A Messenger from the Presence of God

A MESSENGER FROM THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

By Dr. James E. Talmage, of the Council of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The discovery of the ancient record known to mankind as the Book of Mormon was no affair of chance. To the contrary, both the finding- of the plates of gold and the translation of the in­scriptions were specifically the result of Divine direction. So the following facts attest.

On the 21st of September, 1823, Joseph Smith, of Manchester, N.Y., was visited by an angelic personage who announced himself as Moroni, “a messenger sent from the presence of God.”

“What,” the skeptical may exclaim, “a heavenly being visiting the earth and talking to a man in these modern days!” To which interrogatory a fair rejoinder is, Why not? Has the God of Heaven changed in nature and attributes, or found need of alter­ing and revising His former and most simple methods of communi­cating with men?

To the priest Zacharias, in days of old, came one, saying “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee” (Luke 1:19). To the Prophet Joseph Smith, in latter times, came a messenger with the same form of annunciation.

Both Gabriel and Moroni were embassadors from the Eternal One, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17; Heb. 13:8).

Part of Moroni’s message delivered at this visitation is thus stated by the latter-day Prophet: “He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that, the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it. as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants * * * While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it” (Pearl of Great Price, pp. 89. 91.)

Subsequent revelations showed that Moroni was the last of a long line of prophets whose translated writings constitute the Book of Mormon. By him the ancient records had been closed about 420 A.D.; by him the graven plates had been deposited in the stone vault wherein they lay buried over fourteen centuries; and through his appointed embassage they were given into the possession of the latter-day seer whose work of translation is before us.

Joseph Smith, unschooled beyond the rudiments of what we call an education, unversed in any tongue but the vernacular English, was wholly unequipped according to all human stand­ards to translate the language of a nation long extinct, and, ex­cept for certain Indian traditions, forgotten. But the operation of a power higher than human, by which the engraved plates were brought forth from the earth, was to be effective in making the long-buried chronicles intelligible to modern readers.

It was no part of the Lord’s plan to entrust the translating to man’s linguistic skill; and, moreover, at that time the Rosetta Stone still lay buried beneath the debris of ages, and there was not a man upon the earth capable of rendering an Egyptian in­scription into English. As the Book of Mormon avers, the origi­nal writing was Egyptian, modified through the isolation of the ancient peoples on the Western continent, and designated Re­formed Egyptian.

It was divinely appointed that the sacred archives should be restored to the knowledge of men through the gift and power of God. Had it not been written that in the latter days the Lord would accomplish a marvelous work and a wonder, whereby the wisdom of the wise would fail and the understanding of the learned be hidden? (See Isa. 29:13,14). And this because men would put their dogmas and precepts above the revealed word? (Verse 13). In the translation of the Book of Mormon there was to be no gloss of fallible scholarship, no attempt to improve and embellish the plain, simple, and unambiguous diction of the original scribes who wrote by inspiration. Therefore was the commission laid upon one who was rated among the weak of the earth, but whose ministry, nevertheless, has confounded the mighty (See I. Cor. 1:27, 28).

In the box with the gold plates lay two stones set in bows of silver. These, as Moroni informed Joseph Smith, were the Urim and Thummim, the possession and inspired ability to use which constituted the gift of seership as exercised of old; and of these particular instruments the angel said “that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.” With the aid of these “interpreters” Joseph Smith was instrumental in trans­lating the writings on the plates.

The Book of Mormon offers no apology for its existence. It needs none. The testimony of its genuineness is an intrinsic and inherent characteristic of its pages. Read it and see.