A New Witness of the Christ

A NEW WITNESS OF THE CHRIST.

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

The angel Moroni, who made known to Joseph Smith the existence and repository of the inscribed plates from which the Book of Mormon has been translated, informed the modern prophet that the metallic pages contained the fulness of the ever­lasting gospel, as delivered by the Savior to the former inhabitants of the Western Continent. The book is more than a series of annals and chronicles.

Invaluable as the ancient record may have proved in giving to man the history of a once mighty but now extinct nation, in demonstrating the origin and significance of traditions cherished by the degenerate Indians as evidence of a more enlightened past, in explaining ethnological data otherwise unrelated and largely inexplicable—in these respects the Book of Mormon could have been nothing more than an important contribution to the common fund of human knowledge, possibly of great academic interest but certainly of small vital value.

No apology could be consistently demanded for surprise, wonder, or even incredulity over the announcement of a messenger sent from the presence of God, to restore to the possession of mortals a mere history of dynasties and kingdoms, of migrations and battles, of cities budded and destroyed, and of the rise and fall of commonwealths. The miraculous interposition of Divine power in such a matter is without recorded precedent and apparently lacking in the essential element of necessity.

The priceless character of the Book of Mormon lies in its sacredness as a compilation of Holy Scripture, telling primarily of the dealings of God with the ancient peoples of the West, of the Divine purpose in their isolation on a previously unknown continent. the touching and practice of the Gospel with all its essential laws and ordinances enjoined through revelation entirely apart from the Biblical Scriptures, and particularly of the solemn testimony of a great nation relating to the atoning death and literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and Savior of the race.

The avowed purpose of Jehovah, in leading Lehi and his colony from Jerusalem and conducting them across the great waters to the American shores, was to separate unto Himself a body of Israelites who would be cleansed from false tradition and the de­filing precepts of men respecting the appointed mission of Christ in the flesh. As Moses was led into the desert and later into the mountain top, as Elijah was impelled to seek the cavern's solitude, that each might the better hear the Divine voice—so a nation was sequestered in the New World that they might learn the word of revealed truth in its simplicity and plainness.

In the mind of God it had been decreed that the life, death, and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son be attested by other wit­nesses than Galilee. Samaria, and Judea. While Lehi and his people were journeying through the deserts of Arabia, the Lord revealed by vision and the visitation of angels unto the prophet and again unto Nephi that, six hundred years later, the Son of the Eternal Father would be born of the Virgin of Nazareth, that He was to be the Redeemer of the world, that a prophet would go before Him crying repentance unto the people and baptizing them in Jordan, and that twelve apostles would attend the Savior and continue to teach and administer after the Lord's death and resurrection.

The doctrines of the coming Christ and the necessity of repent­ance and baptism were preached by prophets throughout the six centuries of preparation. At the time of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem, the predicted signs of the glad event were witnessed in America, and prominent among these was the absence of dark­ness between two days. The tragedy on Calvary was signalized in the West, as the prophets had foretold, by great disturbances of the earth, and by the continuation of darkness between two nights.

The more righteous part of the people had been preserved from destruction; and to a multitude of these, assembled about the Temple, the crucified and resurrected Lord appeared, with the solemn accompaniment of the Father's proclamation from the heavens: “Behold my beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name: hear ye Him” (III. Nephi 2).

The people looked upward, “And behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and He was clothed in a white robe, and He came down and stood in the midst of them, and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon Him, and they durst not open their months, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them. And it came to pass that He stretched forth His hand and spake unto the people? saying, Behold, I am Jesus Christ, who the prophets testified shall come into the world; And behold, I am the light and the life of the world: and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the be­ginning."

He permitted them to see and feel the wounds of the cross in His hands, feet, and side: and they worshiped Him.

The Book of Mormon is a new and independent witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ and His gospel, by which all mankind may be saved through obedience, and without which no man can have place in the kingdom of God.