Beyond these few facts nothing can be learned from the abridged record of the Jaredites concerning the religion of that people, except that unto some of their prophets, just previous to the destruction of both the nation and the people, was revealed the fact that, unless the Jaredites repented, the Lord God would execute judgment against them to their utter destruction, and that he would bring forth another people to possess the land, after the manner in which he had brought forth their fathers from Babel. Unto Ether, the last of the Jaredite prophets, the son of Coriantor, the last king but one of the Jaredites, the same truth was revealed. To him, also, was shown the days of Christ; and it was revealed to him that upon this blessed land of the western hemisphere would be built up to the remnant of the house of Joseph, a Holy City, to be called New Jerusalem, [33] or Zion; a city of refuge for the righteous in the last days. These prophecies, I am aware, throw no light upon the nature of the Jaredite religion, but they do establish the fact that God sent forth inspired men among them, to warn them of the calamities that were decreed against them because of their decline from righteousness; and that fact is an important religious truth. _History_. We have in the Book of Mormon but the merest outline of the history of the Jaredites; and this outline is learned from the abridgment made by Moroni, of the Book of Ether. Ether was the last of the Jaredite prophets, and witnessed the destruction of the race. His record, the Book of Ether, was engraven upon twenty-four plates of gold, found by the Nephites in the second century B. C., and finally abridged by Moroni, and made a part of the Book of Mormon, which abridgment Joseph Smith translated into the English language. It stands to reason that the record of Ether, even if we had it in full, since it consisted of but twenty-four plates, could be but a very incomplete and imperfect history of so great a people and of so long a period of time--extending through sixteen centuries. Yet in the Book of Mormon there is but an abridgment of Ether's record; and that abridgment so brief that Moroni, in speaking of it, says that he had not written an hundredth part of it. [34] So it is not to be wondered at that the description of the Jaredite government and civilization is so very unsatisfactory. But while all this is admitted, the fact is revealed, in Moroni's abridgment of Ether's record, that from something like twenty-two hundred years before Christ, to some six hundred years before Christ, the North continent of the western world was occupied by a civilized race of people, and that a mighty nation dwelt upon that land through all these centuries; a nation at times highly favored of God, and this because of their righteousness; and then again reduced well nigh to anarchy, with their civilization bordering upon dissolution in consequence of great wickedness and misrule; emphasizing