“Behold Four Hundred Years Have Passed Away”

“Of striking interest is Moroni’s statement that four hundred years had passed away since the coming of the Savior, making the date 400 of our era. It seems incredible that the holder of the keys of the stick of Ephraim (see D&C 27:5) never wrote a line on the plates of the Book of Mormon entrusted to him until sixteen years after the last great battle at Cumorah, but such seems to be the fact. Questions crowd us. What did Moroni do in the meantime? Where did he go? How did he live? How did he avoid his enemies? What did he do with the records his father left him? The answers to these and many other questions must be left to the imagination; the record is silent.” (Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, chap. 2)