Animals and Vegetables Valuable to Lehi and Company--The
Potato--Abundance of Fruits--Jerusalem Destroyed--Lehi's Thankfulness
for this Choice Land--A Land of Liberty to all who Should be Brought
Here if they Would Serve God--Land to be Kept from Knowledge of Other
Nations--Remarkably Fulfilled--Promises of the Lord to Lehi Concerning
his Descendants and the Land--Present Condition of his Seed
Predicted--Prophecies Concerning the Prophet Joseph Smith--Lehi a
Great Prophet--Restrains his Children While Living--Rancorous Hatred
After his Death Against Nephi--Enraged by his Admonitions--Propose to
Kill Him.
The animals of the country Lehi, and his company doubtless found of
very great value to them in their labors and movements. Besides these,
it is probable they obtained many valuable vegetable productions which
were peculiar to the country. The potato is indigenous to that region;
it seems to be its natural home, and was found growing there in
abundance by the first Europeans that visited the country. It is not
unlikely that Lehi and his people also had it for use. Wild fruits are
now very abundant in places contiguous to the spot were we are told
they landed. One writer, in describing a contiguous province, says:
"The wild Indians bring from the woods many delicious fruits,
pine-apples, plantains, bananas, nisperos, mamays, guavas, etc., as
well as sweet potatoes, _camotes_, cabbage palm, _palmitos_, and
yucas."
If Lehi and his company found wild fruits so abundant, they had no
difficulty in living in plentiful ease until the seed grains they
brought with them matured. Everything contributed to make them feel
that it was a choice land above all other lands; for with all the
other advantages it possessed, the soil was exceedingly fertile and
the climate was delicious in temperature and healthy. Shortly after
their arrival, Lehi informed his people that he had learned through a
vision from the Lord that Jerusalem had been destroyed, and he said
had they remained there, they also would have perished. He drew the
attention of his children to the goodness of the Lord in warning them
to flee out of Jerusalem and in preserving them until they had reached
this choice land, which the Lord had covenanted should be for the
inheritance of his seed forever, and also for all those who should be
led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord. To those brought
out of other countries this should be a land of liberty, so long as
they should serve God according to the commandments which He has
given; but if iniquity should abound the land should be cursed for
their sakes. He told them that this land would be kept from the
knowledge of other nations; for the reason that, if they discovered
it, they would overrun it and there would be no place for an
inheritance.
This explains why the world remained so long in ignorance of this
continent. It was hidden from the world, and was almost a world by
itself for centuries, its people having no communication with any
other nation upon the earth. Generation succeeded generation, numerous
and large cities were built, the whole land was covered with people,
the arts of a high civilization were cultivated, revolutions, wars and
great changes were effected and all the busy scenes of human life were
enacted upon this continent, and yet the inhabitants of other lands
were as ignorant of its existence as if it had belonged to another
planet. This ignorance continued until the Lord moved upon Christopher
Columbus to penetrate the great ocean which stretched between it and
Europe. Men called it "the new world," and it was a new world to them;
and though the evidences that highly-cultivated races had occupied the
land for ages are abundant upon every hand, those who do not believe
the Book of Mormon are still as ignorant of who they were, or where
they came from and of all their history, excepting those facts which
have been brought to light by the examination of the ruins of their
cities, as they were when the continent was brought to the knowledge
of the world.
Lehi gives the true explanation of the reason why this continent
should be concealed from the knowledge of other nations. We see how it
is to-day. This continent is so desirable that there is a steady
stream of people flowing to it from all countries. They are filling up
the land, and the Lamanites, who have occupied it under the promise of
the Lord to their father Lehi, have been crowded back from both oceans
until they have but small spots to live upon in the center of the
land, and even these are coveted by the people of other nations who
have come here. This would have been the result long, long ago had the
world known of the existence of this continent; but the Lord concealed
it, and guided those only to it whom He desired to occupy it, so that
all His promises concerning it might be fulfilled. Lehi told his
children, that if those whom the Lord should bring out of the land of
Jerusalem should keep His commandments, they should not only prosper
here, but they should be kept from all other nations and have the land
to themselves; there should be none to molest them, nor to take the
land away from them; but they should dwell safely for ever. It was the
failure of the ancestors of the Indians, or Lamanites, to do this,
that brought upon them and their children evils under which they at
present suffer. Lehi, before his death, told them, by the spirit of
prophecy, what their fate would be if they fell into unbelief and
rejected the Lord. He said the Lord would bring other nations unto
them, and He would give them power; they would take away from his
descendants their lands, and they would be scattered and smitten. We
have only to look around us to see how completely and exactly his
predictions have been fulfilled. And as these predictions have come to
pass, so will others also come to pass respecting the nations of the
Gentiles that will occupy this land: they would not be permitted to
utterly destroy the descendants of Nephi or the other children of
Lehi; and if they, themselves, did not repent, and keep the
commandments of the Lord, destruction would also fall upon them.
Among other plain and definite predictions which Lehi made unto his
children was one respecting the birth and mission of the Prophet
Joseph Smith. He quoted from a prophecy of Joseph, the son of Jacob,
who was sold into Egypt, to the effect that "a seer shall the Lord my
God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins."
His name was foretold. He was to be called after the Patriarch Joseph
and after his own father. The predictions of Lehi which he gave to his
children before his death are very precious, because of their covering
so many points and being so plain. He was a great prophet; the Lord
had revealed to him a wonderful amount of knowledge concerning the
future; and he was especially favored in having such a land as this
given, by covenant of the Lord, as an inheritance to himself and his
posterity. He did all in his power to teach his children and his
people the ways of the Lord and to make them in some degree worthy of
the favor which had been shown unto them; but with Laman and Lemuel
and those who associated with them his tender entreaties, his solemn
warnings, his severe rebukes, and his inspired and pointed predictions
were all of no avail. They had gone from bad to worse until their
hearts had become like flint, and no good impression could be made
upon them. They were full of malice and the spirit of murder. While he
lived, his presence had some restraining effect upon them. He was
still the father and head of the people, whose authority and counsel,
though often disregarded by his rebellious offspring, could not be
altogether set aside. But he was scarcely buried before the rancorous
hatred of Laman and Lemuel and their adherents broke out against
Nephi. It was his admonitions concerning their iniquities that enraged
them. His rebukes, they said, afflicted them; they viewed them as an
attempt upon his part to dictate and rule over them. He was their
younger brother, and they declared they would not have him as a ruler;
for this right belonged to them, they said, as the seniors. They
proposed to kill him. This brought affairs to a crisis.