Contributor, v5 1883-1884 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Religion

Vol. V. April, 1884. No. 7.

HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

The Contents of the Records.-VI.

LET us return to the year 123 B. C. At that time the Nephites in the land of Nephi were suffering sore afflictions at the hands of the Lamanites. In this extremity, Limhi, their king, sent a company of forty-three men, with instructions to discover, if possible, their brethren, in the land of Zarahemla, that peradventure they would bring them succor and deliverance. The expedition was unsuccessful, so far as its immediate object was concerned. The company missed the land of Zarahemla, pushed northward into Central America, and how far beyond we cannot tell. At last they discovered the remains of an ancient people who had apparently been destroyed in battle. Among other things they found twenty-four plates of gold, covered with engravings. This treasure, with some other relics of the vanished race, they took back to King Limhi. When, shortly after, this section of the Nephite people escaped from their Lamanite taskmasters and returned to Zarahemla, the twenty-four golden plates were presented to King Mosiah, the younger, and he being a seer, translated them by the aid of the Urim and Thummim, or, as described in the Book of Mormon, the interpreters, or "two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow."

These plates were found to contain the history of the world from the creation to the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, and then of the race whose remains had been found by the people of Limhi scattered on the land northward. This was, however, not the first intimation that the Nephites had of the existence of this extinct people; for in the days of the elder Mosiah a large engraved stone was brought to him that had been discovered by the people of Zarahemla. It gave a very brief account of this same race, but more particularly referred to its last ruler, named Coriantumr, which Coriantumr had himself been known to the Zarahemlaites, for he had, previous to his death, resided in their midst for nine months. This race is known to the readers of the Book of Mormon as

THE JAREDITES.

The history that we have of this remarkable people, as given in the Book of Mormon, is Moroni's abridgment of the record contained on the twenty-four plates of gold. It entirely passes over the earlier portions of the history, and commences with the dispersion of the human family when God confounded their language at the Tower of Babel. Interspersed with the narrative are many interpolations of Moroni's, in the shape of reflections, prophecies and explanatory remarks. As these additions or notes by the compiler are inserted in the body of the work, and not as foot notes, the reader of this abridgment has to use care in its perusal, or his ideas are apt to become confused, and he is troubled to account for statements, which become perfectly plain when it is understood they were written nearly four hundred years after the advent of the Holy Savior.

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