In common with all books the Book of Mormon has its spirit, produces its effects upon the minds of men; and as it claims to be a work originally written and also translated through the inspiration of God, and deals primarily with sacred things, it is to be expected that the spirit of this book will have not only a good, but even a divine influence; that it will be of a faith-promoting, doubt-dispersing, comfort-bringing character. Its effects upon the minds of men, therefore, may be another test of its claims to a divine origin; and to that test I now submit it. In his work entitled "My First Mission," the late President George Q. Cannon makes the following statement respecting the influence exerted over his spirit by reading the Book of Mormon under the trying conditions in which he was placed while serving as a missionary in the Hawaiian Islands: Some of my readers may be placed in circumstances similar to those which surrounded me a part of the time on the Sandwich Islands, and it may be profitable to tell them how I kept from losing courage and becoming home-sick. My love for home is naturally very strong. For the first year after I left home I could scarcely think about it without my feelings getting the better of me. But here I was in a distant land, among a people whose language and habits were strange to me. Their very food was foreign to me, and unlike anything I had ever before seen or tasted. I was much of the time separated from my companions, the Elders. Until I mastered the language and commenced preaching and baptizing the people, I was indeed a stranger among them. Before I commenced holding regular meetings I had plenty of time for meditation and to review all the events of my short life, and to think of the beloved home from which I was so far separated. It was then I found the value of the Book of Mormon. It was a book which I always loved. If I felt inclined to be lonely, to be low spirited, or home-sick, I had only to turn to its sacred pages to receive consolation, new strength and a rich outpouring of the Spirit. Scarcely a page that did not contain encouragement for such as I was. The salvation of man was the great theme upon which its writers dwelt and for this they were willing to undergo every privation and make every sacrifice. What were my petty difficulties compared with those afflictions which they had to endure? If I expected to share the glory for which they contended, I could see that I must labor in the same Spirit. If the sons of King Mosiah could relinquish their high estate, and go forth among the degraded Lamanites to labor as they did, should not I labor with patience and devoted zeal for the salvation of these poor red men, heirs of the same promise?