miserable attempt to imitate the style of king James the first, and the sameness is such, and the tautology of phrases from the beginning to the end of the work, that no one can be left in doubt in identifying the whole with one individual author. We are not aware that the style of king James is better calculated to reveal the will of Heaven, than is the
