The Myth of the "Manuscript Found" or the Absurdities of the "Spaulding Story"

This little volume...treats of a book—a divine record, the true story of its discovery and translation, and of the falsehoods that have been invented, nourished and sown broadcast throughout Christendom to blind men's eyes to its real import. For the Book of Mormon being true then Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and "Mormonism" is the everlasting gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; but if it were a forgery, as our enemies assert, then would all our hopes be vain and our faith worthless.

The so-called "Spaulding story" has been for many years past the last refuge of those who have undertaken to prove that the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be. All other hypothesis have long since been committed to limbo as too silly, too outrageous or too inconsistent even for a gullible anti-"Mormon" public. In this short treatise we have endeavored to prove the utter untenability of this theory. We have shown that the upholders of this myth are not only at variance with each other, but that all their assertions are inconsistent with the well-known facts associated with its discovery; and when we proceed further to examine the internal evidence of the book we very soon discover that the conglomeration of conjectures, guesses, suppositions, etc., of which this "Spaulding story" is formed is "as unstable as water" and utterly unworthy of belief.