Part 17

The external evidences afforded by archaeologists to the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon are very numerous; they may be ascertained by a careful study of the sacred volume and a comparison with the discoveries of later times, in the ruins of ancient cities, towns, temples, roadways, etc., which have been brought to light and are treated upon in the writings of Stevens and Catherwood, Dr. Le Plongeon, and many other eminent antiquarians. While the Book of Mormon without investigation is discarded, its opponent is led to prove its divinity by his researches into archaeology. In connection with the coming forth of this word Isaiah said, "The wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid."

All the old subterfuges published against the book have been exploded long since, and yet people are still repeating them. It was stated that Joseph Smith's ingenuity and Sidney Rigdon's learning devised the Book of Mormon from the Solomon Spaulding romance. The Book of Mormon was published to the world before Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon ever saw each other. Prof. Fairchild of the Oberlin College in Ohio, examined the Spaulding manuscript and compared it with the Book of Mormon; he then testified over his signature that there was no similarity between them.

Some people have ridiculed the record because in point of literary merit it did not equal the Jewish record, the Holy Bible. If this were any just cause of rejection, why not discard several books in the Bible because their literature does not equal in merit the writings of the patriarch Job? But laying this aside, the Book of Mormon offers its own explanation of literary defect. "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection; neither my father, because of his imperfections; neither them who have written before him, but rather give thanks unto God that He hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been. And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge in the characters, which are called among us the Reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also: and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language, therefore He hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof." (Mormon ix:31-34.) In the preface of the record is written: "And now if there be faults, they are the mistakes of men, wherefore condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ." "But he that believeth these things which I have spoken, him will I visit with the manifestations of my Spirit, and he shall know and bear record. For because of my Spirit, he shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth men to do good." (Ether iv:11.) Again, "And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these. Behold, I am Moroni; and were it possible, I would make all things known unto you." (Mormon viii:12.) Those persons who would esteem literary imperfections an evidence against the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon must belong to one of two classes--they are either not honest at heart and are seeking opportunity to evade the responsibility of knowing the truth, or they are shallow-minded, and to the world of sound reason, good judgment, and practical ability prefer the shadow compared with the substance. He "that will do the will of the Father shall know of the doctrine," is the promise of our Savior; and the promises in the Book of Mormon that those who will not condemn the things of God because of human imperfections, but shall receive greater knowledge, are plain enough to condemn the world if they reject them, as much as the teachings of the Jewish record shall condemn mankind if they will not hearken.

The truth of the Book of Mormon is affirmed by the direct testimony of four witnesses-Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, who saw the angel Moroni, and the ancient plates from which the sacred volume was translated. None of them ever wavered from that testimony. They maintained it under great trials and persecutions to the end, and Joseph Smith sealed his testimony with his life, a martyr to the truth. Eight other men, whose names are recorded in the fore part of the book, saw and handled the plates. Many thousands of people from various lands and climes have read the book with prayerful hearts, have received the ordinances of the Gospel and by the power of the Holy Ghost solemnly testify that the Book of Mormon is a divine record. Added to this I testify, as an humble disciple of the Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ who is our Redeemer, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God and the Book of Mormon is a divine record, revealed by the God of heaven and translated by the gift and power of God as a witness unto this and all future generations that Jesus is the Christ, that the Bible is true, that there is but one plan of salvation, and that Jesus taught the same plan to the Jews, to the seed of Joseph and to the lost tribes by his own personal ministrations. He also sent the Gospel to the Gentiles by the hands of His apostles, and thereby shows to all men in every land and in all ages that God changes not, and is the same today, yesterday and forever.

MARRIAGE.

No people hold more sacred the principle of marriage, nor esteem more highly the possession of chastity, than do the Latter-day Saints. Among no people, either Catholic or Protestant, is a lapse of virtue so rare as among this people. We consider sexual crime the most blighting curse that infests the earth today. Adultery is considered as next in the catalogue of crime to murder. Individuals guilty of fornication or adultery are promptly excommunicated from the church, unless the sin is followed by the most profound repentance and the best reparation which can possibly be made. The children around the family altar, in Sunday school, Mutual Improvement Associations, Primary Associations, and all the institutions of the church, are taught to hold their virtue more sacred to them than life itself. When they attain to years of maturity and enter the holy state of matrimony, they vow before God, angels and living witnesses that they will never violate the marriage covenants.

We believe that God ordained the union of the sexes in marriage, not only for time but for all eternity. It is greatly due to this fact and the deeply religious element which enters into marriage among our people, that divorces are so rare. Young men and women are taught that, while pure love and perfect congeniality should exist between the parties to the marriage covenants, passion and infatuation should not be the ruling motive, but principle should control; and that in the weakness of humanity the dangers of mistakes in the mating of the sexes are so great, the only safe way is to seek in prayer and supplication the guidance of divine Providence; they are, also taught to so live in daily walk and conversation that their heavenly Father will answer their prayers. To feel sublimely impressed that marriage is for all eternity, and that God is directly interested in us, tends to make people more careful and considerate, more prayerful in choosing a husband or wife, than otherwise they would be. The result of such teaching is a far greater percentage of happy unions and a much smaller percentage of divorces among the Latter-day Saints than among other Christian communities.

The primary design of marriage, to "multiply and replenish the earth" and not to gratify lust, is upheld by the Latter-day Saints as in no other community. The consequence is twofold. Infanticide, foeticide and illegitimacy are very rare. The two former practices, so common in the world and adopted to lessen the responsibility of child-bearing while increasing the facilities for lustful gratification, are esteemed by this people as abominations in the sight of God, little short of outright murder in heinousness. Parties known to be guilty of such acts would not be fellowshiped in any sense, but would be cast out of the church without hesitation. The result of such high regard for the purposes of the Lord in marriage is, that the percentage of children in every family is much larger on the average than it is among any other Christian community of equal population. Because the children are numerous they are not weaker but usually stronger in body and intellect than in communities where the blighting curse of a reprehensible modern custom prevails. The wives of men thus taught and convinced of the sacredness of their procreative functions are healthier and happier in the home than are the wives and mothers in other communities. Prof. Phineas Priest, a non-"Mormon" phrenologist who traveled among the "Mormon" people in Idaho and Utah, said that in all his travels he had not found so large a percentage of healthy and intelligent children, with a corresponding condition of health and happiness on the part of the mothers, as he had among the "Mormon" people.

As to the eternity of the marriage covenant, a helpmeet was provided for man before death entered the world and therefore death could not prevail against the covenants of the Lord. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an helpmeet for him." (Gen. ii:18.) The Savior came and offered up a sacrifice to redeem man from the fall, to destroy death and all the effects thereof. If His atonement simply redeemed the body from the grave, without restoring the condition of the Paradise lost, it would be altogether incomplete, and the words of Paul would be without effect wherein he said to the Corinthians, "O, grave, where is thy victory? O, death, where is thy sting?" If death destroyed and the grave buried the covenants of the Lord, we would indeed be, as Paul says, "of all men most miserable." God is eternal, and "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever." (Eccl. iii:14.)

When the ceremony of marriage is performed by a true servant of God, and the parties to the agreement are under the same covenant, he pronounces them one for time and all eternity. If this were not true of what avail was the authority delegated to Peter, when the Lord said unto him, "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. xvi:19.) The apostle Peter, performing the marriage ceremony for members of the Church of Christ, would not pronounce them husband and wife "until death do you part;" for death was to be banished and "immortality brought to light" through the atonement of Christ.

All Christians pray and sing and preach about going to heaven. Will they be in the Lord there? If so, and they have embraced the true Gospel here, they will be united as husband and wife for all eternity, and that covenant will prevail there; hence, the apostle Paul says, "Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord." (I. Cor. xi:11. ) If they are in the Lord, then they are united; if not in the lord, they are damned.

Again the same apostle tells us, "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." (Eph. v:23.) Will any man say that Christ was the head of the church for time only, during His few years of brief mortality, and that then the church is left without a head? No; Christ is the head of the church for all eternity and God so designed the husband to be the head of the wife.

The doctrine of marriage until death, appears to be a Sadducee doctrine, for they denied the resurrection. It was the Sadducee who asked the Savior whose wife should the woman be who had seven husbands in this world. The answer was undoubtedly designed to apply to those who rejected the Gospel of Christ, while pretending to cling to the laws of Moses. They virtually made a covenant with death. Isaiah says, "And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." (Isa. xxviii:18.) In making a covenant with death they broke the "everlasting covenant" and dishonored God, for He is everlasting and His ordinances endure forever, unimpaired by death, hell or the grave.

The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have "transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant." (Isa. xxiv:5.) As a result of this condition the prophet says: "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left." (Isa. xxiv:6.) Among the causes of this great desolation yet to come upon the earth is the breaking of the everlasting covenant. The earth is to be burned and few men left. Jesus says that except "those days shall be shortened there should be no flesh saved." To shorten those days and provide the way for honorable women to fill the measure of their creation in holy wedlock, God has restored this everlasting covenant and will yet cleanse the earth of wicked men by His judgments, until few men shall be left. Whoredoms, adultery and all sexual abominations will be swept away, and the words of Isaiah in the fourth chapter will be verified. They that are the "seed of Abraham will do the works of Abraham." As the apostle Paul says, "And if ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii:29.) That all honorable women, who desire wifehood and motherhood under the laws of God may have this privilege and not be left to live and die as spinsters, nor become a prey to wicked, lustful men, God will fulfill the prophecy found in Isaiah, chapter iv., verses 1, 2: "In that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel."

THE MILLENNIUM.

The Latter-day Saints are looking for the coming of the Savior to reign upon the earth, at which coming will commence the reign of peace for one thousand years. This is the Millennium, during which period Satan will be bound and all iniquity shall be done away. When Jesus had finished his ministry at Jerusalem and had ascended into heaven from the presence of His apostles, two heavenly beings "stood by them in white apparel; which also said, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.'" (Acts i:10, 11.) He ascended in glory and power. In glory and power will He come to reign. The preparation shown forth in the restoration of the Gospel by a holy angel; the gathering of Israel; the restoration of the ten tribes; the return of the Jews; the establishment of Zion and Jerusalem--all are signs to precede His second coming, as referred to in preceding chapters of this little work, in its discussion of several subjects.

That Jesus will come in power and glory is evident from many prophecies. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, "Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all." (Jude i:14, 15.) Malachi says: "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple. But who will abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." (Mal. iii:1, 2.) Unlike this first advent as the meek and lowly babe of Bethlehem, He next comes in glory, to avenge the blood of His Saints, to purify the sons of Levi, to cleanse and purify the earth that it may enjoy a reign of peace and rest.

When Jerusalem is partly rebuilt by her ancient covenant people, the Gentile nations will be gathered against them to battle. Then will the crucified Redeemer appear to the Jews. He will set his feet upon the Mount of Olives, and the mount will cleave in twain. The house of Judah will look upon Him, and seeing the wounds in His hands and feet, will ask where He obtained them. When He shall answer, "in the house of my friends," they will weep and mourn, their separate houses and families apart, to realize that He whom their fathers rejected is in truth their Deliverer and Redeemer. Then will the fountain for uncleanness be opened, and the house of Judah will be baptized for the remission of their sins.

"Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against the nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall move toward the north, and half of it toward the south." (Zech. xiv:1-4.)

"And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in Thine hands?" Then He shall answer, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." (Zech. xiii:6.) "And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; All the families that remain: every family apart, and their wives apart." (Zech. xii:9-14.) "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." (Zech xiii:1.)

Many other plain and precious prophecies of the Old and New Testaments might be cited to show forth the second coming of our Savior. These predictions are corroborated by the prophecies in the Book of Mormon, and by the predictions of the prophet Joseph Smith, made in the revelations of God to him in these latter days.

In close connection with the Savior's second coming will be presented the glorious conditions of the Millennium. "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Hab. ii:14.) "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Isa. xi:6-10.)

Man is the great head of God's creation, the image of his Maker. He has made him "a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor." (Ps. viii:5.) Man led the way to the fall by which came the enmity between himself and the lower animal creation. Should man not lead the way, as the Lord directs, back to his "Paradise Lost"?

As an incident pointing the way to and expressing the true spirit of the Millennium, when Zion's Camp, a body of more than 200 men, journeyed through the wilderness of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri from Kirtland to Western Missouri, the Camp at night would be visited by serpents, which the brethren were inclined to destroy. The Prophet Joseph told them not to kill the snakes, but to carry them peaceably from their tents with sticks. Joseph promised them that if they kept this counsel none should be bitten, adding that it was man's duty to set the example of peace and lead the way back to the perfect harmony existing in Eden before the fall. The Camp observed his advice and realized his promise.

The time spoken of by Isaiah, as already referred to here, was also predicted by Joel when he said: "And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and none else: And my people shall never be ashamed. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit." (Joel ii: 27-29.) The apostle Peter, upon the day of Pentecost, gave the multitude to understand that the Spirit which gave utterance to the apostles on that occasion was the same Spirit concerning which Joel the prophet said in the last days should be poured out, not upon the few only, but upon all flesh. The Spirit of God alone can bring perfect unity, destroy enmity, and fill the earth with the knowledge and glory of God.

Of this glorious epoch the prophet Jeremiah says: "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. xxxi:34.) Such a condition would be in harmony with the promise of the Savior that there should be "one fold and one shepherd." The Spirit of Truth is the guide into all truth, rather than to man-made theories taught by men devoid of the authority and inspiration of Almighty God.