So firm a foundation having been laid for the faith of the Nephite people, we find that in every period of their history they retained their reverence for the law of Moses, though disputations sometimes arose, by reason of iniquity, with regard to its symbolism or its saving quality. The apostates, who separated themselves from the Church, occasionally fell into the grievous error ef exalting the law above the Gospel, and, whilst maintaining its divine origin, they ignored its typical value and denied that it was a preparatory system leading to a higher, holier and more perfect law; they refused to recognize it as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. The first of these apostacies occurred in the days of Jacob, the brother of Nephi. With regard to the people in general, he writes: "Behold, they believed in Christ and worshipped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name. And for this intent we keep the law of Moses, it pointing our souls to him; and for this cause it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness, to be obedient unto the commandments of God in offering up his son Isaac, which is a similitude of God and his only begotten Son."--Jacob, iv, 5. But while the majority of the Nephites fully recognized these saving truths, there arose a man named Sherem, who disputed and denied that the law pointed the souls of men to Christ, as the great Propitiator for sin and the Redeemer of the world. This Sherem declared unto the people that there should be no Christ, and his flatteries and sophistries led away many people. Of him and his doings Jacob writes: