Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

OF THE MANNER OF TRANSLATION.

The Unknown thinks I run counter to the statement of Martin Harris and David Whitmer as to the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated, as he claims that in their testimony there is nothing said about Urim and Thummim, and nothing is said about "any great, mental and spiritual effort on Joseph's part" in obtaining the translation. True, there is nothing in the statement of Whitmer and Harris quoted by the Unknown to that effect, but there abounds in the historical incidents connected with the coming forth of the Book plenty of evidence that the translation was not mechanical, and in the very book of David Whitmer's, quoted by the Unknown, it is stated that the prophet had to be in a very exalted mental and spiritual state of mind before he could exercise his gift of translation. But we have a better description of the manner of translation than that given by Whitmer or Harris. In the course of translation Oliver Cowdery became desirous to translate, and in a revelation the Lord promised him that power.

"Yea, behold I will tell you (i. e., the interpretation) in your mind, and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you, and which shall dwell in your heart." Oliver made the attempt to translate and failed; whereupon the Lord in a subsequent revelation gave this as the reason of his failure: "Behold you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it (i. e., the translation) unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me; but behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind, then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore you shall feel that it is right, but if it be not right, you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me." (Doc. and Cov., Sections 8 and 9.)

This is the Lord's description of how Oliver could have translated had he persevered, and beyond question it is the manner in which Joseph Smith did translate. This is sufficient to establish the fact that the Unknown is speaking upon a subject with which he has but a very slight acquaintance, and further I may not enter into it here, because of the necessary limits of this article.

SECOND CRITICISM

Having disposed of the question relating to translation, I take up the Unknown's second canon of criticism, which he states in these terms:

"Any book which professes to be a divine revelation to the people of the present time, and yet reveals nothing which it does not appropriate from some other book or sources of knowledge already in the possession of the people, is a spurious book."

The Book of Mormon reveals the fact that there existed two great civilizations on the American continent. The first was established by a colony which left the valley of the Euphrates in very ancient times, established themselves in the North American continent, and in time grew to be a great nation far advanced in civilization. This race passed through all the vicissitudes incident to national existence; periods of prosperity, times of disaster; periods of great righteousness, when prophets with their divine message influenced the people to keep the commandments of God, followed by long periods of moral and spiritual depression, and ultimately succumbed to the fate which overtakes all nations that depart from truth and righteousness. The second civilization resulted from two colonies which came from Judea; one led by Lehi, landing in South America; the other colony was led by Mulek, who escaped from Palestine after the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. This colony landed in North America. These colonies subsequently united and formed one great nation. This nation, like others, followed the beaten track of the history of other nations. In periods of righteousness they advanced in civilization. They had their prophets, philosophers, statesmen, patriots, traitors, and passed through all the experiences incident to national existence. Their history is the poet's moral of all human tales:

"'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past:
First freedom, and then glory—when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarism at last;
And history with all her volumes vast hath but one page!"

After he had completed his ministry in Judea, the resurrected Messiah appeared among the Nephites, in fulfillment of his promise to their fathers by the prophets. He announced his divinity, taught them the gospel, conferred divine authority upon certain men whom He chose among them, authorized the establishment of the Church for their instruction and development in righteousness. He taught them every moral truth which He had imparted to those living on the eastern hemisphere. He fulfilled all the prophecies relating to him up to this point in the Jewish scriptures, which their fathers had carried with them from Jerusalem. He assured them of the reality of life beyond the grave, and, in a word, planted here the whole system of truth which makes for the salvation of men, and is called the fulness of the everlasting gospel. The Book of Mormon gives a voice to the ruined cities and half buried monuments upon this land of America. It confirms all the revealed truths made known in the Jewish scriptures. In sustaining the truth, inspiration and authenticity of the Bible, the Book of Mormon is more valuable than a thousand Rosetta Stones; it is superior to all the clay tablet libraries found in old Babylon and Egypt; it is the voice of sleeping nations speaking as from the dust of ages, bearing witness to the existence of God, the divinity of Messiah, and to the truth of the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation. It vindicates the justice of God in that it reveals the fact that he did not leave untold millions of people to perish on this western hemisphere without the knowledge of God and the means of salvation. It banishes from the minds of men that narrow, sectarian dogma of an apostate Christendom which undertakes to limit the word of God to the few books contained in the Bible. The coming forth of the Book of Mormon contradicts that equally erroneous sectarian notion that God had ceased to give revelations to men and had spoken for the last time to his children. And yet in the presence of this array of great facts and truths which the Book of Mormon makes known, and which are made known nowhere else (and the half has not been told here), men of the order of intellect of this Unknown critic stand chattering like parrots about there being nothing new or of value in the Book of Mormon, and seek to cast discredit upon it by their carping criticisms upon the defects of the language in which it is translated, and because its translator has couched some of its glorious truths in the New Testament phraseology familiar to him. How puerile all such criticism seems, and how refreshing it is to hear God saying, "He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully, for what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord," (Jeremiah xxiii:28). The letter still killeth. It is the spirit that giveth life.