19fi CHURCH OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS. 



the plates. He therefore packed up his goods, concealed 

 the plates in a barrel of beans^ and proceeded across the 

 country to the northern part of Pennsylvania, near the 

 Susquehannah River, where his father-in-law resided. 

 Here, " by the gift and power of God, through the 

 means of the Urim and Thummira, he began to translate 

 the record, and, being a poor writer, he employed a 

 scribe to write the translation as it came from his mouth." 

 In 1830 a large edition of the Booh of Morjiion was 

 published. It professes to be an abridgment of the 

 records made by the prophet Mormon of the people of 

 the Nephites, and left to his son Moroni to finish. It 

 is regarded by the Latter-day Saints with the same 

 veneration as the New Testament is among Christians. 



The Church of the Latter-day Saints was organised 

 on the 6th of April 1830, at Manchester, in Ontario 

 County, New York. Its numbers at first were few^ but 

 they rapidly increased, and in 1833 removed to the State 

 of Missouri, and purchased a large tract of land in 

 Jackson County. Here their neighbours tarred and 

 feathered some, killed others, and compelled the whole 

 to remove. They then established themselves in Clay 

 County, in the same State, but on the opposite side of 

 the river. From this place again, in 1835, they removed 

 eastward to the State of Ohio, settled at Kirtland, in 

 Gauga County, about twenty miles from Cleveland, and 

 began to build a temple, upon which sixty-thousand 

 dollars were expended. At Kirtland a bank was incor- 

 porated by Joe and his friends, property was bought with 

 its notes, and settled upon the Saints, after which the bank 

 failed — as many others did about the same time — and Ohio 

 became too hot for the Mormons. Again, therefore, the 

 Prophet, his apostles, and a great body of the Saints, left 

 their home and temple, went westward a second time to 

 the State of Missouri, purchased a large tract of land in 

 Caldwell County, in Missouri, and built the city of the 



