_Like to Elijah._--To restore the acceptable worship of Jehovah, and begin a work that would sweep away idolatry and all things connected therewith, was the mission of Joseph the Seer. Against him, as against Elijah of old, the priests of Baal raged in impotent fury. Despite their tongues of slander and their weapons of violence, he accomplished all that had been given him to do. This time, however, the All-Wise permitted his servant to be sacrificed--to the end, no doubt, that his innocent blood, affixing to his testimony the red seal of martyrdom, might give added power to the great propaganda then and still in progress for Israel's redemption--the gathering of the scattered sheep preparatory to the Shepherd's coming. Footnotes 1. 2 Nephi 3:6-15. 2. D. and C. 21:1. See also headings to most of the sections in this book. 3. Isa. 44:28; 45:1-5. 4. James 1:5. 5. Hist. Ch., Vol. 1, Chap. 1, p. 5. 6. Compare Isa. 29:13. 7. Church of England Articles of Religion, Presbyterian Confession of Faith, etc. 8. Pope's "Essay on Man," Epistle 1, lines 271-274. 9. Heb. 12:9. 10. Ib. 1:3; Gen. 1:26, 27; Philipp. 2:6; Col. 1:15, etc. 11. John 14:9. 12. 2 Tim. 4:4. 13. D. and C. 130:22. Compare 1 Nephi 11:11. 14. F. H. Hedge, "Ways of the Spirit," Essay 8, p. 215. 15. F. W. Standard Dictionary. ARTICLE FIVE. _The Land of Zion._ _The Angel Moroni._--Three years after that wonderful vision in the Grove, the youthful Seer received a visitation from an angel, a messenger from the presence of the Lord. This Angel gave his name as Moroni, and declared that while in mortal life he had ministered as a prophet to an ancient people called Nephites, a branch of the house of Israel--not the Lost Tribes, as is frequently asserted by the uninformed, but a portion of the tribe of Joseph, mixed with a remnant of the tribe of Judah. The former had crossed over from Jerusalem about the year 600 B. C.; the others a few years later. These blended colonies had inhabited the Americas down to about the beginning of the fourth century of the Christian era, when the civilized though degenerate Nephites were destroyed by a savage faction known as Lamanites, ancestors of the American Indians. _The Book of Mormon._--The Angel further stated that a record of the Nephites would be found in a hill not far from Joseph's home--a hill anciently called Cumorah; and upon that spot, four years afterward, Moroni delivered the record into his hands. It was a book of metallic plates "having the appearance of gold," and covered with strange characters, "small and beautifully engraved"--characters known to the Nephites as "the reformed Egyptian." [1]