NO NEW TRUTH
5. The next charge of the Unknown is that the Book of Mormon makes known no moral or religious truth, no "not one item," and then the gentleman resorts to a thing which to say the least of it looks strangely out of place in a discussion of this description, and reminds one of the methods of a low order of politicians, who, when unable to maintain their part of a controversy by reason, arrogantly offer a bet, usually at large odds, that their side will prevail; and if the wager for any cause be not taken, with turkey-cock pride they strut about, as if they had demonstrated the truth of their contention. Now I do not know what our Unknown friend would regard as a spiritual or moral truth, but here is at least one that I commend to his consideration: "Fools mock, but they shall mourn." It is quite original to the Book of Mormon, as are the other quotations which follow, but I will not trouble the gentleman for his hat, even though it be a Stetson, as up to date I have been able to clothe my own head without an effort to win wagers or prizes. Whoever the Unknown may be it stands out pretty clearly from his article that he is not familiar with great moral and religious questions. He seems not to be aware that the Jews for many ages have been asking this same question of the Christian, i. e., they demand to know what moral and religious truth Jesus taught the world that was not already taught by Jewish rabbis; and no later than in the October number of the Open Court, a famous rabbi parallels the choicest moral aphorisms of Christ's teachings with quotations from the Talmud; while there has not arisen within the last two centuries an anti-Christian disputant, but who makes the same claims in behalf of the moral and spiritual teachings of Buddha; and not only do they claim that Christ's moral truths were borrowed from more ancient teachers, but that the principal events of his life also, from his birth of a virgin to his resurrection as a God, were stolen from myths concerning Old World heroes and teachings. When Messiah came to the New World, he had the same announcements to make concerning himself, and his relations to the world; the same ethical and spiritual doctrines to teach; and as he had been accustomed to state these doctrines in brief, aphoristic sentences while in Judea, it is not strange that the same things were given to the Nephites, in their language, much in the same order; which Joseph Smith, observing, and finding these truths substantially stated in our English Bible, adopted, where he could do so consistently, the language of that book. Still there are certain statements of moral and spiritual ideas that the Unknown will find it difficult to parallel from the Bible, a few examples of which I here give: "Wickedness never was happiness." "The Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." "I give unto men weaknesses that they may be humble, and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me." Then let the gentleman take into consideration the exclusiveness of the Jews, and of the Christians also, for matter of that, and then contemplate the following passage which breathes such a spirit of universal charity and joins the hands of all the great moral teachers among all nations into one splendid brotherhood: "The Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word; yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true." Then let the Unknown parallel from the Bible the following great spiritual truth from the Book of Mormon: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy." A sentence which tells, as it is told nowhere else, the purpose of man's existence. The limits of this article preclude the mention of historical and doctrinal truths which the Book of Mormon makes known to the world. Also, consideration of the gentleman's efforts to explain away the existence and force of the prophecies in the Book of Mormon to which I alluded in my Tabernacle discourse, and which may be found at page 122 of the current edition of the Book of Mormon. I esteem what he has there said of so little importance that I shall pass it without comment as its weakness and inaccuracy will be apparent to all who read it. Indeed at this point the gentleman makes it quite clear that he is not familiar with the book he attempts to criticise. In trying to make it appear that Nephi "jumbles up his own history and contradicts himself" the Unknown astonishes us with the statement that Nephi was a Jew, and learnedly tells us that his seed or the remnant of it will inevitably be Jews and Nephites and not Lamanites, and hence the prophecies concerning the Lamanites could not apply to the remnant of Nephi's seed. As a matter of fact Lehi, and hence all of his sons, were of the tribe of Manasseh, and Nephi was speaking with reference to both his own and his brother Laman's descendants of whom the Indians are the remnant. When I reached this part of the gentleman's production I thought I was not only entitled to know who it was I was to meet in discussion, but also to have an opponent who at least was acquainted with the subject.
AS TO "SORROW."
A word as to the "sorrow" which the gentleman experiences when he sees a man of my "ability" (shades of flattery, leave us!) "fooling away his time and thought in the useless attempt to bolster up as a divine revelation that which the intelligent millions of the American people are persuaded is fabrication!" What a jewel was lost to the anti-Christians of the first or second century by the Unknown being born in the nineteenth, instead of the first century! What an eloquent appeal he could have made, for instance, to the misguided Paul, who wasted his thought and time in an effort (I will not say useless one) to bolster up such a delusion as the Christian religion was at that time thought to be! A delusion which the intelligent millions of civilized Rome regarded as the vilest of all deceptions. Again, how ostentatiously the Unknown could have said to Paul, if the latter was really in earnest to know the character of the men who originated this Christian delusion, that he could learn it from some of the historical facts and the accepted rumors current at that time about Messiah and his immediate followers. From such sources he could have learned that Christ was a blasphemer, a disturber of the peace, a menace to the authority of Rome, the consort of vile Galilean peasants, an associate and sympathizer with women of questionable reputation, and who, at last, for the peace and good order of the community in which he lived, was duly crucified between two thieves. He was buried and his sepulcher guarded, but his vile associates bribed the soldier guards, stole his body, and then gave it out that he was risen from the dead; and on these falsehoods arose the fabric known as the Christian church! There would be no resisting such an appeal as this if only some one had arisen with the intelligence to have advanced it. Undoubtedly Paul would have ceased his labors, and perhaps Christianity itself would not have survived such an attack, and hence many anti-Christians may regret that this Unknown gentleman did not live in the period when his services would have been so effective. But since the Unknown, through no fault of his, however, missed his opportunity in that age, he exerts his abilities in this, and appealingly says to me, if I would know the real "truth about the Book of Mormon, and the character of the men who manufactured it," I should read the "'Origin and Progress of Mormonism,' by that well-informed and reliable historian, Pomroy Tucker!" Shades of primer days, not to say days of the bib and rattle! After nearly a century of existence, despite the efforts of its enemies to destroy it, after surviving as Mormonism has all the floods of falsehood and absurdity hurled upon it, are we now to turn back to what Pomroy Tucker has said in order to get the "exact truth" concerning Mormonism and the character of the men who brought it forth? I must inform the Unknown, whatever he may think of me, that I must suppose myself utterly incorrigible, for I have read Pomroy Tucker years ago, and also recently, and if he will call on me I will point out to him several score of other anti-Mormon writers I have read, of like ilk with Tucker, and yet I am not reclaimed. Deliberately and proudly, I take my stand with the people whom these writers have maligned, and whose doctrines and history they misrepresent, and announce my absolute faith—notwithstanding even the argument of the Unknown—in the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Respectfully, B.H. ROBERTS.
Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 27, 1903.
III.
The Objector's Second Paper Against the Book of Mormon.
(Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 6, 1903.)
Editor Tribune:—In reply to my article in The Tribune of November 22nd, pointing out, in response to his public challenge, some of the great difficulties in the way of accepting Nephi as an ancient prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon as an ancient revelation from God, Elder Roberts begins by finding fault with me for not writing over my full signature. But the reasons he intimates for my not doing so prove altogether too much, and hence, by a logical maxim, prove nothing. For they would prove that those great and high-minded statesmen, Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice John Jay, and James Madison, acted an unworthy part, and were lacking in courage because, for wise reasons, they conducted those masterly discussions which made up The Federalist, over an assumed name.
Then the sarcasms about the rehashing by more recent writers, of Alexander Campbell's arguments against the Book of Mormon, are "wasted on the desert air," so far as I am concerned, for I have never seen any article or treatise by Campbell on the subject. It would be quite easy to retort and say that if it were not for the writings of Orson Pratt, the more recent defenders of the Book of Mormon would be without ammunition. But that style of arguing amounts to nothing.