Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/178

166 have made, although in this case the assailant accepts with reverence the Christian Scriptures, seeking to found thereon a revelation newer and more complete.

It is somewhat disappointing, if the Book of Mormon is to be accepted as the new revelation, to find it so very inferior, alike in matter and in style, to its great predecessors. Nearly equal in hulk to the Old Testament, it lacks altogether the poetic grandeur and the graphic force of the Hebrew Scriptures, although the Biblical phraseology has been laboriously imitated throughout. It is styled "An Account written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi. Translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.:"

The sacred volume is divided into thirteen books, bearing the names of various prophets, one of whom is Mormon. The last book is that of Moroni, who says: