VII.
The Weight of the Plates.
An objection is urged against the credibility of Joseph Smith's account of carrying the plates of the Book of Mormon home from the Hill Cumorah. It is claimed that on account of their great weight it would be impossible for him to carry them a distance of some two miles and repel successfully the three assaults which he alleges were made upon him enroute.
Hyde estimates that a mass of gold plates of the dimensions given, 7x8 inches and 6 inches thick, would weigh 200 pounds.[[79]] Many others have echoed this objection, and have adopted Hyde's data upon which it is founded. To increase the difficulties they also say, that "besides these plates he had, according to his third story, a breast-plate of brass, Laban's sword, the crystal interpreters, the 'brass ball with spindles,' the director of Lehi. Yet he packs his horse load, keeps these large and awkward shaped things completely concealed, and, at the same time, beat off and outruns two empty-handed men a distance of two miles! Statements must be probable, and, therefore, these ought to be rejected."[[80]]
This is a misrepresentation. The Prophet did not carry these "awkward shaped things" with him at the time he carried home the plates and repelled the attacks of his assailants. He carried with him the plates only on that occasion. The other articles, or as many of them as he had—I have nowhere found in any narrative of Joseph Smith's, or one by any responsible person associated with him, that he took possession of the sword of Laban or Lehi's director—he carried home at other times.[[81]]
In passing, I call attention to the fact that nearly every objection urged against the Book of Mormon has in it the element of misrepresentation. If the main fact contended for in the foregoing objection is true, namely, that the plates weighed 200 pounds, and therefore were too heavy for Joseph Smith to carry two miles and at the same time repel his assailants, why add the untruths of the rest of the statement? If the conclusion as to the weight be true, would not that be difficulty enough to present? It may be a little apart from the main question here to call attention to this tendency of misrepresentation in all the objections urged, yet the very strangeness of the circumstance tempts one to notice it, and it reveals the fact that those who are making objections to the Book of Mormon are not quite certain of the strength of such objections as may be urged while rigidly adhering to the facts in the case.
Without accepting or rejecting the conclusions relative to the probable weight of the plates—for it is largely matter of speculation in any case, and the conclusions urged may or may not be near the truth; and, moreover, ground for the difficulty presented would exist if it could be established that the plates weighed 90 or even 50 pounds, wo we will not haggle about the number of pounds in weight—it is conceded that the weight was considerable. In fact, I have already urged that it was a matter which impressed itself upon the minds of the Eight Witnesses, who incidentally say that they saw and "hefted" them.[[82]]
Replying to this objection it is to be urged, first of all, that Joseph Smith was a strong, athletic young man; and aroused as he was under the stress of the excitement of the occasion, he would be wrought up to his highest physical tension, and when so aroused the limits of what may be done by men in the way of feats of strength and agility have not yet been found. Of course there is yet to be reckoned with the power which God could, and which perhaps he did impart to the young Prophet. If that be accepted as a factor in the event, the objection based on the weight of the plates is swept aside. It matters not, then, whether the weight be 50 or 200 pounds. The difficulty is as easily overcome in the one case as in the other. But when a natural, ordinary source can be appealed to for explanation of such a circumstance as is before us, I do not care to appeal to the supernatural, to the miraculous; and I am of opinion that when the unusual personal strength of Joseph Smith is taken into account, and that the young man was aroused to his highest physical tension by the excitement of the circumstances under which he was acting, I think he could accomplish the things he claims to have performed though the weight of the plates be conceded as considerable.
In conclusion, on this head, I call the attention of the many sectarian "Reverends" who make much of the apostate Hyde's objection, and use his data for arriving at the weight of the plates, to the fact that it ill becomes them to urge this objection, while they have to account to an unbelieving world for the marvelous feats of strength and endurance of many Bible characters, and especially of Samson, for twenty years Judge of Israel. What of this man, bare handed, meeting a lion and overcoming him? What of one lone man, with so poor a weapon as the jaw bone of an ass, slaying a thousand men of a war-like people? What of his carrying away bodily, together with the posts and iron bar which fastened them, the huge gates of the city of Gaza? And finally of his pulling down the great central pillars of the temple of Dagon, so that the temple fell, slaying himself and a host of the Philistines?
If these "Reverend" gentlemen shall say in reply to this that each of these feats of strength and others accredited to Samson is in every case preceded by the statement, "the Spirit of the Lord began to move him," or "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him;" and that when at last he was caught weakly in the lap of the false Delilah, and in accounting for that weakness it is said, "he wisted not that the Lord was departed from him"—in a word, if his strength is to be accounted for by referring its origin to the Spirit of God resting upon the man, wayward though he was in some respects, that argument must count as much in explaining Joseph Smith's feat of carrying the Nephite plates home and repelling his assailants as in accounting for Samson's exploits.
The Death of Shiz.
The description given in the Book of Mormon of the death of Shiz, the Jaredite leader who fought Coriantumr, "the last of the Jaredites," is regarded as an objection to the Book of Mormon. The description follows:
And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.[[83]]
It is claimed that this represents an impossible thing—a man with his head stricken off rising upon his hands! And yet equally marvelous things of this nature have occurred, and are matters of record.
Mr. G. W. Wightman, of the Seventeenth Lancers of the British Light Brigade, and a survivor of the wild charge at Balaclava, relates, in the "Electric Magazine" for June, 1892, the incident of Captain Nolan's death during that charge. Captain Nolan was of the Fifteenth Hussars, and he met his fate, according to Wightman, as follows:
We had ridden barely two hundred yards and were still at the "trot," when poor Nolan's fate came to him. I did not see him cross Cardigan's front, but I did see the shell explode, of which a fragment struck him. From his raised sword-hand dropped the sword, but the arm remained erect. Kinglake writes that "what had once been Nolan' maintained the strong military seat until the 'erect form dropped out of the saddle;' but this was not so. The sword-hand indeed remained upraised and rigid, but all other limbs so curled in on the contorted trunk as by a spasm, that we wondered how for the moment the huddled form kept the saddle."
It is quite as remarkable that a man stricken unto death by the fragment of a shell should continue erect in the saddle, with sword-arm upraised and rigid, while the other limbs so curled in on the contorted trunk that those who saw him "wondered how the huddled form kept the saddle," as that a man as his head is stricken off should momentarily rise on his hands.
Mr. Wightman, in the same article, relates the still more remarkable case of Sergeant Talbot's death:
It was about this time that Sergeant Talbot had his head clean carried off by a round shot, yet for about thirty yards farther the headless body kept the saddle, the lance at the charge firmly gripped under the right arm.[[84]]
After this well attested fact, and many others of a similar nature that might be cited, it is not worth while being skeptical about Shiz convulsively rising on his hands for a moment after his head was stricken off.
Concluding Reflections.
The foregoing are not all the objections urged against the Book of Mormon, but they are the chief ones and the only ones I consider worthy or necessary of notice here; and even some of these scarce pass muster on the score of being worthy of consideration. I have already called attention to the tendency of misrepresentation in these objections; it is a characteristic of all objections that I have ever seen urged against the Book of Mormon. Why it is so I shall leave those to explain who make the objections. The arguments made against the Book of Mormon, especially those made by professed ministers of the Gospel, are wonderfully similar in spirit to those made by skeptics against the Hebrew scriptures, and in fact against all written revelation. The same scoffing at miracles; if they differ from those of the Bible—and sometimes when this difference is one only of degree—then it is argued that they cannot be true, because of said differences; if the miracles resemble those of the Bible—however remotely—then they are plagiarisms of the Bible, and are idle imitations unworthy of belief. The same old complaint of skeptics is made against the inadequacy and imperfections of the language—the language is not that of an All-Perfect Deity—it is unlike what might be expected of God, the human elements are all too apparent. And so one might continue through the whole gamut of criticism against the Book of Mormon.
Sectarian divines who would complain bitterly of such arguments if used against the Bible, do not hesitate to employ them and couple with them all the bitterness, ridicule, sarcasm, ribaldry, inuendo, and even misrepresentation that a certain class of skeptics have employed against the Bible. I do not mention these things in the way of complaint; I only want to point to the fact of them, that the reader, with me, may wonder at them and ask himself the question, why is this the case?
And now a final word as to these objections. Are all the objections to the Book of Mormon satisfactorily answered? Are all difficulties which they represent removed? Frankly, no; they are not. Every one must feel that. But, on the other hand, do these objections that are not entirely and satisfactorily answered constitute an insuperable difficulty in the way of a rational faith in the Book of Mormon? My answer is, they do not. Nor does incompleteness of evidence on any particular point necessarily mean error as to the general result of the evidence. But a little more time, a little more research, a little more certain knowledge, which such research will bring forth, will undoubtedly result in the ascertainment of facts that will supply the data necessary for a complete and satisfactory solution of all the difficulties which objectors now emphasize, and on which they claim a verdict against the Book of Mormon.
Meantime, do not our opponents recognize the fact that some responsibility devolves upon them in the controversy? What of the positive evidences and arguments advanced in favor of the Book of Mormon? Have we not a clear right to expect and demand a recognition of these, or else a clear confutation of them? It is nugatory, as George Stanley Faber successfully contended respecting infidel arguments against the Christian religion—it is nugatory to say that the evidences in favor of the Book of Mormon are weak and unsatisfactory, while yet no regular confutation or that evidence, and those arguments are brought forward. To state difficulties, paraphrasing Faber,[[85]] is one thing; to refute evidence and answer argument is another. The work which we have the right to demand of our opponents is a work in which they shall go regularly through the treatise, say of Charles Thompson, of Orson Pratt, or Parley P. Pratt, or George Reynolds,[[86]] and last, and perhaps least, the less worthy treatise of these pages, taking argument after argument, necessarily showing its utter inconclusiveness, and the inconclusiveness of the whole cumulative evidence and argument, bringing out the triumphant conclusion that the evidences in support of the claims of the Book of Mormon are too weak and unsatisfactory to command reasonable assent.
This is what is incumbent upon the opponents of the Book of Mormon. The mere statement of difficulties is not sufficient; for be it remembered that mere difficulties though unanswered, or even unanswerable, cannot set aside direct and positive evidence. "A negative presumption," says John Fiske, "is not created by the absence of proof in cases where, in the nature of things, proof is inaccessible,"[[87]] as is the case in respect of some proof to meet objections urged against the Book of Mormon. Again our author says: "No amount of negative evidence can outweigh a single well-established item of positive evidence."[[88]] And again: "Negative evidence, as every one knows, is a very unsafe basis of argument. A single item of positive evidence will always outweigh any amount of negative evidence."[[89]] The positive evidence that stands for the claims of the Book of Mormon become the difficulties that our opponents must overcome before they can hope to overthrow the claims made for the Nephite record. Until this is done, I shall hold that the mass of evidence which it has been the effort of the writer through these pages to set somewhat in order, is sufficient, both in quality and quantity, to fill the mind who pays attention to it with a rational faith in the Book of Mormon—THE AMERICAN VOLUME OF SCRIPTURE.
THE END.