The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old WestWilson, Harry Leon
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The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West
Wilson, Harry Leon
Historical fiction; Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Fiction; Western stories
Had the Gentile been attentive he might have learned that the Book of
Mormon is an inspired record of equal authority with the Jewish
Scriptures, containing the revelations of Jehovah to his Israel of the
western world as the Bible his revelations to Israel in the Orient,—the
veritable “stick of Joseph,” that was to be one with “the stick of
Judah;” that the angel Moroni, a messenger from the presence of God,
appeared to Joseph Smith, clad in robes of light, and told him where
were hid the plates of gold on which were graven this fulness of the
everlasting gospel; how that Joseph, after a few years of preparation,
was let to take these sacred plates from the hill of Cumorah; also an
instrument called the Urim and Thummim, consisting of two stones set in
a silver bow and made fast to a breast-plate, this having been prepared
by the hands of God for use in translating the record on the plates;
how Joseph, seated behind a curtain and looking through the Urim and
Thummim at the characters on the plates, had seen their English
equivalents over them, and dictated these to his amanuensis on the
other side of the curtain.
He might have learned that when the book was thus translated, the angel
Moroni had reclaimed the golden plates and the Urim and Thummim,
leaving the sacred deposit of doctrine to be given to the world by
Joseph Smith; that the Saviour had subsequently appeared to Joseph;
also Peter, James, and John, who laid hands upon him, ordained him,
gave him the Holy Ghost, authorised him to baptise for the remission of
sins, and to organise the Kingdom of God on earth.
“Do you understand so far?” she asked.
“It’s fine!” he answered, fervently. “I feel kind of a glow coming over
me already.”
She looked at him closely, with a quick suspicion, but found his
profile uninforming; at least of anything needful at the moment.
“Remember you must have faith,” she admonished him, “if you are to win
your inheritance; and not question or doubt or find fault, or—or make
fun of anything. It says right here on the title-page, ‘And now if
there be faults, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the
things of God that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of
Christ.’ There now, remember!”
“Who’s finding fault or making fun?” he asked, in tones that seemed to
be pained.
“Now I think I’d better read you some verses. I don’t know just where
to begin.”
“Something about that Urim and Thingamajig,” he suggested.
“Urim and Thummim,” she corrected—“now listen.”
Again, had the Gentile remained attentive, he might have learned how
the Western Hemisphere was first peopled by the family of one Jared,
who, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, set out for the new land;
how they grew and multiplied, but waxed sinful, and finally
exterminated one another in fierce battles, in one of which two million
men were slain.
At this the fallen one sat up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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