The cataclysms which took place in this western world during the crucifixion and entombment of Messiah and His subsequent advent in the western world, His teaching the gospel here, and the establishment of His Church is told by our poet in the following strains.
All this and more the prescient monarch saw;
Messiah's self, Jehovah, Him beheld;
The Lamb of God, in whom was found no flaw,
Though Hate's black billows round Him surged and
swelled;
Life's deathless tree—deathless, though demon-felled;
The crash resounding to this far-off shore,
Whose winnowed remnant welcomed Him revealed
In risen glory, when had ceased the roar
And raging of the tempest heralds sent before.At whose rebuke the haughty mountains bowed,
Shorn by the whirlwind, sunk, or swept away,
No more their frown the lowly valleys cowed,
Rising like billows 'mid the wrathful fray,
And dashing 'gainst the skies their dusty spray.
Rocks, boulders, hills, no Titan strength could lift,
Hurtle as pebbles in the storm-fiend's play.
Earth opes her jaws, and through the yawning rift,
Cities, peoples, vanish, of hope, of life, bereft.Three hours of tempest and three days of night;
Thick darkness, thunder-burst, and lightning flash;
Millions engulfed, millions in prostrate plight,
Grovelling as slaves that feel or fear the lash,
Mingling their groans and cries with grind and crash
Of crags the cyclone's catapult impels,
Whose shrieking flails the fields and forests thrash.
Wild o'er the land roused Ocean's anger swells;
Fierce Flame's prophetic tongue the final doom foretells.Three hours of stormful strife;—then all is still.
Save for a Voice that universe might hear,
Proclaiming what hath happed as Heaven's high will,
Dispensing pardon and dispelling fear,
Drawing the righteous nearer and more near.
Anon He lifts the curtain of the sky!
The midday sun no more their minister;
Greater hath arisen; and glories multiply
As angels in their gaze earthward and heavenward fly.He greets them as a shepherd greets his flock;
Shows them His wounded side, His hands, His feet;
Then builds His Church upon the stricken Rock,
Where flow life's healing waters, limpid, sweet,
As infant innocence, that joys to meet
Its great Original. With holy hand
He ministers, bids death and hell retreat,
And singles twelve from out the sainted band
To sow with gospel light the furrowed, tear-worn land.
Then follows the story of the Nephite golden age, and this by a period of apostasy from God and the final overthrow of the people, concluding with the coming of the Gentile races to the promised land and the advent of the Seer, Joseph Smith, who shall make known through the Book of Mormon the otherwise unknown history of the western world.
The Gentile comes, as destiny decrees,
To Joseph's land of wonders held in store.
Freedom his watchword, sons of Freedom these,
Like to the favored bands that long before
A refuge found upon this sheltering shore.
But champions of right oft wrong the right;
Oppressed become oppressors in an hour;
And now, as day that pushes back the night,
The strong the weak assail, enslave, and put to flight.Nor yet can fate forsake them. Japheth's hand
'Gainst Jacob's wrath-doomed remnant still prevails.
Tyrants oppress him from the motherland;
The Lord of hosts a champion arms and mails,
To match whose might no human power avails;
Nor grander cause or chieftain e'er came forth.
Him as its sire a new-born nation hails,
And fain would crown him, spite his will, his birth,
Did Heaven vouchsafe such king to shame most kings
of earth—Real though oft recreant sons of Deity,
Builders, o'erthrowers, of imperial thrones,
In wrongful act of rightful agency
Drenching with blood, paving with human bones
The path to power, gruesome with tears and groans.
Their lives a failure? God a failure? Nay;
What'er betide, the soul that sins atones;
And He who casts the parts all mortals play,
Succeeds He ever, His the night, and His the day.Thine antecedents, thy forerunners, these,
Prophet of Ephraim, Joseph's namesake seer!
More than those ancient bridgers of the seas,
Unveiler of the long-hid hemisphere,
Whose secret 'tis lies booked and buried here.
Bring forth that word of Joseph, now to join
With Judah's word, Messiah's throne to rear;
That high may rise and holily may shine
God's house, the pure-in-heart, kingdom of King divine.
The whole Canto, and indeed the whole poem, should be read in order to get the full beauty and power of the poet's theme, in which the Book of Mormon is so large a factor of inspiration.
Summary of Internal Evidences.
This is all I intend to say directly on the subject of the Internal Evidences of the truth of the Book of Mormon; what else remains that could properly fall under this division of the subject will be said in connection with the answers to objections to the claims of the book. Before leaving the subject, however, I ask the reader to recall in one view the various internal evidences considered up to this time, that it may be remembered how numerous they are, and how strong and conclusive they are when massed.
The Internal Evidences of the Book of Mormon consist in the following facts:
The book in style and language is consistent with the theory of its construction;
It responds to the demands both of unity and diversity in its style, under the theory of its structure;