| 496 To the above was added several statements said to have been made by the Martyr, and several acts interpreted by the Brighamites to mean or point to a Utah Zion; but none of them were ever published until fifteen years after the Prophet's death, and that, too, by residents in the Utah Zion, in justification for their course in settling here. At the close the writer challenged the editor to discuss the original proposition, either there or in Salt Lake City, embodying in it, specifically, that the evidence shall be produced from the history published prior to the Martyr's death. This was refused on the ground that there was no history before the year 1844. We took up the Millennial Star and Times and Seasons, and showed that there was. But it was no use, the debate must end there and then. Yet a number of that "intelligent audience" failed to discover when he said there was no history before Joseph's death, that he virtually admitted that he had been discussing a proposition which he knew all the time to be false in the essential claim made for it.
On July 30 appeared an important communication in the Boston Congregationalist, entitled, "Who wrote the Book of Mormon? Solomon Spalding not its Author," by Reverend C. M. Hyde, D. D. The gentleman referred to by Mr. Rice (see page 473), shows the conclusions to which a judge certainly not prejudiced would naturally come in regard to the Spalding Manuscript. It is as follows:
Just now many inquiries have come to Honolulu in regard to a manuscript in the possession of Mr. L. L. Rice, who came from Ohio to this city in 1879, to reside with his daughter, Mrs. J. M. Whitney. Mr. Rice was at one time editor of the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph, having, in connection with his partner, Mr. P. Winchester, in 1839, bought that newspaper, with all the appurtenances of the printing-office in connection with it, from Mr. Eber D. Howe, the former proprietor. In the mass of material turned over to Mr. Rice was a small parcel that was labeled in pencil, "Manuscript Story-Conneaut Creek." The parcel never had been opened till last summer, when Mr. Rice was looking over his papers, in search of memorabilia, in regard to the early anti-slavery movements in Ohio, in which he had actively engaged. He then found that it was the story written by Reverend Solomon Spalding, who, it has been claimed, wrote the "Book of Mormon," which Joseph Smith, Jr., published as an inspired translation of certain records, in regard to the American Indians and their connection with Christianity, engraved on golden plates, and found by him on the top of a hill in Palmyra, New York. In the rubbish of a printing-office that manuscript of Mr. Spalding's for which diligent search has hitherto been made in vain, has been as effectually lost as if it had been entombed in some forgotten Indian burial cave, to be strangely resurrected in these islands out in the Pacific Ocean.
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