A Foretaste of the Millennium.--The Nephite Church had a marvelous career--even more marvelous than had the Jewish Church. "The people were all converted unto the Lord," and for two full centuries [21] a social condition similar to that which had characterized Enoch's ancient commonwealth, was the favored lot of this flourishing branch of the House of Israel. It was a foretaste of the Millennium, a foreshadowing of the great Day of Peace. Japheth Smites Jacob.--Then came pride, the besetting sin of the Nephite nation, with class divisions, envyings, covetousness, strife, and--for the civilized portion of the once delightsome people--extermination. Darkened in body and in mind, the degenerate Lamanites were left to meet the on-rolling tide of over-seas immigration, and be over whelmed thereby; "a remnant of Jacob," to be smitten and driven by the children of Japheth, "until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled." [22] Footnotes 1. John 20:24-28. 2. Luke 24:39. 3. Matt. 16:4. 4. John 20:29. 5. Mark 16:15-18. 6. Matt. 28:19, 20. 7. Says the Prophet Joseph: "When I was preaching in Philadelphia, a Quaker called out for a sign. I told him to be still. After the sermon he again asked for a sign. I told the congregation that the man was an adulterer; . . . . that the Lord had said to me in a revelation that any man who wanted a sign was an adulterous person. 'It is true,' cried one, 'for I caught him in the very act,' which the man afterwards confessed when he was baptized." (Hist. Ch. Vol. 5 p. 268). More than one "Mormon" missionary, pestered by sign-seekers, has applied the test furnished by the Prophet, with invariable and complete success. 8. Luke 24:49; Acts 2:1-4. 9. Jude 14. 10. D. & C. 107:57 11. Acts 4:32, 34, 35. 12. 4 Nephi 1:2, 3. 13. John 21:20-23. 14. D. & C. 7. 15. Thess. 2:3; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; Rev. Chaps. 17, 18. 16. Rev. 14:6. 17. Ib. 18:4. 18. Ib. 20:11, 12. 19. 3 Nephi 19:4. 20. Ib.28:4-23. 21. 4 Ib. 1:22. 22. Though tramped upon for many generations, the Lamanites are not a dying race, as is generally supposed. According to Doctor Lawrence W. White, of the United States Indian Bureau, the Indian population in 1870, when the first reliable census was made by the bureau, was placed at 313,712. It is now 333,702, a number not exceeded, thinks that expert, by the total of aborigines in America at the time of its discovery by Columbus.--See editorial article, "Indians Reviving," Salt Lake Tribune, February 13, 1920. PART SIX THE ERA OF RESTITUTION. ARTICLE TWENTY-TWO The Call of the Shepherd.