In the Book of Mormon is an abridgment of the record of Ether, called the Book of Ether. It gives a brief account of a colony which the Lord led from the tower of Babel, where he confounded the language of the people, to the Western hemisphere. The prophet who, under God's direction, led this people in their journey, was the brother of one Jared. At the command of God he had built eight barges or vessels in which his company was to cross the mighty deep; and the brother of Jared prayed to the Lord that he would provide a means whereby they might have light in the barges, and he presented to the Lord sixteen small stones and asked that he would touch them with his finger and make them luminous, that they might give them light. And as the Lord, in answer to the earnest prayer of his servant stretched forth his hand to touch the stones, the brother of Jared saw the finger of the Lord, and he was struck with fear. Yet receiving encouragement from God, he asked the Lord to show himself to him, a petition which the Lord, in consequence of the great faith of the man, granted him, and testified to the redemption that he was yet to work out for the salvation of man. The testimony of the brother of Jared was placed upon record and was abridged by Moroni, and now comes to us in the sacred pages of the Book of Mormon[N] as a witness for God.
[Footnote N: See Book of Ether in Book of Mormon, ch. iii.]
In the account given An the Book of Mormon of that colony which was led from Jerusalem, about six hundred B. C., by Lehi; and in the history of the nations that grew out of that colony, and flourished on the Western hemisphere, are many testimonies as to the existence of God; too many, in fact, to be enumerated here. All I can say is, that their prophets were visited by angels from heaven, and they were instructed by dreams and visions, in which were shown to them, in remarkable plainness, the coming and mission of Messiah; the object to be attained by, and the power of the Gospel of Christ. In all these things they were taught by the inspiration of heaven, accompanied by wonderful demonstrations of the presence and power of the Lord.
Then, in III Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, is an account of two visits of the risen Redeemer to the Nephites (descendants of the aforementioned Lehi), and of his labors among that people. Here, as in Jerusalem, Jesus announced himself as the Son of God, and bore testimony to the existence of his Father. The multitude, to whom he first revealed himself, had the satisfaction of beholding the wounds in his hands and in his feet and in his side; and this, that they might know in very deed, that he was the one who had been slain in Jerusalem by the Jews, for the sins of the world—that he was the one of whom their prophets from the beginning had testified.
In the Book of Mormon, then, as in the Bible, is found a volume of testimony of God's existence; indeed, I may say the accumulated testimony of all the prophets of the Western hemisphere.
I now turn to the testimony of the prophet of our own day.
Joseph Smith, in giving an account of how he came to seek the Lord, informs us that he read that passage in James which says: "If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."[O] In obedience to that injunction, he retired to the woods to call upon the Lord, to learn from him which of all the religious sects he should join, for their division and contentions had perplexed his mind. For what occurred on that occasion I quote his own words:
[Footnote O: James i: 5.]
"After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered round me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy, which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction, not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such a marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by my name and said (pointing to the other), _this is my beloved son, hear him_."[P]
[Footnote P: Pearl of Great Price, pp. 87, 88.]