Voices from the Dust

Voices From The Dust

By Elder E. Cecil McGavin

Author of “Mormonism And Masonry’’ and “Cumorah’s Gold Bible”

Third in the Series “A Marvellous Work and a Wonder”

DURING the thousand years that the Nephites dwelt in this land, their inspired propets and historians recorded their history upon metal plates. One of their last historians, named Mormon, made a set of gold plates upon which he recorded a brief summary from the many records that had fallen into his possession. His son, Moroni, after the father had fallen in battle, wrote the final chapters of Nephite history and buried the precious record in the earth. Fourteen centuries later, as a resurrected person, this same Moroni revealed to Joseph Smith the hiding place of the gold plates.

With the publication of the Book of Mormon, voices speak from the dust and slumbering nations arise as if from death and obscurity. Heretofore meaningless texts of scripture take on a newness of meaning, such as the following examples:

“Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.”—Psalm 86:11.

“And thou shalt be brought down, and.shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.”— Isaiah 29:4.

This last scripture is so significant that the preceding verses should be considered with it. The 29th Chapter of Isaiah begins thus:

“Woe unto Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt …, Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow: and it shall be unto me as Ariel.

“And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.”

Then follows the gem about speaking out of the ground after being “brought low.” This scripture is very obscure, yet it seems to be comparing the destruction of the people whose voice would speak from the dust, with the woeful distress of the people in the city where David dwelt.

KING BUILDS TOWERS

Josephus has written of the mounts and forts that were raised during the siege of Jerusalem:

“Now the king of Babylon erected towers upon great banks of earth, and from them repelled those that stood upon the walls. He also made a great number of such banks round about the whole city, whose height was equal to those walls.”

This same text infers that those who would speak from the dust would meet a similar fate. It is a striking coincidence that recent scientists have found evidence that in the region where the plates of the Book of Mormon were found, ancient fortifications had been erected by a superior people who were evidently destroyed by the ancestors of the American Indians. A few quotations from this vast array of testimony will suffice to establish this claim.

One historian has written of the remains of ancient defences in western New York and the mysterious people who erected them:

UNABLE TO ASSIST

“We are surrounded by evidences that a race preceded them (the Indians), farther advanced in civilization and the arts, and far more numerous. Here and there upon the brows of our hills, at the head of our ravines, are their fortifications; their locations selected with skill, adapted to refuge, subsistence and defense. The uprooted trees of our forest, that are the growth of centuries, expose their mouldering remains; the uncovered mounds reveal masses of their skeletons promiscuously heaped one upon the other, as if they were gathered and hurriedly entombed.

“In our valleys, upon our hillsides, the plough and the spade discover their rude implements, adapted to war, the chase and domestic use. All these are dumb yet eloquent chronicles of bygone ages. We ask the red man to tell us from whence they came and whither they went, and he either amuses us with wild and extravagant traditionary legends or acknowledges himself as ignorant as his interrogators. He and his progenitors have gazed upon these ancient relics for centuries, as we do now —wondered and consulted their wise men, and yet he is unable to aid our inquiries. We invoke the aid of revelation, turn over the pages of history, trace the origin and dispersion of the races of mankind from the earliest period of the world’s existence, and yet we gather only enough to form the basis of vague surmise and conjecture.

RELICS NUMEROUS

“There is perhaps no part of the United States where ancient relics are so numerous. Probably the ancient inhabitants, being assailed by an invading enemy, made this a refuge in a war of extermination, fortified the commanding eminences, met the shock of a final issue; were subject to its adverse results. The evidence that this was one at least of their final battle grounds, predominates. They are the fortifications, entrenchments and warlike instruments, which would indicate that there was a war of extermination.

“We are prone to speak of ourselves as the inhabitants of a new world, and yet we are confronted with such evidences of antiquity! We clear away the forests and speak familiarly of subdueing a ‘virgin forest’—and yet the plough upturns the skulls of those whose history is lost! We say that Columbus discovered a new world. Why not that he helped to make the two old ones acquainted with each other?’’

“I have seen several of these works in the western part of this state … These forts were erected on the most commanding ground. The walls or breastworks were earthen. The ditches were on the exterior of the works. On some of the parapets, oak trees were to be seen, which, from the number of concentric circles, must have been standing 300 years; and there was evident indications, not only that they had sprung up since the erection of these works, but that they were at least a second growth …

“These fortifications have been generally considered as surpassing the skill, patience and industry of the Indian race, and various hypotheses have been advanced to prove them of European origin. ... I believe we may confidently pronounce that all the hypotheses which attribute those works to Europeans are incorrect and fanciful—first, on account of the present number of the works: secondly, on account of their antiquity; having, from every appearance, been erected a long time before the discovery of America; and finally, their form and manner are totally variant from European fortifications, either in ancient or modern time. It is equally clear that they were not the work of Indans …

“The great law of self preservation, compelled them to stand on their defence, to resist these ruthless invaders, and to construct numerous and extensive works for protection. And for a long series of time the scale of victory was suspended in doubt, and they firmly withstood the torrent; but, like the Romans in the decline of their empire, they were finally worn down and destroyed by successive inroads and renewed attacks. And the fortifications of which we have treated are the only remaining monuments of these ancient and exterminated nations …

STATED BEFORE TRANSLATION

"What has become of these ancient people? And why have we no history of such a nation as must have inhabited this part of the world? Probably if a knowledge of these ancient people is ever obtained, it will be derived from inscriptions on stone or metal which have withstood the rust of time."—O. Turner. “Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York,” pp. 19-26.

This statement was made only a decade before the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and told him about the gold plates on which was inscribed the history of America’s early inhabitants.

Just one month before the contract was signed for the publication of the Book of Mormon, the following was printed on the same press which later published this divine record of the slumbering nations of antiquity:

GAP IN HISTORY

“In relation to the civilized people who once inhabited this country … and whose fate remains involved in mystery and obscurity, probably nothing definite will ever be known. There appears to be a gap in the history of the world, so far as relates to them, which can never be filled … True, we may conjecture what and who they were:—we may picture them in our minds as a flourishing and mighty nation, possessing the advantages and blessings of civil and religious liberty; powerful in wealth and natural resources; combining moral and political excellence, and seated upon the pinnacle of national prosperity and glory—and we may suppose that some dreadful plague swept them from the face of the earth; or perhaps, like Sodom and Gomorrah of old, their national sins became so heinous, that the Almighty in His wrath utterly annihilated them:—but after all, our conjectures cannot lead us to any satisfactory results.

“Who they were, from whence they sprung, and what was their destiny, remains locked up in the womb of the past, one of those events which defy human ken or human examination … The origin, the history, the destiny of that people, together v,ith the cause of their extinction is … consigned to the receptacle of things forever lost upon the earth.”—“The Wayne Sentinel," June 24th, 1829.

To the thousands who accept the Book of Mormon as a divine record, this profound mystery has been solved. To them “voices speak from the dust,” answering this and many other perplexing problems relating to the American Indians.