The proclamation of the knowledge which the Book of Mormon contains to all nations and peoples and tongues of the earth, is not an event which could have been foretold by human foresight, or shrewdness, in 1823, or even in 1834. The reception given up to that time to the Book of Mormon was anything but flattering. Only a very few people had received it. All the learned ridiculed it; the Christians mocked and rejected it because it was a new revelation. It will be remembered that it was the universal belief of Christians that the volume of revelation was completed and forever closed; and hence anything that claimed to be a new revelation was summarily rejected. In the face of all these circumstances it required more than mere human foresight on the part of a few obscure and persecuted followers of Joseph Smith to see that the time would come when proclamation of the knowledge contained in the Book of Mormon would be made in all the nations and tongues of the earth.
Second, The work of the Lord will meet opposition, but it will increase the more it is opposed and spread farther and farther. The reader already knows that from its inception the work of the Lord in the new dispensation met with the most violent opposition. Only the year before Oliver Cowdery published this prophecy under consideration, twelve hundred of the Saints were driven from their lands and homes in Jackson County, Missouri, more than two hundred of their houses burned and much other property destroyed. But I am to prove that opposition met the church after 1834, and that in spite of that opposition the work increased, and a knowledge of it became more widely diffused. Be it so. Five years after the expulsion from Jackson County, Missouri, opposition so increased that the inhabitants of the state of Missouri, with the officers of the state at their head, arose against the Saints; directly or indirectly caused the death of some four hundred, and drove between twelve and fifteen thousand from their homes into exile, confiscated their lands, drove off their cattle and wantonly destroyed other property.
Eight years after their expulsion from the state of Missouri, the Saints to the number of twenty thousand were driven by mob violence from the state of Illinois, into the wilderness. They fled beyond the confines of civilization—going a thousand miles beyond the frontiers of the United States, and settled in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains; where, despite the waves of persecution which have broken upon the church, it still lives, its membership more numerous than ever, the faith of the Saints more strongly established; and where from its lofty station it overlooks the world and sends its accredited representatives to all the peoples of the earth, to fulfill the decree of Jehovah that the gospel of the kingdom, in the last days, shall be preached in all the world for a witness and then shall the end come.13
It was rather a remarkable prediction that the more the work of the Lord in the last days was opposed the more it would prosper. It was still more remarkable that it should be predicted that opposition would rise against it at all, since the great work had its birth in a land where the constitution of the government guaranteed religious liberty. The marvelous fulfillment of the prediction under these circumstances is evidence that there was behind it more than human foresight.
Third, The name of Joseph Smith is to be known among the nations. The work which the Lord would perform by his hands would cause the righteous to rejoice and the wicked to rage: by the former his name would be held in honor, by the latter in reproach. The probability of Joseph Smith ever being known outside of the nation where he was born was very limited, even in 1834, much less when the prophecy was uttered by the angel in 1823. It was a strange thing to say that his name among the nations would be held either in honor or reproach. But the fulfillment of the prediction will be so generally conceded that to point out the fact is not necessary. It will be enough to say that everywhere the new dispensation of the gospel has been proclaimed, there the people have been made acquainted with the name of Joseph Smith, and there he is known for good or evil—he is held in honor or reproach—the righteous have rejoiced, the wicked have raged, and in many instances have resorted to violence in resisting the message of heaven.
The fulfillment of the three items just considered in the prediction of Moroni proves the genuineness of the prophecy; and therefore I have a right to claim for it the date on which it was first delivered, the year 1823. And when considered from that date—when the existence of the Book of Mormon was as yet unknown except by Joseph Smith; when Joseph Smith was an obscure boy still in his teens and unknown outside of his own family and immediate neighborhood; before the Priesthood had been received, or the remission of sins obtained through baptism, or the Holy Ghost imparted by the laying on of hands; before the work of God prospered in spite of opposition—when considered from that date which places the prediction before all these events, how much more the prophetic character of the prediction stands out in bold relief! And who can question its divine inspiration?
Footnotes
1. Deut. xviii: 21, 22.
2. Isaiah xli: 21-23.
3. Referring to the record of the Nephites, the records lying before them in the stone box from which Joseph had just removed the covering.
4. Meaning the record of the Nephites—the Book of Mormon.
5. The plates comprising the Book of Mormon.
6. Meaning the people who receive the gospel.
7. Meaning the prophet Joseph.
8. The plates of the Book of Mormon were given to the prophet to translate in 1827.
9. It was in May, 1829, that the Priesthood was first given.
10. The Church was organized April 30th, 1830.
11. The first foreign mission in the New Dispensation was opened in England, 1837.
12. Times and Seasons, Vol. II, No. 13.
13. Matt. xxiv: 14.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY—CONTINUED.
Before the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, a number of persons who had faith in the statement of Joseph Smith that he had in his possession the gold plates from which he was translating the Book of Mormon, and who believed him to be a prophet, came to inquire through him the will of the Lord concerning themselves in relation to the new dispensation about to be ushered in. Among those who thus came were the prophet's father, Joseph Smith, Sen., some time in February, 1829; Oliver Cowdery, April, 1829; Joseph Knight, Sen., May, 1829; and David Whitmer, June, 1829. The prophet inquired for the will of the Lord concerning these men as they requested, and received for them the word of the Lord through the Urim and Thummim. In each of these revelations is contained, with a little variation, the following prophecy: "A great and marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men * * * Behold the field is white already to harvest, therefore, whoso desireth to reap, let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God; yea, whosoever will thrust in his sickle and reap, the same is called of God."1
This prophecy that a great and marvelous work was about to come forth among the children of men, I say, was uttered before the translation of the Book of Mormon was completed or the church organized. How well it has been fulfilled let the history of the Church of Jesus Christ in the new dispensation, its present condition and the wonder with which the world regards it, answer. Of all the religions that have arisen since the days of Jesus Christ and the apostles, it is looked upon as the most marvelous;