The land to which Nephi and his company were led was probably not excelled for fertility of soil, for healthfulness and agreeableness of climate, for abundance and variety of vegetables and minerals, for grandeur and beauty of scenery by any other part of this "promised land" and certainly by no other land outside of this continent. It abounded in all the elements necessary to make a nation rich and powerful. It was an earthly paradise. When they reached their new home they devoted themselves to agriculture and the production of all kinds of useful animals, as they had done when they first landed on the continent. In these labors they were greatly prospered, and they also multiplied rapidly. Their form of religion was in strict conformity with the law of Moses. But it was not with them a religion of empty forms and ceremonies. Nephi had conversed in the wilderness, shortly after they had left Jerusalem, with the Spirit of the Lord, as one man speaketh to another; "for," said he, "I beheld he was in the form of a man; yet nevertheless I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord." He had also heard the voices of both the Father and the Son. The Lord taught him heavenly things and led him by His voice from his boyhood all through his life. He understood the gospel of Jesus and taught it to his people in the greatest plainness, and without doubt administered unto them the ordinances thereof. His exposition of the first principles of the gospel, in the last three chapters of his second book (_II. Nephi, xxxi, xxxii and xxxiii chapters_) is as lucid and comprehensive as can be found in any of the divine records which have come to us. He informs us that he delighted and gloried in plainness, and certainly his prophecies and revelations which he recorded, and which are in the Book of Mormon, though they relate to stupendous and marvellous events, are conveyed in such simplicity and plainness that a child of ordinary understanding can comprehend the language. It is truly wonderful how exact and perfect his knowledge was concerning the name of the Savior, the name that His mother should bear, the time when and the place where He should be born, the events of His career, the doctrines which He should teach, the apostles whom He should select, the miracles which He should work, and the details of His persecution and death. Though he wrote but little short of 600 years before the Lamb of God appeared in the flesh, the incidents of His life are given with the minute fidelity of a well-informed contemporary.