REPENTANCE.--HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATION.
If we turn to the history of peoples and nations in order to learn
the lessons which their experiences teach, we shall find that the
hand-dealings of God with them as collected bodies, as well as the
experiences of individuals, demonstrate the same great facts of God's
long-suffering and abundant mercy, and of his willingness to pardon on
the first manifestation of sincere repentance.
It was not until the antediluvians had become thoroughly corrupt,
not until every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts was evil
continually,[A] and they rejected the teachings of Noah, and were
beyond the hope of reformation, that the Lord sent the flood upon them
and cut them off that they might not perpetuate in their posterity
their corruption.
[Footnote A: Gen. vi.]
Next in chronological order to the antediluvians stands the people
of Jared; and from the brief history we have of them in the Book of
Mormon, consisting of an abridgement of the twenty-four plates of the
prophet Ether, we learn that they were frequently in rebellion against
God, and continually straying from his precepts and ordinances. Yet
as often as they repented he forgave them; and not only that, but
supplemented that forgiveness by such periods of prosperity, that one
would think that even if they knew no more than the dumb ass that
merely knows his master's crib, they must have been aware that it was
to their present as well as to their eternal interests to live in
obedience to the will of heaven. Yet sin, individual and national, was
added to sin, transgressions followed close upon the heels of each
other, and secret combinations were formed for robbery and to obtain
political power, spreading rapine, murder and terror throughout the
land, and menacing always the security of the political fabric.
In the midst of all this the Lord labored patiently for their
reformation, sending his servants, the prophets, to them, to teach
them the way of life and encourage them to observe the statutes and
judgments of the Lord. When persuasion failed, then warning was given
of calamities and judgments, followed by the chastening hand of God;
but all to no purpose; reform they would not. They killed the prophets,
and persecuted those who attempted to follow their counsels until
they filled up the cup of their iniquity, and the Spirit of the Lord
entirely withdrew from them, and then began that series of wars in the
sixth century B. C., which finally ended in the extermination of the
entire people.[B]
The history of ancient Israel, as recorded in the Bible, is very
similar to this. The Lord took them from the bondage of Egypt, to
sanctify them a people unto himself. He gave them Moses and Aaron and
other wise, faithful men to be their teachers, and led them from the
dominion of Egypt towards a choice land, their journey being attended
by such displays of God's glory and power as are seldom witnessed by
the inhabitants of the earth. The Gospel of the Son of God was first
presented to them, but when they would not abide its requirements, the
law of Moses, a less excellent law, was given to be their school-master
to bring them to Christ.[C] And when they complained against the free
constitution that had been given them, and would no longer sustain the
judges whom the Lord raised up to be their leaders, he gave them a
kingdom according to their desires,[D] but warned them of the bondage
to which it was liable to lead.
[Footnote B: See the Book of Ether, Book of Mormon, for their history.]
[Footnote C: Gal. iii; Heb. iv.]
[Footnote D: I. Sam. viii.]
The consequences of obedience to the laws which the Lord gave them
through Moses, even before the death of that great leader, were plainly
set before them; and surely the advantages that are there set forth,
leave nothings to be desired, no matter how ambitious of place, power,
honor, wealth, glory and dominion a nation might be. And, on the
other hand, in case of their forsaking their God and his laws, the
judgments, calamities, distress, wars, famines, pestilences, dishonor
and destruction that follow, as a consequence of their apostasy from
God, are drawn with such vividness, even down to the minutest detail,
that had these things been written after they came to pass--after
the threatened judgments were visited upon Israel, and especially
upon Judah--in a word, if they had been written as history instead
of prophecy--they could scarcely be more circumstantial than the
prophetic words of Moses.[E]
[Footnote E: See Deuteronomy xxviii.]
But notwithstanding all these promises of favor and blessing on the one
hand, and the forewarnings of calamity on the other, Israel rebelled
against God, wholly rejected him, and trampled upon his counsels.
The generous instructions of the teachers whom the Lord raised up to
instruct them in the things of righteousness and true government, were
unheeded. They killed the force and spirit of the law of Moses by
their vain traditions. The warnings of the prophets were unheeded, and
the prophets themselves were stoned and murdered. The earnest appeals
of Lehi, the sharp reproofs of Ezekiel, the prophetic pleadings of
Jeremiah as well as the poetic fire and more splendid prophecies of
Isaiah could do no more than to bring them to a partial repentance.
These means of correction failing, there was occasional chastisement
administered in wars, partial famines and seasons of captivity, to
remind them that justice was not dead, though at times it appeared to
sleep, and as a foretaste of the terrible wrath which would overtake
them if they persisted in their rebellion and wickedness. But all
this was of no avail. Neither the instructions of wise teachers, nor
reproofs of special messengers from God were sufficient to bring them
to repentance: Neither moving eloquence, nor prophetic warnings, nor
inspired portrayals of certain calamities could soften their obdurate
hearts. Even chastisement failed to produce any permanent reformation.
Finally, the Son of God came among them; but him they rejected, accused
and condemned of blasphemy, before their senate, and sentenced him who
did no sin to death; led him before Pontius Pilate, the Roman judge,
and, under the pressure of popular clamor, compelled that functionary
of the Roman government, against the sense of his better judgment, to
sign the warrant for his death; and then, amid the cry of "Let his
blood be upon us and our children," led him away to his crucifixion.
The climax of their apostasy and rebellion had now been reached.
Nothing more to their damnation could they add. They had sowed the
wind, they must now reap the whirlwind. So they have. The full fury
of outraged justice and righteousness broke upon them with a force
that was irresistible. The Romans under Titus besieged their city,
Jerusalem, and successfully cut off all supplies of food or assistance
from the surrounding country. To the horrors of war waged by the
Romans was added that of civil conflict within the walls of the city,
more fruitful in calamity and cruelty than the actual conflict with
the Roman soldiery. As if of distress there was not already enough,
famine preyed upon them, and a million people perished from lingering
starvation. If men were brutal, women became fiendish, and fed upon the
flesh of their own offspring.[F]
[Footnote F: An incident of this kind is thus related by Josephus:
"There was a certain woman who dwelt beyond Jordan; her name was Mary,
her father was Eleazar, of the village of Bethezob, which signifies
the house of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her wealth,
and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was
with them besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this
woman, had been already seized upon, such, I mean, as she had brought
with her out of Persia, and removed to the city. What she had treasured
up besides, as also what food she contrived to save, had also been
carried off by the rapacious guards, who came every day, running into
her house for that purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great
passion, and, by the frequent reproaches and imprecations, she cast at
these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her;
but none of them--either out of the indignation she had raised against
herself, or out of consideration for her case--would take away her
life: and, if she found any food, she perceived her labors were for
others, and not for herself, and it was now become impossible for her
anyway, to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her
very bowels and marrow, when also her passions were fired to a degree
beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with anything, but with
her passions and the necessity she was in. She then attempted a most
unnatural thing--and snatching up her son, who was a child, sucking
at her breast, she said, 'O, thou miserable infant! for whom shall I
preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the
war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves.
This famine also will destroy us even before that slavery comes upon
us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than the other. Come
on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and
a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete
the calamities of the Jews.' As soon as she had said this, she slew
her son, and then roasted him, and ate the one-half of him, and kept
the other half by her, concealed. Upon this the seditious came in,
presently; and, smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened
her, that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show
them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had 'saved a
very fine portion for them;' and, withal, uncovered what was left of
her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind,
and stood astonished at the sight, when she said to them: 'Come eat
of this food for I have eaten of it myself. Do not you pretend to be
either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother;
but if you be so scrupulous and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I
have eaten the one half, let the rest be preserved for me also.' After
which those men went out trembling, being never so much affrighted at
anything as they had been at this, and with some difficulty they left
the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole city was
full of this horrid action immediately; and while everybody laid this
miserable case before their own eyes, they trembled, as if this unheard
of action had been done by themselves. So, that those that were thus
distressed by the famine, were very desirous to die: and those who
were already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived long
enough, either to hear or to see such miseries." (Wars of the Jews;
Josephus, Book VI: chapter iii.)
I advise my readers to compare this incident and other calamities
--described by Josephus in these "Wars of the Jews"--with the
prophecies which foretold these evils, found in Deuteronomy, xxviii.]
At last the Romans forced an entrance into the city, and they with
sword and flame were permitted to complete the ruin so well nigh
accomplished by the Jews themselves. The beautiful temple was thrown
down so that not one stone was left upon another which had not been
thrown down. This was done by the Roman soldiery in their mad search
for gold. Jerusalem was laid waste and desolate. Hundreds of thousands
of her people were put to death, and the remainder of them taken into
captivity, or driven into exile.
From that time until now, for more than eighteen centuries, they have
remained a broken, scattered people; despised, hated, distrusted,
unfriended, oppressed; a hiss and a by-word in every land where they
have sought a home. They have learned by a sad experience that it is a
terrible thing to reject the tender mercies of God, and fall under his
displeasure.
Turning again to the Western hemisphere, we have the experience of
Israel in the East duplicated in that of the Nephites and Lamanites;
the same lesson is taught by their experience, viz., that it is a
fearful thing to rebel against God, and reject and fight against
his truth. The half-naked American savage, with the desolation that
surround him in a splendid land (I mean at the time it was discovered
by the Europeans) and filled as it is with the ruins that testify to
the grandeur of his departed glory, is a warning of deep significance
to the nations now in the zenith of their power, not to follow in his
footsteps and reject the counsels of God against themselves.
What shall I say of the cities of Tyre and Sidon, of Nineveh with
her hundred gates; of Babylon, "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of
the Chaldees excellence," with her mighty walls, her strong gates
and towers, her palatial residences, her magnificent temples, her
hanging gardens, the wonder and admiration of all who beheld them!
Where are all these? Crumbled into shapeless heaps of ruins that are
scarcely sufficient to show where they once stood--nothing left of
them but their names. Where, too, are the grand empires of Assyria and
Babylon, of Egypt and Persia, of Macedonia and Greece? and, lastly,
where is Rome, the most stupendous political fabric yet constructed by
the wit of man--where are all these? Where is their strength, their
glory, their pride--nay, I ask more, where are the principles that
formed the basis of their constitutions, the ideas by which they were
governed--principles which they expected would forever perpetuate their
institutions--where are all these things, as well as the empires
themselves? Like the gorgeous temples, and cloud-capped towers of the
cities we have named, they have dissolved into thin air, like the
baseless fabric of an empty vision. Look at your maps of today, and
you shall find no line or trace of them, not even of the boundaries
which once marked the extent of their dominion. All is lost except
their names and their history. As in the sight of God the mountains
are as unstable and transient as the clouds, so nations rise and pass
away. But seek out the causes of their dissolution, look well into
it, and you will find that these nations no less than the children of
Israel, both Jews and Nephites, were guilty of violating righteous
principles, as they understood them, of refusing to repent, and of
rejecting the counsels of God, and fighting against his truth. They
were guilty of oppression, pride, licentiousness; they tyrannized over
the meek and lowly; they wrung from the hands of the poor the wealth
their labor created, that they might consume it upon their lusts. These
abominations were the causes of their overthrow, and as one reviews the
rise and fall of great kingdoms, republics, and splendid empires, he
concludes that Byron might well say--
There is the moral of all human tales;
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past;
First freedom, and then glory--when that fails,
Wealth, vice, corruption--barbarism at last:
And history with all her volumes vast
Hath but one page!
What lessons are here spread out for the reading of the nations today!
True, they might be offended if one should tell them that there
was danger threatening them for their wickedness, for they esteem
themselves righteous; so did the people of the ancient cities and
kingdoms I have named. It might be held treasonable, to say that the
present governments, which encumber the earth, will pass away like
the others have--like the chaff of the summer's threshing floor--for
they think they have laid the foundation of their respective political
fabrics on so sure a basis, that they will be perpetuated forever. So
thought the Babylonians, the Greeks, and especially the Romans; but
they have passed away, and have left nothing behind them, but their
names and the lessons which their follies and crimes teach.
But I fear you have forgotten in this long digression the subject in
hand--repentance. Of the things I would have you remember, this is the
sum: True repentance is sincere sorrow for sin, accompanied by a firm
resolution to forsake that which is evil. The legitimate fruits of such
sorrow--repentance, is a reformation of life. And if, peradventure,
through weakness of human nature one should fall into transgression,
even after setting his heart to work righteousness, let him not be
discouraged, but repeat his repentance, and I believe the experiences
I have pointed out in these pages, both individual and national,
demonstrate that God is good, and "goodness still delighteth to
forgive." He is merciful and willing to pardon abundantly those who are
sorry for their offenses, and will make a manly effort to reform. But
on the other hand, those who mock him, and presumptuously sin, thinking
to impose upon his long-suffering, have need to fear, both persons and
nations, for all history teaches that it is a fearful thing to fall
under the displeasure of the Most High.