Either through like ignorance of the evidence of 1834 that this was not the manuscript then being testified about, or through a willingness to play upon the ignorance of others, the two leading sects of Mormons have published this first manuscript as a refutation of a theory which no one ever advocated, viz.: That the manuscript now at Oberlin was the thing from which Smith _et al._ plagiarized the Book of Mormon. In my judgment, the publication of this first incomplete manuscript story furnishes additional evidence that the rewritten story did constitute the foundation of the Book of Mormon. When we remember what was said in 1834 as to the character of changes made in rewriting, and that the rewritten story was revamped by Smith, Rigdon and Company, we are astonished at the number of similarities retained; as, for instance, the finding of the story in a stone box, its translation into English, the attempt to account for a portion of the population of this continent, the wars of extermination of two factions, the impossible slaughters of primitive warfare, and the physically impossible armies which were gathered without modern facilities of either transportation or the furnishing of supplies--the fact that after two rewritings, the second being by new authors, there should remain these very unusual features, makes the discovery and publication of this first manuscript only an additional evidence that the second one did furnish the basis of the Book of Mormon. By always remembering these separate manuscripts and their different histories, much seeming conflict of evidence can be explained, mistaken conclusions accounted for, and confusion avoided. The Mormons, in their publication of this first manuscript story, have labeled it "The Manuscript Found," though no such title is discoverable anywhere upon or in the body of the manuscript in the Oberlin library. [22] The evident purpose of this is to further confound that first story with the second or rewritten manuscript which it will be demonstrated really was used in constructing the Book of Mormon, and which manuscript the witnesses to be hereafter introduced described by that title. Having traced to its final resting-place at Oberlin College the first manuscript story, which had no direct connection with the Book of Mormon and never was claimed to have such, let us now, if we can, trace into the Book of Mormon Spaulding's rewritten story, entitled "The Manuscript Found." [Footnote 22: xxxv. _Saints' Herald,_ 130; "Prophet of Palmyra," 459.] SPAULDING'S REWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT.