After the McDowell-Bridwell debates, Bro. A. B. Kirkendall, of Creola, Ohio, thought it advisable to be in possession of Boudinot's work, "A Star in the West," issued in 1816, "Archaeologia Americana" (American Archaeology), issued in 1820, and "View of the Hebrews," by Ethan Smith, issued in its second edition in 1825. By an extended effort, and paying a pretty good price, he secured them. As they are rare works now I thought something as to their contents might be of value, if the issue in the ever-continuing conflict shall be from Mr. Bridwell's position; and perhaps, otherwise. In the brief on Boudinot, in reference to Bridwell's arraignment of P. P. Pratt, Bro. A. B. Kirkendall's opinion is that quotation marks have been made to include, what was intended by Pratt, as his own language, summing up traditions in a way. This seems quite possible.

Interest centers in these briefs, in a measure, at least, as the works they are upon have been used by Mr. Bridwell to show that Joseph Smith had ample from which to form the Book of Mormon. I am of the opinion (having read them) that no candid, fair-minded person could read them and the Book of Mormon, and conclude the Book of Mormon originated in such a way. It is possible, of course, Mr. Smith, or any other man might have read such works and reproduced from them; but it does not follow of necessity that such was done by Mr. Smith in the case of the Book of Mormon, though some things agree. The points of dissimilarity, leave the matter clear, in the case of the Book of Mormon. If, as Mr. Bridwell would have it, these books being so much in use, so accessible to Mr. Smith and it is so clear that he drew from them, why, oh why, was there not a Bridwell to point it out then? Fate of fates, Bridwell must have been born out of due time! So evident, yet none saw it, and Mormonism went on!

Can it be the deceased, distinguished Boudinot, first speaker of the House of Representatives, and also the first president of the American Bible Society, had no friends remaining to defend his work? Did the "American Antiquarian Society," existing by the enactment of the legislature of Massachusetts and of Congress, and composed of many of the distinguished men of the time, sit idly by, seeing Joseph Smith utilize their work, to impose on mankind, and make no objection? Ethan Smith, author of "View of the Hebrews," probably still lived in the early years of the publication of the Book of Mormon, but, if he did not, had he, too, no friends to object to the ill use of his book? Ethan Smith's book, the latest of the three, was published in 1825, or five years before the Book of Mormon. E. D. Howe published "Mormonism Unveiled" in or about 1835, ten years after Ethan Smith's work, and five years after the Book of Mormon. He snatched up at once the Spalding tale (an unpublished affair), and did not publish it because it did not read as expected—would not answer his purpose. Hall and all the Goliaths who have opposed Mormonism in those days and all since, even down to John T. Bridwell, lost the opportunity of his recent important discovery, that from Boudinot, etc., the Book of Mormon was formed, when it would have been so easy to have shown it up from those words, so abundant as they were at the appearance of the Book of Mormon. What a compliment to the whole army of stalwarts opposing Mormonism! Even Bays saw the Spalding tale would not do, but could not see the other. Who can not see that if it were true, as Bridwell claims, scores would have seen it back in 1830, and urged it at every mention of the Book of Mormon. It would have found place in the encyclopedias and histories equal to the Spalding tale.

The Spalding tale theory was driven to the extremity of four supposed copies, and yet this of Mr. Bridwell's still eluded the grasp of such searching theorists. Mr. Bridwell's discovery is one more boomerang—it will do its work on the return trip.

That Mr. Bridwell found points of identity is granted. But the points of dissimilarity count most sometimes. Between an ostrich and a canary there are points in common, each having two wings, two feet, two eyes, and one beak; both are clothed with feathers, but their size and their song for ever bar their similarity. No claim of the knowledge of the existence of the Cliff-dwellers dates back as far as 1860, yet thirty years before that the Book of Mormon told of such a people in such habitations. They were the Cliff-dwellers. The continental cataclysm, which the Book of Mormon records as having occurred at the time of the crucifixion of the Savior, is borne out by incontrovertible evidences.

A continual enlargement of the evidence that some mysterious, divine personage visited the ancient Americans, an ever widening knowledge of the tradition as to the cataclysm, and that it was attended by a period of darkness, and other features attaching, do not admit of being explained away by the limited knowledge of seismic disturbances and theories concerning them at the time of the origin of the Book of Mormon.