The popularity of the Jewish theory at an early date has been indicated by our citations from some of the Spanish missionaries. Garcia, after a seven years residence in Peru, wrote his work for the purpose of proving conclusively that the Jews had been the chief colonists of the continent at an early date. He elaborated the argument set forth by Father Duran,[183] which is founded on passages in Esdras, but proceeded to prop up this theory with a catalogue of analogies between the Jews and Americans, some of which are so remote from each other that the very attempt to assimilate them is simply puerile. Garcia has had many disciples, some of whom have been no more critical than himself.[184] The illustrious advocate of the Jewish colonization of America was that indefatigable antiquary, Lord Kingsborough. No more masterly, no abler and more exhaustive defence was ever made in behalf of a hopeless and even baseless claim than his; and as the result, the historian and antiquary has placed at his disposal fac-simile prints of most of the important hieroglyphic MSS. of Mexican authorship deposited in the various libraries of Europe, as well as pictures of the architecture and stone records common to ancient America. We must confess that the work itself, with its curious plates, its maze of notes and references, its masterly and novel discoveries of analogies, though many of them are imaginary, is to us, after prolonged examination, as much of a riddle as the great and improbable theory which it seeks to establish.[185] Closely allied to the theory of the ten lost tribes, is the claim set forth in that pretentious fraud, the Book of Mormon, which attributes the colonization of North America, soon after the confusion of tongues, to a people called Jaredites, who, by divine guidance, reached our shores in eight vessels, and developed a high state of civilization on our soil. These first colonists, however, became extinct about six centuries B.C., because of their social sins. The Jaredites were followed by a second colony, this time of Israelites, who left Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, King of Juda. They reached the Indian Ocean by following the shores of the Red Sea, where they built a vessel which bore them across the Pacific to the western coast of South America. Having arrived in the new land of promise, they separated into two parties, called Nephites and Laminites respectively, after their leaders. They grew to be great nations and colonized North America also. Religious strife sprang up between the two nations because of the wickedness of the Laminites; the Nephites, however, adhered to their religious traditions and the worship of the true God. Christ appeared in the new world and by his ministrations converted many of both peoples to Him. But towards the close of the fourth century of our era, both Laminites and Nephites backslid in faith and became involved in a war with each other