FOOTNOTES:
[7] These ships of Hagoth carried many colonies to the land northward; as it was their custom to take one load of emigrants and when they had disembarked, to return for another. Some of these vessels were eventually lost; that is, the ships and their passengers never reached their destination. It is supposed by many that a part of them were carried out to mid-ocean by storms and probably wrecked; and that the survivors found safety and shelter on some of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. In this way, it is suggested, the Hawaiian, Samoan and other islands were first peopled.
[8] Pacumeni was chosen to succeed Pahoran as Chief Judge.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
PACUMENI SLAIN—HELAMAN CHOSEN CHIEF JUDGE—THE CONSPIRACY TO SLAY HIM—KISHKUMEN KILLED—THE PROSPERITY OF THE NEPHITES UNDER HELAMAN.
(HELAMAN CHAP. 1 TO 3.)
AS PACUMENI, the chief judge, had been slain at the capture of Zarahemla, no sooner was the war over than an election took place to fill his vacant seat. The choice fell upon Helaman, the more righteous of the people providentially being still in the majority.
Helaman being a God-fearing, just man, his election was very distasteful to the Gadianton band and its sympathizers. They resolved to slay him as they had before slain the younger Pahoran, and place Gadianton on the judgment seat in his stead. To accomplish this the same vile instrument was chosen—Kishkumen. But the protecting hand of the great Jehovah was over and around about Helaman, and he preserved him from the assassin's knife. A servant of Helaman, possibly a detective commissioned in such time of peril to watch the movements of the dangerous classes, by disguise became acquainted with the doings of the robber band, and of their intentions toward his master.
As Kishkumen was on his way to fulfil his bloody work, this servant, whose name is not recorded, met him, and gave him one of their secret signs. This admitted him into the confidence of the assassin, who explained his errand, and asked to be conducted privately into the judgment hall, where Helaman was then sitting in the performance of his duties. This was agreed upon; the two proceeded to where the murderer expected to find his victim. The strategy of the servant disarmed his suspicions, he was off his guard. At the opportune moment the servant stabbed Kishkumen, and so adroitly did he perform his work, that the robber fell dead without a groan. The servant immediately ran to the judgment hall, and informed Helaman of all that he had heard, seen and done. Without delay, orders were issued for the arrest of the band, but its members, finding that Kishkumen did not return, and fearing he had miscarried in his unholy work, under the guidance of their leader fled precipitately into the wilderness by a secret way, and, in the depths of its luxuriant vegetation, hid in a place where they could not be found. (B. C. 50.)
The succeeding years were of peculiar prosperity, though not of great righteousness, amongst the Nephite people. They spread out and colonized in every direction. Many thousands emigrated to the northern continent, among them great numbers of Ammonites. Numerous new cities were built, and old ones repaired; ship building was largely carried on, and the arts and manufactures encouraged. Temples, tabernacles and sanctuaries were erected in great numbers; in fact, the people spread out and covered both continents north and south, east and west. The sacred historian states that he has not recorded one hundredth part of the doings of the people—their wickedness and righteousness, their wars and contentions, their peace and prosperity; but many records were kept, upon which the history of these things were engraved, and all that is necessary for the world's good will be brought to light in heaven's own time.
The annals of the remainder of Helaman's rule are very short. In the years B. C. 45 and 44 there were many contentions in the land, but in the latter portion of the succeeding year they measurably ceased, and tens of thousands were baptized unto repentance. So great was the prosperity of the church at this time that even the priesthood were surprised thereat, and at the multiplicity of blessings that were poured out upon the people. This happy state of affairs continued until the death of Helaman, though somewhat marred by the increasing pride and vanity that long-continued prosperity had begotten in the hearts of many of the Christians.
Helaman himself was a righteous man: He did observe to keep the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of God; and he did do that which was right in the sight of God continually, and he did walk after ways of his father, insomuch that he did prosper in the land. So writes the historian of Helaman; what more can be said of any man?
Helaman had two sons to whom he gave the names of Nephi and Lehi, to remind them, when they heard their own names called, of the faith and goodness of their great ancestors, who, by God's direction, led their fathers to the promised land. When Helaman died he was succeeded by his son Nephi.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SONS OF HELAMAN—NEPHI's RIGHTEOUS RULE—THE LAMANITES AGAIN INVADE ZARAHEMLA—THEY DRIVE THE NEPHITES INTO THE NORTHERN CONTINENT—THE MINISTRATIONS OF NEPHI AND LEHI—THE MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD'S POWER IN THE CITY OF NEPHI—AMINADAB—THE CONVERSION OF THE LAMANITES—UNIVERSAL PEACE.
(HELAMAN CHAP. 4 AND 5.)
IN NEPHI we have one of the greatest prophets that ever trod the earth, or to whom the God of our salvation revealed his glorious will. He lived during the greater portion of the first century before Christ, and disappeared from the knowledge of mankind but a short time before the advent of the Messiah as a babe in Bethlehem. He is first referred to in the Book of Mormon (B. C. 44) as the elder of Helaman's two sons, Lehi being the younger. These two brothers appear to have been inseparable during their lives. They are nearly always mentioned as associated in the great and oft-times perilous labors of the ministry undertaken for the salvation of either Nephites or Lamanites. We have no information with regard to the time of Nephi's birth, but when his father died, in the year B. C. 39, he succeeded him as chief judge, the duties of which office he filled with wisdom and justice for about nine years, when owing to the wickedness of the people, he resigned that office, and Cezoram was chosen by the people in his stead (B. C. 30).
The years that Nephi judged his people are some of the darkest in Nephite history. Owing to their great pride and iniquity, the Lord left them to themselves, and they became weak like unto the Lamanites, man for man. When war was declared, the latter, being much the more numerous, carried everything before them. In vain the Nephites struggled for their homes and their liberties. They were forced back by the hordes of the Lamanites from city to city, from land to land. Manti, Gideon, Cumeni, Moroni, and even Zarahemla fell. Nor did the war end when the blood-thirsty Lamanites held high carnival in the midst of its towers and palaces. Onward swept the invading host; backward fled the defenders of the commonwealth, and backward they continued until every town and city, every tower and fort, from Melek to Moroni, from Manti to Bountiful, were filled with the savage, half-disciplined, dark-skinned warriors of Laman. Not a place could be found in the whole southern continent where the soldiers of the Nephites successfully held their ground. Zarahemla, with its hallowed associations, its glorious temples, where the daily sacrifice was unceasingly offered, its proud palaces, its luxurious homes, its courts of justice, where the chief judge sat in the magnificence of almost kingly authority to administer the law—this their queen city, the seat of their government, the centre of their civilization, the home of their highest priesthood, was in the hands of their merciless, vandal-like foes. Nor had the danger stopped; with hurried hands the Nephites built a line of defense across the Isthmus of Panama from sea to sea, for the unnumbered hosts of their conquerors were still pushing forward. This line of fortifications was effectual; it stopped the roll of the barbaric tide northward, and the Lamanite commanders rested with the possession of a continent.
In this war the Nephite dissenters took active part against their white brethren, and to this fact, in part, may be attributed the sudden success that shone on the Lamanite arms. But little by little in succeeding years the half repentant Nephites regained their lost ground, until (B. C. 31) the most northerly half of their possessions had again fallen into their hands; but because of their only partial repentance, their leaders had not strength to lead them further, and Zarahemla still remained in the hands of the warriors of Laman.
When Nephi retired from the judgment seat it was with the intention of devoting his entire time to the preaching of the gospel. He associated his brother Lehi with him, and commencing at Bountiful, he journeyed and preached throughout all the land southward in the possession of the Nephites. From thence the two brothers passed onwards to Zarahemla, where they found many Nephite dissenters, to whom they proclaimed the word of God in great power. Numbers of these confessed their sins, were baptized unto repentance, and immediately returned to their brethren to repair, if possible, the wrongs they had done, and make such restitution as lay in their power.
Numbers of the Lamanites also received the truth gladly, insomuch that eight thousand of that race were baptized in Zarahemla and the regions round about.
From Zarahemla the prophets proceeded to the Lamanite capital in the land of Nephi, where yet mightier power attended them. The voice of God from heaven sustained their testimony; angels ministered to the people who assembled to see them; neither prisons, nor chains, nor bonds could restrain or hold them, and they accomplished an ever blessed and marvelous work amongst the benighted children of Laman (B. C. 30). God's power was manifested at these times in mercy to the darkened condition of the minds of the Lamanites, when only extraordinary manifestations of his divine goodness could reach their hearts. They had no records to which they could appeal, and all their traditions were opposed to the Holy Being whose message of eternal joy the Nephite prophets bore. Thus in their weakness they were strengthened by signs and wonders which a people better educated in the things of God could with but ill grace claim.
The story of the ministration of Nephi and Lehi in the land of Nephi is of the deepest interest. When they reached its chief city they were thrust into that same prison into which Ammon and his companions were cast by the guards of king Limhi. Here they were kept with little or no food for a number of days. At the end of this time the officers of the Lamanites went to the prison with the intention of slaying the two brothers. But to their intense surprise the Lamanites found them encircled about as if by fire. At this strange spectacle fear fell upon the officers. They dared not touch the two prisoners lest they should be burned. Yet when they saw that Nephi and Lehi were not consumed their hearts took courage, though they still stood as if struck dumb with amazement.
At this point the two brethren stood forward and began to explain that what was seen was manifested that the spectators might learn that no one could harm them, and that they were the servants of the Most High, and his all-powerful arm shielded them. Nor was this all: a sudden earthquake shook the ground, the prison walls tottered to their foundations, a pall of thick darkness covered all whom curiosity or other motives had gathered to the prison. The unburning flame, the tottering walls, the quivering earth, the impenetrable cloud of blackness, all conspired to fill the hearts of the Lamanites with solemn fear and awful dread. They realized the almighty power of God; they were filled with the sense of their own abject insignificance. A voice, the voice of One whom they knew not, sounded in their affrighted ears. Once and again, yea, a third time, and each time that the voice came it was followed by the trembling of the earth and the shaking of the prison walls. All nature quivered at the presence of the Majesty on High, whilst the heavy, palpable, impenetrable darkness still enshrouded them.
From above the voice descended; it was outside the cloud; its tones came not to their quaking hearts with the roar of the pealing thunder; nor was it like the tumultuous flow of angry waters; but a still voice of perfect mildness, almost a whisper, that pierced to their inmost souls. That voice was the voice of the mighty God of Jacob, and he called upon all those who heard him to repent, and to do his servants no hurt. With the third repetition of this command were added marvelous words of salvation that cannot be uttered by men. And because of the darkness that enveloped them, and the fearful dread that filled their hearts, none dared to move. Fear, astonishment, apprehension of what was to come, had riveted each to the spot on which he stood.
Among the crowd was a Nephite dissenter, an apostate from the true church, named Aminadab. This man, happening to turn his face in the direction in which the two disciples stood, beheld that their faces shone with a glorious light, and that they were conversing with some one who appeared to be above them, for their eyes were turned heavenward. Aminadab drew the attention of those who surrounded him to this glorious appearance, and the spell that bound them was sufficiently removed to enable them to turn towards the prisoners and to become witnesses of the fact also. What do all these things mean? they anxiously inquired. They do converse with the angels of God, answered Aminadab. What shall we do that this cloud of darkness may be removed? was their next question. You must repent and cry unto the Voice, even until ye shall have faith in Christ, he replied. They did cry unto God with all the energy that their terrifying surroundings inspired, and so continued to supplicate until the cloud was dispersed. Then, to their great surprise, they discovered that they also were entombed in a pillar of living fire. Yet this fire did not hurt them, it did not singe their garments, it did not consume the prison walls, but their terror was swept away, and they were filled with a joy that was unspeakable, for the Holy Spirit of God filled their souls, and they broke forth in marvelous words of praise and rejoicing. Again a pleasant, searching whisper reached their gladdened ears. It said unto them, Peace, peace be unto you because of your faith in my Well-beloved, who was from the foundation of the world. Now there were about 300 souls who heard and saw these things, and they cast up their eyes unto heaven, which was opened to their vision, and holy angels came down and ministered unto them.
The tidings of this glorious appearing were quickly spread near and far in the lands where the Lamanites dwelt. So powerful was the testimony, and so great were the evidences, that the major portion of the people believed, repented and obeyed the gospel. Then, like all true saints, they manifested the sincerity of their repentance by works of restitution; they laid down their weapons of war, they cast aside their false traditions, their hatred gave place to love, and they restored to the Nephites Zarahemla and the other lands which they had taken from them (B. C. 30).
So great was the reformation in their character that the Lamanites soon exceeded the Nephites in their faith and good works. Extraordinary as it may appear, instead of Nephite missionaries visiting the Lamanites, Lamanite missionaries were soon ministering the precious truths of the gospel among the Nephites. Then a universal peace, such as had never before been known since the division of the two races, extended over the whole land. Indeed, from this time the history of the two nations, to a great extent, becomes one. Together they worshiped the Lord, together they rose and sank, together they battled with the assassin hosts of Gadianton, together they triumphed over those desperadoes, and together they sought refuge in one vast body when there was no safety but in massing the people in one land, together the more unrighteous portions of both races were destroyed at the crucifixion of the Savior, and together the more righteous ones witnessed his appearing, listened to his words, received his law, and became members of his holy church. Henceforth, for generations, they were no more of Nephi, no more of Laman, no more of Jacob, no more of Ishmael—all were of Christ.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GROWTH OF EVIL AMONGST THE NEPHITES—THE INCREASE OF THE GADIANTON ROBBERS—NEPHI'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE MURDER OF THE CHIEF JUDGE—THE DISCOVERY—NEPHI ARRESTED—HE IS PROVEN INNOCENT—GOD'S COVENANT WITH HIM—INCREASE OF INIQUITY—A TERRIBLE FAMINE—THE WELCOME RAIN—THE TREND TO DEATH.
(HELAMAN CHAP. 6 to 11.)
THE GOODLY reign of universal peace, to which we referred in our last chapter, brought stability, stability developed wealth, wealth engendered pride, pride gave birth to numerous sins, to be followed by contentions, dissensions, and then wars. These evils begat sorrow, sorrow softened the hearts of the people to repentance, repentance was followed by the blessing of God, which again brought peace, prosperity and, by-and-by, riches. At this era of Nephite national life, this is the one eternal round which their inspired historians are compelled to chronicle. Within four short years of the happy time of universal peace we have just referred to, the riches of the world had induced stubbornness and rebellion towards God, combined with the insane desire to rob, plunder and murder their fellow-men. If there ever were a people swift to do evil, it was the Nephites of this generation. In the year B. C. 26, Cezoram, the chief judge, was murdered by an unknown hand, as he sat on the judgment seat, and his son, who succeeded him, suffered in like manner within the year. The Gadianton robbers grew in strength, both in numbers and influence, and were actually fostered amongst the Nephites, while the more righteous Lamanites utterly destroyed all they found within their borders. The one people dwindled in unbelief, the other grew in grace and in the power of God's divine Spirit.
Nephi, who had gone to the northern continent, tarried there until the year B. C. 23, when, his teachings and prophecies having been rejected by its inhabitants, he returned in sorrow to Zarahemla; but he found no comfort there. The Gadianton robbers filled the judgment seats, and perverted the law to their own avarice and lust. The life, the property, the liberty, the virtue of righteous men and women were counted but things of naught, their playthings or their spoil.
Nephi's house in Zarahemla was situated on one of the principal thoroughfares. It led to the chief market-place. In his garden, near the highway, he built a tower whither it was his wont to repair for prayer. On one occasion, shortly after his return from the north, he became so deeply concerned because of the iniquities of the people, that in earnest supplication to the Lord he raised his voice so high that he was heard by the passers by in the street below. A listening crowd soon gathered, and when the prophet had ended his devotions and became aware of their presence, he commenced to teach them. His words were not sugar-coated, to adapt them to the tastes of his congregation. To the contrary, he boldly rebuked their sins, their murders, and their secret wickedness; at the same time, in the love of the gospel, he entreated and plead with them to amend their lives and do better. He also warned them of the terrible judgments that would fall upon them if they did not turn from their sinful ways.
Towards the conclusion of his address, Nephi surprised his hearers by stating that the chief judge, Seezoram, had been murdered by his brother, Seantum, who was anxious to obtain the chief judgeship himself. Both these men were members of the vile band who owned Gadianton as their chief.
The people did not believe Nephi's statement, so five incredulous men ran to the judgment hall to find out the truth of the matter. When they reached there they discovered Seezoram lying dead in a pool of blood near the judgment seat. The five messengers were so overcome with fear at this awful sight that they fell to the earth.
Soon after, other citizens who had not heard Nephi came in. Finding the dead judge and the five men all there they concluded that the latter must be the murderers, who, by some manifestation of the power of heaven, had been prevented from leaving the scene of their shameful deed. The officers therefore took the five and cast them into prison.
When the wicked learned that Nephi's words had proven true, they charged him with being an accomplice. They did not believe in revelation from God, so argued that Nephi must have had a hand in the murder or he could not have known anything about it. He was therefore taken and bound and brought before the multitude. Then they cross-examined him, abused him, and finally offered him money to confess that he had employed some one to commit the dreadful crime. They were anxious to bring reproach and trouble upon him that they might have an excuse for not believing his words nor heeding his teachings.
Nephi to establish his innocence sent his accusers to the house of Seantum, and instructed them what to say. He further told them how the fratricide would act; how he would acquit him (Nephi) of all complicity in the murder, assert his own innocence, until shown stains of blood on his cloak, and then, overwhelmed with terror, he would confess.
The people went and followed Nephi's instructions, and all that he had told them came to pass; for according to his words Seantum did at first deny, and according to the words he did afterwards confess; acknowledging also that Nephi knew nothing of the matter, without it had been revealed to him of God.
Some of the citizens now acknowledged that Nephi was a prophet, others declared that he was a god, whilst many remained hardened in their sins. So violent became the contention that the people gathered in excited crowds upon the streets, wrangling and disputing about the events of the past two days, and in their excitement they entirely forgot Nephi, and left him standing alone in the street.
With a sorrowful heart he wended his way homeward; but before he reached there, the voice of the Lord came to him with many words of comfort and commendation. As with others of his servants, the Lord made a covenant with him, that he would bless him forever; that whatsoever he bound on earth should be bound in heaven, and whatsoever he loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven; that he should have power over the elements to bless and to curse; to smite the earth with famine, and pestilence, and destruction.
Notwithstanding the many proofs the ungodly Nephites had that Nephi was a true prophet, they continued to reject his teachings. They persecuted him, and even went so far as to seek his life. But he was conveyed out of their midst by the power of God, and ministered among other peoples.
The general character of the Nephites continued to grow worse and worse. The Gadianton robbers grew stronger and stronger. For a few years there was increasing commotion, disunion and bloodshed. At last, wearied at beholding so much misery and contention, Nephi prayed that the Lord would not suffer the people to be destroyed by the sword, but rather let a famine desolate the land, and, peradventure, bring the people to an understanding of their awful condition, and cause them to humble themselves and repent. The Holy One heard and answered his petition, the heavens became as brass over the land, the rains ceased, the earth dried up, the crops failed, the people perished for want of food.
Two years passed (B. C. 19 and 18) and the third came, and still the refreshing rain was withheld (B. C. 17). During this year the people, humbled by their sufferings, turned towards the Lord. They endeavored to root out iniquity from their midst. They destroyed the Gadianton robber bands, and established the government on a more righteous foundation. Nephi, observing the change in their conduct and feelings, interceded with the Lord in their behalf. His prayers were answered, the welcome rain descended on the parched-up soil, and a bounteous harvest once more crowned the labors of the husbandman (B. C. 16).
The repentant people now regarded Nephi in his true light; they revered him as a great prophet, and for a few short years they listened to his teachings. While they did so they prospered. But the leaven of unrighteousness had too thoroughly permeated the national life for their faithfulness to God to be of long duration. Two, three, or perhaps half a dozen years they would maintain their integrity, and then corruption would seethe, the vile would snatch the reins of government, the good would be oppressed, and contention and war, with all their horrors, would again reign supreme. Thus it was after the three years of famine. For two years there was peace, in the third there began to be much strife (B. C. 13), in the next, the Gadianton bands reappeared, and carried havoc amongst their more peaceable fellow-countrymen. Going on, year by year they grew in iniquity and ripened for destruction. For many years Nephi strove to stem the tide of vice. At times partial success rewarded his unceasing efforts, and he had joy in the baptism of some honest souls. But the great bulk of the people had rejected the gospel, they had no love for its holy principles, and were unfit for its blessings.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
SAMUEL THE LAMANITE—HIS MISSION AND PROPHECIES—THE VAIN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY HIM—HE RETURNS TO HIS OWN COUNTRY.
(HELAMAN CHAP. 13 TO 16.)
WE COME now to the days of Samuel the Lamanite (B. C. 6). Without any previous reference to him, he appears suddenly in the foreground of ancient American history, bearing a weighty and solemn message; a messenger of God's displeasure, he stands a Jonah to the Nephites. That message is faithfully delivered; then he disappears forever from our sight.
The condition of society in the days of Samuel was somewhat peculiar. The Nephites and Lamanites had, so far as righteousness is concerned, to a great extent changed places. The former were puffed up with worldly pride, were full of vain boastings, envyings, strifes, malice, persecutions, murders and all manner of iniquities. They cast out, they stoned, they slew the servants of God, while they encouraged, exalted and rewarded the false teachers who flattered them in their vileness and sung in their ears the siren's song of "all is well." They reveled in all the luxury that the fatness of the land brought forth; they were ostentatious in the use of gold and silver and precious things; but their hearts never turned in thankfulness to the great Giver of all these bounties. The majority of the Lamanites, on the contrary, walked circumspectly before God; they were full of faith and integrity, were zealous in the work of converting their fellows, and kept the commandments, statutes and judgments of the Lord according to the law of Moses.
Such was the condition of affairs when the Lamanite prophet Samuel appeared among the sin-stained citizens of Zarahemla, and for many days preached repentance in their midst. Their eyes were blind and their ears were deaf, sin filled their souls, and in their anger they cast him out. But the work of his mission was not yet accomplished. As he was preparing to return to his own country, a holy angel visited him and proclaimed the voice of the Lord. That voice commanded that he should turn back and prophesy to the people of Zarahemla the things that should come into his heart.
He returned to the city, but was refused admission at its gates. The iniquitous dwellers therein had no desire to have their peace disturbed by the voice of divine threatenings. But the prophet had the word of the Lord burning within him, and could not be restrained. He mounted the walls of the city, and from this conspicuous vantage ground, with out-stretched hands and loud voice, he proclaimed to the wicked the unwelcome tidings of their coming destruction. Many listened to his proclamation, some few were pricked in their hearts, repented of their evil deeds, and sought the prophet Nephi, that they might be baptized. Others were angry, they gathered up the stones in the roadway and hurled them at Samuel; they drew forth their bows and shot arrows at him. But to no effect; the protecting power of the Holy Spirit was around him, and he could not be harmed.
When some beheld how wonderfully the prophet was preserved, it was a testimony to them that God was with him, and they also sought Nephi, confessing their sins. But the great body of the populace grew more enraged at the want of success that attended their murderous efforts. They called upon their captains to seize and bind him. They cried out, He hath a devil, and it is by this power he is preserved; take the fellow, bind him, and away with him! Following the wild satanic cry of the multitude, the officers of the law endeavored to arrest Samuel. But he cast himself down from the wall of the city and fled out of the lands of the Nephites into his own country. There he preached and prophesied among his own people; but among the people of Nephi he was never heard of more.
The prophecies of Samuel are among the most wonderful recorded in holy writ. He especially foretold many things regarding the life and death of our Savior, and concerning the future destiny of his people, and of the Nephites.
With regard to the birth of the Redeemer he said:
Behold, I give unto you a sign; for five years more cometh, and behold, then cometh the Son of God, to redeem all those who shall believe on his name.
And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.
Therefore there shall be one day and a night, and a day, as if it were one day, and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign; for ye shall know of the rising of the sun, and also of its setting; therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a night; nevertheless the night shall not be darkened; and it shall be the night before he is born.
And behold there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you.
And behold this is not all, there shall be many signs and wonders in heaven.
And it shall come to pass that ye shall all be amazed and wonder, insomuch that ye shall fall to the earth.
Regarding the death of the Lord Jesus he declared:
But behold, as I said unto you concerning another sign, a sign of his death, behold, in that day that he shall suffer death, the sun shall be darkened and refuse to give his light unto you; and also the moon, and the stars; and there shall be no light upon the face of this land, even from the time that he shall suffer death, for the space of three days, to the time that he shall rise again from the dead.
Yea, at the time that he shall yield up the ghost, there shall be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours, and the earth shall shake and tremble, and the rocks which are upon the face of this earth; which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass, shall be broken up;
Yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth; yea, both above the earth and beneath.
And behold there shall be great tempests, and there shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley, and there shall be many places, which are now called valleys, which shall become mountains, whose height thereof is great.
And many highways shall be broken up, and many cities shall become desolate.
And many graves shall be opened, and shall yield up many of their dead; and many saints shall appear unto many.
And behold thus hath the angel spoken unto me for he said unto me, that there should be thunderings and lightnings for the space of many hours:
And he said unto me that while the thunder and the lightning lasted, and the tempest, that these things should be, and that darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days.
And the angel said unto me, that many shall see greater things than these, to the intent that they might believe that these signs and these wonders should come to pass, upon all the face of this land; to the intent that there should be no cause of unbelief among the children of men.
We shall see as we proceed how wonderfully all these sayings of Samuel the Lamanite were fulfilled.
He closed his prophecy with these emphatic words. First regarding the Lamanites:
Therefore, saith the Lord, I will not utterly destroy them; but I will cause that in the day of my wisdom they shall return again unto me, saith the Lord.
And now behold, saith the Lord, concerning the people of the Nephites, if they will not repent and observe to do my will, I will utterly destroy them, saith the Lord, because of their unbelief, notwithstanding the many mighty works which I have done among them; and as surely as the Lord liveth shall these things be, saith the Lord.
CHAPTER XL.
NEPHI TRANSLATED—HIS SON NEPHI—TIME OF THE SAVIOR'S COMING—THE CONSPIRACY TO SLAY THE BELIEVERS—THE REVELATION TO NEPHI—THE PROMISED SIGNS APPEAR—INCREASE OF THE GADIANTON ROBBERS—WAR—LACHONEOUS GATHERS ALL THE PEOPLE TO ONE LAND—THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.
(III NEPHI CHAP. 1 TO 6.)
SHORTLY before the birth of Christ, Nephi transferred the plates of brass and other records to his son Nephi, gave him charge concerning them, and departed from the land of Zarahemla. Whither he went, or what became of him, is hidden from the knowledge of mankind. That he did not return to the dwelling-places of humanity is testified to by his son some ten years afterwards.
Six hundred years had now passed since Lehi and his companions left Jerusalem. The time had arrived, of which Samuel the Lamanite and other prophets had borne testimony when the phenomena should appear to bear witness of the birth of the Son of God. As the day drew near, signs and miracles increased among the people. But the hardened in heart, who were ever on the watch to entrap those who believed in the words of the prophets, began to circulate the idea that the time had passed and the prophecies had failed. Not content with mocking and reviling those who were anxiously looking for the promised two days and a night when there should be no darkness, they went as far as to appoint a day when all who believed in the coming of the Savior should be slain, except the sign be first given.
This gross wickedness caused Nephi great sorrow; his only recourse was to heaven. Before God, in mighty prayer, he bowed in behalf of his imperiled people. All the day long he continued his earnest supplications. At last the word of the Anointed One came unto him, saying, Lift up your head and be of good cheer, for behold the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to show unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets. As was thus declared, so was it fulfilled, for at the going down of the sun it was light as day, and so continued until the morning, when the sun again rose in its usual course. A new star had also appeared in the heavens. Then the faithful rejoiced, their hearts were full to overflowing, they knew that their Redeemer was born, and that the great plan of salvation had entered its most glorious phase; God, the great Jehovah, was tabernacled in the flesh. But the wicked quaked with awful dread, they realized the extent of their iniquity, they sensed that they were murderers at heart, for they had plotted to take the lives of the righteous, and in the terror that this overwhelming sense of their piteous condition wrought, they sank to the earth as though they were dead.
Many now believed who previously had scorned the divine messages that the prophets bore; but others, inspired of Satan, as soon as they recovered from the fright which the appearance of the promised signs had produced, began to explain them away, and, by various lying rumors, endeavored to nullify the good that had been done in the hearts of many. Others again commenced to teach that it was no longer expedient to observe the law of Moses, drawing their conclusions from a false interpretation of the scriptures. Notwithstanding these efforts of the evil one, Nephi and others went forth among the people preaching, baptizing many, and bringing a short period of peace to the land.
But those who were righteous were not strong enough to overcome the vast hosts of Gadianton robbers, who, time and time again, swarmed from their mountain retreats, and carried carnage, rapine and desolation to the homes of both Nephites and Lamanites.
Year by year these marauding bands repeated their incursions. Sometimes one party conquered, sometimes the other. This condition of affairs kept the people in such a state of terror and anxiety that life grew a burden to them. Still they repented not in sincerity of heart, and their many afflictions were permitted by the Lord because of their iniquity.
So great was the misery entailed by these invasions, that the chief judge, Lachoneus, at last determined to gather all the people into one place, and by a policy of masterly inactivity wear out or starve out the invaders. We can scarcely understand how terrible must have been the misery endured by the nation at this time, to have caused the conception and execution of such a measure. Can we picture to ourselves the scenes that must have occurred as the people of two continents converged to one gathering place? From the shores of the great lakes in the north, from the stormy Atlantic sea-board, from the coast where the mild Pacific ebbs and flows, from the regions of the southern Andes, the migrating hosts flowed together to Zarahemla and Bountiful, the lands selected as the temporary gathering place. They came with their flocks and herds, their grain and provisions, leaving nothing that would help to sustain the robber bands while they continued to wage their unhallowed war. (A. C. 17.)
When the people reached the gathering place they fortified it so strongly that it became impregnable to their enemies. Under Gidgiddoni's instructions they also made themselves strong armor and shields as well as all kinds of weapons, so that they might be fully prepared for the day of battle. Lachoneous, in the meantime, preached to them in great power, so much so that they feared his denunciations, forsook all their sins, and turned to the Lord in great humility and devotion.
Game soon became so scarce in the wilderness that the Gadiantons began to suffer for food while besieging the Nephite stronghold. In addition to this, the Nephites made frequent attacks upon them. Seeing his armies wasting away from famine and the sword, Zemnarihah, their commander, gave up all hope of success and withdrew from the siege, and formed the design of marching his followers to the most distant parts of the land northward.
To have permitted the robbers to escape would have increased the difficulties under which the Nephites had so long suffered. Gidgiddoni, the Nephite general, having learned of their purpose, and knowing their weakness for want of food and because of the great slaughter made among them through the successful attacks of his own troops, sent his armies to cut off their retreat. During the night they got beyond the robbers, who, when they began their march on the morrow, found themselves between two armies of the Nephites. Many thousands surrendered, and the remainder were slain. Zemnarihah was taken and hanged to the top of a tree; which when he was dead, the Nephites cut down. They then greatly rejoiced and praised God for his mercies and blessings in delivering them from their enemies.
The soldiers of Gidgiddoni succeeded in taking as prisoners all the robbers that were not killed. The word of God was preached to them, and those who repented of their sins and covenanted to cease their evil practices, were set at liberty. The remainder were condemned for their crimes and punished according to law. This entirely broke up these bands of murderers and robbers, and peace and righteousness again prevailed (A. C. 21), but it was not until five years later (A. C. 26) that the Nephites returned to and possessed their old homes.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE LAST CHIEF JUDGE MURDERED AND THE REPUBLIC OVERTHROWN—THE SIGNS OF THE SAVIOR'S DEATH APPEAR—A TERRIBLE STORM—THE UNIVERSAL DARKNESS—THE UNPARALLELED DESTRUCTION—THE TERROR OF THOSE HOURS.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 6 TO 9.)
THE NEXT year the laws were revised according to justice and equity. They had, doubtless, been violently tampered with during the times that the Gadianton robbers held control of the administration and elected the officers. Good order now prevailed throughout the whole land. Soon new cities were founded and built, and many improvements made. Yet for all this, the peace was short lived. Iniquity and dissension soon began to again raise their hideous heads, and the prophets and servants of God were persecuted and illegally condemned to death.
No officer, according to Nephite law, had power to condemn a person to death without the authority of the governor, but many of the prophets were put to death secretly by the judges. A complaint was entered against these judges to the governor and they were tried for their crimes, according to the law made by the people.
The kindred and friends of the offenders, with certain lawyers and high priests, entered into a secret covenant to destroy the people who were in favor of law and justice, and to save the guilty judges from the just penalty of their misdeeds. This was, in fact, the re-establishment of the order of Gadianton. They proposed to assassinate the governor, set up a king to rule the country, and destroy its liberties. That same year they murdered the chief judge Lachoneus, the younger, as he sat in the judgment seat. The result was not what the plotters anticipated; for the people, being dissatisfied with the condition of affairs, divided into tribes, every man with his family uniting with his kindred and friends. This completely disorganized the government and deranged the plans of the conspirators. Some men had large families and many kindred and friends, and their tribes were correspondingly large. Each tribe appointed its chief, or leader, and it was his special duty to see that the laws they had adopted were properly carried out (B. C. 30).
While these terrible social overturnings were taking place on this continent, how different were the events that were occurring in the midst of the house of Israel on the eastern continent! for it was in this year that Jesus, the Redeemer of the world, was baptized by John in Jordan, as Lehi, Nephi, and others of the ancient prophets had long before foretold; and it was in this year that he commenced his public ministry, and began to teach men the law of his gospel.
There was but little to unite the Nephite tribes except their fear of the Gadianton robbers. This appears to have led to a confederacy for the purpose of defense. They agreed to keep peace with one another, and establish laws to prevent one tribe trespassing upon the rights of the others.
The secret association that had slain the chief judge elected one Jacob to be their leader. Seeing that their enemies, the tribes of the people, were too numerous to contend with, he commanded his followers to flee into the northernmost parts of the land, where they could build up a kingdom to themselves. They carried out his plan, and their flight was too speedy to be intercepted. In the north they built a large city which they called Jacobugath.
In this calamitous condition of affairs Nephi was called, by the voice of the Lord and the administration of angels, to labor diligently in the ministry among this wicked people. At first, but few accepted the truth; but in the following year (A. C. 32) many were baptized into the church. As the succeeding year (A. C. 33) passed away the people began to look anxiously for the fulfillment of the predictions of Samuel, the Lamanite, concerning the important events which would take place at the death of our Savior. Notwithstanding the many predictions of the prophets already fulfilled, there was much doubt and uneasiness among the people concerning that which was yet in the future. They had not long to wait, however, for the fulfillment of his words.
On the fourth day of the thirty-fourth Nephite year the promised signs of the Savior's crucifixion began. A horrible and devastating tempest burst upon the land. All that was ever told of the loudest thunder, and all that was ever seen of the most vivid lightning, would fail to picture the terrific visitation. The earth quivered and groaned and opened in wide, unfathomable chasms. Forests of gigantic trees were uprooted and carried high above the earth to meet in fearful shocks in the air and then to be driven down again and shattered upon the unyielding rocks. Mountains were riven and swallowed up in yawning gulfs, or were scattered into fragments and dispersed like hail before the tearing wind. Cattle were lifted from their feet and dashed over precipices, or were hurried before the blast to perish in the far off sea. Towers, temples, homes, were torn up, scattered in fragments or crushed by falling rocks, and together with their inmates were ground to dust in the convulsion. Human beings were hurled high into the air and driven from point to point, until, they found graves fathoms deep below the earth's surface. Blue and yellow flames burst from the edges of sinking rocks, blazed for a moment and then all was the deepest darkness again. Boiling springs gushed upwards from sulphurous caverns. Shrieks and howls from suffering animals, awful in themselves, were drowned in the overwhelming uproar. Rain poured down in torrents, cloud-bursts, like floods, washed away all with which they came in contact, and pillars of steaming vapor seemed to unite the earth and sky.
This unparalleled storm raged throughout the land for three hours only—but to those who suffered it seemed an age.
During its short continuance the whole face of nature was changed. Mountains sank, valleys rose, the sea swept over the plains, large stagnant lakes usurped the place of flourishing cities, great chasms, rents and precipices disfigured the face of the earth. Many cities were destroyed by earthquakes, fire, and the tumultuous overflow of the waters of the great seas.
Three days of unnatural and impenetrable darkness followed the horrors of the tempest, and from the heavens the voice of the Lord was heard by the affrighted people, proclaiming in their terrified ears the destruction that had taken place.
Terrible was the catalogue of woes that that heavenly voice rehearsed. The great city of Zarahemla and the inhabitants thereof God had burned with fire. Moroni had been sunken in the depths of the sea and her iniquitous children had been drowned. Gilgal had been swallowed up in an earthquake and her people were entombed in the bowels of the earth. Onihah, Mocum and Jerusalem had disappeared and waters overflowed the places where they so lately stood. Gadiandi, Gadiomnah, Jacob and Gimgimno were all overthrown, and desolate hills and valleys occupied their places, while their inhabitants were buried deep in the earth. Jacobugath, Laman, Josh, Gad and Kishkumen had all been burned, most probably by lightnings from heaven. The desolation was complete, the face of the land was changed, tens of thousands, probably millions of souls had been suddenly called to meet the reward of their sinful lives; for this destruction came upon them that their wickedness and their abominations might be hid from the face of heaven, and that the blood of the prophets and the saints might not come up any more in appeal unto God against them.
DESTRUCTION OF ZARAHEMLA.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE VOICE FROM HEAVEN—THE SAVIOR TESTIFIES OF HIMSELF—SILENCE THROUGHOUT THE LAND—HOW OFT WOULD CHRIST HAVE GATHERED HIS PEOPLE—THE DARKNESS DEPARTS.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 9 AND 10.)
WHEN the heavenly voice had finished the recital of the calamities that had befallen the land and its inhabitants, the speaker commenced an appeal to those who yet lived, and revealed to them who he was. He declared unto them:
O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?
Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive: and blessed are those who come unto me.
Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name.
I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled.
And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of God, and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled.
I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings;
And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.
Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin;
Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive: for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved.
After the people had heard this glad message of forgiveness and redemption, they ceased their mourning for their dead relatives, and there was silence in the land for the space of many hours. Then again was the voice heard, even the voice of Jesus, recounting how oft he had sought to gather his Israel but they would not, and promising in the future that he would again gather them, if they would listen unto him. But if they would not heed him, the places of their dwellings should become desolate until the time of the fulfilling of God's covenant with their fathers. When the people heard this awful prophecy they began to weep and howl again because of the loss of their kindred and friends.
Three days had passed in darkness, in terror and in woe, when the thick mist rolled off the face of the land, revealing to the astonished eyes of the survivors how great had been the convulsions that had shaken the earth. When the darkness passed away the earth ceased to tremble, the rocks were no longer rent, the dreadful groanings ceased, and the tumultuous noises ended. Then nature was again at peace, and peace filled the hearts of the living; their mourning was turned to praise, and their joy was in Christ their Deliverer.
As on the eastern continent, so on this; at the time of Christ's resurrection, numbers of the saints who were dead arose from their graves and were seen and known by many of the living. Christ had suffered for the sin of the world, he had broken the bands of death, he had opened the portals of the tomb, and as soon as he came forth conqueror over death and hell, the faithful ones of many generations, who were prepared for the glories of eternity, came forth also. This was the first resurrection.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHRIST APPEARS IN THE LAND BOUNTIFUL—THE TESTIMONY OF THE FATHER—JESUS CALLS TWELVE DISCIPLES—HIS TEACHINGS TO THEM AND TO THE MULTITUDE.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 11 TO 14.)
SOME time after the tribulations that marked the sacrifice of the Lord of life and glory, exactly how long we know not, a multitude assembled near the temple which was in the land Bountiful. The sacred building, it seems, was not destroyed in the late overwhelming convulsions. Possibly many of the high priesthood had assembled there to call upon the Lord, and to officiate in the duties of their calling. At any rate, those whom Jesus deemed worthy to be his twelve disciples, by some inspiration, gathered there. With the rest of the multitude they conversed on the marvelous changes that had been wrought by the desolating earthquakes and their attendant horrors. They also spake one to another with regard to the Savior, of whose death the three days of unexampled, impenetrable darkness had been a sign.
While thus engaged a strange, sweet voice fell upon their ears, yet it pierced them to the centre, that their whole frames trembled. At first they wist not what it said or whence it came nor even when the words were again repeated did they understand. But when they came a third time they understood their glorious import, and knew that it was the voice of God. He said unto them, Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name: hear ye him. Obedient to this heavenly voice they cast their eyes upward, and to their joyous astonishment beheld the Messiah, clothed in a white robe, descending out of heaven.
Even yet they did not comprehend who it was, but thought him an angel. As he descended to the earth and stood in their midst, their wondering eyes were all turned toward him, but for awe not a mouth was opened nor was a limb moved. Then the Redeemer stretched forth his hand and said unto the multitude: Behold I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified should come into the world; and behold, I am the life and light of the world; and I have drunk out of the bitter cup which the Father hath given to me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.
Then the whole multitude fell to the earth, they remembered the sayings of the prophets, they realized that their God stood in the midst of them.
Again the risen Redeemer spake: Arise, said he, and come forth unto me that you may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
Now they who heard him from the first to the last went forth and assured themselves that it was he of whom the prophets had spoken. Then with shouts of praise they cried: Hosanna! blessed be the name of the Most High God. And they fell down at his feet and worshiped him.
Jesus next called Nephi to him, then eleven others, and gave them authority to baptize the people, at the same time strictly charging them as to the manner in which they performed this ordinance, that all disputes on this point might cease among the believers. The names of the Twelve whom he chose were: Nephi, his brother Timothy, whom he had beforetime raised from the dead, also his son Jonas, and Mathoni, Mathonihah, Kumen, Kumenonhi, Jeremiah, Shemnon, Jonas, Zedekiah and Isaiah. These Twelve are to sit in the great day of judgment as the judges of the seed of Lehi, and be themselves judged by the Twelve Apostles whom Jesus had called from among the Jews.
After Jesus had chosen the Twelve, he commenced to teach the people the principles of the fullness of the gospel. Step by step he led them over the same precious ground of universal truth as he had his followers in the temple at Jerusalem, by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and on the hillsides of Judea and Samaria. Sometimes, through the difference of the inspired translation of the Book of Mormon from the worldly-wise one of the Bible, a slight difference is noticeable in the wording of the instructions, but as a rule these differences are trivial, the advantage being with the Nephites, whose greater faith drew from the Savior deeper truths than Judah had received, or caused him to display greater manifestations of his omnipotence and boundless love. From the believers he would turn to the Twelve, and give them special instructions as his ministers, then again he would shed forth his words of mercy, truth and divine wisdom upon the multitude; and by and by again address the disciples. So he continued day by day until all was revealed, either to the multitude or to the Twelve, that was necessary for the eternal salvation of the obedient.
Some have wondered why Jesus should have given so many of the same teachings to the Nephites as he did to the Jews. The reason is that those teachings were perfect and could not be improved. They were universal, that is, they were adapted to the wants of all peoples, whether of Israel or of the Gentiles, whether of Judah or Joseph. They were a portion of the everlasting gospel and had to be preached to all the world as a witness, to those who dwelt in America as well as those of Asia, Africa and Europe. Thus we find in the teachings given to the Nephites what we term the first principles of the gospel—faith, repentance and baptism; we also find those divine lessons of love, truth, humility and duty that glorified the Savior's "Sermon on the Mount." These we shall not reproduce but will draw attention to other teachings of the Savior not recorded by the Four Evangelists; that is they are not to be found in their writings as at present contained in the New Testament.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE FULFILLMENT OF THE MOSAIC LAW—"OTHER SHEEP HAVE I"—THE TEN TRIBES—THE EVENTS OF THE LATTER DAYS.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 15 AND 16.)
WHEN JESUS had reached a certain point in his teachings wherein he told the people that old things had passed away and that all things had become new he perceived that some of his hearers were wondering what were his intentions regarding the law of Moses. Therefore he next instructed them on this point. He said:
Marvel not that I said unto you, that old things had passed away, and that all things had become new.
Behold I say unto you, that the law is fulfilled that was given unto Moses.
Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel: therefore, the law in me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfill the law; therefore it hath an end.
Behold, I do not destroy the prophets, for as many as have not been fulfilled in me, verily I say unto you, shall all be fulfilled.
And because I said unto you, that old things hath passed away, I do not destroy that which hath been spoken concerning things which are to come.
For behold, the covenant which I have made with my people is not all fulfilled; but the law which was given unto Moses hath an end in me.
Behold, I am the law, and the light; look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live, for unto him that endureth to the end, will I give eternal life.
Behold, I have given unto you the commandments, therefore keep my commandments. And this is the law and the prophets, for they truly testified of me.
How simple yet how grand, how plain yet how comprehensive are these teachings, both with regard to himself and to the law which he had given to the forefathers of the Jews and the Nephites! If men would but receive these instructions in the plainness in which they are given, how much controversy would have an end, how much dissension would never have had an existence!
After giving these explanations to the multitude, Jesus again turned to the twelve chosen disciples and told them the meaning of his words when he said unto the Jews: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
These other sheep of which he spake, Jesus said, were the Nephites themselves, who had been separated from the Jews because of the latter's iniquity; and because of their continued evil doing and lack of faith the knowledge of the existence of Lehi's family on the American continent had been withheld from them. But still more. Jesus had yet other sheep, which were neither of the Jews nor of the Nephites, nor of the lands in which they dwelt. They were a people whom he had not yet visited and who had not yet heard his voice; but he had received a commandment from his Father to visit them, to show himself unto them, and teach them, and then they all would be of the one fold and he would be the one shepherd to them all.
These other sheep, neither Jew nor Nephite, we understand to be the ten tribes of Israel who were carried into captivity, but who, unlike the house of Judah, never returned to their homes in the Promised Land. We are told that they were led away by the power of the Lord to a land of which no one knows anything, only that which God has revealed.
Jesus then told his disciples many things relating to the age in which we live. He explained to them how the Gentiles living on this continent would have the truth presented to them, how they would grow haughty, proud and exceedingly wicked, and how they would oppress the remnants of the house of Israel who dwelt on this broad land. Then how these remnants would have the fullness of the gospel brought to them, and how eventually the house of Israel would be used to punish the disobedient of the Gentiles, who should become as salt that had lost its savor, good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE SAVIOR HEALS THE SICK—HE BLESSES THE CHILDREN OF THE NEPHITES—ANGELS MINISTER UNTO THEM.
(III. NEHI CHAP. 17.)
WHEN the Redeemer had finished these teachings he looked around among the multitude and perceived that their minds were not prepared, at that time, to receive any more of the word of the Lord, so he told them to go to their homes, and prepare their minds for the morrow, when he would come unto them again. But as he gazed upon them he noticed that they were in tears, and that they looked beseechingly upon him, as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them.
These mute entreaties prevailed with him, his bowels were filled with compassion towards them; and, we are told, he said:
Have ye any that are sick among you, bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner, bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy:
For I perceive that ye desire that I should show unto you what I have done unto your brethren at Jerusalem, for I see that your faith is sufficient that I should heal you.
And it came to pass that when he had thus spoken, all the multitude, with one accord, did go forth with their sick, and their afflicted, and their lame, and with their blind, and with their dumb, and with all they that were afflicted in any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him.
And they did all, both they who had been healed and they who were whole, bow down at his feet, and did worship him; and as many as could come from the multitude did kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears.
Jesus next commanded that the little children should be brought.
So the people brought their little children and set them down upon the ground round about him, and the multitude gave way till they had all been brought to him. And when they had all been brought, and Jesus stood in the midst, he commanded the multitude to kneel down upon the ground. And when they had done so, Jesus groaned within himself, and said, Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel. And when he had said these words, he himself knelt and he prayed unto the Father and the things which he prayed could not be written, but the multitude who heard him bore record: that eye had never seen, neither had ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as they saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father. When Jesus had made an end of praying, he arose, but so great was the joy of the multitude that they were overcome. But Jesus bade them arise. Then they arose, and he said unto them, Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full. And when he had said these words, he wept; and he took the little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. And when he had done this he wept again. And he said unto the multitude, Behold your little ones.
And as they cast their eyes upward they saw the heavens open, and angels descending out of the heaven, as it were in the midst of fire, and they came down and encircled these little ones about, and they were encircled with fire; and the angels did minister unto the children. And the multitude, who numbered about 2,500 men, women and children, bore record of the glorious things which they had seen, heard and partaken of.
Can we imagine anything more lovely, more touching, and more glorious than this scene must have been? Can we conceive the joy that must have filled the hearts of these Nephites as they beheld the angels of heaven descending from the courts of glory and ministering to their little ones? How deep must have been their love for the Savior who had brought these blessings to them? How strong must have grown their faith in him? We cannot recall a circumstance in recorded history that draws earth nearer to heaven than this, or that seems to bind the ties so strongly that unite the powers of eternity with the children of mortality.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE SACRAMENT ADMINISTERED—THE SAVIOR'S TEACHINGS REGARDING IT—HE CONFERS ON HIS DISCIPLES THE POWER TO GIVE THE HOLY GHOST—HE ASCENDS INTO HEAVEN.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 18.)
JESUS next commanded his disciples to bring him some bread and wine. While they were gone to obtain them, he caused the multitude to sit down upon the earth. When the disciples returned with the bread and wine, he took the bread, and brake and blessed it. This he gave to the disciples and they did eat and were filled. He then commanded them to give unto the multitudes.
When the multitudes had eaten and were filled, Jesus began to instruct the people with regard to the meaning of the bread they had just partaken of. He said:
And this shall ye always observe to do, even as I have done, even as I have broken the bread, and blessed it, and gave it unto you.
And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father, that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me, ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.
After this he gave of the wine to his disciples, and they drank thereof, and then, by his direction, they gave it to the people.
After they had done this Jesus continued his teachings; Blessed are ye, said he, for this thing which ye have done, for this is fulfilling my commandments, and this doth witness unto the Father, that ye are willing to do that which I have commanded you.
And this shall ye always do to those who repent and are baptized in my name; and ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me, ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.
And now behold, this is the commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall not suffer anyone, knowingly, to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it;
For whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood, ye shall forbid him;
Nevertheless ye shall not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him, and shall pray for him unto the Father in my name, and if it so be that he repenteth, and is baptized in my name, then shall ye receive him, and shall minister unto him of my flesh and blood;
But if he repent not, he shall not be numbered among my people, that he may not destroy my people, for behold I know my sheep, and they are numbered.
The Lord also gave the people much instruction regarding prayer. Among other things he told them:
Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you; that he may sift you as wheat;
Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name;
And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you.
Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.
And behold, ye shall meet together oft, and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you, and forbid them not;
But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft, ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name;
Therefore hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I prayed unto the Father, and ye have witnessed;
And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world; and whosoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptation.
When Jesus had made an end of his sayings, he touched with his hand the disciples whom he had chosen, one by one. As he touched them he gave them power to give the Holy Ghost. When he had done this a cloud overshadowed the multitude, and they saw Jesus no more that day; but the disciples saw him, and bore record that he ascended into heaven.
CHAPTER XLVII.
JESUS RETURNS AND RENEWS HIS TEACHINGS—HE ADMINISTERS THE SACRAMENT—HE EXPLAINS THE TEACHINGS OF THE PROPHETS—THE WORDS OF MALACHI.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 19 TO 26.)
WHEN JESUS had ascended into heaven the multitudes dispersed, every one returning home.
All that evening and all that night was the news spread from mouth to mouth that Jesus had come. Many were too excited to sleep, and labored diligently spreading the news far and wide, so that when the morning came the whole people were astir, wending their way to the place where Jesus was expected.
When the multitude had gathered together their number was found to be so great that the disciples divided them into twelve congregations, and one of them taught each of these bodies.
After they had prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus the whole people, led by the disciples, went down to the water's edge. First, Nephi went into the water and was baptized; then he baptized those whom Jesus had chosen. After these had been baptized the Holy Ghost fell upon them, and they were filled therewith also with fire. And the fire encircled them about, and angels came down from heaven and ministered to them.
By and by Jesus himself came, and stood in the midst of his disciples and taught them. He commanded them all, the people and the Twelve, to again kneel upon the earth, and the disciples he instructed to pray.
And they prayed unto Jesus, calling him their Lord and their God.
When Jesus heard these prayers he went a little way off, bowed himself to the earth and said:
Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen and it is because of their belief in me, that I have chosen them out of the world.
Father, I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words.
Father, thou hast given them the Holy Ghost, because they believe in me, and thou seest that they believe in me, because thou hearest them, and they pray unto me; and they pray unto me because I am with them.
And now, Father, I pray unto thee for them, and also for all those who shall believe on their words, that they may believe in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one.
When our Savior had ended this prayer he returned to his disciples. He found them still praying. Then he blessed them, and smiled upon them. When he smiled the light of his countenance shone upon them, and in reflection of his brightness they became as white as the face or the garments of Jesus;—a whiteness like unto which there was nothing upon this earth.
Jesus, in joy, once more retired a short distance to commune with his Father in heaven. He prayed:
Father, I thank thee that thou hast purified those whom I have chosen, because of their faith, and I pray for them, and also for them who shall believe on their words that they may be purified in me, through faith on their words, even as they are purified in me.
Father, I pray not for the world, but those whom thou hast given me out of the world, because of their faith, that they may be purified in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one, that I may be glorified in them.
And when Jesus had spoken these words, he came again unto his disciples, and behold they did pray steadfastly, without ceasing, unto him; and he did smile upon them again; and behold they were white even as Jesus.
And it came to pass that he went again a little way off and prayed unto the Father;
And tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed.
And the multitude did hear, and do bear record, and their hearts were opened, and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.
Nevertheless, so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed, that they cannot be written, neither can they be uttered by man.
And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of praying, he came again to the disciples, and said unto them, so great faith have I never seen among all the Jews; wherefore I could not show unto them so great miracles, because of their unbelief.
Verily I say unto you, there are none of them that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither have they heard so great things as ye have heard.
The Lord Jesus then commanded all to cease from praying, but he also told them they must not cease to pray in their hearts. He next directed them to arise; and at this word they stood upon their feet. Then he administered unto them bread and wine, the emblems of his body and blood given as a ransom for their sins and the sins of the whole world.
Where he obtained this bread and wine no one knew, for neither the disciples nor the people had brought any with them.
When the multitudes had eaten and drank, they were filled with the Spirit, and with one voice gave glory to Jesus, whom they both saw and heard.
The Savior then commenced to explain to the multitudes many of the sayings of the ancient prophets, more especially those of Isaiah. He dwelt on the great events of the latter days that should precede his second coming; drawing particular attention to those that would concern and be connected with the remnants of the house of Lehi, and in which they would take part. From his words we learn that in the latter times the everlasting gospel will be preached in their midst; that many will receive it; that they will take a prominent part in the building of the New Jerusalem, and in many of the other momentous events that will herald the near approach of that blessed day when the reign of Christ and the triumph of truth and righteousness shall extend from pole to pole, over the whole of this habitable globe.
The Savior also recited to them many of the words which his Father had inspired the Prophet Malachi to utter. Now the Nephites knew nothing of Malachi, as he lived and prophesied to the Jews long after Lehi left Jerusalem. So, for the comfort and instruction of the Nephites, Jesus rehearsed to them the important things which he had revealed. In fact, to use the words of Mormon: And he did expound all things, even from the beginning until the time that he should come in his glory; yea, even all things which should come upon the face of the earth, even until the elements should melt with fervent heat, and the earth should be wrapt together as a scroll, and the heavens and the earth should pass away; and even unto the great and last day, when all people and all kindreds, and all nations and tongues shall stand before God, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil; If they be good, to the resurrection of everlasting life; and if they be evil, to the resurrection of damnation, being on a parallel, the one on the one hand, and the other on the other hand, according to the mercy, and the justice, and the holiness which is in Christ, who was before the world began.
And now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE SAVIOR CONTINUES HIS MINISTRATIONS—HE RAISES A MAN FROM THE DEAD—THE LABORS OF THE TWELVE—THE NAME OF THE CHURCH—THE THREE WHO SHOULD REMAIN.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 27 TO 30.)
FOR THREE days did the Savior mingle with the Nephites and instruct them; and even after that he met with them oft, and with them partook of the Sacrament of the Lord's supper.
More than this, he ministered to and blessed the children of the Nephites. He loosed the tongues of these little ones, that they spoke great and marvelous things unto their parents, even, we are told, greater things than Jesus had revealed to the people.
Jesus also healed all their sick. The lame, the blind, the deaf, were made whole, and one man he raised from the dead.
From this time the twelve disciples began to baptize and teach as many as came unto them; and as many as were baptized in the name of Jesus were filled with the Holy Ghost. Many of them saw and heard wondrous things which are not lawful to be written.
On one occasion when the disciples were thus traveling, preaching, and baptizing, they united together in fasting and mighty prayer. The subject about which they prayed the most earnestly was, what should be the name of the Church, for its members were not united on this matter.
While they were thus engaged Jesus again showed himself unto them, and in answer to their inquiries regarding the name of his church he told them, Whatsoever ye shall do ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name, that he will bless the church for my sake. He further said to them if they called the church by the name of a man it would be that man's church, if by Moses' name it would be Moses' church; but being his church it should be called by his holy name. And many other instructions gave he unto them at this time.
It was during this interview that the Savior asked the Twelve, one by one, What is it that you desire of me, after I am gone to the Father?
Then nine of them said, We desire after we have lived unto the age of man, that our ministry wherein thou hast called us, may have an end, that we may speedily come unto thee in thy kingdom.
And he said unto them, Blessed are ye, because ye desire this thing of me; therefore after that ye are seventy and two years old, ye shall come unto me in my kingdom and with me ye shall find rest.
Then he turned to the three who had not answered, and again asked them what they would have him do for them. But they faltered in their answer; their wish was such a peculiar one, that they were afraid to express it. And he said unto them, behold, I know your thoughts, and ye have desired the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me in my ministry before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me;
Therefore more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death, but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father, unto the children of men, even until all things shall be fulfilled, according to the will of the Father, when I shall come in my glory, with the powers of heaven;
And ye shall never endure the pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory, ye shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to immortality: and then shall ye be blessed in the kingdom of my Father.
And again, ye shall not have pain while ye shall dwell in the flesh, neither sorrow, save it be for the sins of the world: and all this will I do because of the thing which ye have desired of me, for ye have desired that ye might bring the souls of men unto me, while the world shall stand;
And for this cause ye shall have fullness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fullness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one.
These are the three Nephites of whom we sometimes hear and who either singly or together have appeared to believers in this generation.
Then Jesus with his finger touched the nine who were to die, but the three who were to live he did not touch; and then he departed. And behold, the heavens were opened, and the three were caught up into heaven, and saw unspeakable things.
And it was forbidden them that they should utter, neither was it given unto them power that they could utter, the things which they saw and heard;
The sacred record gives no information as to who the three were who were not to taste of death. Mormon was about to write their names, but the Lord forbade him.
Some have supposed that Nephi, the senior of the disciples, was one of these three undying ones, who remained to minister on the earth to the people of the latter days; that is hid from our knowledge, no doubt for a wise purpose. If he was, he lived through that most happy era of Nephite history, when all was righteousness, and joy, and peace throughout America's vast domain; he lived to suffer, with his two brethren, all the persecutions which the wicked, in later days, so frequently imposed upon these three favored servants of the Lord, and in the end he retired from the midst of mankind when overwhelming corruption again paralyzed the life of the Nephite nation. If he was one of the nine who passed away to the presence of their Savior and their God after they had dwelt three score and twelve years in mortality he must have laid aside his earthly tabernacle under as happy circumstances as ever prophet or apostle died, surrounded by a loving, faithful people, amongst whom the practice of iniquity was a remembrance of the past. No ruffian hands cut short his life, or tortured his latest hours, but in the midst of the most holy peace he passed away to the glories of the eternal world.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE LONG CONTINUED ERA OF PEACE AND RIGHTEOUSNESS—DEATH OF NEPHI—HIS SON AMOS—AMOS THE SECOND.
(IV. NEPHI.)
WHEN Jesus left the Nephites to the care of his disciples he had so thoroughly filled the people with the influences and powers of the eternal worlds that evil utterly ceased in their midst; they were united in all things temporal and spiritual. Universal peace prevailed. Love, joy, harmony, everything desirable to make the life of man a perfect condition of unalloyed, holy happiness reigned supreme. Indeed, it may be said that a type, a foreshadowing of the millennium for once found place and foothold among the erring sons of humanity.
At this blessed period Nephi, the son of Nephi, received the sacred plates. His duty, as the recorder of the doings of his people, was a most happy one; he had nothing but good to relate of their lives and actions, and to record that perfect peace prevailed on all the vast continent. The Nephites increased in numbers (Lamanites there were none), they prospered in circumstances, they grew in material wealth, all of which was held in common, according to the order of God. They colonized and spread far abroad; they rebuilt their ancient capital and many other cities; they also founded many new ones. Above all, they were rich in heavenly treasures; the Holy Spirit reigned in every heart and illumined every soul.
When Nephi died (A. C. 110) this inexpressibly happy, heavenly state still continued in undiminished warmth of divine and brotherly love and strength of abiding faith. All the generation to which Nephi belonged entered in at the strait gate, and walked the narrow way to the eternal city of God; not one of them was lost.
At Nephi's death his son Amos became the custodian of the holy things; and he held them for eighty-four years (from A. C. 110 to A. C. 194). He lived in the days of the Nephites' greatest prosperity and happiness. The perfect law of righteousness was still their only guide. But before he passed away to his heavenly home, a small cloud had appeared upon the horizon, fatal harbinger of the approaching devastating hurricane. A few, weary of the uninterrupted bliss, the perfect harmony, the universal love that everywhere prevailed, seceded from the church and took upon them the title of Lamanites, which ill-boding name had only been known to the Nephites by tradition for more than one hundred years. It may be asked, How was it possible that men and women should withdraw from such a holy order or society where all was perfect peace, where every man dealt justly with his neighbor, where none inflicted wrongs and none suffered from injustice done them—where angels ministered to the children of mortality, and heavenly revelations were their constant guides? If the inquirer will answer why Lucifer, the son of the morning, in heaven itself, rebelled against the Almighty Father, and led astray one-third of the angelic hosts, we will reply by saying that he, Satan, tempted the dissenting Nephites with this same spirit of rebellion to the divine power, and that he succeeded in ensnaring them and leading them away captive to his will.
A second Amos succeeded his father as the keeper of the records. His duties were not the happy ones of his immediate predecessors. Instead of good he had to chronicle much evil.
Amos himself was a righteous man, but he lived to witness an ever increasing flood of iniquity break over the land, a phase of evil-doing that arose not from ignorance and false tradition, but from direct and willful rebellion against God, and apostasy from his laws. The wholesome checks to vice and misery found in the plan of salvation were knowingly and intentionally removed or done away; the voice of reason was disregarded; the promptings of the Holy Spirit were defiantly repelled; men's unbridled passions again bore sway; disunion, dissension, violence, hatred, distress, dismay, bloodshed and havoc spread the wide continents over; and from their high pinnacle of righteousness, peace, happiness, refinement, social advantage, etc., the people were hurled once more into an abyss of misery and barbarism, now more profound, more torturing, and more degrading than ever.
CHAPTER L.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE APOSTASY—IT GROWS IN INTENSITY—THE PERSECUTION OF THE DISCIPLES—LAMANITES AGAIN—REAPPEARANCE OF THE GADIANTON BANDS—WAR—AMMARON HIDES THE RECORDS.
(IV. NEPHI.)
BY THE year A. C. 201, all the second generation had passed away save a few; the people had greatly multiplied and spread over the face of the land, north and south, and had become exceedingly rich; they wore costly apparel which they adorned with ornaments of gold and silver, pearls and precious stones. From this date they no more had their property in common, but, like the rest of the world, every man sought gain, wealth, power and influence for himself and his. All the old evils arising from selfishness were revived. Soon they began to build churches after their own fashion, and hire preachers who pandered to their lusts; some even began to deny the Savior.
From A. C. 210 to A. C. 230, the people waxed greatly in iniquity and impurity of life. Different dissenting sects multiplied, infidels abounded. The three remaining disciples were sorely persecuted, notwithstanding that they performed many mighty miracles. They were shut up in prison, but the prisons were rent in twain by the power of God; they were cast into fiery furnaces, but the flames harmed them not; they were thrown into dens of wild beasts, but they played with the savage inmates as a child does with a lamb, and received no harm; they were not subject to many of the laws that govern our mortal bodies, they had passed through a glorious change, by which they were freed from earthly pain, suffering and death. Not only did the wicked persecute these three immortal ones; others also of God's people suffered from their unhallowed anger and bitter hatred; but the faithful neither reviled at the reviler nor smote the smiter; they bore these things with patience and fortitude, remembering the pains of their Redeemer.
In the year A. C. 231 there was a great division among the people. The old party lines were again definitely marked. Again the old animosity assumed shape, and Nephite and Lamanite once more became implacable foes. Those who rejected and renounced the gospel assumed the latter name, and with their eyes open, and a full knowledge of their inexcusable infamy, they taught their children the same base falsehoods that in ages past had caused the unceasing hatred that reigned in the hearts of the children of Laman and Lemuel toward the seed of their younger brothers.
By A. C. 244 the more wicked portion of the people had become exceedingly strong, as well as far more numerous than the righteous. They deluded themselves by building all sorts of churches, with creeds to suit the increasing depravity of the masses.
When 260 years had passed away, the Gadianton bands, with all their secret signs and abominations, through the cunning of Satan, again appeared and increased until, in A. C. 300, they had spread over all the land. By this time, also, the Nephites, having gradually forsaken their first love, had so far sunk in the abyss of iniquity that they had grown as wicked, as proud, as corrupt and as vile as the Lamanites. All were submerged in one overwhelming flood of infamy, and there were none that were righteous, save it were the disciples of Jesus.
Still, active hostilities did not break out for some time; but when war commenced, it scarcely ceased until that great battle near Cumorah, which brought extinction to the Nephite race. This war, or series of wars, was one of peculiar horrors. All the old savagery, ten times intensified, was rekindled, transforming the combatants into fiends. Each race seems to have striven to out-rival the other in its bloody and infernal inhumanity. Mormon, the Nephite prophet-general, in an epistle to his son Moroni, sorrowingly relates the fate of the Nephite prisoners—men, women and children—taken at Sherrizah. He adds: And the husbands and fathers of those women and children they [the Lamanites] have slain; and they feed the women upon the flesh of their husbands, and the children upon the flesh of their fathers; and no water save a little do they give them. And notwithstanding the abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue; and after they had done this thing they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies even unto death; and after they have done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts, because of the hardness of their hearts; and they do it for a token of bravery. Such was the horrible condition into which open, wilful, determined rejection of the gospel had brought both races.
Amos entrusted the records to his son Ammaron in the year 306 A. C.
Owing to the increasing depravity and vileness of the Nephites, Ammaron was constrained by the Holy Ghost to hide up all the sacred things which had been handed down from generation to generation (A. C. 320). The place where he hid them is said to have been in the land Antum, in a hill which was called Shim. After he had hid them up, he informed Mormon, then a child ten years old, of what he had done, and placed the buried treasures in his charge. He instructed Mormon to go, when he was about twenty-four years old, to the hill where they were hid, and take the plates of Nephi and record thereon, what he had observed concerning the people. The remainder of the records, etc., he was to leave where they were.
CHAPTER LI.
THE LAST LONG SERIES OF WARS—MORMON—THE FINAL CONFLICT AT CUMORAH—THE LAST OF THE NEPHITES.
(MORMON.)
IT WAS in the year 322 A. C. that actual war broke out between the Nephites and Lamanites, for the first time since the Redeemer's appearing. It commenced in the land of Zarahemla near the waters of Sidon. A number of battles were fought, in which the armies of the former were victorious. Four years later the savage contest was renewed. In the interim iniquity had greatly increased. As foretold by the prophets, men's property became slippery, things movable were subject to unaccountable disappearances, and dread and distrust filled the hearts of the disobedient. When the war recommenced, the youthful Mormon was chosen to lead the armies of his nation.
The next year saw disaster follow the Nephite cause. The people retreated before the Lamanites to the north countries. The year following they met with still further reverses, and in A. C. 329 rapine, revolution and carnage prevailed throughout all the land.
In 330 the Lamanite king, Aaron, with an army of forty-four thousand men, was defeated by Mormon, who had forty-two thousand warriors under his command.
Five years later the Lamanites drove the degenerate Nephites to the land of Jashon, and thence yet further northward to the land of Shem. But in the year following the tide of victory changed, and Mormon, with thirty thousand troops, defeated fifty thousand of the enemy in the land of Shem; then he followed up with such energetic measures that by the year 349 the Nephites had again taken possession of the lands of their inheritance.
These successes resulted in a treaty between the Nephites as one party and the Lamanites and Gadianton robbers as the other. By its provisions the Nephites possessed the country north of the Isthmus, while the Lamanites held the regions south. A peace of ten years followed this treaty.
In the year 360, the king of the Lamanites again declared war. To repel the expected invasion, the people of Nephi gathered at the land of Desolation. There the Lamanites attacked them, were defeated, and returned home. Not content with this repulse, the succeeding year they made another inroad into the northern country, and were again repulsed. The Nephites then took the initiative and invaded the southern continent, but being unsuccessful, were driven back to the frontier at Desolation (A. C. 363). The same season, the city of Desolation was captured by the Lamanitish warriors, but was wrested from them the year following.
This state of things continued another twenty years; war, contention, rapine, pillage, and all the horrors incident to the letting loose of men's most depraved and brutal passions, filled the land. Sometimes one army conquered, sometimes the other. Now it was the Nephites who were pouring their forces into the south; then the Lamanites who were overflowing the north. Whichever side triumphed, that triumph was of short duration; but to all it meant sacrifice, cruelty, blood-guiltiness and woe. At last, when every nerve had been strained for conquest, every man collected who could be found, the two vast hosts, with unquenchable hatred and unrelenting obstinacy, met at the hill Cumorah to decide the destiny of half the world. It was the final struggle, which was to end in the extermination of one or both of the races that had conjointly ruled America for nearly a thousand years (A. C. 385). When the days of that last fearful struggle were ended, all but twenty-four of the Nephite race had been, by the hand of violence, swept into untimely graves, save a few, a very few, who had fled into the south country. The powers, the glories, the beauties of this favored branch of Israel's chosen race had sunk beneath a sea of blood; the word of their God, whom they had so long disregarded, was vindicated; the warnings of his servants were fulfilled.
The Lamanites were now rulers of the western world, their traditional enemies being utterly destroyed. But they did not cultivate peace; no sooner were the Nephites obliterated, than they commenced fighting among themselves. The lonely Moroni, the last of the Nephites, tells us, A. C. 400, that the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the face of the land is one continued round of murder and bloodshed; and no man knoweth the end of the war. And again, yet later, he writes: Their wars are exceeding fierce among themselves.
Such was the sad condition of the Lamanite race in the early part of the fifth century after Christ. There the inspired record closes; henceforth we have nothing but uncertain tradition. The various contending tribes, in their thirst for blood so long gratified, sunk deeper and deeper into savage degradation; the arts of civilization were almost entirely lost to the great mass of the people. Decades and centuries rolled by, and after a time, in some parts, a better state of things slowly uprose. In Central America, Mexico, Peru, and other places, the foundations of new kingdoms were laid, in which were gradually built up civilizations peculiarly their own, but in many ways bearing record to the idiosyncrasies of their ancient predecessors. With this we have here little to do; many of their traditions (though disregarded by mankind) bear unequivocal testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon, and we have the joyous assurance that as the words of their ancient prophets recorded therein have been fulfilled to the letter in their humiliation; and as they have drunk to the dregs from the cup of bitterness of the wrath of God, so is the glorious day now dawning, when the light of the eternal gospel shall illumine the hearts of their descendants; fill them with the love of God; renew their ancient steadfastness and faith, and make them the fitting instruments in his hands of accomplishing all his holy purposes with regard to them, in which also shall be fulfilled all the gracious, glorious promises made by Jehovah to this transplanted branch of the olive tree of Israel.
CHAPTER LII.
THE HISTORIANS OF THE NEPHITES—THE PLATES OF NEPHI—LIST OF THEIR CUSTODIANS—THEIR LENGTHENED YEARS.
SHORTLY after the arrival of Lehi and his little colony on the promised land, Nephi received a commandment from the Lord to make certain "plates of ore" upon which to engrave a record of the doings of his people. Some time later, or between thirty and forty years after the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem, Nephi was further instructed regarding the records. The Lord said unto him, Make other plates; and thou shalt engraven many things upon them which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people. Nephi, to be obedient to the commandment of the Lord, went and made these other plates, and upon them were engraven the records from which the first portions of the Book of Mormon are translated; or those parts known to us as the First and Second Books of Nephi, and the Books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, and Omni.
The two sets of plates manufactured by Nephi were both used as records of his people and called by his name; but their contents were not identical. Upon the first set was engraven the political history of the Nephites, upon the second their religious growth and development. The one described the acts of their kings, and the wars, contentions and destructions which came upon the nation; the other contained the story of the dealings of the Lord with that people, the ministry of his servants, the teachings and prophecies. Of the contents of the first we know but little, simply that which we gather from incidental remarks made in the second; but the second is given to us in its completeness in the translation contained in the Book of Mormon.
It would have been very interesting to students of history to have received the detailed account of the reigns of the kings who governed the people of Nephi, that is, to those who would accept these records as of God; but it was far more important that those most sacred truths contained in the revelations of heaven to that people should be made manifest to this generation. The one would be a satisfaction to our intellectual natures, but the other is necessary to our eternal salvation; for the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the gospel, and also many things plain and most precious that have been taken out of the Jewish scriptures, through the craft or ignorance of apostate Jews and Christians. For this most important reason those portions of the Nephite records that are now contained in the Book of Mormon were first revealed; we should never have been willing to have accepted the others without them, for it is upon the basis of religion, not of history, that the Latter-day Saints accept the Book of Mormon. We also have the promise that other plates will be translated and given unto us in the Lord's due time, and doubtless among them will be those first plates upon which Nephi recorded, with such detail, the travels and labors in the wilderness of his father and associates.
The plates of Nephi containing the sacred annals of his people were not entirely filled with engravings until about two hundred years before Christ. They were made by Nephi between the years 570 and 560 before the advent of the Redeemer; but the record on them goes back to the time when Lehi left Jerusalem, or 600 B. C., so they in reality contain the history of God's dealings with that branch of the house of Israel for about four hundred years.
When Nephi died he transferred these sacred records to the care of his brother Jacob. From that time to the time that Moroni finally hid them in the hill Cumorah, they were in the hands of four families, who had charge of them, as near as can be told from the abridgment that we have in the Book of Mormon, as follows: Jacob and his descendants held them from B. C. 546 to about B. C. 200, when they were transferred to King Benjamin, who, with his son Mosiah, the younger, held them until B. C. 91, at which time they were given into the care of Alma, the chief judge, and he and his posterity retained them until 320 years after the advent of the Messiah. After these, Mormon and his son, Moroni, were the custodians until the close of the record, in the year 421 after Christ.
In the table that follows, B. C. signifies before Christ, and A. C. after Christ, counting from the true date of his birth as given in the Book of Mormon, and not from the accepted Christian Anno Domini (year of our Lord), which is now very generally supposed to be from two to four years wrong. In those places where no date is given, the desired information is not afforded in the Book of Mormon, and therefore can only be guessed at. We therefore prefer to leave such places blank. It will also be remembered that Mormon, just before the great last battle, which resulted in the extinction of the Nephite nation, hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to him by the hand of the Lord, save it were the few plates which he gave to his son Moroni.
The following are the names of the Nephite historians, with the times during which they held the records:
- Nephi, from——to 546 B. C.
- Jacob, from 546 to——
- Enos, from——to 422.
- Jarom, from 422 to 362.
- Omni, from 362 to 318.
- Amaron, from 318 to 280.
- Chemish, from 280 to——
- Abinadom, from——to——
- Amaleki, from——to 200 (about).
- King Benjamin, from 200 to 125.
- King Mosiah, from 125 to 91.
- Alma (the younger), from 91 to 73.
- Helaman (the elder), from 73 to 57.
- Shiblon, from 57 to 53.
- Helaman (the younger), from 53 to 39.
- Nephi, from 39 to 1.
- Nephi (the disciple), from 1 to 34 A. C.
- Nephi, from 34 to 110.
- Amos, from 110 to 194.
- Amos (the younger), from 194 to 306.
- Ammaron, from 306 to 320.
- Mormon, from 320 to 385.
- Moroni, from 385 to 421.
In the above table, one thing will most certainly strike the attention of the observant reader. It is the lengthened period that some of the historians held the records. Jacob and his son Enos held them one hundred and twenty-four years. Jarom held them sixty. In this fact we find a very pleasing confirmation of the statement of Nephi that during the time he and his brethren were wandering in the wilderness, living on raw meat and suffering all kinds of hardships, fatigue and privations, the Lord so greatly blessed the women in the company that they were strong, yea, even like unto the men, having an abundance of milk to suckle the babes born unto them. Jacob was born at this time, and doubtless inherited an exceedingly strong constitution, which he transmitted to his posterity.
The second epoch during which the longevity of the custodians of the plates is remarkable is during that reign of universal righteousness which followed the ministry of the crucified Savior. By living unto the Lord in all things their lives were marvelously prolonged; especially were those of the children born during the continuance of this happy and holy period and before the effects of the after apostasy had begun to work on them. Thus Nephi, the son of Nephi the disciple, had charge of the records seventy-six years, his son Amos, eighty-four years, and Amos, the son of the last named, the wonderful period of one hundred and twelve years; or father, son and grandson, three generations, a total of two hundred and seventy-two years. What a powerful sermon this one fact preaches in favor of entire submission of body and soul to the perfect and perfecting law of God!
CHAPTER LIII.
THE WOMEN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON—THEIR CONDITION AND POSITION—ABISH—ISABEL—MARRIAGE—AMULEK—MORONI'S TITLE OF LIBERTY—THE MOTHERS OF THE AMMONITES—TWO EXTREMES.
IT IS somewhat noticeable how little prominence is given to womankind in the historical narrative of the Book of Mormon, and unfortunately when mention is made of them it too frequently grows out of man's sins and their misfortunes. Of all the descendants of Lehi and Sariah, but two women are mentioned by name; one, Abish, a converted waiting woman to a queen of the Lamanites; the other, Isabel, a harlot of the land of Sidon, whose meretricious charms seduced Corianton, the son of Alma, from the work of the ministry among the Zoramites.
Although we have but few individual characters standing out in relief from the historical background, yet from many incidental references as to the story of the Nephites is told we are led to the conclusion that women among that people enjoyed a much greater degree of liberty, and wielded a more powerful influence than they did among contemporary Gentile nations on the eastern hemisphere—say in Babylon, Persia or Greece. We deem this mainly attributable to two causes, first, the Israelitish origin of the race; and again, the power and grace with which the principles of the gospel were preached by a long succession of prophets, who almost uninterruptedly ministered to the seed of Nephi. That this latter cause had much to do with woman's pleasing condition among that people is evident, for we find from the historical narrative that whenever they turned from the Lord it was then that tribulation and oppression came upon their wives and daughters, and they suffered from the iniquities of their husbands and the fury of their enemies. With regard to the first named cause it is generally admitted that the Hebrew women of antiquity enjoyed greater liberty and possessed more privileges than did those of the surrounding nations of the same period. Let the Bible and the history of contemporary nations be compared and the difference is apparent.
The Nephites lived in a dispensation varying considerably from that of the latter days. They observed the law of Moses, to which was added the higher code of the gospel. Our readers know how well both these protect the rights of women, and how sacredly they guard the marriage covenant; infidelity to that sacred bond of union being regarded, whether in the man or in the woman, as a most heinous offense, and worthy of the severest penalties.
At the commencement of the Nephite national life, when they were few in numbers, they seem for a time to have been tainted with some of the social vices of the degenerate people from whom the Lord had separated them. They committed great immoralities and took wives for utterly unworthy purposes, and without the fear of the Lord before their eyes; and after they had taken them, they frequently abused or neglected them, until their suffering cries came up before the Eternal One, and heaven forbade any man among them taking more than one wife, but adding this proviso: For if I will, saith the Lord of hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken to these things. This injunction, we are of the opinion, was afterwards removed, and the foreshadowed command given, as it is evident from the later history of the Nephites that in a better era of their national life polygamy was sanctioned by the law and practiced among them, and that, indeed, by the men most favored of God. As an example, we will cite the prophet Amulek, the devoted friend and zealous fellow-laborer of the younger Alma; the only man in all the vast city of Ammonihah to whom an angel was sent, and in whose behalf mighty miracles were wrought. He expressly mentions his women, and as he places them next to himself and before his children, his father and all his other kinsfolk and kindred, and nowhere uses the word wife or wives, it is evident that his wives were meant and not serving-women. No one, surely, would argue that he would give to the latter the place of honor in his address to his fellow-citizens, before his parents and his children. As another instance, the great number of Chief Judge Pahoran's sons is incidentally mentioned.
It was during the brighter days of the rule of the Judges that women, more than at any time before the appearance of the Messiah on this continent, seem to have been most highly regarded and esteemed. The Nephites were then living under that excellent code of laws drawn up by the inspired King Mosiah, which bear evidence of having been most admirably adapted to a people worthy of a large amount of liberty. This age was adorned with the presence of such men as Alma, Moroni (the prophet-general of the Nephite armies), Ammon and the other sons of King Mosiah, Helaman, Amulek and others conspicuous for their devotion to the laws of God and the rights and liberties of the people. General Moroni, than whom a more devoted man to the cause of truth and humanity never lived, is especially conspicuous in his untiring efforts for the safety and happiness of the wives and little ones of his people. On the standard to which he rallied the patriot warriors of the republic, which he named the Title of Liberty, he inscribed, In memory of our God, our religion and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children. This seems to have been his watchword throughout the long and sanguinary succeeding campaigns, in which he defended the Nephites from the savage onslaughts of their Lamanitish foes. Again and again we find him rallying the hosts of Nephi with this soul-stirring cry, and under the ardor it wrought in their hearts carrying triumph to their banners and freedom to their land. One series of events that occurred during this long war sheds a most pleasing light upon the inner life of the faithful among the Nephites; it is found in the story of Helaman and his two thousand striplings, who, though very young, were so full of the spirit of faith implanted in their hearts by the wise counsels of their loving and God-fearing mothers, that in the might of Jehovah they went forth against the enemies of their adopted country (for they were Lamanites by birth), and no power could withstand them. Their mothers' teachings and their mothers' prayers were weapons of destruction to their foes and shields of defense to themselves. They went forth conquering and to conquer, and the All-seeing One only knows how much the teachings of those saintly women effected towards the preservation of the Nephite commonwealth from imminent destruction.
And what shall we say of the condition of woman in that blessed Sabbatic era succeeding the glorious appearing of the Redeemer on this western land, when for nearly two hundred years this continent enjoyed undisturbed and heavenly peace; when all men devoutly worshiped the Lord and dealt justly with their fellows—men or women? It was an age in which no woman was wronged, no deserted children pined in the streets, no abused wives mourned in secret, or lifted their sorrowing hearts in anguish to the Great Father of mankind; no brazen courtesans flaunted on the broad highways, or ruined maidens hid their sorrow and shame wherever seclusion was the most profound. The inspired historian tells us that if ever there were a happy people on this earth, there they were found; and most happy must have been the gentler ones, who bear in the stubborn battle of life so large a share of its sorrows and misfortunes.
But this golden age was soon followed by its opposite, when every virtue seems to have been supplanted by a vice, and all good was turned to evil. At almost lightning speed, the people having once taken the downward track, the nation rushed to ruin, until this continent became one vast field of carnage, rapine, and misery, over which devils gloated and hell enlarged itself. Indeed, the whole land seemed peopled with a race of demons who perpetuated cruelties that could alone be conceived in the hearts of the damned. During these lengthened years of untold horror the fair daughters of the land suffered unspeakable barbarities. Life, virtue, everything was the plaything of the victor, be he Nephite or Lamanite, until in the hate of revenge and the fury of despair they joined their national leaders on the battlefield, and with their husbands, sons and brothers, dyed their hands in the blood of the foe. Nor did they arm themselves alone, but with feelings turned to those of monsters, they put weapons into the hands of their children and inflamed their young minds with the savage love of slaughter. The war was not one for supremacy alone; it was for national and individual existence; and, midst a sea of carnage, unparalleled on any land save ours, the Nephite nation was swept out of existence, leaving scarce a trace behind, a most terrible instance of divine mercy scorned and divine laws abused.
CHAPTER LIV.
DOMESTIC LIFE AMONG THE NEPHITES—HOUSE-HOLD DUTIES—DRESS—ORNAMENTS—HOMES—FOOD—MANUFACTURES—TRANSPORTATION.
FROM the casual references found in the historic portions of the Book of Mormon, we are led to infer that the domestic life of the Nephites was patterned, as it very naturally would be, after the manners and customs of their forefathers in the land of Jerusalem, modified, of course, by time and their surroundings. The changed material conditions, the absence of older though co-existent peoples and powers, the new and sometimes strange animal and vegetable productions, etc., all had an influence in the formation and growth of their civilization; trivial, perhaps, when considered separately, but when taken together, and working for centuries, having a marked effect on their public polity and home life. It is, however, necessary to explain that the details of the latter are very meagre, and only obtained incidentally, as they may form a link in the chain of some historical narrative, or be introduced as an illustration in some doctrinal teaching or prophetic warning.
In the midst of a people guided or reproved through their entire national life by an almost continuous succession of inspired teachers, it is but reasonable to conclude that the domestic virtues were assiduously cultivated, and all departures therefrom severely rebuked. Industry, economy, thrift, prudence, and moderation in dress were evidently as much the subject of the prophet's commendation then as in these latter days. Zeniff and others directly refer to the labors and toils of the Nephite women in spinning and making the material with which they clothed themselves and their households; and the same fabrics which delight the modern daughters of Israel also appear to have pleased the eyes of their Nephite sisters in the long ago. We must, however, say to the praise of these ancient worthies, the mothers of Mosiah, Alma, Moroni, Helaman, and of the two thousand striplings who loved to call the latter father, that the beauty of their apparel was the workmanship of their own hands. Steam looms, spinning jennys, and their like, were unknown, so far as we can learn, to the enterprising, vigorous, God-blessed race that for nearly a thousand years filled the American continent with the favored seed of Jacob's much-loved son.
The materials of which the clothing of this race were made are frequently mentioned in the inspired record. Fine silk, fine twined or twisted linen, and cloth of every kind are often spoken of. In one place good homely cloth is mentioned. By the word homely we must not understand the writer to mean ugly; the word is there evidently applied in its original significance, as it is used today in England, for homelike or fit for home—such material as was suited to the every-day life of an industrious, hard-working people.
The love of ornaments has ever been a characteristic of Abraham's chosen race. The golden earrings and bracelets that gladdened the eyes of Rebecca, when sought as the wife of the patriarch's son, have had their counterpart in many a more modern instance. It was so with Sariah's myriad daughters. Time and again we read of pride and vanity entering the hearts of the people, and of their affections being set upon their costly apparel and their ornaments of gold, of silver, of pearls, of precious things, (gems?) their bracelets, ringlets, etc.
Nor would it be just to convey the idea that the gentler sex were alone guilty of these extravagances; the sacred record admits of no such conclusion. We cannot judge by the sober drabs, greys and browns with which the civilized gentleman of today clothes himself, of the colors, the styles or the fashions of the raiment of the Nephite beaux. The only safe conclusion that can be drawn is that they probably copied to some extent the gorgeousness of tropical nature by which they were surrounded. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that a single description would apply to the styles in the days of Lehi, of Benjamin and of Mormon, any more than the varied fashions of the days of the Williams, the Edwards, the Jameses and the Georges of English history could all be condensed into one sentence. It is not conceivable that dress, or anything else, remained entirely unchanged throughout a thousand years, though it is quite possible that those changes were nothing like so sudden or so radical as have been those that have taken place among the leading nations of western Europe. On these points, however, so far as the record of Mormon is concerned, we can simply surmise, as the military accoutrements, armor, etc., of the warrior are the only habiliments with regard to which he gives any particular details. It is this poverty of information on this and kindred subjects that makes it so difficult for our artists to illustrate, with any assurance of approximate correctness, scenes and incidents from Book of Mormon history.
Nor can we learn much more with regard to their residences than we can concerning their dress. The most detailed account given of any man's home is that of Nephi, the son of Helaman. His house was situated on the main highway which led to the chief market place of the city of Zarahemla. In front of his house was a garden, and near the gate opening upon the highway was a tower, upon the top of which the prophet was accustomed to pray. These towers, from the numerous references made to them, either as private property or attached to their places of worship, as watch towers or as a part of their system of fortification, must have formed quite a conspicuous feature in the Nephite landscape.
The residences of the rich were elegant and spacious, adorned with exceedingly fine wood work, carving, etc., and with ornaments of gold, silver, copper, brass, steel and other metals. From the importance attached to the fact that but little timber existed in the northern continent when the Nephites began to spread over it, and consequently that the immigrants had to build their houses of cement, it is presumable that wood entered largely into the composition of the buildings. This idea is strengthened by the frequent reference made to the skill of their artisans in wood working, and in the excellence they had attained in the refining of ores and the manufacturing of metal ornaments for their houses and persons. Regarding one monarch it is written: King Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine works of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff and of copper; and he also built him a spacious palace and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which was of fine wood, and was ornamented with gold and silver, and with precious things. And he also caused that his workmen should work all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and of brass, etc. This was in the land of Lehi-Nephi.
We next turn to the food of this people. Here, also we are without definite information, but we can measurably judge of their staple articles of diet by noticing the grains they cultivated most extensively: to wit, wheat, corn and barley, the latter appearing to have been the standard by which they gauged the price of other commodities. Great attention was also given to the planting of fruit trees and grape vines. From the fruit of the grape abundance of wine was manufactured, of which (we think we do the Nephites no injustice by saying it) they were as fond as are the generality of mankind. They were not as attached to a meat diet as were the Lamanites, who were great flesh-eaters, but they apparently kept large flocks and herds as a source of food supply, as well as for wool, leather, etc., and to provide for the numerous sacrifices enjoined by the law of Moses, which they carefully observed, until the offering of that greatest of all sacrifices on Mount Calvary, of which all the rest were but types and shadows.
Thus we may conclude that bread made from corn, wheat or barley, the flesh of their flocks and herds, together with that of wild animals caught in the chase, fruit, wine, milk and honey, formed the basis of their daily food, differing no doubt in details, according to the location, climate and other circumstances.
Their methods of locomotion and modes of transportation are not described. They were very rich in horses, and doubtless made use of them as beasts of burden. The fact that large bodies of this people made extended journeys in their various migrations and colonizings, is beyond dispute. From one family they filled a continent, or more properly two continents. The use of ships is not mentioned until the middle of the last century before the Christian era. These were then used in conveying immigrants, lumber, provisions, etc., to the northern continent; the first ship-building, of which we have an account, having been done at the settlements near the Isthmus of Panama, to which point good roads had by that time been constructed. In the earlier history of the Nephites it is probable that most of their material was transported on pack animals, as is done today in the regions then inhabited by them. In the dense tropical vegetation of the wilderness, and along the mountain slopes of the Andes, road-making was difficult and expensive, and packing on the backs of animals (say the horse, the mule, the llama, the alpaca, etc.,) was the cheapest and most convenient to a comparatively poor and small people.
Chariots are mentioned but seldom, The Lamanite monarch, Lamoni, had his horses and chariots, to which reference is more than once made; and in after years, when the Nephites gathered with all they possessed into one place, to defend themselves against the Gadianton robber (A. C. 17), they removed their provisions, grain, etc., by means of vehicles called chariots. These are the only instances, which the writer remembers where vehicles of any kind are spoken of in the Book of Mormon, in connection with the inhabitants of this continent.
CHAPTER LV.
AGRICULTURE AMONG THE NEPHITES—GRAINS—STOCK RAISING—IRRIGATION.
NO SOONER had Lehi and his little colony arrived on the promised land than they commenced the cultivation of the soil, planting therein the seeds they had brought with them from the land of Judea, which, to their great joy, yielded abundantly. The grains and fruits of the Asiatic continent were found to flourish as luxuriantly in the soil of America as in their native land. This not only held good in the land of the Nephites' first inheritance, but also in the lands of their later possession—Nephi, Zarahemla, etc., as all through the Book of Mormon we have occasional references (incidental to the story of their history) to the success that attended their farming operations. Nor must it be imagined that their business was carried on in the primitive manner that characterizes the labors of Laman's degenerate descendants today. Agricultural machinery, and all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, are mentioned by more than one writer.
Of cereals, corn, wheat and barley appear to have been, as in the land of their forefathers, the staple crops. If we mistake not, oats are never mentioned in the Bible, nor is rye spoken of more than once or twice. In the Book of Mormon we have no recollection of the mention of either of these grains. On the other hand they appeared to have cultivated grains with which we are unacquainted, known to them by the names of neas and sheum. Had there been any English equivalents to these words, we should doubtless have had these equivalents as in other cases, instead of the original Nephite names.
All kinds of fruit flourished under their careful cultivation. Special reference is several times made to vineyards and grape culture, as well as to the manufacture of wine. Like the moderns, they understood the secret of fortifying or strengthening it with liquor or alcohol, of which knowledge they took advantage when paying tribute to the Lamanites, in cases when they intended to escape from their task-masters while the latter were under the influence of this intoxicating drink.
It is evident from the sacred record that the Nephites carried on their farming very much in the same manner and for very much the same reasons, as the early settlers in Utah. When a new colony was planted, a town or village was built in a suitable location, somewhat after the style of our early forts. This city or settlement was generally named after the founder or leader of the colony. The farming land contiguous was called by the same name. The land was tilled in every convenient place around the city, and when the Lamanites appeared, or other danger threatened, the people retreated into their place of refuge, in the center of their lands. As an example, we will cite the case of the followers of Alma, in the land of Helam. When the army of the Lamanites made their unwelcome appearance, the people were mostly engaged in tilling the soil. At the coming of the dreaded foe they gathered with all haste into the city to await developments and to receive the counsel their wise, brave and good leader might give them. By his advice the men went out of the city in a body, and made a treaty with the Lamanites, which the latter, as soon as their purpose was accomplished, failed to keep.
It is probable that in many parts of the continent some system of irrigation was adopted to raise the crops. But this was not necessary in all portions of the Nephite possessions; we are inclined to think it was not so in the cultivated portions of the valley of the Sidon. Certain it is that when the righteous Nephi (the father of one of the Twelve Disciples chosen by Jesus from among the Israel of this western continent) called upon the Lord, at his request a famine desolated the land. The sacred historian records: For the earth was smitten that it was dry, and did not yield forth grain in the season of the grain. But when the people had repented and Nephi had pleaded in their behalf, it is written, And it came to pass in the seventy-sixth year (B. C. 16), the Lord did turn away his anger from the people, and caused that rain should fall upon the earth, insomuch that it did bring forth her fruit in the season of her fruit. And it came to pass that it did bring forth her grain in the season of her grain. We judge from this that in those days the Nephite agriculturist depended on the direct rains from heaven; for it appears that in the same year that they fell, the grain harvest was reaped and the fruit harvest gathered. But it is unsafe to form positive theories on these points, until we fully understand the great changes that took place on the face of the land, with consequent alterations of climate, etc., at the time of the awful convulsions that attended the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior.
Except in the days of their excessive pride and ungodly arrogance, the calling of the agriculturist among the Nephites was a most honorable one, as in truth it should be among all people. King Mosiah, the beloved, reminded the people that, to prevent their taxes being grievous, he himself did till the earth for his support, and to maintain the expenses of the monarchy. With this royal example, it is no wonder that the farmer and the horticulturist were esteemed among the greatest of nature's noblemen.
The Nephites were also successful stock-raisers; their flocks and herds formed no inconsiderable portion of their wealth. The abundance of their horned stock, sheep, goats, wild goats, horses, fatlings, etc., is frequently referred to. To this industry the Lamanites, who were great meat-eaters, also gave considerable attention. It was a business that suited their semi-civilization. It did not tie them down so completely to one spot, as did agriculture and manufacture. But it is a notable fact that whenever any bodies of Lamanites passed over to the Nephites, they not only adopted the latter's religion and faith, but also their mode of living, and became skilled in the pursuits of industry. As an example, we read, in the days of the Judges, of many of these people joining the people of Ammon (their former brethren), when they did begin to labor exceedingly, tilling the ground, raising all manner of grain, and flocks and herds of every kind.
CHAPTER LVI.
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE AMONG THE NEPHITES—THEIR ASTRONOMY AND GEOGRAPHY—THE LEARNING OF EGYPT.
THE Nephites were unusually happy in having, as the founders of their nation, men who were not only wise in the ways of the Lord, but also learned in the knowledge of the world. Most races that have made a mark in history have had to grope their way for centuries from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. Little by little such races have advanced in the path of civilization, falling into manifold errors, and committing grievous blunders. With Lehi and his posterity it was not so. They were taken from the midst of a people who were surrounded by the most powerful and refined nations of antiquity, with whose wisdom and learning Lehi was undoubtedly well acquainted. We can readily conceive that the Lord, in planting this mighty and vigorous offshoot of the house of Joseph, on the richest and most favored land of all the earth, would not only choose one of his most faithful, but also one of his most intelligent servants, to commence the work. Indeed, on the very first page of the Book of Mormon, Nephi incidentally refers to the learning of his father; which learning, we infer from many passages in the sacred record, was obtained by Lehi in Egypt, as well as in Palestine; the association between the inhabitants of these two countries being, in his day, very close, and the inter-communication frequent.
As the foundation of their literature, Lehi and his colony carried with them a copy of the sacred scriptures, which contained not only an account of God's dealings with mankind, from the creation to the age of Jeremiah, but also the only complete history in existence of the people who lived before the deluge. The Egyptians, Chaldeans and other nations had mangled, mythic and jumbled-up accounts of man's history from the creation to the flood; but the Nephites possessed the details of this epoch in much greater completeness than even Christendom does today. These scriptures—historical and doctrinal—being numerously reproduced and scattered among the people, formed the basis of Nephite literature, giving them the immense advantage over all other people of possessing the unpolluted word of God in every age then past, supplemented by a correct and undisputed history of the results, to the world, of man's obedience or disobedience to these heavenly messages. How much more complete these scriptures were than the Bible of Christendom is shown by the numerous references to the lives, and quotations from the teachings, of ancient worthies, Melchisedek, Jacob, Joseph and others; to the acts and infamies of Cain, etc., not found in the Bible, as well as by lengthy quotations from ancient prophets, whose names—Zenos, Zenoch, Neum, Ezias—are not even mentioned in its pages. How much modern Christianity has lost by these omissions may be partially inferred from the beauty and grandeur of the extracts given in the Book of Mormon, from the writings and prophecies of Zenos alone. Take, as a single instance, his inspired parable of the wild and tame olive trees, given in the Book of Jacob; no more important, no more sublime prophecy can be found in the whole contents of the holy scriptures.
The connection of Lehi with Egypt, whose language he appears to have adopted, doubtless gave him a practical knowledge of the condition of the whole civilized world in his day, when the glories of Chaldea had departed, and those of Assyria and Egypt were passing away; when Babylon was at the zenith of its power, and the growing strength of Persia and Greece was as yet scarcely felt. To this personal information he, like Moses, added an acquaintance with the learning of the Egyptians, a people wise above all other uninspired races in the numerous branches of science and art in which they excelled. With this knowledge, combined with the information of immeasurable value contained on the sacred plates, the foundation was laid for a stable civilization, guided by past revelation and present inspiration; to which was added the experience of other nations, as beacon-lights to warn the Nephites of the dangers to which all communities are subject, and to guide them to havens of governmental and political safety.
The Nephites, then, from their earliest day had at least all the important historical and geographical knowledge possessed by the most favored communities of the eastern hemisphere, with as much more as it pleased heaven to reveal. They had one advantage over the peoples they had left—they were well acquainted with them and their condition; but of the Nephites the dwellers in the old world knew nothing. With regard to the knowledge received through revelation, it is evident, from several incidental expressions scattered through the record, that the Lord did give to his faithful servants information with regard to historical and geographical matters. We will cite one instance: Jacob, the brother of Nephi, in one of his impressive exhortations, while encouraging his brethren (often somewhat downcast on account of their lonely condition, so far from the rest of mankind), remarks: We have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea. But great are the promises of the Lord unto they who are upon the isles of the sea; therefore, as it says isles, there must needs be more than this, and they are inhabited also by our brethren.
How could Jacob have known, except by revelation, that the vast continent which the Nephites inhabited was entirely surrounded by the waters of the great oceans? He and his companions had, but a few short years before, first landed on its shores, and had now explored but a very small portion of its wide extent, and there were no others in communication with them who could supply the information that North and South America were one immense island. Evidently the Lord had revealed this fact to them. And, by the way, this simple statement is strong testimony of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. At the time that this portion of the sacred plates was translated (A. D. 1827-8), or even when the whole book was published and the Church of Jesus Christ was organized (A. D. 1830), it was not known to modern science that the American continent was indeed an island. Joseph Smith could not have received knowledge of this fact, so unhesitatingly affirmed, from any learned geographer or practical navigator. The hope of centuries, in Europe, had been to discover a north-west passage to India, but to that date all attempts had met with disastrous failure, so far as the chief object was concerned. Little or nothing was then known of the North American coast, west of Hudson's Bay. It was not until, after repeated expeditions, that in May, 1847, the truth of the statement of Jacob could be affirmed from actual knowledge of the geographical features of the country, as at that date the explorations and surveys by land and sea, from east and west, were brought sufficiently near to leave the matter without a doubt. It was not until 1854 that the first ship's crew (that of Captain McClure), which ever sailed across the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific to the Atlantic, along the northern coast of America, returned from their perilous voyage. We thus find that human geographical knowledge could not have aided the prophet Joseph Smith in making this statement, had it originated with him and not with the son of Lehi.
While ancient Greek and other philosophers were groping among the fallacies of the absurd system of astronomy given to the world by Ptolemy, and teaching that the sun with all the stars revolved around the earth, the Nephites were in possession of the true knowledge with regard to the heavenly bodies, etc. Possibly they were the only people of their age blessed with a comprehension of these sublime truths. It is altogether probable that among their scriptures were copies of the Book of Abraham, from which they could acquaint themselves with the beauties and harmonies of celestial mechanism. They undoubtedly had the writings of Joseph, the son of Jacob, as these are quoted in the Book of Mormon; and, as the prophet Joseph Smith found the writings of Abraham and Joseph together in the Egyptian mummies, it is far from improbable that the Nephites, as well as the early Egyptians, possessed both. To show the astronomical knowledge possessed by the Nephites, we will draw attention to the words of two of their prophets. The first extract is from the reply of Alma to Korihor, the Anti-Christ (B. C. 75), when the latter asked for a sign to prove the existence of a God. His words are: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion; yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form, doth witness that there is a Supreme Creator. The next quotation is from the reflections of one of the servants of God (probably Mormon) inserted into the Nephite history of about seventy years later. The writer is speaking of the greatness and goodness of God, and among other things declares: Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake; yea, by the power of his voice doth the foundations rock, even to the very center; yea, and if he say unto the earth, move it, it is moved; yea, if he say unto the earth, thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours, it is done; and thus according to his word, the earth goeth back; and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for sure it is the earth that moveth, and not the sun. Thus we find that in these points, the astronomical knowledge of the Nephites was, at least equal to that of the moderns.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE ART OF WAR AMONG THE NEPHITES—THEIR WEAPONS, ARMOR AND FORTIFICATIONS—MORONI'S LINE OF DEFENSE.
NO SOONER had the separation taken place between the families of Nephi and Laman, and the foundation been laid for the two nations that for a thousand years contended for supremacy on this continent, than Nephi, to protect his people from the threatened attacks of the Lamanites, found it necessary to prepare for war. He took the sword of Laban, and using it as a pattern, fashioned many others, which he distributed among his subjects as a means of defense. These swords, with cimeters, spears, javelins, darts, bows and arrows, slings and stones, appear to have been the principal weapons of war used by the Nephites throughout their entire national existence, though reference is more than once made to unnamed and undescribed weapons. We have no reason to imagine from any of the descriptions of their battles that gunpowder or any like composition was known to them. It is more probable that the unnamed weapons were something of the same kind as the ancient ballista and catapult, (machines made by the ancients for throwing stones, arrows, etc.,) and used for the same purposes. From the abundance of metallic ore in the regions most densely populated by the Nephites, and the oft-mentioned skill possessed by their artisans in the working of iron, steel, brass and copper, we have no reason for supposing that less satisfactory substitutes were brought into use in the manufacture of their weapons. There was no necessity for using bone, flint, etc., when metal was so abundant and its preparation so well understood.
The accounts we have of the early wars between the two races are but mere notices of the fact of their occurrence and results. It is not until the days of the Judges that anything like details are given. At that time the Nephites had adopted the use of defensive plate armor for their heads, bodies and thighs; they also carried shields and wore arm plates. These arts for the protection of the soldiers were carried to their greatest excellence under Moroni, during the first half of the last century before Christ. This officer, one of the greatest generals the Nephite race ever gave birth to, appears to have made a great revolution in their military affairs. He re-organized their armies, compelled more stringent discipline, introduced new tactics, developed a greatly superior system of fortification, built towers and citadels, and altogether placed the defensive powers of the commonwealth on a new and stronger footing. The Lamanites, who appear to have developed no capacity for originating, but were apt in copying, also, in course of time, adopted defensive armor, and when they captured a weak Nephite city they frequently made it a stronghold by surrounding it with ditches and walls after the system introduced and put into execution by Moroni.
The foundation of Moroni's system of fortification was earthworks encircling the place to be defended. The earth was dug from the outside, by which means a ditch was formed. Sometimes walls of stone were erected. On the top of the earthworks strong defenses of wood, sometimes breastworks, in some cases to the full height of a man, were raised; and above these a stockade of strong pickets was built, to arrest the flight of the stones and arrows of the attacking forces. Those arrows, etc., that passed above the pickets fell, without doing injury, behind the troops who were defending the wall. Besides these walls, towers were raised at various convenient points, from which observations of the movements of the enemy were taken, and wherein corps of archers and slingers stationed during the actual continuance of the battle. From their elevated and commanding position these bodies of soldiers could do great injury to the attacking force.
To make this subject yet plainer we insert a few extracts, from the Book of Mormon, that have a bearing thereon.
In the year B. C. 73 a severe war was being waged, in which Moroni had command of the Nephite armies and Amalickiah of those of the Lamanites. It is written that at this time Moroni erected small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about, to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land; and in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites.
The year following Moroni caused his soldiers to dig up heaps of earth round about all the cities, throughout all the land which was possessed by the Nephites; and upon the top of these ridges of earth he caused that there should be timbers; yea, works of timbers built up to the height of a man, round about the cities. And he caused that upon these works of timbers there should be a frame of pickets built upon the timbers round about; and they were strong and high; and he caused towers to be erected that overlooked those works of pickets, and he caused places of security to be built upon those towers, that the stones and the arrows of the Lamanites could not hurt them. And they were prepared, that they could cast stones from the top thereof, according to their pleasure and their strength, and slay him who should attempt to approach near the walls of the city. Thus Moroni did prepare strongholds against the coming of their enemies, round about every city in all the land.
Again, in the same war, the Lamanite prisoners were set to work digging a ditch round about the land, or the city Bountiful; and Moroni caused that they should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers; and thus they did cause the Lamanites to labor until they had encircled the city of Bountiful round about with a strong wall of timbers and earth, to an exceeding height. And this city became an exceeding stronghold ever after.
The forces of both races appear to have been composed very largely, if not entirely, of infantry. We have failed to notice any passage that gave a definite assurance that either cavalry or war chariots were used in their campaigns.
Like nearly all rude or semi-civilized races, the Lamanites depended on the strength of numbers and brute force for victory in the open field. They massed their troops in solid bodies, and with wild cries rushed to the assault in the hope of bearing down all resistance by their superior numbers, as in almost every war they greatly outnumbered the Nephites. Indeed it is doubtful if even the last-named people used much scientific strategy previous to the days of Moroni; before this time it was a hand-to-hand conflict, wherein the Nephites, though fewer in numbers, had many advantages over their half-naked foes, by reason of superior weapons and defensive armor, and, above all, through the blessing and guidance of the Lord.
In the year B. C. 72 the armies of Moroni drove the Lamanites out of that portion of the east wilderness bordering on the land of Zarahemla into their own lands. The northern line or boundary of the latter ran in a straight course from the sea east to the west. The Lamanites having been driven out of those portions of the wilderness north of the dividing line, colonies of Nephites were sent to occupy the country and build cities on their southern border, even to the Atlantic coast. To protect the new settlers, Moroni placed troops all along this line and caused them to erect fortifications for the better defense of the frontier. This fortified line ran from the west sea (the Pacific Ocean) by the head of the river Sidon (the Magdalena) eastward along the northern edge of the wilderness.
Some of the readers of the Book of Mormon have imagined this line of defense to have been one continuous rampart or wall—after the style of the great wall of China—reaching from ocean to ocean, and on this surmise have argued that the completion of such an immense work in a few years was an impossibility to a people of the limited numerical strength of the Nephites. To get over this difficulty of their own creation they have resorted to various theories with regard to its locality, inconsistent with the geographical details, on purpose to shorten its distance to what they deemed a reasonable length, possible for the Nephites to have built in a few years. The writer holds the opinion that the Book of Mormon conveys no such idea, it simply states that Moroni erected fortifications along this line; or, as he views it, Moroni took advantage of the natural features of the country, its wide rivers, far-stretching swamps and ranges of high mountains, and built fortifications at every point where the Lamanites would find ingress, such as at the fords of the rivers and the passes between the mountains. He there stationed bodies of troops sufficiently strong to hold their posts, and, if necessary, defend the surrounding country. This system of defense would be more powerful and effective than an artificial wall; high mountains and deep rivers largely taking the place of earthworks, masonry and heavy timbers.
A number of years later (B. C. 34), the Lamanites having temporarily driven the Nephites from the southern continent, Moronihah, the son of Moroni, fortified the Isthmus of Panama from sea to sea, and in this way prevented the Lamanites from pushing yet further north. This defensive line was again fortified by Mormon (A. C. 360) in the last great series of wars between the two races.
It does not appear, so far as can be gathered from the record, that any very great improvements, either in the system of fortification, the style of defensive armor, or the manufacture of their weapons, were made by the Nephite commanders who lived after the days of Moroni.
There is another kind of defensive clothing, beside plate armor, mentioned as being worn by the ancient American warriors. It consisted of very thick clothing, possibly made of cotton or woolen cloth, thickly padded. Moroni uniformed some of his troops in this manner when he first took command of the Nephite armies (B. C. 74), and the next year the Lamanites followed his example and not only prepared themselves with shields and breastplates, but also with garments of skins; yea, very thick garments to cover their nakedness.
The various enemies that the Nephite armies had to meet, from time to time, on the field of battle—Lamanites, Amulonites, Amalekites, Zoramites, Gadianton robbers, etc. — were very differently equipped for their bloody work. Those who had dissented from the Nephites naturally held to the same tactics, used the arms and protected their bodies with the same armor as the people to whom they had turned traitors. With the original Lamanites it was different. At first, when they came against the Nephites they were clothed with a short skin girdle about the loins, and with their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow and the cimeter and axe. The dissenters, while armed and equipped like the Nephites, set a mark upon themselves by which they might be known and distinguished on the battle field. In doing this they unconsciously fulfilled the word of the Lord to their fathers. Thus, the followers of Amlici, the would-be king, marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites, though they did not shave their heads as did the direct descendants of Laman (B. C. 87).
The description of the Gadianton robbers, as they appeared when prepared for war (A. C. 18), is a very terrible one: They were girded about after the manner of robbers; and they had a lamb-skin about their loins, and they were dyed in blood, and their heads were shorn, and they had head-plates upon them: and great and terrible was the appearance of the armies of Giddianhi, because of their armor and because of their being dyed in blood.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE LAWS OF THE NEPHITES—THE ROMAN AND NEPHITE CIVILIZATIONS—THE LAWS UNDER THE KINGS—POSITION OF THE PRIESTHOOD—SLAVERY—CRIMINAL OFFENSES.
IF THE existence of wise, just and liberal laws, administered in righteousness, be the rule by which we can judge of the true greatness of a nation and of the happiness and prosperity of its citizens, then the Nephites were a far happier and more prosperous people than were their contemporaries on the eastern continent. If this be not so, then we have not read history aright.
The Nephite nation was co-existent with the great Roman power that for so long triumphed over and crushed the surrounding people in Europa, Asia and Africa. True, Rome was founded more than a century before Lehi left Jerusalem, [9] but at the time of his exodus its growing power had scarcely begun to be felt outside of Italy. At the time that Moroni's record closed, the Nephites, as a nation, had become extinct, and the glory of the mistress of the world was rapidly fading away. Rome had been sacked by barbarians, the empire had been divided into two governments, the legs of Nebuchadnezzar's great image were forming; peoples and nations were rebelling and throwing off the iron yoke, and the idea of universal empire had become a thing of the past. [10] But how different the theory and genius of the two nations! The Nephite rulers governed by the power of just laws, the Romans by the might of the unsheathed sword. Among the former, every man was a free man, with his rights as a citizen guaranteed and protected by just laws. Among the latter, few could assert, as did the Apostle Paul, Civis Romanus Sum—I am a Roman citizen. The vast majority of the millions who formed its people were either abject allies, vanquished enemies or degraded slaves. [11] Neither of these had many rights that the Roman citizen felt himself called upon to respect. We are apt to be awed by the grand military exploits of the Roman generals, and to be dazzled with the magnificence of Rome in art and architecture, but we must recollect that the history of that city is the history of tyranny. Its power, during the greater portion of its continuance, was in the hands of the few, who used it for the interest of their class. The masses of the population were the subjects of oppression and violence.
No language could so well describe the spirit of Roman aggrandizement as that used by the Prophet Daniel when interpreting to the Babylonish king the import of the terrible image he had seen in his dream. These are his words: And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. (Daniel ii. 40.) And thus did Rome rule the eastern world as with a rod of iron. We need not refer to the other nations that existed on the eastern continent, for the people that Rome neither conquered nor destroyed were barbarians, who, during the existence of the Nephites, filled but a small page in the world's history.
These facts are presented as worthy of the consideration of all who study the social and political condition of the great and highly-favored people who flourished on this continent for so many centuries; and we imagine the student cannot fail to be impressed with the thought that they were at least a thousand years in advance of their fellow-men in the science of true government; and in their policy find a type of the most advanced and most liberal forms of government of the present age. That this should be so, will not surprise us when we consider that they were a branch of the house of Israel, a people who enjoyed more political liberty (until their own follies had cut them off therefrom) than any of the other nations of antiquity, and that to the law of Moses they had added the divine teachings of the everlasting gospel, which in themselves are a perfect law of liberty. Further, it is a noteworthy fact which stares us in the face from the beginning to the end of the Book of Mormon, that when the people departed from gospel principles, it was then and then only that they fell into bondage, of whatever nature that bondage might be.
The political history of the Nephites may be consistently divided into five epochs:
First.—When they were governed by kings.
Second.—The republic, when they were ruled by judges and governors.
Third.—A short period of anarchy when they were divided into numerous independent tribes.
Fourth.—The Messianic dispensation, when they were controlled entirely by the higher law of the holy priesthood.
Fifth.—The chaotic state of intestine war which preceded their final extinction as a nation and as a race.
The first portion of the history of the Nephites when they were governed by kings, covers almost exactly one-half of their national existence, or from the time of the landing of the colony on the coast of Chili to 509 years after the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem. Of the laws by which the people were governed during this period, which, however, we are told were exceedingly strict, we have few details, for the reason that the plates from which the greater portion of the Book of Mormon which relates to this period was taken contain the records of their prophets rather than the annals of their kings. With regard to these kings, they of whose lives we have any particulars, viz: Nephi, the first king, and Mosiah I., Benjamin and Mosiah II., the three last, were eminently virtuous, just and merciful men, who reigned as all monarchs should, but few do—with an eye single to the good of their subjects. Of their kings in general the prophet Jarom, about 400 years before Christ, remarks: Our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord: and they taught the people the ways of the Lord. Indeed, we recollect no intimation, in any place in the sacred record, of tyranny on the part of those who reigned over the main body of the nation. The government may, we think, be justly considered to approximate nearest to a limited monarchy, in which, as in ancient Israel, the prophet often exercised more power than the king. Though this is true of the central government, it unfortunately cannot be so stated of the colony which returned to the land of Nephi in the days of King Benjamin; that people suffered beyond description from the tyranny and wickedness, and the consequences resulting therefrom, of their second king, Noah, the murderer of the Prophet Abinadi.
Of the life and character of the first king of the Nephites, the father of his people, Nephi, the son of Lehi, we need say nothing here. History affords no better model of the true prince. So thought his people, and they, to retain in remembrance his name, and to perpetuate the recollection of his virtues, called his successors, second Nephi, third Nephi, etc., no matter what their original name might have been.
The right of choosing his successor appears to have been vested in the reigning sovereign. When Nephi became old, and saw that he must soon die, he anointed a man to be a king and a ruler over his people. King Benjamin chose his son Mosiah to reign in his stead, and then gathered the people to receive his last charge and ratify his selection. Mosiah gave the people yet greater liberty, and instead of nominating his successor directed them to make their own choice. The people highly appreciated this act of grace on the part of their beloved king, and selected Aaron, his son. Aaron, whose heart was set upon the salvation of the Lamanites, declined the kingly authority, when Mosiah very wisely advised his subjects not to select another to fill the throne, lest it give rise, in the future, to bloodshed and contention, but to elect judges to be their rulers, instead of kings, which proposition they accepted with great joy.
With regard to the Nephite laws in the days of the kings, and the manner of their execution, we can learn most from the parting addresses of kings Benjamin and Mosiah II. to their subjects. We are frequently told by the sacred writers, from Nephi, the founder, to Nephi, the disciple, that the people observed the law of Moses, modified, we judge, in some of its details to suit the altered circumstances of the Nephites from those of their brethren in the land of Palestine. As an instance we draw attention to the fact that, as there were none of the tribe of Levi in the colony that accompanied Lehi, from Judea, the priestly office must necessarily have been filled and the required sacrifices and burnt offerings offered by some of the members of the tribes who were with them. Nephi (doubtless by the direction of the Lord) appointed his brothers Jacob and Joseph to be the priests for the people, they being of the tribe of Manasseh, and the care of the sacred records remained with the descendants of the first named for several generations. The members of the various orders of the priesthood, when not actually engaged in the work of the ministry, in the duties of the temple, or the service of the sanctuary, were required to labor for their own support, that they might not prove burdensome to the people. A merciful provision was, however, made for the sustenance of members of the priesthood in cases of sickness or when in much want.
Though the laws were strict, they were mercifully and equitably administered, which gave much greater stability to the government and respect for the law than if they had been adjudged loosely, and with partiality towards classes or persons. It has been wisely observed that it is not the severity of the law but the sureness of the punishment that deters the evil-doer, and in this respect the Nephite nation had cause for thankfulness. All men were alike before the law, there were no privileged classes as in Rome, or in feudal Europe in later years. Mosiah says, Whosoever has committed iniquity, him have I punished according to the law which has been given to us by our fathers.
From the charge of king Benjamin to his son Mosiah we learn that slavery was forbidden. All the inhabitants of the continent being of the house of Israel, they could not observe the law of Moses and enslave their brethren.
Murder, robbery, theft, adultery and other sexual abominations were punished by law, as also was lying or bearing false witness.
Mormon states that in king Benjamin's days the false Christs, etc., were punished according to their crimes; but we are not informed if those crimes consisted in false personation, etc., or in fomenting, aiding and abetting treason and rebellion, as was almost universally the habit of those who apostatized from the gospel and sought to establish false religions in its place. King Benjamin also states that he had not permitted the people to be confined in dungeons; but we are uncertain whether to infer from this remark that the king intended his hearers to understand that he had not done this, as so many tyrants do, without cause and without trial, or that some other more effectual means had been found of punishing those transgressors not deemed worthy of death. We incline to the former opinion.
When the Nephite kingdom was first established the people were so few that they could not possibly sustain the expenses incidental to royalty. Thus it became the rule for the kings to sustain themselves. This unique, though most excellent custom continued as long as the monarchy lasted, even when the nation had grown rich and numerous. King Benjamin reminds his subjects that he had labored with his own hands that they might not be laden with taxes. Of Mosiah, his successor, it is written that he had not exacted riches of the people and that he had granted unto his people that they should be delivered from all manner of bondage.
We must not forget that, in connection with the civil law, the law of the gospel was almost unceasingly proclaimed during the whole period of the monarchy. Various false Christs and false prophets had arisen at different times, but the power of the priesthood had remained, ministering in holy things, rebuking iniquity and aiding in the suppression of vice. The kings of the Nephites, as we before observed, were, as a rule, men of God, holding the priesthood, and were often prophets and seers as well as temporal rulers. To this happy circumstance we must greatly attribute the peace and good order that so generally prevailed; the respect for the law that was so widespread; the large amount of liberty accorded to the people and the few abuses they made of that freedom. To use the idea of the prophet Joseph Smith, for long years, they were taught correct principles, and they (to a great extent) governed themselves.
In the course of the centuries, as the people increased and spread far and wide over the land, they appear to have introduced local customs to suit their differing circumstances, or in some cases their whims and notions. Thus, until king Mosiah II. established uniformity by law, nearly every generation and each section of the country had its own moneys, weights, measures, etc., which were altered from time to time according to the minds and circumstances of the people. This custom naturally caused confusion, annoyance and distrust, and to obviate these, and possibly greater evils, Mosiah consented to newly arrange the affairs of the people; and, if we may so express it, to codify the law. This code became the constitution of the nation under the rule of the Judges, which limited the powers of the officials and guaranteed the rights of the people. This compilation was acknowledged by the people, whereupon the historian remarks, Therefore they were obliged to abide by the laws which he had made. And from that time they became supreme throughout the nation. It is stated in another place that this change was made by the direct command of Jehovah.