B. H. Roberts

“ And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land, crying: Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! Behold, that great city of Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. ”

“ Their great clear eyes swept rapidly over all; they saw the woods and the rocks, the lakes and the sea, the mountains and the valleys, and the heavens that were above all; and they comprehended all and admired exceeding. Then they returned thanks to those who had made the world and all that therein was: We offer up our thanks, twice—yea verily, thrice! We have received life; we speak, we walk, we taste; we hear and understand; we know, both that which is near and that which is far off; we see all things, great and small, in all the heaven and earth. ”

“ It is admitted on all sides of the controversy that the Book of Mormon is not a bad book in the sense that it approves evil deeds, canonizes the vicious, lauds immorality, or in any way gives countenance or sanction to sin. No; its bitterest enemies are forced to admit that it stands for righteousness absolutely, that everywhere, and in all men it condemns sin. What motive, then, prompted these Witnesses to enter into a wicked collusion to deceive mankind in a matter so grave? Did they become villains that they might preach righteousness? ”

“ And the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed toward the four winds by the Creator and Former, and Mother and Father of life and existence—he by whom all move and breathe, the Father and Cherisher of the peace of nations and of the civilization of his people—he whose wisdom has projected the excellence of all that is on the earth, or in the lakes, or in the sea. ”

“ And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men. For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words—yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary; and he would have been with you in every time of trouble.
"Behold, thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall. ”

“ The glory of God crowns them, and they continually feast upon his goodness and enjoy his smiles. Behold, notwithstanding you have seen this great display of power, by which you may ever be able to detect the evil one, yet I give unto you another sign, and when it comes to pass then know that the Lord is God and that he will fulfill his purposes, and that the knowledge which this record contains will go to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people under the whole heaven. ”

“ And the Lord above, annoyed at their work, spoke to the inhabitants of heaven: 'You have noticed how those of the world have built a high and superb tower to climb up higher, after the beauty and light of the sun; come and let us confound them, for it is not right that those of the world living in the flesh, should mix up with us.' The inhabitants of heaven sallied forth at once, like thunderbolts, by the four corners of the earth and demolished the monument. ”

“ So say I respecting those who do not believe in the Bible, but pride themselves on accepting and believing all those things established by the researches of men—by science.—Why should it be thought a thing incredible by them that angels should visit our earth in order to communicate knowledge not otherwise, perhaps, obtainable? Our scientists live in the midst of ascertained facts respecting the universe, so that interplanetary communication ought to be looked upon as a thing so rational that to doubt its probability would be esteemed as folly? ”

“ Thus was another great truth concerning the universe discovered by means of an instrument invented by man.
Nor is the end yet. The eye of man, perhaps, is the most wonderful organ known; wonderful in its powers when unaided by instruments of man's invention, but rendered infinitely more powerful and wonderful when aided by telescope and microscope. Indeed, by these instruments new and unthought of worlds are brought to the consciousness of man, and his knowledge infinitely extended. ”

“ The testimony of Moses and the prophets, of Jesus and the apostles, of Joseph Smith and his associates, may not thus be put out of the reckoning. The character of these witnesses, their service to mankind, what they suffered and sacrificed for their testimonies, make them worthy of belief; and, since in the nature of things there is nothing which makes their testimony improbable, but, on the contrary, much that makes it very probable, is it not beneath the dignity of scientists to refuse to accord to their statements a patient investigation and belief? ”

“ Indeed, though the oldest, he was the least influential of the number; and withal so simple-minded in his honesty, that the world, if it knew him, would acquit him of guile, and regard him as a wholly impossible factor in practicing such a monumental delusion upon mankind as foisting the Book of Mormon upon the world as a revelation from God would have been had not the book been true.
I would not argue that young men are incapable of practicing deception, or formulating delusions. My argument is, merely, that they are less likely to be guilty of it than older men. ”

“ It is so evidently honest that it cannot be resolved into pure fabrication. It is of such a nature that it could not possibly have been the result of deception wrought by the cunning of Joseph Smith. There remains after these but one other theory: "The Witnesses were honest." They saw and heard and handled what they say they saw, and heard, and handled. Their testimony stands not only unimpeached, but unimpeachable. ”

“ In civilization the two parties stood equal, and remained so through the one hundred and seventy troubled years which followed. For more than two centuries following the appearance of the Messiah in the western world, there had been but one people on the land, and these followers of the Messiah—Christians. This was the American golden age—the age of peace, of prosperity, of expansion, until the lands, both in the north and in the south were inhabited by a numerous and happy people. ”

“ Wickedness reared its head among them; pride, born of self-love, took possession of the souls of some, and inroads were made in the unity and peace of the Church. These evils continued to spread until at last the spirit of apostasy was rampant, in the western world, as in the eastern; men departed from God and his ways until rebellion, disunion, and anarchy everywhere prevailed; civilization was overwhelmed; and people descended to barbarism, and, at last, for the most part, to savagery. In this condition they were discovered by the Europeans, near the close of the fifteenth century. ”

“ Still, government of some sort must have subsisted among them, for when found by the Nephites in the valley of the Sidon they lived in association—chiefly in the great city of Zarahemla—a thing inconceivable apart from government of some sort. The gregarious instincts of man impel him to live in society, but the experience of the race is warrant for the truth of the fact that government is necessary to the perpetuity of that society. Hence when society of any permanent character is found, there, it may be taken for granted, government of some sort also exists. ”

“ Behold, whatever entices and leads to good and to do good, is of God, and whatever does not is of that wicked one: it is he that fills the hearts of men with evil, to walk in darkness and blaspheme God; and you may learn from henceforth, that his ways are to destruction, but the way of holiness is peace and rest. You now see why you could not obtain this record; that the commandment was strict, and that if ever these sacred things are obtained they must be by prayer and faithfulness in obeying the Lord. ”

“ But no real devout reader of the prophets ever forgets that they are men. Their human feelings, sufferings, rejoicings, are parts to him of the divine revelation. The struggles of the prophet with his own evil—the consciousness and confession that the vile is mixed with the precious—help more than all formal teaching to show him and us how the higher mind is distinct from the lower, as well as how the one is related to the other. ”

“ You have now beheld the power of God manifested and the power of satan: you see that there is nothing that is desirable in works of darkness; that they cannot bring happiness: that those who are overcome therewith are miserable, while on the other hand the righteous are blessed with a peace in the kingdom of God where joy unspeakable surrounds them. There they rest beyond the power of the enemy of truth, where no evil can disturb them. ”

“ One can array a formidable list of authors in favor of the indigenous theory of origin for ancient American civilization; and perhaps a still longer and equally learned list of authorities in favor of an exotic origin. All of which makes it evident that writers upon the subject are to be weighed as well as counted; and also warns us that in the presence of such a diversity of opinions many things pertaining to American antiquities must remain open questions. It must be remembered that as yet, so far as man's researches are concerned, but little is really known about ancient America. ”

“ There is scarcely any necessity for unbelievers in the Bible assailing it from without; the destruction of faith in it as an authentic, credible, authoritative revelation from God, whose truths when rightly understood are to be accepted and held as binding upon the consciences of men, is being carried on from within the churches who profess to hold the Bible in reverence, more effectually than it could be by profane infidels. Doctors of Divinity are more rapidly undermining the faith of the masses in the Bible than ever a Voltaire, a Paine, a Bradlaugh or an Ingersoll could do ”

“ In the New World, mysterious mounds and gigantic earth-works arrest our attention. Here we find deserted mines, and there we can trace the sites of ancient camps and fortifications. The Indians of the prairies seem to be intruders on a fairer civilization. We find here evidences of a teeming population. In the presence of their imposing ruins, we can not think that nomadic savages built them. They give evidences rather of a people having fixed habitations, and seem to imply the possession of a higher civilization than that of the Indians. ”

“ The people of the western world, in brief, had entered upon that final stage of their wickedness which was to terminate in those awful convulsions of nature that should make their lands desolate, and well-nigh destroy the inhabitants thereof. The government itself had become corrupt; so, too, had the priesthood, save a few faithful ones—men of God, who testified that the Messiah had come, and that the time of his passion and resurrection approached. These were secretly haled before the judges, and both priests and lawyers leagued against them for their destruction. ”

“ For whatever may be the effect of what is left of the Bible, on minds of peculiar structure, after Higher Criticism is done with it, it must be conceded that a Bible of doubtful authenticity, of questionable credibility as to the greater part of it; with its divine inspiration and its divine authenticity remaining open questions—neither such a Bible nor any religion formulated from it in harmony with such conceptions, can have much influence over the masses of humanity. ”

“ By the act of excommunication, Joseph Smith virtually said to the Three Witnesses: Gentlemen, God has made you witnesses for himself in this age of spiritual darkness and unbelief, but you refuse to keep his laws, therefore we must withdraw the hand of fellowship from you. This may fill you with anger and malice; you may raise your hand against me and the work of God to destroy it; Satan may put it into your hearts to deny the testimony you have borne ”

“ I have already called attention to the fact that authorities upon the subject of traditions and legends of the new world are as much divided and as irreconcilable as they are upon the origin and antiquity of American ruins. A number of writers, especially those of recent date, seek to discount the value of the analogy which is plainly evident between these native American accounts of the creation, the flood, the building of the Tower of Babel, the confusion of tongues, the dispersion of mankind, and the Bible accounts of the same events ”

“ Naturally one is tempted to draw a parallel between this old American nation and various other nations in the old world which paralleled its existence. Surely it is interesting to think that while empires were founding in Assyria and Egypt and Babylon; that while Greece was passing through her heroic ages, in the western world also an enlightened race was building up a national existence and struggling with those problems which through all times and among all people engage the intelligent attention of mankind. ”

“ We must do more than rest our case on the inability of opponents to prove a negative. The security of "Mormonism" rests on quite other grounds; and, from a forensic standpoint, upon much more precarious ground; for not only must the Book of Mormon not be proved to have other origin than that which we set forth, or be other than what we say it is, but we must prove its origin to be what we say it is, and the book itself to be what we proclaim it to be—a revelation from God. ”

“ The eclipse of faith is not total. And it is an additional cause for gratitude to the God of Providence and of Revelation, that, even at this remote distance of time from the date of the Sacred Oracles, new evidences of their credibility and accuracy are continually coming to light. How much may yet remain, buried under barren mounds, or entombed in pyramids and catacombs, or hidden in the yet unexplored pages of some ancient literature, it were vain to conjecture ”

“ In support of this theory they do not hesitate to discredit most of the native traditions recorded by the earlier writers, which tell of migrations of their ancestors from distant countries; of golden ages of prosperity and peace, and of an ancient, splendid civilization. It is difficult to determine always which is most to be discounted, the writers through whom the traditions of the glorious past are transmitted to us, or those who would dismantle that part of its glory and present us with an ancient America undeveloped beyond the point of middle savagery. ”

“ This is said in support of the old Israelitish idea of government—a theocracy: "If it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, who would establish the laws of God and judge this people according to his commandments, * * * * then it would be expedient that you always have kings to rule over you;" but "because all men are not just, it is not expedient that you should have a king or kings to rule over you. * * * * Behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea and what destruction!" ”