---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 17
number: 11
published: 1914-09
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Cumorah and the Nephite Record", *Improvement Era* 17, no. 11 (September 1914), unpaginated front matter.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera17011unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera17011unse
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-09)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera17011unse
  publication_year: 1914
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Cumorah and the Nephite Record

CUMORAH AND THE NEPHITE RECORD.
       "Convenient      to the village of   Manchester, Ontario County,
New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill,
not far from the top, under a stone of considerable            size, lay the

plates, deposited in a stone box.      This stone was thick and rounding in the middle On the upper side, and thinner towards the
edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground,
but the edge all round was covered with earth.
       "Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got
fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised
it   up.    I   looked in, and there indeed did   I   behold the plates, the
Trim and Thummim, and the breasplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement.    In the bottom of the box were
laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the

plates and the other things with them.
       "I   made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by
the messenger, and was again informed that the time for bringing
them forth had not yet arrived, neither would it, until four years
from that time, but he told me that I should come to that place
precisely in one year from that time, and that he would there
meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time
should come for obtaining the plates. Accordingly, as I had been
commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time 1
found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what
the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days." Joseph Smith.
Flistory of the Church, pp. 15, 16.

From a painting by L. A. Ramsey

       "TRUTH SHALL SPRING OUT OF THE EARTH"
    This painting by Mr. Ramsey is likely to prove as great a success
as did his portrait of Joseph Smith, a steel engraving of which appeared in the Era of December, 1910. It represents the angel Moroni
delivering the sacred plates of the Book of Mormon to the young
prophet, September 22, 1827. Competent critics assert that Mr. Ramsey has shown more versatility in this picture than in any of his other
successes. The artist was aided by suggestions from Elder B. H. Roberts, of the First Council of Seventy, in making the picture historically
correct.   An angel, or messenger from God, according to the belief of
the Latter-day Saints is either a resurrected person of flesh and bone,
or thespirit of a just man made perfect. The ideal has perhaps been
more nearly reached in this portrait than in any other ever attempted.
When the plates were delivered, Cumorah, though now completely
denuded, was covered with    trees.