Nephi

“ Nephi and those who sought for the Spirit of the Lord did not forget, in the midst of the hard life and privations of the wilderness, their former good habits, or throw aside their knowledge of civilization. Their wandering life did not degrade them. Though they had to hunt for the game necessary to sustain them, and, by direction of the Lord, eat its flesh without cooking it, and live in tents, they looked upon that mode of life, not as one that they must follow for ever after, but as necessary only in the providence of the Lord for the time being. ”

“ The land to which Nephi and his company were led was probably not excelled for fertility of soil, for healthfulness and agreeableness of climate, for abundance and variety of vegetables and minerals, for grandeur and beauty of scenery by any other part of this "promised land" and certainly by no other land outside of this continent. It abounded in all the elements necessary to make a nation rich and powerful. ”

“ It was a foretaste of the Millennium to the whole people of half the world, and when Nephi died (A. C. 110) this inexpressibly happy, heavenly state still continued in undiminished warmth of Divine and brotherly love and strength of abiding faith. All the generation to which Nephi belonged entered in at the straight gate, and walked the narrow way to the Eternal City of God, not one of them was lost. ”

“ But by the fourth day the tempest had become so frightfully fierce, that even Laman and Lemuel were terror-stricken and softened, and they repented and released Nephi. They had to be threatened with destruction and brought face to face with death before they would yield. During all this time, suffering from pain and in a condition so wretched, Nephi did not lose his patience and self-control. Great as were his afflictions he did not murmur against the Lord; but he looked unto Him and praised Him all the day long. He was in circumstances that many men would think dreadful and even unbearable ”

“ That which was known as the land of Nephi, comprehending an immense district of country, was so favored in climate and soil, was so abundantly blessed in all vegetables and minerals, and was generally so healthy that an industrious people like the Nephites would surround themselves with every comfort and luxury in, what would appear to the inhabitants of less favored localities, an incredibly short space of time. ”

“ Laman, Nephi's brother, must have known him well, and he said, "he can command fifty, yea even he can slay fifty." If he would not hesitate to murder these four young men, whom it is but reasonable to conclude he must have known were his kindred, being of the same lineage as himself, for their property, he would not scruple to enslave his poor brethren, or even to kill them on some pretext, if it suited his purpose to do so. The glimpse which Nephi gives of the condition of affairs in that city is sufficient to show us how little human life was valued. ”

“ It was then that Nephi anointed a man to be a king and a ruler over his people. He was so greatly beloved by them, through his self-sacrificing and continuous labors for them and his courage in defending them; (for he had been compelled to have recourse to the sword of Laban, and to wield it in their defense against the attacks of the Lamanites) ”

“ Nephi on the one hand and Laman on the other, for good or evil, was each the head and representative man of his family and people. They both had passed through the same outward circumstances. For a wise purpose the Lord had caused them to follow a wandering, and it may be said a wild desert life of eight years. The one had emerged from it stronger, purer, more elevated in thought and action, more attached to those pursuits which make men and nations enlightened, noble and powerful, and more determined when the proper time came to follow them. ”

“ THE PROPHECY OF NEPHI, THE SON OF HELAMAN. God threatens the people of Nephi, that he will visit them in his anger, to their utter destruction, except they repent of their wickedness. God smiteth the people of Nephi with pestilence; they repent and turn unto him. ”

“ He chose to be a savage himself, he made his wife and people and descendants savages also. This was Laman, and this the effect of his life, as we glean it from the record embodied in the Book of Mormon.
How great a contrast between his life and that of Nephi! One can scarcely conceive how it would be possible for two men of one family, of the same parentage and brought up under the same circumstances to be more dissimilar. Nephi's constant effort was to lift his people up and to have them exert every power to attain the highest standard of excellence. ”

“ Nephi had this advantage: he was young and vigorous, and could the more readily adapt himself to the new methods of life which they had to adopt in the wilderness; while Lehi, more advanced in years, would find traveling in this wild and desert country, and enduring the hardships they had to encounter, a very great change from the mode of life to which he had been accustomed in Jerusalem. ”

“ In this simple language does Jacob record this event. He leaves Nephi's works to speak for him. And their consideration cannot fail to be of profit to all who will give them attention. The example of such a life is of immense benefit to mankind; it strengthens, elevates and inspires with noble purpose all who become acquainted with it. No Latter-day Saint can read the life of Nephi, as he has given it to us in his record, without being incited to exercise greater faith, to live nearer to God and to cherish loftier aims. ”

“ So far as his influence and teachings went among the people, they were free and the country was a land of liberty unto them.
We here close the life of Nephi. He has shown us how much a mortal man, who devotes himself to God and His work, can accomplish for himself and his fellow-mortals, and how near, by the exercise of faith, man can draw to God. ”

“ He blessed Nephi, and said he would become the ruler of his brethren who were disobedient. The Lord also told Nephi that He would lead his father's family to a beautiful and rich country, called the Land of Promise.
The Lord is ever willing to answer prayers. Those who pray to Him for knowledge or wisdom or anything that is for their good will be sure to receive an answer, if they ask in faith, believing the Lord will hear them.
If Nephi's brothers, Laman and Lemuel had faith and prayed to the Lord they would know also that their father was a truthful man and was a prophet of God. ”

“ Among these were Nephi's family, Zoram and his family, Sam and his family and Nephi's sisters.
After traveling for many days they found a place suitable for them to dwell in, and there they pitched their tents. This place they named Nephi, after their leader whom they loved. The people also called themselves the people of Nephi. From this time on for many hundreds of years these people and their children were called Nephites, and those who remained with Laman and Lemuel were called Lamanites. ”

“ Though this is true of the central government, it unfortunately cannot be so stated of the colony which returned to the land of Nephi in the days of King Benjamin; that people suffered beyond description from the tyranny and wickedness, and the consequences resulting therefrom, of their second king, Noah, the murderer of the Prophet Abinadi.
Of the life and character of the first king of the Nephites, the father of his people, Nephi, the son of Lehi, we need say nothing here. History affords no better model of the true prince. ”

“ Going on, year by year, they grew in iniquity and ripened for destruction. For many years Nephi strove to stem the tide of vice. At times partial success rewarded his unceasing efforts, and he had joy in the baptism of some honest souls. But the great bulk of the people had rejected the gospel, they had no love for its holy principles, and were unfit for its blessings.
Shortly before the birth of Christ, Nephi transferred the plates of brass and other records to his son Nephi, gave him charge concerning them, and departed from the land of Zarahemla. ”

“ Their hearts were steeled against the voices of love and affection; they were insensible to every humane emotion and every human appeal. Nothing but the power of God could reach them, and they were soon made to feel that. After they had bound Nephi, the compass ceased to work, and they did not know in what direction they should steer the ship. A storm arose, and it continued to rage with such violence that they were driven back, apparently at the mercy of the waves and in great danger of being engulfed by them. This terrible tempest frightened Laman and Lemuel exceedingly. ”

“ He was to them what Moses was to the children of Israel, and though the Nephite nation was prolific in great men, there was not one, it seems to us, who exceeded, if indeed he came up in every particular to, the full measure of his greatness. So far as the record of his life has come down to us, it presents the picture of a man of such perfections as has rarely been seen on earth. ”

“ The promises which the Lord made through Nephi in his record are of the utmost value to the Church of Christ in our day. How encouraging it is to know in the midst of the deadly hostility against the work of God, and the incessant attacks which are being made upon it that "he that fighteth against Zion, both Jew and Gentile, both bond and free, both male and female, shall perish!" ”

“ There is one noticeable feature in the record of the Nephites which strikes one who has lived only in our northern climate and zone: it is the rapidity with which they recovered from the disastrous effects of civil and religious commotions and bloody wars. The frequent allusions through the record to the wonderfully rapid prosperity which followed the cessation of strife is apt to strike the northern reader with surprise. ”

“ Nephi takes the opportunity, while speaking of their journey and the wonderful manner in which they had been sustained, especially the women in the bearing and nursing of their children, to call attention to the fact that the commandments of God must be fulfilled; and if they are kept by the children of men, He doth nourish and strengthen them, and provides means whereby they can accomplish the thing which He has commanded them. ”

“ When they should arrive at the promised land, they were to know also that He had brought them out of Jerusalem and had delivered them from destruction.
Nephi had no sooner commenced his labors by obtaining ore out of rock and out of that making tools, and to make his preparations to build a ship, than his brethren began to find fault with and ridicule him. Why, said they, our brother is a fool; he has an idea he can build a ship and also cross this ocean of waters! They neither believed he could build a ship nor that he was instructed of the Lord ”

“ Nephi's policy tended to civilization; for he taught his people to erect buildings, "and to work all manner of wood and of iron and of copper and of brass and of steel and of gold and of silver and of precious ores, which were in great abundance." He also built a temple, somewhat after the pattern of the temple of Solomon, and ordained as priests his two younger brothers, Jacob and Joseph, born to Lehi in the wilderness, after the departure of the colony from Jerusalem. ”

“ Their language became so corrupted that when they were found by the descendants of Nephi, sometime near the close of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, after Lehi left Jerusalem, they could not understand their language. Not only had they lost the knowledge of the Hebrew language; but they had lost the knowledge of God and denied His being. We find several allusions throughout the Book of Mormon, by prominent men among the Nephites, to the great value of these plates and to the benefits the records they contained had been to the nation. ”

“ It appears to have been simply the valley in which the city of Lehi-Nephi stood, but because it at one time comprised all the territory occupied by the Nephites, whence they spread out and colonized, it is more often called the land of Nephi than the land of Lehi-Nephi ”

“ The selection by the Lord of Nephi to be their ruler and their teacher was always a cause of anger and trouble to Laman and Lemuel. They themselves never lived in a way to entitle them either to rule or teach ”

“ Such a country, with such a variety of climates and products, was well adapted for the cradle of an imperial race as the Nephites proved to be. The mighty obstacles of nature, which some portions of that country presented, were such as to tax their ingenuity to the utmost. ”

“ This is also the testimony of the first Nephi. In vision he saw the advent of the Gentile races upon the western hemisphere. He saw their victories over the remnant of the seed of his brethren, the Lamanites. He then proceeds:
And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance ”

“ While engaged in this labor, Nephi went often to the mountain and prayed unto the Lord, and great things were shown unto him. It is worthy of remark that men of God frequently availed themselves of mountains as places of worship, to which they could go to pray and commune with Him. At such heights and to such men it seems as though the vail between heaven and earth becomes thinner and more easily pierced. The men who have written the most about God, and who have communicated His will to their fellows, have been men who communed with Him in solitary places. ”