Fourth: It is the Book of Mormon as a whole, however, in which its greatest value as a witness for the truth of the Bible, and the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, most appears. I mean the Book of Mormon considered apart from any reference to an abridgment of the ancient records of the Jaredites; and the transcriptions from the ancient Hebrew scriptures carried by Lehi's colony to the western world. In the Book of Mormon, so considered, we have the record of the hand-dealings of God with the peoples that inhabited the western hemisphere. We have in it the record of those things which occurred in a branch of the house of Israel that God was preparing for the same great event for which he was training the house of Israel in the eastern world; _viz._, the advent of the Messiah, and the acceptance of the gospel through which all mankind are to be saved. This branch of the house of Israel, broken from the parent tree and planted in the western hemisphere, brought with them the traditions and hopes of Israel; they brought with them, as we have already seen, the Hebrew scriptures, the writings of Moses and of the prophets down to the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah; but what is more important than all this, they came to the western world with the favor and blessing of Israel's God upon them, and Israel's peculiar privilege of direct communication with God, through inspired dreams, the visitation of angels, and the voice of God. Lehi's colony was led to the western world by prophets, inspired of the Lord, their journey being marked by many and peculiar manifestations of his presence with them. After their arrival in the western world, to them a land of promise, the Lord from time to time raised up prophets among them, who instructed them in the ways of the Lord; who reproved them when overtaken in transgression; who pronounced judgments against them when persuasion was of no avail for their correction; who warned them by the spirit of prophecy of approaching disasters; and who held continually before them the hope of Israel, the advent of the Messiah, who, by his suffering and death on the cross, would redeem mankind. It was much in this manner and for the same purpose that God dealt with his people in the eastern world; and the fact that his course with the people on the western hemisphere was substantially the same as that followed with those of the east, establishes at once his justice and mercy towards his children, and bears testimony to the great truths that God indeed is no respecter of persons, and that in every land he raises up for himself witnesses of his power and goodness. [11]