Chapter XXI: Foreword (1)

The following brief discussion on the Book of Mormon, while very limited in its scope, will doubtless be of interest as illustrating the manner in which answer can be made to objections urged against the American scriptures on the ground of imperfections in grammar, modern phraseology, New York localisms, apparent transcripts from King James' translation from the Bible, etc. Also the discussion may indicate how helpless one would be in defending the Book of Mormon from such criticism as is made in "M's" papers, in the absence of such a theory of translation as is set forth in the Young Men's Improvement Manual and in the series of papers preceding this brief discussion.

The writer disclaims having issued a "challenge to the world," or to anybody in it, to debate the question of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon in his remarks in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on the 8th of November, 1903, or at any other time. The remarks on that occasion merely dealt with what the writer considers a prophetic page in the Book of Mormon, page 122 of the current edition, and which is as follows:

II NEPHI.

"2. For behold, I say unto you, That as many of the Gentiles as
will repent, are the covenant people of the Lord; and as many
of the Jews as will not repent, shall be cast off; for the Lord
covenanteth with none, save it be with them that repent and believe
in his Son, who is the Holy One of Israel.

"3. And now, I would prophecy somewhat more concerning the Jews and
the Gentiles. For after the book of which I have spoken shall come
forth, and be written unto the Gentiles, and sealed up again unto
the Lord, there shall be many which shall believe the words which
are written; and they shall carry them forth unto the remnant of
our seed.

"4. And then shall the remnant of our seed know concerning us, how
that we came out from Jerusalem, and that they are descendants of
the Jews.

"5. And the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them;
wherefore, they shall be restored unto the knowledge of their
fathers, and also to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had
among their fathers.

"6. And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is
a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of
darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations
shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and
delightsome people.

"7. And it shall come to pass that the Jews which are scattered,
also shall begin to believe in Christ; and they shall begin to
gather in upon the face of the land; and as many as shall believe
in Christ, shall also become a delightsome people.

"8. And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall commence his
work, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring
about the restoration of his people upon the earth.

"9. And with righteousness shall the Lord God judge the poor, and
reprove with equity, for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite
the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his
lips shall he slay the wicked;

"10. For the time speedily cometh, that the Lord God shall cause a
great division among the people; and the wicked will he destroy;
and he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must
destroy the wicked by fire.

"11. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of his reins.

"12. And then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, and the [End of
page]."

Here on this one page are at least five very striking prophecies:

1. Many shall believe the Book of Mormon: a thing which seemed most improbable when the book was in course of publication.

2. They will carry it to the Lamanites--American Indians;

3. The Lamanites by that means will hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, come to a knowledge of their fathers, will rejoice in the truth, and finally become a delightsome people;

4. The Jews, after the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, will begin to believe in Christ, and begin to gather to the lands of their fathers--Palestine.

5. The work of the Lord on the coming forth of the Book of Mormon will begin among all nations, in order to bring to pass the restoration of Israel in the earth.[A]

[Footnote A: These prophecies and their fulfillment are considered at length in the Y. M. M I. A. Manual for the year 1904-6, No. 9; which treatise will also be found in the writer's "New Witness for God," Vol. II, now soon to go to press.]

In the discourse which treated of this "prophetic page" the writer expressed the opinion that these prophecies and their direct and remarkable fulfillment could not be accounted for on any other hypothesis than that the writer of them was inspired of God. And this was construed into the "Challenge to the World" referred to in the following papers. If the writer's remarks could fairly be considered as a challenge, then surely these prophecies and the question of their fulfillment should have been the main subject of discussion; but consideration of them forms scarcely any part of the debate which follows, they are almost ignored, and quite other questions are the subject of the debate; for which however, the writer is in no way responsible.

I.

The Objector's First Paper.

(_Salt Lake City Tribune,_ Nov. 22, 1903.)

_Editor Tribune_:--According to the newspaper reports, Elder B. H. Roberts, in his Tabernacle address Sunday, November 8th, threw out a sweeping challenge to the world to show that the Book of Mormon is not of divine origin and authority.

Since Elder Roberts, on the occasion above referred to, confined his attention mainly to the writings of the alleged Prophet Nephi, we will do the same. Now the following are some of the difficulties Elder Roberts will have to explain before he can make any headway toward setting aside the intelligent belief of the American people generally that the Book of Mormon in general and the books of Nephi in particular are fictitious books:

THE "PROPHET" NEPHI.

1. The alleged Prophet Nephi claims to have lived and written between 500 and 600 B.C. For he tells us in chapter 1 and 10 of the first book that his father was living in Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which reign began not far from 600 B.C. This professed prophet Nephi pretends to give a summary of the records made by his father Lehi, about that date, and also "an account of my proceedings in my days." Now the first difficulty for Elder Roberts to remove is this: How could a writer, claiming to live at that time, make repeated quotations from the writings of Christ's Apostles, who were not born until nearly 600 years after the time when Nephi wrote? Yet this pretended prophet Nephi quotes passage after passage from the writings of Christ's apostles Matthew and John and Paul, and also from the writings of the evangelist Luke, and from the words of the Apostle Peter, which Christian writers were born about the beginning of the Christian era. Just take two or three examples of Nephi's quotations, made at least 500 years before the writers were born from whom he quotes: In I Nephi 10:8, we read these words, so familiar to English Bible readers: "Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." This is a direct quotation from the gospel of John 1:26-7, and also from Matthew 3:1.

On the same page in Nephi are several quotations from the writings of Paul, in the 11th of Romans, about the olive tree, and the "branches broken off," with others "grafted in." In I Nephi iii:20 we find the expression, "which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets * * * since the world began." These are the words of Peter as recorded by Luke in Acts iii:21. The above is an illustration of the way in which this alleged Prophet Nephi quotes from the writers of the New Testament. This is fraud No. 1, exposing the false claims of Nephi, who pretends to write between 500 and 600 years B.C. and yet quotes from the New Testament writers who were not born until over 500 years later. The Old Testament prophets were genuine. They did, by the help of God, foretell many important future events. But none of them pretended to be able, either by the help of God, or their own agility, to quote passage after passage from writings that did not exist, and from authors that had not been born. It remained for the favorite prophet of Elder B. H. Roberts, the robust and agile Nephi, to perform this feat, beyond the reach of God's genuine prophets.

QUOTES FROM SHAKESPEARE.

2. This alleged Prophet Nephi, pretending to write between 500 and 600 B.C., actually quotes from Shakespeare! This beats the genuine prophets of the Old Testament even worse than before, and shows that, on a prophetic long jump, this elastic Nephi could easily take the cake. In II Nephi i:14, he is writing down the words of his father Lehi, and represents him as saying, "hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent gave, from whence no traveler can return."

Every reader of Shakespeare will recognize the last phrase as taken, in substance, from a sentence in Hamlet's soliloquy. This great Prophet Nephi (writing, be it remembered, between 500 and 600 B.C.) had probably loaned his copy of Shakespeare to a neighbor and attempted to quote from memory, getting about as near the original as the average Mormon prophet generally does, for example, when attempting to quote the scriptures from memory. Here is fraud No. 2 perpetrated by this pretended prophet Nephi, from which Elder Roberts must vindicate his hero, or else leave us to conclude, as facts seem to show, that the writer of these books of Nephi was quite a modern deceiver.

3. This brings us to another serious difficulty which we ask Elder Roberts to elucidate before we can accept his theory that Nephi was a prophet of God, and that the book of Mormon is a divine revelation. This alleged Prophet Nephi, professing to write between 500 and 600 B.C., quotes many long passages from a book which did not come into existence until the seventeenth century of the Christian era. We refer to the King James English version of the Bible, which was first published in 1611 A. D. Now, perhaps Elder Roberts can tell us how this fellow Nephi, pretending to write in the sixth century before Christ, could quote hundreds of passages, about three hundred, from the New Testament alone, and whole chapters from our English version of the Bible, which did not come into existence for more than 2000 years after he wrote!

This stuffed Prophet Nephi gives himself completely away in the very first chapter, and shows that he is a very modern writer by using such well-known expressions as these from our English Bible: "Pillar of fire," Exodus xiv:24; "Filled with the spirit," Ephesians v:18; "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty," Revelation xv:3. These hundreds of passages, and these whole chapters in II Nephi and elsewhere, from our English Bible, be it observed, are quoted not from the original, which would not help the matter, for the original of the New Testament did not exist; but they are quoted from the English translation of 1611, mistakes and all, even to the filling in of the peculiar gaps in the way suggested by the English translators.

Now, these hundreds of verbatim quotations, and these whole chapters from our English Bible, which claim to be quoted over 2000 years before it was written, should make it quite clear, even to the average mind, that this pretended Nephi instead of being an ancient prophet was a very modern one, a pious deceiver and falsifier, living about 1829 of our era. But, perhaps, Elder Roberts can explain it all, and show us how this modern deceiver in the nineteenth century was an ancient prophet of God 600 B.C.

GIVES HIMSELF AWAY.

4. This alleged Prophet Nephi gives himself away even worse in the 31st chapter of the second book by forgetting that he was pretending to write in the sixth century before Christ and treating the baptism of Christ as actual history, which it really was. He not only refers to it in the past tense, but actually indulges in a regular camp-meeting exhortation to the "brethren," exhorting them, in accordance with the revival style of 1828, to "repent of their sins," and "follow their Lord and Savior down into the water," promising that after that they shall have "the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost."

This is deception No. 4, and shows that Sidney Rigdon Nephi, in 1828, forgetting that he was an ancient prophet living six centuries before Christ, broke loose in his regular old camp-meeting style, and just "whooped up" the brethren, without his deceiver's mask. Nephi, a divinely inspired prophet of God! Holy Moses, preserve us! If Nephi, with the above record, or the godless fellow who personated him, deserves honor as a prophet, then great injustice was done to Boss Tweed in not electing him President of the American Bible Society. For clearly he had more religion than this alleged Prophet Nephi with his conscienceless deception in connection with sacred things.

Come, Brother Roberts, if you can't back up that other alleged prophet, Joseph Smith, with something more substantial, something less imaginary and fictitious than these pretended prophetic writings of Nephi, from which we have been quoting, then you better drop Nephi as a prophet and fall back on Coriantumr, Shiz or Robinson Crusoe.

WHAT IS NEW IN IT?

5. If the Book of Mormon, as Elder Roberts claims, is a revelation from God, what moral or religious truth does it reveal which we did not know before? Not one item. If Elder Roberts will point me to one solitary item of moral or spiritual truth in the whole Book of Mormon which it did not take, directly or indirectly, from the Bible, I will present him with a five-dollar Stetson hat. I know it cannot be done, for it has been attempted in vain again and again. What sense is there in calling the Book of Mormon a revelation from God, when it took from the Bible the only moral truth it contains, and is shown on its face to be a counterfeit book?

Now, a few words about the pretended prophecies of the wonderful Nephi, which Elder Roberts claims have been fulfilled. Here is the way in which prophecies are made and fulfilled in the Book of Mormon: It either takes the historic record in the New Testament, using the very words of Scripture, tries to push this history back hundreds of years and then falsely claims it to be prophetic; or else it deliberately appropriates the genuine prophecies of the Old Testament. Then, after mutilating these prophecies more or less, with its peculiar Sidney Rigdon phraseology and most abominable grammar, it attempts to palm off these prophecies as original! The prophecy about the restoration of the Jews to their own land, which Elder Roberts quotes from second Nephi, and thinks is so wonderful, is simply a case of downright plagiarism. The conversion of the Jews and their restoration to their own land is repeatedly foretold by the Old Testament prophets, in such passages as Jeremiah xxx:3; Ezekiel xxxvii:21; Amos ix:15, and others. Yet the writer of this book of Nephi does not hesitate to take these prophecies from the Bible, modify their language, and then try to palm them off as his own.

As for the two pretended prophecies referred to by Mr. Roberts, in II Nephi xxx:3, that "Many shall believe the words which are written," and that "They shall carry them forth to the remnant of our seed," the first is not a prophecy at all, but the simple statement of a well-known historical fact, yet perverted by the attempt to make it bolster up this modern book. In saying that it is the statement of a historical fact, we mean this: The Book of Mormon, as shown above, is made up of hundreds upon hundreds of Bible phrases and verses, and many whole chapters taken from our English Bible. As a matter of course, these Bible quotations which form such a large per cent of the Book of Mormon, are accepted and believed by the 400 millions who make up Christendom.

The other passage Mr. Roberts misreads and misinterprets by making "the remnant of our seed" refer to the Lamanites. Then he assumes, without one item of proof, that the Lamanites are the same as our Indians. According to Nephi, the Lamanites were the descendants of his brother Laman, and were consequently Jews, for Laman was a Jew. Now Ridpath, the American historian, in the second paragraph of his history of the United States, sums up the evidence concerning the connection between the Indians and the Jews in this one sentence: "The notion that the Indians are descendants of the Israelites is absurd."

Furthermore, the writer of the book of Nephi jumbles up his own history and contradicts himself in appearing to make "the remnant of our seed" refer to the Lamanites, as in 2 Nephi xxx:6. Nephi writes as a Jew, and his seed or the "remnant" of it, will inevitably be Jews and Nephites, and not Lamanites. The latter descended from Laman and not from Nephi, and hence could not be the "remnant" of Nephi.

But what is the use of talking seriously about the Nephites and the Lamanites when no such people ever existed in this country except in the wild imagination of the writer of a piece of fictitious stuff, out of which this Book of Mormon was manufactured. The Nephites and Lamanites never had one whit more reality than the peculiar inhabitants of the famous island of Lilliput, as described by that model Mormon historian, Lemuel Gulliver, whom Dean Swift portrays.

NOT AN ANCIENT BOOK.

Abundant proof has been given above that the Book of Mormon is not an ancient, but a very modern book, and not only a modern book, but a modern imposition by pretending to be an ancient book and revelation from God, when it reveals nothing in the way of moral truth which it did not steal from the Bible.

We are sorry to see a man of Mr. Roberts' ability fooling away his time and thought in the useless attempt to bolster up as a divine revelation that which the intelligent reading millions of the American people are persuaded is fabrication. If the fact that 200,000 people, more or less, believe in the Book of Mormon, proves that a false book is a true one, then Mrs. Eddy's book far outranks the Book of Mormon in merit, for her 'book has a million supporters. But Mr. Roberts is correct in one statement, namely: that if the Book of Mormon is a false book, then it would follow that "the great prophet of the Latter-day movement is a fraud." Well, if there is any one fact which is generally accepted and believed by the reading, thinking millions of this country, without regard to party or creed, it is that Joseph Smith was not a prophet. And they believe this because of the abundant and varied evidence in regard to his life and conduct.

If Mr. Roberts is really in earnest in desiring to know the actual origin of the Book of Mormon, the character of the men who manufactured it and the kind of pretenders they were, socially and morally, let him read the first eleven chapters of the "Origin and Progress of Mormonism," by that well-informed and reliable historian, Pomeroy Tucker of Palmyra, New York. He was well acquainted with Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and other Mormon leaders of that early time, and was for a dozen years near neighbor to the founder of Mormonism and all his family. Mr. Tucker was the editor and proprietor of the Wayne Sentinel, on whose press the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed, Mr. Tucker himself correcting the proof sheets. His book was published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, in 1867. Mr. Tucker sets forth the character of the false prophet and those associated with the latter at that time from personal acquaintance and knowledge, and his book has been generally accepted as thoroughly honest and reliable.

THE DILEMMA.

Now if Mr. Roberts can read the facts as set forth in Mr. Tucker's book, which have been confirmed by scores of reliable witnesses also acquainted with the facts, and still stand up in public and declare it to be his belief that Nephi was a prophet of God and the Book of Mormon is a revelation from God, he will force the general public to conclude rather that he is not a sincere man, or else that his peculiar training prevents him from distinguishing between true reasoning and false, between facts and fiction, between honesty and fraud, between true revelation and that which is counterfeit. Because the facts in Mr. Tucker's book, confirmed by scores of witnesses of worthy character, have been amply sufficient to convince the reading, thinking, truth-loving millions of the American people generally that the Book of Mormon is fiction in pretending that a part of it was written 2400 and the rest 1500 years ago, when the proof that it is a modern book is shown on almost every page. The facts in Mr. Tucker's book have also convinced the American people generally that the alleged prophet was not a prophet.

The above has been written with entire good will, in the interests of truth and historic facts. And when Mr. Roberts squarely meets the above difficulties, contradictions and absurdities in the Book of Mormon, not by wordy evasion and logical hair-splitting, however ingenious, but in a way that shall be satisfactory not only to his own mind but also to intelligent, reasoning, truth-loving minds generally, then perhaps he will be entitled to issue another sweeping challenge in behalf of a book which the American people generally, without regard to party or creed, believe to be a fabrication._M_.

Salt Lake City, November 18, 1903.

II.

The First Reply.

(_Salt Lake Tribune,_ Nov. 29, 1903.)

_Editor Tribune:_--If any words of mine in the remarks made in the Tabernacle on the 8th of November could be construed into a "challenge" to a public discussion of the Book of Mormon--as the writers of headlines on some of the morning papers seem to think they could be--when the challenge was accepted, the courtesy of debate would certainly require that the acceptance of the challenge should be otherwise than from ambush. I mean that I am entitled to know the name of my opponent, that I may judge somewhat of his character and standing. And why should the gentleman remain in cog? Is he ashamed to be known as engaging in such a discussion? Or is it a precaution he takes so that if his argument does not rise to the expectation of his friends, he may remain unknown behind the mystery of a single initial. If the first supposition be true, it is a difficulty he could easily have avoided; if the second suggestion be the true reason for his remaining unknown, he is to be commended for his cunning. I need say nothing of his courage.

When on Saturday my attention was called to the editorial announcement that the alleged "challenge" had been accepted, and an article against the Book of Mormon would appear in _The Tribune's_ Sunday issue, I remarked to a friend that I thought I could write an answer to the much heralded article without seeing it; and when on Sunday I read the Unknown's production I felt I had not been over-confident in the assertion, so closely has he followed in the well-beaten, not to say worn out, path of anti-Mormon argument. What a world of trouble Alexander Campbell would have saved many inferior disputants had he only stereotyped the objections he urged against the Book of Mormon in 1831! They then could have pointed to his utterances and said: "Them's my arguments." For from the days of Mr. Campbell until now, anti-Mormon geniuses have but rehashed the great man's arguments, with a uniform decadence in their strength, in proportion to the distance in time from which they are removed from him who first fashioned them. But now to the Unknown's "arguments."

THE TIME OF WRITING.

1. The Unknown states the fact that Nephi wrote between 600 and 500 B.C. and then presents what he calls the first difficulty that I am to overcome. "How can a writer," he asks, "claiming to live at that time make repeated quotations from the writings of Christ's Apostles who were not born until 600 years after the time when Nephi wrote?" He then charges that Nephi quotes "passage after passage" from the writings of Christ's apostles, Matthew, John, Paul, Luke, Peter, etc.; and gives what he calls just "two or three examples" of such quotations. The gentleman very much overstates the difficulty he presents, by making it appear that the alleged quotations are very numerous, when the fact is that the two or three cases he cites virtually exhaust the alleged quoted passages so far as the New Testament is concerned. In order that your readers may see how flimsy the charge here made is, I set down the quotations in question. (a) Nephi, describing his father's vision of the future coming of the Messiah, says: "And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord; yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing." To make this appear as a plagiarism from the New Testament the Unknown puts together two passages: (1) "I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who, coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose," (John i:26, 27). (2) "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea" (Matthew iii). Of course, the story of the man who said he could prove that the Bible commanded every one to hang himself may be commonplace; but it illustrates the methods of the Unknown in making out his case of plagiarism. The proof was supplied in this way: He quoted the passage, "and Judas went out and hanged himself." Then from another passage, from another book, he quoted these words, "Go thou and do likewise." It must be remembered that the Nephites carried with them into the wilderness the Jewish scriptures, and Lehi was doubtless familiar with the prediction of Isaiah concerning this same prophet that should go before our Lord to prepare the way before him, translated in our English version as follows: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert an highway for our God." (Isaiah xl:3.) Is it more remarkable that the Lord should reveal to Lehi what the voice in the wilderness should cry than that he should reveal it to Isaiah? With reference to the Unknown's charge that on the same page quoted above, Nephi makes "several quotations from the writings of Paul in the xi. of Romans, about the 'olive tree,' and the 'branches broken off, with others grafted in,'" etc., the gentleman, if acquainted with the prophets of Israel ought to know that this simile is not original with Paul; but that the ancient prophets used it in illustration of Israel and the judgments that should come upon the people. Moreover, in addition to our books of Jewish scriptures the Nephites had some of the writings of the other prophets of Israel, notably the book of Zenos, in which was given at great length this simile of the tame olive tree and the branches being broken off and others grafted in, etc., from which book, unquestionably, Nephi obtained his ideas.

QUOTATION FROM PETER.

The Unknown charges that Nephi quoted from the words of Peter, which I give here, followed by the passage from Nephi. Peter: "Whom the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Nephi: "Behold, it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; and also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto the present time." The omissions that are made in order to bring words together to establish the charge of plagiarism, will exhibit to what straits the Unknown is driven to make out his case.

One other thing the Unknown seems to have overlooked, viz., that the Book of Mormon is a translation of the ideas and prophecies of men deriving their knowledge concerning the Messiah and things associated with his life either from the old Jewish scriptures, which were in their possession, or from the revelations of God direct to them; and that the translator, Joseph Smith, being more or less familiar with New Testament and Old Testament expressions, in making the translation, at times used Bible phraseology in representing ideas akin to those found in Jewish scriptures. See also my remarks under heading No. 3, where this defense is more fully stated.

THE SHAKESPEAREAN QUOTATION.

2. The Unknown fairly revels in the thought that he has Lehi quoting Shakespeare many generations before our great English poet was born; and indulges in the sarcasms which Campbell and more than a score of anti-Mormon writers have indulged in who have mimicked his phraseology. Now the fact is there are two passages in Job which could easily have supplied both Shakespeare and Lehi with the idea of that country "from whose bourn no traveler returns." That this may appear I give the passages from Shakespeare, Job and Lehi. It should be remembered always that the Nephites had the Jewish scriptures with them, including the book of Job; hence Lehi could have obtained his idea from the same source whence Shakespeare obtained his.

_Shakespeare:_ "That undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."

_Job:_ "Let me alone that I may take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death." (Job x:20, 21.) "When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return." (Job xvi:22.)

Lehi: "Hear the words of a parent whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave from whence no traveler can return."

It will be observed that the passage from the Book of Mormon follows Job more closely than it does Shakespeare both in thought and diction; and this for the reason, doubtless, that Lehi had been impressed with Job's idea of going to the land whence he would not return, and Joseph Smith, being familiar with Job, and very likely not familiar with Shakespeare, when he came to Lehi's thought, expressed it nearly in Job's phraseology.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT.

3. The Unknown asks me again how it is that Nephi, living in the sixth century B.C., can quote numerous passages, about "three hundred from the New Testament alone, and whole chapters from our English version of the Bible, which did not come into existence for more than 2,000 years after he wrote." When the Unknown says that there are three hundred quotations from the New Testament alone in the writings of Nephi, if he meant that, he simply makes a colossal misrepresentation, for there is no such number of passages in Nephi from the New Testament alone, nor, in fact, in the whole Book of Mormon. But as I think he must have meant this assertion to apply to the whole Book of Mormon, I will take no advantage of his misstatement as to confining that number to Nephi, but will meet the larger question as to all these passages in the Book of Mormon which parallel passages in both the Old and New Testament. Because Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by means of the inspiration of God and the aid of the Urim and Thummim, it is generally supposed that this translation occasioned the Prophet no mental or spiritual effort, that it was purely mechanical; in fact, that the instrument did all and the Prophet nothing, than which a greater mistake could not be made. All the circumstances connected with the work of translation clearly prove that it caused the Prophet the utmost exertion, mental and spiritual, of which he was capable, and that while he obtained the facts and ideas from the Nephite characters, he was left to express those ideas in such language as he was master of. This, it is conceded, was faulty; hence here and there verbal defects in the English translation of the Nephite record. Now when the Prophet perceived from the Nephite records that Isaiah was being quoted; or when the Savior was represented as giving instructions in doctrine and moral precepts of the same general character as those given in Judea, Joseph Smith undoubtedly turned to those parts of the Bible where he found a translation substantially correct, of those things which were referred to in the Nephite records, and adopted so much of that translation as expressed the truths common to both records; and since our English version of the Jewish scriptures was the one the Prophet used in such instances, we have the Bible phraseology of which the Unknown complains, and of which this, in the judgment of the writer, is the adequate explanation to all of that class of his objections.

4. What the Unknown describes as Nephi giving himself away is based on my unknown friend's inability to comprehend a very simple fact. He says that in the 31st chapter of the second book of Nephi, the writer, forgetting that he was pretending to write in the sixth century B.C., treats the baptism of Christ as actual history. That is, he holds, the writer changes from prophecy to narrative. The fact is that some time previous to this (see I Nephi, chapter 11) the baptism of Jesus had been shown in vision to Nephi, hence to him had become as an accomplished fact, after which, according to this chapter quoted by the Unknown, the voice of the Son of God (then a pre-existent Spirit) came unto Nephi, saying "He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me (i. e., in vision) do." Now Nephi, with this in mind, points out to his brothers in the next verse how, by following their Lord and Savior down into the water, "according to his word" (i. e., given previously in Nephi's vision) promises them that they shall then receive the Holy Ghost. All of which considerations demonstrate that the gentleman has not understood the chapter over which he grows vulgarly hilarious by such expressions as "whooped up," "Holy Moses, preserve us!" and his reference to "Boss Tweed."

NO NEW TRUTH

5. The next charge of the Unknown is that the Book of Mormon makes known no moral or religious truth, no "not one item," and then the gentleman resorts to a thing which to say the least of it looks strangely out of place in a discussion of this description, and reminds one of the methods of a low order of politicians, who, when unable to maintain their part of a controversy by reason, arrogantly offer a bet, usually at large odds, that their side will prevail; and if the wager for any cause be not taken, with turkey-cock pride they strut about, as if they had demonstrated the truth of their contention. Now I do not know what our Unknown friend would regard as a spiritual or moral truth, but here is at least one that I commend to his consideration: "Fools mock, but they shall mourn." It is quite original to the Book of Mormon, as are the other quotations which follow, but I will not trouble the gentleman for his hat, even though it be a Stetson, as up to date I have been able to clothe my own head without an effort to win wagers or prizes. Whoever the Unknown may be it stands out pretty clearly from his article that he is not familiar with great moral and religious questions. He seems not to be aware that the Jews for many ages have been asking this same question of the Christian, i. e., they demand to know what moral and religious truth Jesus taught the world that was not already taught by Jewish rabbis; and no later than in the October number of the _Open Court,_ a famous rabbi parallels the choicest moral aphorisms of Christ's teachings with quotations from the Talmud; while there has not arisen within the last two centuries an anti-Christian disputant, but who makes the same claims in behalf of the moral and spiritual teachings of Buddha; and not only do they claim that Christ's moral truths were borrowed from more ancient teachers, but that the principal events of his life also, from his birth of a virgin to his resurrection as a God, were stolen from myths concerning Old World heroes and teachings. When Messiah came to the New World, he had the same announcements to make concerning himself, and his relations to the world; the same ethical and spiritual doctrines to teach; and as he had been accustomed to state these doctrines in brief, aphoristic sentences while in Judea, it is not strange that the same things were given to the Nephites, in their language, much in the same order; which Joseph Smith, observing, and finding these truths substantially stated in our English Bible, adopted, where he could do so consistently, the language of that book. Still there are certain statements of moral and spiritual ideas that the Unknown will find it difficult to parallel from the Bible, a few examples of which I here give: "Wickedness never was happiness." "The Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." "I give unto men weaknesses that they may be humble, and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me." Then let the gentleman take into consideration the exclusiveness of the Jews, and of the Christians also, for matter of that, and then contemplate the following passage which breathes such a spirit of universal charity and joins the hands of all the great moral teachers among all nations into one splendid brotherhood: "The Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word; yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true." Then let the Unknown parallel from the Bible the following great spiritual truth from the Book of Mormon: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy." A sentence which tells, as it is told nowhere else, the purpose of man's existence. The limits of this article preclude the mention of historical and doctrinal truths which the Book of Mormon makes known to the world. Also, consideration of the gentleman's efforts to explain away the existence and force of the prophecies in the Book of Mormon to which I alluded in my Tabernacle discourse, and which may be found at page 122 of the current edition of the Book of Mormon. I esteem what he has there said of so little importance that I shall pass it without comment as its weakness and inaccuracy will be apparent to all who read it. Indeed at this point the gentleman makes it quite clear that he is not familiar with the book he attempts to criticise. In trying to make it appear that Nephi "jumbles up his own history and contradicts himself" the Unknown astonishes us with the statement that Nephi was a Jew, and learnedly tells us that his seed or the remnant of it will inevitably be Jews and Nephites and not Lamanites, and hence the prophecies concerning the Lamanites could not apply to the remnant of Nephi's seed. As a matter of fact Lehi, and hence all of his sons, were of the tribe of Manasseh, and Nephi was speaking with reference to both his own and his brother Laman's descendants of whom the Indians are the remnant. When I reached this part of the gentleman's production I thought I was not only entitled to know who it was I was to meet in discussion, but also to have an opponent who at least was acquainted with the subject.

AS TO "SORROW."

A word as to the "sorrow" which the gentleman experiences when he sees a man of my "ability" (shades of flattery, leave us!) "fooling away his time and thought in the useless attempt to bolster up as a divine revelation that which the intelligent millions of the American people are persuaded is fabrication!" What a jewel was lost to the anti-Christians of the first or second century by the Unknown being born in the nineteenth, instead of the first century! What an eloquent appeal he could have made, for instance, to the misguided Paul, who wasted his thought and time in an effort (I will not say useless one) to bolster up such a delusion as the Christian religion was at that time thought to be! A delusion which the intelligent millions of civilized Rome regarded as the vilest of all deceptions. Again, how ostentatiously the Unknown could have said to Paul, if the latter was really in earnest to know the character of the men who originated this Christian delusion, that he could learn it from some of the historical facts and the accepted rumors current at that time about Messiah and his immediate followers. From such sources he could have learned that Christ was a blasphemer, a disturber of the peace, a menace to the authority of Rome, the consort of vile Galilean peasants, an associate and sympathizer with women of questionable reputation, and who, at last, for the peace and good order of the community in which he lived, was duly crucified between two thieves. He was buried and his sepulcher guarded, but his vile associates bribed the soldier guards, stole his body, and then gave it out that he was risen from the dead; and on these falsehoods arose the fabric known as the Christian church! There would be no resisting such an appeal as this if only some one had arisen with the intelligence to have advanced it. Undoubtedly Paul would have ceased his labors, and perhaps Christianity itself would not have survived such an attack, and hence many anti-Christians may regret that this Unknown gentleman did not live in the period when his services would have been so effective. But since the Unknown, through no fault of his, however, missed his opportunity in that age, he exerts his abilities in this, and appealingly says to me, if I would know the real "truth about the Book of Mormon, and the character of the men who manufactured it," I should read the "'Origin and Progress of Mormonism,' by that well-informed and reliable historian, Pomroy Tucker!" Shades of primer days, not to say days of the bib and rattle! After nearly a century of existence, despite the efforts of its enemies to destroy it, after surviving as Mormonism has all the floods of falsehood and absurdity hurled upon it, are we now to turn back to what Pomroy Tucker has said in order to get the "exact truth" concerning Mormonism and the character of the men who brought it forth? I must inform the Unknown, whatever he may think of me, that I must suppose myself utterly incorrigible, for I have read Pomroy Tucker years ago, and also recently, and if he will call on me I will point out to him several score of other anti-Mormon writers I have read, of like ilk with Tucker, and yet I am not reclaimed. Deliberately and proudly, I take my stand with the people whom these writers have maligned, and whose doctrines and history they misrepresent, and announce my absolute faith--notwithstanding even the argument of the Unknown--in the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Respectfully, B.H. ROBERTS.

Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 27, 1903.

III.

The Objector's Second Paper Against the Book of Mormon.

_(Salt Lake Tribune,_ Dec. 6, 1903.)

_Editor Tribune:--_In reply to my article in _The Tribune_ of November 22nd, pointing out, in response to his public challenge, some of the great difficulties in the way of accepting Nephi as an ancient prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon as an ancient revelation from God, Elder Roberts begins by finding fault with me for not writing over my full signature. But the reasons he intimates for my not doing so prove altogether too much, and hence, by a logical maxim, prove nothing. For they would prove that those great and high-minded statesmen, Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice John Jay, and James Madison, acted an unworthy part, and were lacking in courage because, for wise reasons, they conducted those masterly discussions which made up The Federalist, over an assumed name.

Then the sarcasms about the rehashing by more recent writers, of Alexander Campbell's arguments against the Book of Mormon, are "wasted on the desert air," so far as I am concerned, for I have never seen any article or treatise by Campbell on the subject. It would be quite easy to retort and say that if it were not for the writings of Orson Pratt, the more recent defenders of the Book of Mormon would be without ammunition. But that style of arguing amounts to nothing.

Elder Roberts' defense seems to raise new difficulties without really settling any, although it is ingenious and skillful. On general principles, there is no reason why I should not accept the writings of Nephi and the Book of Mormon as readily as my opponent, if they were true. But the reason why I do not, is because of the extent and variety of the evidence against them, only a few points of which can be discussed in a newspaper article. Since my main object is to establish truth, I wish to treat Elder Roberts and his argument in a fair and candid way.

Let us come now to the main proposition, which is twofold: Elder Roberts affirms that Nephi was a prophet of God, living and writing about 600 B.C.; and that the Book of Mormon is a divine revelation.

The evidence compels me to deny both of these propositions and to declare that neither of them is true. Now let us try to find some common ground on which we can stand. As such ground, I offer these two propositions in reference to books in general, which seem to me self-evident:

First, any book which professes to have been written in ancient times, and yet quotes from authors not born until centuries after, is a spurious book.

Second, any book which professes to be a divine revelation to the people of the present time, and yet reveals nothing, which it did not appropriate from some other book or source of knowledge already in the possession of the people, is a spurious book.

I use the term "revelation" in its ordinary sense, as referring to divine truth. These are two propositions which I think people of all creeds can stand upon, for I think they contain nothing which is not self-evident. The differences of opinion will begin when we come to apply these two fundamental principles. Still, it is my opponent's privilege to dissent from these propositions, if he thinks they are not self-evident. But I think that careful, reasoning people generally, will accept them. Anyhow, I take my stand upon them and proceed to apply them.

THOSE QUOTATIONS.

1. As to the alleged Prophet Nephi. If it can be clearly shown that he quoted passage after passage from the New Testament writers, who were not born for centuries after he claims to have written, then the first fundamental principle is violated, and we have demonstrative evidence that Nephi was simply a pretender, and his writings are spurious.

In my former article I referred specially to three direct quotations by Nephi, from the New Testament writers, taken from Acts iii:21, John i:26-27, and Romans xi:17-24, and found in I Nephi iii:20, x:8, and x:12-14. I also, under discussion of the third point, referred to two other quotations from Ephesians v:18, and Revelations xv:3. It did not seem necessary to quote other passages, for I deemed these sufficient to establish the point.

The words in I Nephi x:8, "For there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" is a clear plagiarism from John i:26-27, which reads: "But there standeth one among you, whom ye know not, He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

The first part of Nephi x:8, is: "Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight." This is quoted from Matthew iii:3. The reference of Elder Roberts to Isaiah x:3, from which the thinks Nephi might have quoted, instead of from Matthew, is irrelevant, because, while the two passages are somewhat similar, the phraseology is different, and the careless Nephi failed to help my opponent out of the difficulty, for he quotes from Matthew and not from Isaiah, demonstrating what a smart fellow he was by quoting from an author that hadn't been born!

So Elder Roberts' reference to the fact that the olive tree is used figuratively by some of the Old Testament prophets is irrelevant, because Nephi quotes Paul's exact phrases, and does not quote from the prophets. Now, in reference to these quotations by Nephi from the New Testament writers, Elder Roberts says: "The gentleman very much overstates the difficulty he presents, by making it appear that the alleged quotations are very numerous, when the fact is that the two of three cases he cites virtually exhaust the alleged quoted passages so far as the New Testament is concerned."

I am not a little surprised at such a statement, as Elder Roberts rather prides himself on his knowledge of the Book Of Mormon, and in his article, near the close of his discussion of the fifth point, laments that he is obliged to carry on this discussion with an opponent who does not seem to be much acquainted with the subject. Well, my friend, I don't boast about my knowledge or superiority to other men; I don't assume "to know it all." But I think I know enough about the Book of Mormon to prevent me from making any such careless and utterly inaccurate statements as the above, "that the two or three cases he cites virtually exhaust the alleged quoted passages." Verily, I begin to wonder whether my friend has ever read the books of Nephi through! If he will now follow me for a little, perhaps he may learn something new about them. Let us see whether "two or three passages exhaust the quotations." In my former article I referred to five quotations from the New Testament writers. Let us go on with the count:

6. In Nephi v:18, the expression, "all nations, kindreds, tongues and people," is from Revelations xiv:6.

7. In Nephi x:17, the words, "by the power of the Holy Ghost," are from Romans xv:13.

8. "For he is the same, yesterday, today and forever," in Nephi x:18, is taken from Hebrews xiii:8.

9. The words, "caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," are from Acts vii:39.

10. In Nephi xi:21, "Behold the Lamb of God," is from John i:36.