to the reader—
as many false reports have been circulated respecting the following work, and also many unlawful measures taken by evil designing persons to destroy me, and also the work, i would inform you that i translated, by gift and power of god, and caused to be written, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which i took from the book of lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of lehi, by the hand of mormon; which said account, some person or persons have stolen and kept from me, notwithstanding my utmost exertions to recover it again—and being commanded of the lord that i should not translate the same over again, for satan had put it into their hearts to tempt the lord their god, by altering the words, that they did read contrary from that which i translated and caused to be written; and if i should bring forth the same words again, or, in other words, if i should translate the same over again, they would publish that which they had stolen, and satan would stir up the hearts of this generation, that they might not receive this work; but behold, the lord saith unto me, i will not suffer that satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing: therefore thou shalt translate from the plates of nephi, until ye come to that which ye have translated, which ye have retained; and behold ye shall publish it as the record of nephi; and thus i will confound those who have altered my words. i will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, i will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil. wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of god, i have, through his grace and mercy, accomplished that which he hath commanded me respecting this thing. i would also inform you that the plates of which hath been spoken, were found in the township of manchester, ontario country, new york.
the author.
thus from the beginning the prophet boldly declared that which the lord had revealed to him concerning this effort on the part of the conspirators to destroy the work; and there was not one who rose to contradict his statement, at the time, although some anti-"mormon" writers of later years assert—but without any warrant of proof—that, enraged at the part her husband was taking in bringing forth the book of mormon, mrs. martin harris burned the manuscript. this, however, she always denied. the first publication referring to this subject, aside from what the prophet published in the above preface, is howe's history of mormonism, published at painsville, ohio, 1834. this is an anti-"mormon" book, and of the manuscript incident it says: "the facts respecting the lost manuscripts we have not been able to ascertain. they sometimes charged the wife of harris with having burnt it, but this is denied by her."[29]
meantime, attention is called to the fact that there is nothing improbable in the statement of joseph smith; but on the contrary all the conditions obtaining in the neighborhood where he resided while bringing forth the work favor the probability of such a conspiracy as he charges: the unwarranted but repeated efforts made by his enemies to wrest the plates from his possession; the home of his parents repeatedly beset by mobs; the issue of warrants by justices of the peace for searching his wagon for the plates; and subsequently the actions of mr. grandin, his printer, who, after entering into contract to print the book was certainly in honor bound to render him all the assistance in his power in getting out the work in the best order possible, and protecting him in his copyrights—the actions, i say, of mr. grandin, in permitting squire cole[30] the use of his press on nights and sundays in order to secretly publish his dogberry papers, in which was to appear a garbled edition of the book of mormon in weekly installments; the mass meetings held in palmyra and vicinity in which resolutions were passed not to purchase the book should it ever issue from the press (which action caused mr. grandin to suspend the work of printing until the prophet could be brought from harmony, in pennsylvania, to give renewed assurance of his ability to meet the price of printing); the confession of j. n. tucker, one of the employees of grandin's printing establishment, that after setting up a sheet in type, it was secreted and the story given out that it was lost, and that manuscript for another sheet would have to be produced, which when done is alleged to have been unlike the first[31]—these well-attested circumstances establish the fact of a wide-spread and bitter opposition to the coming forth of the book of mormon; and, failing in that, then a determination to prevent its acceptance as revelation from god. all these things make it very easy to believe that such a conspiracy as the prophet describes existed against the work.
