But let us see in what plight this statement leaves Mr. Schroeder's case. If, Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson is right about the return of the Spaulding manuscript to its author while yet at Pittsburg; that it was taken to Amity, and after the decease of Mr. Spaulding fell into the hands of Mrs. Spaulding, and "was carefully preserved" by her, and was "frequently examined" by her daughter,--then Sidney Rigdon did not steal it from Patterson and Lambdin's printing office, whatever Rigdon's connection with that office might have been; and Mr. Schroeder is under the necessity of abandoning one of the chief elements of his case; an element so essential that if abandoned his case collapses into confusion. To Mr. Schroeder's mind the theft of the manuscript by Mr. Rigdon is the one circumstance that will harmonize all the alleged "established facts," and make the Spaulding theory tenable. To this end he repudiates four other theories as to how the Spaulding manuscript reached the hands of Joseph Smith, by him to be exploited as the Book of Mormon. First, the theory that Joseph Smith himself secured the manuscript from the house of Wm. H. Sabine in 1823 (John Hyde's theory.) [88] Second, that Sidney Rigdon copied the manuscript while it was at the printing office of Patterson and Lambdin, (the Storrs-Austin-Davidson statement theory, and also the Spaulding family theory). [89] Third, that Joseph Smith copied it while working for Wm. H. Sabine (brother of Mrs. (Spaulding) Davidson, be it remembered), about 1823, but leaving the original there. Fourth, the theory that Spaulding copied his story for the publisher "while keeping the duplicate at home to be afterwards cared for by the family." Of course, "these various theories" were all invented because of a supposed necessity of accounting for the alleged presence of the re-written 'Manuscript Found' in the trunk at Sabine's house after 1816, the date of Spaulding's death. So says Mr. Schroeder. [90] [Footnote 88: "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs," by John Hyde, Jr. (1857) p. 279.] [Footnote 89: "New Light on Mormonism," grand-niece of Mrs. (Solomon Spaulding) Davidson, (1885). She declares that Mrs. McKinstry "remembers how her mother talked on the subject, expressing a firm conviction that Sidney Rigdon had copied the manuscript which had been in Mr. Patterson's office in Pittsburg," p. 23, 24.] [Footnote 90: _American Historical Magazine_, September, 1906, p. 390, _ante_ pp. 24, 25.]