The recent purchase of the Hill Cumorah by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints awakens wide spread interest in this sacred depository of the record called the Book of Mormon, engraven upon gold plates by the Prophet Mormon, who might well be considered the chief historian and compiler of historical records of the ancient Nephite people, descendants of the tribes of the house of Israel inhabiting America.

It is fitting, I think, that this recent occasion of purchasing Cumorah be taken advantage of to call attention to the importance of this sacred hill both in ancient times and in modern days as the depository of many sacred Nephite and Jaredite records besides the Book of Mormon. All the more is this important now because at present there is going on more or less agitation as to whether this hill in western New York from which Joseph Smith obtained the Book of Mormon is really the Hill "Cumorah" and the hill "Ramah" in which Mormon deposited all the records which had been committed to his keeping by previous custodians of such sacred records; and also as marking the site of those great battles which ended in the destruction of both the Jaredite and Nephite nations.