As before stated, it is not my purpose in calling attention to these conditional prophecies to point to their fulfillment, either accomplished or prospective, in evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon. Their worth as evidence to the truth of the book rests solely upon the importance of the matter with which they deal. The demand of the world is, and it is a reasonable one, that a book purporting to be a revelation from God should deal with subjects that it is important for men to know, and I regard the terms that constitute the conditions upon which the American continents may be securely held by the people who possess them, as a matter of the highest importance for the people to know, and hence worthy to be found in a book purporting to be a revelation from God. Such knowledge is no less important than to know the source whence the continents of America are peopled; the providences of God in dealing with them; and the fact that the Son of God visited the western hemisphere, and taught to the inhabitants thereof the gospel, and established here his church for the perpetuation of the truth and for the salvation of men. All this is revealed in the Book of Mormon, and makes up a mass of knowledge that it concerns mankind to know, and hence is worthy of God to reveal. Had the Book of Mormon dealt with light or trivial things--things unworthy of God to reveal, mankind would require no further evidence that its claims to a divine origin were baseless; and conversely: if the book reveals a mass of knowledge--worthy of God to reveal and important for man to know--then it is evidence of considerable weight that the book is of God. Footnotes 1. II. Nephi xxx: 3-11. 2. II. Nephi xxx: 12-15. 3. "Descendants of the Jews." This expression, I believe, is used in this instance as equivalent to "Descendants of the house of Israel." That is, the American Indians will know they are Israelites. This sense of the phrase "the Jews" is used in other parts of the Book of Mormon: for instance, "That the father may bring about * * * his great and eternal purposes, in restoring the Jews, or all the House of Israel, to the land of their inheritance." We have already pointed out in previous foot notes that according to the Book of Mormon the American Indians are a mixture of the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim and Judah (see pp. 95, 325-6); and therefore we think the phrase "descendants of the Jews," does not mean to confine native American race descent to the Jews alone, but merely to say that they are descendants of the House of Israel, for which "Jews" here stands as equivalent. 4. See Doc. & Cov. Section xxix and Section xxxii. 5. History of the Church, Vol. I, p. 185, note. Aut. P. P. Pratt, pp. 56-61.