1. _The Mormon Bible._--By those not familiar with Mormon literature, the Mormon Bible and the "Book of Mormon" are frequently confounded. The former, however, is simply our English version of the Scriptures, with such modifications and distortions as Joseph Smith, the inspired translator, saw fit to make. He twisted some passages in Genesis so as to turn statements connected with the life of the patriarch Joseph into prophecies relating to a great prophet called Joseph, who should come forth in the latter days--referring to himself. He even had the audacity to make interpolations in Christ's Sermon on the Mount; but our Bible, as translated by Smith and interpreted by him and his successors, is accepted by every Mormon as inspired, and is to be found in every Mormon Church. 2. _The "Book of Mormon"_ is the next source of their doctrines, and is the more modern revelation, and therefore takes precedence over the Bible. The supernatural origin of the book, according to the Mormon belief, we have already given in Chapter I. Mormon, after whom the book is called, was the last of the sacred prophets of ancient America. He was the leader of a race called the Nephites, and perished in a battle between his own race and the Lamanites in A.D. 420. Both Nephites and Lamanites were descendants from the family of Lehi, an Israelite of the tribe of Manasseh, who emigrated from Jerusalem to America during the reign of King Zedekiah, 600 B.C. The wars between these two races form the great bulk of the book. In the year A.D. 420 the decisive battle was fought at Cummorah, in Western New York. The Nephites were exterminated, with the exception of a few individuals. Mormon, their leader, was slain, and with him 230,000. The descendants of the victorious Lamanites are the North American Indians. The "Book of Mormon" is said to be the condensed record of the history, faith, and prophecies of the ancient inhabitants of America, made on golden plates by the prophet Mormon. These plates he intrusted to his son Moroni, who survived the awful battle of extermination. He was the last of the Nephites to die, but before dying he sealed up the golden plates on which all these events were written and hid them in the Hill Cummorah, the very site of the final battle between the Nephites and Lamanites; and there Joseph Smith, guided by the spirit of Moroni himself, found them in 1827, took them to his home, translated them by means of his magical spectacles, and had them printed under the title "_The Book of Mormon_." It is certainly a unique work. It is a collection of sixteen separate or distinct books professing to be written at different periods by different prophets. Its style is in imitation of the Bible, and it incorporates about three hundred passages directly from the Holy Scriptures.