The Lamanites

Elder Lafayette Ball, of Deep Creek, was in this city (Salt Lake) a short time since, and had with him a book containing the record of the baptisms of Lamanites that had been lately attended to in that locality. It included the names of eight hundred who had recently been baptized there. It appears the Indians would frequently come in from quite long distances, wearied with travel, for the purpose of being “buried in water.” And they would sometimes ask the Elders to administer to their sick children, who were frequently healed instantly by the power of God.

Those who say they were visited by the heavenly messengers state that the latter have instructed them that the Indians had better stay on the government reservations until spring, kb there would be very cold weather in the surrounding country this winter, which prediction has already proved true, the weather around Utah, north, northwest and east having been fearfully cold. But they were to gather to Ibim Pah (Deep Creek) in the spring, there get baptized, and commence farming, and it is expected that there will be a large gathering there at that time, accordingly, among the tribes expected being the Salmon eaters, Rickores and Crows, so the writer learns from Major Dimick B. Huntington, one of the most experienced and capable Indian interpreters of the West. The Indians say they have been instructed, by the messengers before alluded to, to cultivate the soil for two and a half years after they are baptized, after which specified time the Lord will tell them something else that they will have to do. If the soldiers try to prevent them from leaving the reservations and going to Deep Creek, they are instructed not to fight the troops, but to evade them by slipping around them. If the soldiers should even shoot them down they are not to retaliate, and if they should thus be killed in the line of their duty, all will be well with them, for it will be like lying down at night and getting up in the morning in a far happier state, and white.

The same spirit takes hold of the Indians when they get baptized, as any other people become possessed of when they embrace the Gospel, for as soon as they receive its principles they begin to have a desire for gathering.

It is worthy of remark, also, that when the Gospel was restored in this age it came to and was received not generally by the rich and the exalted, but for the greater part by the poorer but more honest classes of men and women, and it appears to be the same in the matter of the reception of the Gospel by the “remnant of Israel,” the work among them having commenced among the humbler, though more honest and well-behaved tribes.

The beginning of the 5th paragraph of a revelation commencing on page 217 of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, says: “But before the great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose. Zion shall flourish upon the hills, and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be assembled together unto the place which I have appointed.”

Now it appears that the prediction has been partially fulfilled, but not the portion relating to the Lamanites, who are yet to “blossom as the rose,” before the “great and terrible day” and the coming of the Lord in his glory, but it shall be fulfilled as sure as the sun shines in the heavens, for God hath spoken it, and he never lies.

Does this movement among the Indians, treated upon in this article, look like a preparatory step towards its fulfillment? If not, what mean those manifestations? Could any earthly power so influence the mind of the Indian? Does it not look as if God was commencing to fulfill his promises made to their fathers?

True, some people assert that to attribute such things to heavenly influences, and to believe the solemn statements of some of the Indians about receiving visits from heavenly beings is next to nonsense, but no believer in the great latter-day Work can say that it is inconsistent with what the Lord has promised to do in the bringing about of his great purposes; and if there be those who doubt, let them read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants with that attention which those sacred works should receive. It will take but a short time to prove the character of the movement, for the Lord has promised to “cut his work short in righteousness,” and a promise made by the Lord to the faithful believers in the Gospel in the latter days was, that they would “understand the parable of the fig tree.” In other words, they would understand the “signs of the times.”

I believe that you, my readers, should treat the Indians kindly, and that you should exercise faith in God for them that they may be reclaimed from their fallen condition, and begin to receive the Gospel, for I can assure you that they will yet take a great* part in helping to establish the kingdom of God on the earth.

Juvenile Instructor.