The Articles of Faith Part 36

[849] Mosiah i, 4.

[850] Mormon ix, 32.

=42.= Now consider the testimony of Dr. Le Plongeon, announcing his discovery of a sacred alphabet among the Mayas of Central America, which he declares to be practically identical with the Egyptian alphabet. He states that the structure of the Maya sacred language closely resembles that of the Egyptians; and he boldly proclaims his conviction that the two nations derived their written language from the same source.[851] Another authority says:--"The eye of the antiquarian cannot fail to be both attracted and fixed by evidence of the existence of two great branches of the hieroglyphical language,--both having striking affinities with the Egyptian, and yet distinguished from it by characteristics perfectly American."[852]

[851] Dr. August Le Plongeon, in _Review of Reviews_, July, 1895.

[852] _Quarterly Review_, October, 1836; abstracted in _Millennial Star_, vol. xxi, p. 467.

=43.= But the Egyptian is not the only eastern language found to be represented in the relics of American antiquities; the Hebrew occurs in this connection with at least equal significance. That the Hebrew tongue should have been used by Lehi's descendants is most natural, inasmuch as they were of the House of Israel, transferred to the western continent directly from Jerusalem. That the ability to read and write in that language continued with the Nephites until the time of their extinction is evident from Moroni's statement regarding the language used on the plates of Mormon:--"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."[853]

[853] Mormon ix, 32-33. In connection with this important subject see articles ent.i.tled "A Study in American-Hebraic Names" by Thos.

W. Brookbank, _Improvement Era_, vol. xx.

=44.= The following instances are taken from an instructive array of such, brought together by Elder George Reynolds.[854] Several of the early Spanish writers claim that the natives of some portions of the land were found speaking a corrupt Hebrew. "Las Casas so affirms with regard to the inhabitants of the island of Hayti. Lafitu wrote a history wherein he maintained that the Caribbee language was radically Hebrew. Isaac Nasci, a learned Jew of Surinam, says of the language of the people of Guiana, that all their substantives are Hebrew." Spanish historians record the early discovery of Hebrew characters on the western continent. "Malvenda says that the natives of St. Michael had tombstones, which the Spaniards digged up, with several ancient Hebrew inscriptions upon them."

[854] Reynolds' lecture, _The Language of the Book of Mormon_.

=45.= In all such writings, the characters and the language are allied to the most ancient form of Hebrew, and show none of the vowel signs and terminal letters which were introduced into the Hebrew of the eastern continent after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. This is consistent with the fact that Lehi and his people left Jerusalem shortly before the captivity, and therefore prior to the introduction of the changes in the written language.[855]

[855] See an instructive series of articles in _Improvement Era_, Salt Lake City, vol. xvii, by Thomas W. Brookbank, ent.i.tled "Hebrew Idioms and a.n.a.logies in the Book of Mormon."

=46. Another Test.=--Let not the reader of the Book of Mormon content himself with such evidences as have been cited concerning the Divine authenticity of this reputed scripture. There is promised a surer and a more effectual means of ascertaining the truth or falsity of this marvelous volume. Like other scriptures, the Book of Mormon is to be comprehended through the spirit of the scriptures, and this is obtainable only as a gift from G.o.d. But this gift, priceless though it be, is promised unto all who would seek for it. Then to all let us commend the counsel of the last writer in the volume, Moroni, the solitary scribe who sealed the book, afterward the angel of the record who brought it forth:--"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask G.o.d, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost; and by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."[856]

[856] Moroni x, 4-5.

NOTES.

=1. Diversity of Literary Style in the Book of Mormon.=--"There is a marked difference in the literary style of Nephi and some of the other earlier prophets from that of Mormon and Moroni. Mormon and his son are more direct and take fewer words to express their ideas than did the earlier writers; at least their manner is, to most readers, the more pleasing. Amos, the son of Jacob, has also a style peculiar to himself. There is another noticeable fact that when original records or discourses, such as the record of Limhi, the sermons of Alma, Amulek, etc., the epistles of Helaman, and others, are introduced into Mormon's abridgment, words and expressions are used that appear nowhere else in the Book of Mormon. This diversity of style, expression, and wording is a very pleasing incidental testimony to the truth of the claim made for the Book of Mormon,--that it is a compilation of the work of many writers."--From Lectures on the Book of Mormon, by Elder George Reynolds.

=2. Mexican Date of the Deluge.=--In speaking of the time of the Deluge as given by the Mexican author, Ixtilxochitl, Elder George Reynolds says:--There is a remarkable agreement between this writer's statements and the Book of Genesis. The time from the Fall to the Flood only differs sixty, possibly only five years, if the following statement in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants (cvii, 49) regarding Enoch lengthens the chronology: "And he saw the Lord, and he walked with him, and was before his face continually; and he walked with G.o.d 365 years, making him 430 years old when he was translated." The same statement is made in the Pearl of Great Price, Moses vii, 67.--From lecture on _External Evidences of the Book of Mormon_, by Elder George Reynolds.

=3. Ancient Civilization in America.=--"That a civilization once flourished in these regions [Central America and Mexico] much higher than any the Spanish conquerors found upon their arrival, there can be no doubt. By far the most important work that has been done among the remains of the old Maya civilization has been carried on by the Peabody Museum of Harvard College, through a series of expeditions it has sent to the buried city now called Copan, in Spanish Honduras. In a beautiful valley near the borderland of Guatemala, surrounded by steep mountains and watered by a winding river, the h.o.a.ry city lies wrapped in the sleep of ages. The ruins at Copan, although in a more advanced state of destruction than those of the Maya cities of Yucatan, have a general similarity to the latter in the design of the buildings, and in the sculptures, while the characters in the inscriptions are essentially the same. It would seem, therefore, that Copan was a city of the Mayas; but if so it must have been one of their most ancient settlements, fallen into decay long before the cities of Yucatan reached their prime. The Maya civilization was totally distinct from the Aztec or Mexican; it was an older and also a much higher civilization."--Henry C.

Walsh, in article, _Copan--a City of the Dead_, Harper's Weekly, October, 1897.

Baldwin in his valuable work "Ancient America" incorporates the conclusions announced by Bradford in regard to the ancient occupants of North America, as follows:--

"That they were all of the same origin, branches of the same race, and possessed of similar customs and inst.i.tutions.

"That they were populous, and occupied a great extent of territory.

"That they had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization, were a.s.sociated in large communities, and lived in extensive cities.

"That they possessed the use of many of the metals, such as lead, copper, gold, and silver, and probably the art of working in them.

"That they sculptured in stone, and sometimes used that material in the construction of their edifices.

"That they had the knowledge of the arch of receding steps; of the art of pottery, producing urns and utensils formed with taste, and constructed upon the principles of chemical composition; and the art of brick-making.

"That they worked the salt springs, and manufactured salt.

"That they were an agricultural people, living under the influence and protection of regular forms of governments.

"That they possessed a decided system of religion, and a mythology connected with astronomy, which, with its sister science, geometry, was in the hands of the priesthood.

"That they were skilled in the art of fortification.

"That the epoch of their original settlement in the United States is of great antiquity; and that the only indications of their origin to be gathered from the locality of their ruined monuments, point toward Mexico."--Baldwin, _Ancient America_, p.

56.

=4. American Traditions concerning the Deluge.=--"Don Francisco Munoz de la Vega, the Bishop of that diocese (Chiapas), certifies in the prologue to his 'Diocesan Const.i.tutions,' declaring that an ancient ma.n.u.script of the primitive Indians of that province, who had learned the art of writing, was in his record office, who retained the constant tradition that the father and founder of their nation was named Teponahuale, which signifies lord of the hollow piece of wood; and that he was present at the building of the Great Wall, for so they named the Tower of Babel; and beheld with his own eyes the confusion of language; after which event, G.o.d, the Creator, commanded him to come to these extensive regions, and to divide them amongst mankind."--Lord Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. viii, p. 25.

"It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world, as they call it, lasted 1,716 years: that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightnings from the sky, and even all the land, without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in water fifteen cubits (caxtolmolatli); and here they added other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a 'toptlipetlocali;' that this word nearly signifies a close chest; and how, after men had multiplied, they erected a very high 'zacuali,' which is to-day a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently their languages were confused, and, not being able to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth."--The same, vol. ix, p. 321.

"The most important among the American traditions are the Mexican, for they appear to have been definitely fixed by symbolic and mnemonic paintings before any contact with Europeans. According to these doc.u.ments, the Noah of the Mexican cataclysm was c.o.xc.o.x, called by certain people Teoc.i.p.actli or Tezpi. He had saved himself, together with his wife Xochiquetzal, in a bark, or, according to other traditions, on a raft made of cypress-wood (_Cypressus disticha_). Paintings retracing the deluge of c.o.xc.o.x have been discovered among the Aztecs, Miztecs, Zapotecs, Tlascaltecs, and Mechoacaneses. The tradition of the latter is still more strikingly in conformity with the story as we have it in Genesis, and in Chaldean sources. It tells how Tezpi embarked in a s.p.a.cious vessel with his wife, his children, and several animals, and grain, whose preservation was essential to the subsistence of the human race. When the great G.o.d Tezcatlipoca decreed that the waters should retire, Tezpi sent a vulture from the bark. The bird, feeding on the carcases with which the earth was laden, did not return. Tezpi sent out other birds, of which the humming bird only came back, with a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, seeing that the country began to vegetate, left his bark on the mountain of Colhuacan."--Donnelly's _Atlantis_, p. 99.

The tradition of a Deluge "was the received notion, under some form or other, of the most civilized people in the Old World, and of the barbarians of the New. The Aztecs combined with this some particular circ.u.mstances of a more arbitrary character, resembling the accounts of the east. They believed that two persons survived the Deluge, a man named c.o.xc.o.x and his wife.

Their heads are represented in ancient painting, together with a boat floating on the waters at the foot of a mountain. A dove is also depicted, with a hieroglyphical emblem of language in his mouth, which he is distributing to the children of c.o.xc.o.x, who were born dumb. The neighboring people of Michoacan, inhabiting the same high plains of the Andes, had a still further tradition, that the boat in which Tegpi, their Noah, escaped, was filled with various kinds of animals and birds. After some time a vulture was sent out from it, but remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants which had been left on the earth as the waters subsided. The little humming bird, _huitzitzilin_, was then sent forth, and returned with a twig in his mouth. The coincidence of both these accounts with the Hebrew and Chaldean narratives is obvious."--Prescott, _Conquest of Mexico_, pp.

463-64.

=5. Mexican Tradition concerning the Savior.=--"The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior's life and ministry. Regarding this G.o.d, Humboldt writes, 'How truly surprising is it to find that the Mexicans, who seem to have been unacquainted with the doctrine of the migration of the soul and the Metempsychosis _should have believed in the incarnation of the only Son of the supreme G.o.d, Tomacateuctli_.

For Mexican mythology, speaking of no other Son of G.o.d except Quetzalcoatl, who was born of Chimelman, the virgin of Tula (without man), by His breath alone, by which may be signified His word or will, when it was announced to Chimelman, by the celestial messenger whom He despatched to inform her that she should conceive a son, it must be presumed this was Quetzalcoatl, who was the only son. Other authors might be adduced to show that the Mexicans believe that this Quetzalcoatl was both G.o.d and man; that He had, previously to His incarnation, existed from eternity, and that He had been the Creator both of the world and man; and that He had descended to reform the world by endurance, and being King of Tula, was crucified for the sins of mankind, etc., as is plainly declared in the tradition of Yucatan, and mysteriously represented in the Mexican paintings.'"--Pres. John Taylor, _Mediation and Atonement_, p. 201.

=7. Survival of the Hebrew Language among American Tribes.=--"It is claimed that such survivals are numerous in the religious songs and ceremonies of many of the tribes. A number of writers who visited or resided among the tribes of the northern continent, a.s.sert that the words Yehovah, Yah, Ale, and Hallelujah, could be distinctly heard in these exercises. Laet and Escarbotus a.s.sure us that they often heard the South American Indians repeat the sacred word Hallelujah."--Elder George Reynolds, _The Language of the Book of Mormon_.

=8. "The Origin of the Pre-Columbian Civilization of America."=--Under this t.i.tle an instructive article by G. Elliot Smith appeared in _Science_ vol. xliv, pp. 190-195 (August 11, 1916). As to the interest accorded to the subject, the author says: "In the whole range of ethnological discussion perhaps no theme has evoked livelier controversies and excited more widespread interest than the problems involved in the mysteries of the wonderful civilization that revealed itself to the astonished Spaniards on their first arrival in America.

"During the last century, which can be regarded as covering the whole period of scientific investigation in anthropology, the opinions of those who have devoted attention to such inquiries have undergone the strangest fluctuations. If one delves into the anthropological journals of forty or fifty years ago they will be found to abound in careful studies on the part of many of the leading ethnologists of the time, demonstrating, apparently in a convincing and unquestionable manner, the spread of curious customs or beliefs from the Old World to the New." The writer decries the fallacy of a.s.suming that similarities in customs and culture of widely separated peoples can be explained on any other basis than that of a common origin, and proceeds as follows: "Why then, it will be asked, in the face of the overwhelming ma.s.s of definite and well-authenticated evidence clearly pointing to the sources in the Old World from which American civilization sprung, do so many ethnologists refuse to accept the clear and obvious meaning of the facts and resort to such childish subterfuges as I have mentioned? Putting aside the influence of Darwin's work, the misunderstanding of which, as Huxley remarked, 'led shallow persons to talk nonsense in the name of anthropological science,'

the main factor in blinding so many investigators to appreciate the significance of the data they themselves so laboriously collect results from a defect incidental to the nature of their researches.... The failure to recognize the fact, recently demonstrated so convincingly by Dr. Rivers, that useful arts are often lost is another, and perhaps the chief, difficulty that has stood in the way of an adequate appreciation of the history of the spread of civilization." Dr. Smith presents an impressive array of evidence pointing to the Old World and specifically to Egypt, as the source of many of the customs by which the American aborigines are distinguished. The article is accompanied by a map showing probable routes of travel from the Old World to the New, and two landing places on the west coast, one in Mexico and another near the boundary common to Peru and Chile, from which places the immigrants spread.

LECTURE XVI.

REVELATION, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.

=Article 9.=--We believe all that G.o.d has revealed, all that He does now reveal; and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of G.o.d.

=1. What is Revelation?=--In a theological sense, the term _revelation_ signifies the making known of Divine truth by communication from the heavens. The Greek--_apocalypsis_, which in meaning closely corresponds with our word _revelation_, expresses an uncovering, or a disclosure of that which had been wholly or in part hidden,--the drawing aside of a veil. An Anglicized form of the Greek term--_Apocalypse_--is sometimes used to designate the particular Revelation given to John upon the Isle of Patmos, the record of which forms the last book of the New Testament as at present compiled.

Divine revelation, as ill.u.s.trated by numerous examples in scripture, may consist of disclosures or declarations concerning the attributes of Deity, or of an expression of the Divine will regarding the affairs of men.

=2.= The word _inspiration_ is sometimes invested with a signification almost identical with that of _revelation_, though by its origin and early usage it possessed a distinctive meaning. To inspire is literally to animate with the spirit; a man is inspired when under the influence of a power other than his own. Divine inspiration may be regarded as a lower or less comprehensive manifestation of the heavenly influence upon man than is shown in revelation. The difference therefore is rather one of degree than of kind. By neither of these directing processes does the Lord deprive the human subject of agency or individuality;[857] as is proved by the marked peculiarities of style and method characterizing the several books of holy writ. Yet, in the giving of revelation, a more direct influence is exercised upon the human recipient of the G.o.d-given message than is the case under the lesser, though no less truly Divine, effect of inspiration.

[857] See Notes 1 and 3.

=3.= The directness and plainness with which G.o.d may communicate with man is dependent upon the purity and general fitness of the person.