If the Book of Mormon were modern in structure and its author or authors had the conception that this western world was peopled by a colony coming from the Euphrates valley, in very ancient times, and subsequently by two other colonies from Judea, one leaving 600 B. C. and the other shortly afterwards, in giving the history of those people, would not the modern author have begun with the most ancient colony and treated the history of the respective peoples in the order of their occupancy of the western continents? Then, again: If the Book of Mormon is mere fiction, the idle coinage of an inventive, modern author, why three migrations? If the object of the modern author was merely to convey an idea how a civilized race in ancient times occupied the western world, why would not the first migration--the Jaredite--have answered all his purposes? Or why not take the second migration--the Nephite--for the accomplishment of such a purpose? Why complicate it by bringing in the migration of Mulek's colony, when the simple treatment of developing the Nephite colony into national proportions would have been sufficient for the purpose of a work of fiction? One other question I would submit relative to the Jaredite record and the strange place it occupies in the Book of Mormon. The plates of Ether were found by an expedition sent out from Zeniff's colony about 123 B. C., and were translated shortly afterwards by Mosiah II., who was a seer; that is, he was able to use Urim and Thummim in the translation of strange languages. Now, why did not Mormon include an abridgment of Mosiah's translation of the plates of Ether in his abridgment of Nephite records, allowing it to stand in his collection of plates as his abridgment of the Book of Zeniff stands within his abridgment of the Book of Mosiah, instead of passing the matter by and leaving it for his son Moroni to make a translation direct from the Book of Ether, thus throwing the history of the first inhabitants of the western world, after the flood, to the very last part of the record? Candidly, does the complex structure of the Book of Mormon appeal to one as at all modern in its arrangement? Are modern books so constructed? And yet, notwithstanding all the complexity in the structure of the book, each part is so in harmony with every other part, and with the whole, that really, after all, it is a very simple book, and one readily understood. It is clear that the very peculiar circumstances under which the Book of Mormon was compiled by the original Nephite writers, and that neither the ingenuity nor the stupidity of Joseph Smith, nor of any other modern writer, is responsible for this peculiar structure of the book. And, moreover, since the book in its details retains harmonious consistency with the plan of its structure, must not such a fact be conceded to be an incidental evidence in favor of its claims? Footnotes 1. Ether vi: 27. Ibid. ix: 15-22. Ibid. x: 10 et. seq.