One Hundred Years Ago Today

EDITORIAL

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TO-DAY

September twenty-second is a date of especial significance to Latter-day Saints, and no less so to the world at large, did man­kind but know it. The present anniversary derives additional interest from the fact that it marks the centenary of the event by which this day of the year is made prominent.

On the twenty-second of September, 1827, Joseph Smith, who was verily the Lord’s prophet, received from the Angel Moroni an ancient record engraved on thin sheets of metal, which record the young man was enabled to translate into our modern tongue through the gift and power of God. This translated version was first published to the world Jn 1830, and has been current ever since, with constantly increasing distribution, as The Book of Mormon.

Divine ministrations to the first seer and revelator of the last dispensation, Joseph Smith, had begun in the spring of 1820, when he was made the recipient of the most glorious revelation in history, the supreme theophany, in that the Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus the Christ, manifested Themselves to him, conversed with him, and instructed him as to the course he was to follow in the accomplishment of a special and exalted mission'.

Then, during the night of September twenty-first and twenty-second, 1823, an angel of the Lord was sent to Joseph Smith, with a message and commission of deep and blessed import. Let the man himself describe this angelic communication:

He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

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 Saviour to the ancient inhabitants;

Also, that there were two stones in silver bows—and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted “seers” in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.—Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:33-35

As was demonstrated later, Moroni, the “messenger sent from the presence of God”, was the last of the historians and prophets of the now extinct Nephite Nation, which had risen, flourished and declined on the Western or American Continent between 590 B.C. and 420 A.D. It was Moroni who had supplemented the record made by his father, Mormon, which was in general an abridgment of voluminous writings that had accumulated during the ten centuries of Nephite history. It was he who had closed the ancient chronicles and then deposited the plates in a stone box, well buried in the side of the hill named on the plates as Cumorah, in the Township of Manchester, State of New York. It was he who came in his resurrected and glorified state as the Angel of the Record to Joseph Smith, revealing to him the de­pository, and giving directions as to the work of removal and subsequent translation.

On the day next following the eventful night of Moroni’s first visit to Joseph Smith, the latter went to the hill, to the spot thereon that had been indica ted by the Angel, and there he found the rounded cover of the stone box “visible above the ground” though the rest was beneath the surface. Here follows the Prophet’s account of his first view of the plates, of subsequent visits to the place of their deposit, of the eventual delivery of the record into his custody, of the accomplishment of the work of translation and the return of the plates to Moroni:

Having removed the earth, I obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up. I looked in, and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them.

I made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by the mes­senger, and was again informed that the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived, neither would it, until four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that place precisely in one year from that time, and that he would there meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come for obtaining the plates.

Accordingly, as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruc­tion and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.—Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:52-54.

At length the time arrived for obtaining the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. On the twenty-second day of Septem­ber, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, having gone as usual at the end of another year to the place where they were deposited, the same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go care­lessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavours to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected.

I soon found out the reason why I had received such strict charges to keep them safe, and why it was that the messenger had said that when I had done what was required at my hand, he would call for them. For no sooner was it known that I had them, than the most strenuous exertions were used to get them from me. Every stratagem that could be invented was resorted to for that purpose. The persecution became more bitter and severe than before, and multitudes were on the alert continually to get them from me if possible. But by the wisdom of God, they remained safe in my hands, until I had accomplished by them what was required at my hand. When, according to arrangements, the mes­senger called for them, I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the second day of May, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.—Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith, 2:59, 60.

The test of a full century is not to be passed over lightly, particularly when, as in this case, the matter under considera­tion has been the subject of challenge, of denunciation by many, of calm deliberation by some, and of thorough investigation by others. The solemn avowal by Joseph Smith, and the enduring testimonies of hundreds of thousands to whom divine assurance as to the genuineness of the new scripture has been given, is not to be dismissed by the shallow semblance of argument that the claim as to revelation and restoration of the record through the personal ministry of an angel can not be true, because, forsooth, angels do not visit men nowadays! By way of pertinent re­joinder to this oft-repeated though none the less baseless denial let it be asked: Has the Lord ever communicated with men through the medium and embassage of angels? If the Lord has so done, when did He change His method and mode?

If the resurrected Moroni did attend the mortal Joseph, then the unsupported negative that angels are not sent to men is utterly swept away by the positive instance. In such matter as this a single positive is convincing though a thousand negatives be urged in denial.

The bringing forth of The Book of Mormon is an event of transcendent import to mankind, far, far beyond that of the addition of another volume to the world’s library. The means appeal* as important as is the end achieved: The Book itself is rich in its treasures of divine revelation, and its rising from the dust is as great, yet as truly natural, a revelation from the heavens to the earth as any recorded upon its pages. This scrip­ture of the long ago, now given to the world through latter-day restoration, has to be reckoned with, as a host of earnest thinkers mid moulders of human thought now perceive and acknowledge. That Book will have prominent place as a volume of authentic and binding statutes in the great judgment at the Supreme Bar; for, let it not be forgotten, that:

The Book of Mormon stands an independent witness of Jesus the Christ as the Son of the Eternal Father, and as the Redeemer of the race.

Moroni, whose Appointed ministry to Joseph Smith a century ago we now commemorate, wrote, while he was of mortal flesh and blood, as part of his last charge and inspired adjuration to those who would read the record, this combined admonition and promise:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, 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.—Book of Mormon, Moroni 10:4, 5.

J. E. T.