Normally the Book of Mormon text has towards, but scribe 3 of 𝓞 often has toward, here in 1 Nephi 5:22 as well as in two other places:
In fact, these three examples are the only extant examples of toward in the original manuscript. Despite these examples of toward, scribe 3 sometimes wrote towards:
On the other hand, Oliver Cowdery favors towards—in fact, all of his extant examples in 𝓞 read that way.
The Book of Mormon text strongly prefers the form towards rather than toward. There are a total of 103 occurrences of toward(s) in the text, of which 87 show no variation at all. These 87 all have the form towards. There are 16 cases with variation; besides the three involving scribe 3 of 𝓞, we have the following:
These are discussed individually in this volume; a summary is found under towards in volume 3. Overall, the evidence argues that the best procedure in dealing with this case of minor variation is, in each instance, to let the earliest textual sources determine the reading. Thus here in 1 Nephi 5:22 as well as in 1 Nephi 7:21 and 1 Nephi 8:17, the toward written by scribe 3 of 𝓞 will be restored, even though it is quite possible that the original text read towards.
Summary: In each case of toward versus towards, we follow the earliest textual sources; three times scribe 3 of 𝓞 wrote toward instead of towards; over time these three examples have been replaced by towards, but in each instance the critical text will restore the earliest form, toward.