George Reynolds

“ These tribes are to have the frozen barriers of the north melted, so that the ice shall flow down, then a highway is to be cast up for them, in the midst of the great deep, next they cross barren deserts and a thirsty land and eventually arrive with their rich treasures at the home of Ephraim, the first born of God of the house of Israel, to be crowned with glory at his hands. ”

“ Is it supposable that the Lord has confined the fulfillment of the promises to Joseph (whose blessings were to prevail above those of his progenitors) , to tribes who are today and the majority of which have been for fifteen hundred years—or one-quarter of this world's existence since mortals dwelt hereon—among the wildest, the most degraded of mankind? If so, the descendants of those to whom no promises were made have enjoyed the greater blessings.
We contend that where Israel is not under the ban of God's displeasure through his sins and follies, he leads the world. ”

“ The vitality of the Jewish race is proverbial, and can we reasonably expect that when one branch of a tree shows such native strength, that the other branches will not be proportionately vital? Is it not more consistent to believe that, as the Jewish race under the curse of the Almighty and suffering centuries of persecution, still survives, so is it with the rest of Jacob's seed, rather than that they, ages ago, were blotted out of earthly existence? ”

“ God has declared that He will make of His latter-day Israel a nation of kings and priests. In former dispensations (except that lesser authority among the Jews given to the house of Aaron) the Priesthood was conferred upon the few, it was an honor of the highest kind; but in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the whole people are to be a race of kings and priests, and not less honorable because of the multitude. To our mind this is a great proof that that people will be of Ephraim. There is a cause for all God's promises—there is one for this. ”

“ Some have imagined that it was unscriptural to look for Israel except in three places: The scattered Jews in all the world, the Lamanites on this continent, and the Ten Tribes in Azareth. But we claim that we have abundant reason from scripture to expect to find the seed of Joseph as well as that of Judah in every nation under heaven. The prophecies recorded in the Old Testament expressly state that Israel, especially Ephraim, was to be scattered among all people. ”

“ Must we perish of hunger? If, on the other hand, they approach the frozen shores of this unexplored waste of waters in the gloom of the long night of an Arctic winter, with the intense cold freezing to their very blood, their feelings of dread must have been yet more intense. ”

“ We have before stated that the Latter-day Saints believe that the Ten Tribes still exist, and that their home is in the far north. That they still exist is absolutely necessary to fulfill the unfailing promises of Jehovah to Israel, and to all mankind. The presence of the remnants of Judah, in every land today, is an uncontrovertable testimony that the covenant made with Abraham has not been abrogated or annulled. ”

“ We are well aware, so great is the tendency of the races of the earth to mix and intermingle, that the Jews, as well as many Christians, point to their continued existence as a distinct people, as an unanswerable argument in favor of the divinity of their scriptures and the inspiration of their prophets. But their history, their exclusiveness, their dispersion, etc., do not fulfill a vast number of the prophecies uttered with regard to Israel. ”

“ Although the ancient Jews were mainly an agricultural nation the geographical position of Palestine and the contiguity of some of the tribes of Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, induced the Jewish people to make common cause of their friendly neighbors, the sea faring Phoenicians. There were two causes which conduced to render the Jews well acquainted with navigation on high seas. Many of them were carried away as captives in their frequent, and often unsuccessful, warfare with more powerful nations. The prisoners of war were forced to serve on land and sea. ”

“ With Abraham a covenant was made by the Most High, that he should become the father of many nations, and when we have laid aside the descendants of Ishmael—the Arabians and their fellows, who have grown into mighty multitudes, and not even counted the posterity of the sons of Keturah and of Abraham's other wives, yet in the one son Isaac the promise is renewed, his seed also is to multiply "as the stars of heaven." ”

“ In the religion of the ancient Scandinavians, terrible and bloodthirsty as were many of its rites, students have found striking analogies to the religion of ancient Israel, so much so that it is considered one of the strongest proofs of the ancestry of this people in Jacob. ”

“ With a certain class of scientists, the language of a people has great weight in determining its origin. This test has been applied to the language of the Anglo-Saxons, and it has been found that a number of Hebrew words exist almost unaltered in our modern English tongue. On this point, the author of "Our Israelitish Origin" writes: "As to language, it is granted, that this, of itself could not identify a people, or distinguish Israel, for example, from the Canaanites. ”

“ The distance in a direct line from the conjectured crossing of the Euphrates to the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, would be about 2,800 miles, or a seven months' journey, averaging fifteen miles a day. But according to Esdras, one year and a half was consumed in the journey, which is an evidence that they were encumbered with families and cattle, who could only travel slowly and for whom many resting places had to be found where they could recuperate. It is highly probable that, like modern Israel in its journey westward to the valleys of Ephraim, they planted temporary colonies by the way. ”

“ On entering on these ancient books, we are immediately struck with the corroborative evidence which they furnish of the eastern origin of the Goths, the fathers of the Scandinavians. As all languages, so all mythologies run in lines, which converge in one common center, * * * Central Asia. And little as we might expect it, no sooner do we open the ancient religious books of Scandinavia than we are carried back thither. Our northern people are a people of eastern origin. ”

“ Where is that multitude of nations today? is a pertinent question, for God has promised it and they must exist.
The average student of history cannot answer this question. He knows nothing of the posterity of Ephraim; they are hidden from his sight. But the believer in the Book of Mormon will point to its record and declare that in the aborigines of North and South America and of many of the Pacific isles, we find the seed of Joseph grown into a multitude of tribes, peoples and nations. ”

“ Turner, in his valuable history of the Anglo-Saxons, while discussing the Teutonic descent of many of the nations of modern Europe, says:
"It is peculiarly interesting to us, because, from its branches, not only our own immediate ancestors, but also those of the most celebrated nations of modern Europe have unquestionably descended. The Anglo-Saxons, Lowland Scotch, Normans, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Germans, Dutch, Belgians, Lombards and Franks have all sprung from that great fountain of the human race, which we have distinguished by the terms, Scythian, German or Gothic. ”

“ In Isaiah's time, Ephraim had, like a "silly dove," mingled himself among the people to the displeasure of his God.
But it was not only for trade and commerce that Israel spread abroad; her children were sometimes forced to foreign lands against their will. Two hundred years before Lehi left Jerusalem, the Lord upbraided Tyre and Sidon through Joel his servant (Joel iii: 6) , telling them, among other things, "The children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians" [or Gentiles] , "that ye might remove them far from their border." ”

“ The people whom he was addressing were men of various nationalities, but by far the greater portion of them were descendants of those races that in the fourth and succeeding centuries of the Christian era swarmed in myriads out of that mother of nations, Scandinavia, and filled central and western Europe with a new civilization; the people, in fact, who overthrew the great Roman empire and laid the foundation of the majority of the nations of modern Europe. ”

“ Some of the early Christian fathers fancied they discovered a great resemblance between one of their deities, named Baldur or Balder, and our Savior. [B] This god is represented as the son of Odin and Frigga, youthful, beautiful and benignant, the dispenser of kindness, the bringer of joy and blessings, who loves to dwell with men, and whom all men love. But he is killed by the wicked. (The manner of his death is surrounded with mythological nonsense.) All men mourn the loss of their friend, and search through the world for some remedy to bring him to life ”

“ Turner was not advocating the Israelitish ancestry of the Saxons, hence those who believe in that theory put the greater stress on his two most important statements: that the forefathers of this race dwelt in the region east of the Araxes, the exact spot to which Israel was carried captive, and that they began to spread out therefrom some six or seven hundred years before Christ, answering to the very period that the children of Jacob dwelt captives in that country. One author has assumed a very unique derivation for the word Saxon. ”

“ Some who, of late years, have made the subject of Israel's "identification" their study, have gone almost to the verge of the ridiculous in the minuteness with which they have endeavored to fix the boundaries of the lands which, they assert, were occupied by descendants of the different tribes. Our position is the Biblical or prophetical one, that Ephraim has mixed himself with the nations ”

“ Then, if we are doing the work, and claim that we are they who should do it, and it being impossible to invalidate our assumption, is not our claim worthy of thoughtful consideration and average respect? ”

“ Before the final captivity of either kingdom was brought about there were several partial deportations of the people to Assyria and Babylon, or local captivities. Assyria commenced by carrying off the inhabitants nearest her dominions and gradually extended her incursions. The captivity of Judah was still later. In the interval, it is argued, that many Israelites, believing in the words of the prophets and seeing the evils that were coming upon them, migrated to Egypt, Greece, or other convenient lands ”

“ Many writers, in their researches into the early history of that continent, have been forcibly struck with the similarity that existed between the laws, manners, customs, etc., of the ancient inhabitants of its northern and northwestern portions and those of ancient Israel. These writers have endeavored to account for this peculiarity in two ways. First by the supposition that Israelitish colonies for various causes, left the land of their inheritance and gradually worked themselves north and northwestward over Europe ”

“ From this we learn that it has been covenanted by the Eternal One, that Abraham's seed shall bear the message and ministry of God's grace to all nations, and that through him and his seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed with the blessings of the gospel which, through obedience, brings salvation and eternal lives ”

“ Among the Anglo-Saxons the theory of their constitution seems to have been, that every ten men or heads of families, should choose one from among them, to act for them in the council of their little community, consisting generally of ten such compartments or wards. ”

“ Here we obtain a glimpse of the policy of these two cities; they sought to weaken Israel by deporting her children as captives to other nations afar off, and with true commercial instincts endeavored to make the transaction a profitable one. And if Judah and Jerusalem, at the other end of the land, thus suffered at the hands of Tyre and her sister city, is it not a certainty that other tribes, living nearer, would suffer from this same cause, and probably more severely? ”

“ How greatly the Jews had become scattered in the time of Christ, may be judged from the devout men who came up to worship and keep the passover at Jerusalem, and who listened to the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost. ”

“ They (the Anglo-Saxons and their brethren of the north of Europe) are described as having been acquainted with the great doctrine of one supreme Deity, the Author of everything that existeth; the eternal, the living, the ancient, the living and awful Being; the searcher into concealed things; the Being that never changeth; who liveth and governeth during the ages; directeth everything that is high, and everything that is low ”

“ We do not this because we think the word of God's servants requires proving by Gentile evidence, but because it is a satisfaction to many minds, not only to know that a thing is so, but to be able to give a reason, or advance an argument to demonstrate why it is so. ”

“ This shows that thus early in Israel's history it had commenced to hold commercial relations with its neighbors. [A] The tribes whose inheritances bordered on the Mediterranean, commencing at the north, were Asher, Manasseh, Ephraim, Dan and Simeon. Asher's inheritance lay contiguous to the great ports of Tyre and Sidon, while Simeon's bordered on Egypt, and contained within its confines other seaports of the Philistines or Phoenicians, to whom, we think, profane writers have given credit for many of the commercial ventures undertaken by the Israelites. ”