From this it appears that all races of men have a common origin. They are all made "of one blood," and have one common Father--God. Yet if one judge the spirit of orthodox believers in the Bible, he would conclude that this Father's anxiety had all been expended in the enlightenment of those races and nations inhabiting the eastern hemisphere. That he had made ample provision for their instruction in the ways of God, and revealed to them, through his Son, the means of their salvation; but left the untold millions of his children in the western hemisphere to perish in ignorance. No prophets instructed them; no Son of God came to announce to them the means of salvation, or proclaim by his own resurrection the reality of the future life and immortality of man. And hence no one has unearthed the half-buried cities, or examined the ruined temples, or the fallen palaces--the extent and greatness of which proclaim the grandeur of ancient America's civilization--for confirmatory evidence of the Bible. The inscriptions upon their temple walls and monuments have not been deciphered for that purpose, nor their history and traditions investigated with that end in view, except in a few instances where men have been imbued with the idea that the aborigines of America might be the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. These, with a few others prompted by a desire to solve the mystery of America's ancient civilization, have explored the ruined cities, described the crumbling pyramids and temples, and remains of splendid aqueducts. They have collected and detailed their mythologies, traditions, and history; some circumstances of which bear strong evidence to the fact that the ancient inhabitants of the western hemisphere, in some way, had been made acquainted with some of the chief events of Bible history, including some knowledge of the atonement and other doctrines of Messiah. But such evidences of these facts as have been collected are not received into the collection of modern evidences for the truth of the Bible. I do not know of a single book in which they are so received. From the profound silence enforced upon American monuments and inscriptions, one would be left to suppose that they are as silent in testimony for the revealed truth of God as the birds of the South continent, however resplendent in gaudy plumage, are silent as to song. It is just here, however, where the importance of the Book of Mormon is best exhibited. It is here where it can be proclaimed as the voice of the western hemisphere proclaiming the sublime truth that God did not leave himself without witness among the races and nations of men that inhabited the western world. It is here that its importance is felt as the voice of sleeping nations speaking as out of the dust to the whole world, not only vindicating the quality of justice in God, in that he did not leave the inhabitants of the western hemisphere to perish