THE LAST CHIEF JUDGE MURDERED AND THE REPUBLIC OVERTHROWN--THE
SIGNS OF THE SAVIOR'S DEATH APPEAR--A TERRIBLE STORM--THE UNIVERSAL
DARKNESS--THE UNPARALLELED DESTRUCTION--THE TERROR OF THOSE HOURS.
(III. NEPHI CHAP. 6 TO 9.)
The next year the laws were revised according to justice and equity.
They had, doubtless, been violently tampered with during the times that
the Gadianton robbers held control of the administration and elected
the officers. Good order now prevailed throughout the whole land. Soon
new cities were founded and built, and many improvements made. Yet for
all this, the peace was short lived. Iniquity and dissension soon began
to again raise their hideous heads, and the prophets and servants of
God were persecuted and illegally condemned to death.
No officer, according to Nephite law, had power to condemn a person to
death without the authority of the governor, but many of the prophets
were put to death secretly by the judges. A complaint was entered
against these judges to the governor and they were tried for their
crimes, according to the law made by the people.
The kindred and friends of the offenders, with certain lawyers and high
priests, entered into a secret covenant to destroy the people who were
in favor of law and justice, and to save the guilty judges from the
just penalty of their misdeeds. This was, in fact, the re-establishment
of the order of Gadianton. They proposed to assassinate the governor,
set up a king to rule the country, and destroy its liberties. That same
year they murdered the chief judge Lachoneus, the younger, as he sat in
the judgment seat. The result was not what the plotters anticipated;
for the people, being dissatisfied with the condition of affairs,
divided into tribes, every man with his family uniting with his kindred
and friends. This completely disorganized the government and deranged
the plans of the conspirators. Some men had large families and many
kindred and friends, and their tribes were correspondingly large. Each
tribe appointed its chief, or leader, and it was his special duty to
see that the laws they had adopted were properly carried out (B. C. 30).
While these terrible social overturnings were taking place on this
continent, how different were the events that were occurring in the
midst of the house of Israel on the eastern continent! for it was in
this year that Jesus, the Redeemer of the world, was baptized by John
in Jordan, as Lehi, Nephi, and others of the ancient prophets had long
before foretold; and it was in this year that he commenced his public
ministry, and began to teach men the law of his gospel.
There was but little to unite the Nephite tribes except their fear of
the Gadianton robbers. This appears to have led to a confederacy for
the purpose of defense. They agreed to keep peace with one another,
and establish laws to prevent one tribe trespassing upon the rights of
the others.
The secret association that had slain the chief judge elected one
Jacob to be their leader. Seeing that their enemies, the tribes of the
people, were too numerous to contend with, he commanded his followers
to flee into the northernmost parts of the land, where they could build
up a kingdom to themselves. They carried out his plan, and their flight
was too speedy to be intercepted. In the north they built a large city
which they called Jacobugath.
In this calamitous condition of affairs Nephi was called, by the voice
of the Lord and the administration of angels, to labor diligently in
the ministry among this wicked people. At first, but few accepted the
truth; but in the following year (A. C. 32) many were baptized into the
church. As the succeeding year (A. C. 33) passed away the people began
to look anxiously for the fulfillment of the predictions of Samuel, the
Lamanite, concerning the important events which would take place at
the death of our Savior. Notwithstanding the many predictions of the
prophets already fulfilled, there was much doubt and uneasiness among
the people concerning that which was yet in the future. They had not
long to wait, however, for the fulfillment of his words.
On the fourth day of the thirty-fourth Nephite year the promised signs
of the Savior's crucifixion began. A horrible and devastating tempest
burst upon the land. All that was ever told of the loudest thunder,
and all that was ever seen of the most vivid lightning, would fail to
picture the terrific visitation. The earth quivered and groaned and
opened in wide, unfathomable chasms. Forests of gigantic trees were
uprooted and carried high above the earth to meet in fearful shocks
in the air and then to be driven down again and shattered upon the
unyielding rocks. Mountains were riven and swallowed up in yawning
gulfs, or were scattered into fragments and dispersed like hail before
the tearing wind. Cattle were lifted from their feet and dashed over
precipices, or were hurried before the blast to perish in the far off
sea. Towers, temples, homes, were torn up, scattered in fragments or
crushed by falling rocks, and together with their inmates were ground
to dust in the convulsion. Human beings were hurled high into the air
and driven from point to point, until, they found graves fathoms deep
below the earth's surface. Blue and yellow flames burst from the edges
of sinking rocks, blazed for a moment and then all was the deepest
darkness again. Boiling springs gushed upwards from sulphurous caverns.
Shrieks and howls from suffering animals, awful in themselves, were
drowned in the overwhelming uproar. Rain poured down in torrents,
cloud-bursts, like floods, washed away all with which they came in
contact, and pillars of steaming vapor seemed to unite the earth and
sky.
This unparalleled storm raged throughout the land for three hours
only--but to those who suffered it seemed an age.
During its short continuance the whole face of nature was changed.
Mountains sank, valleys rose, the sea swept over the plains, large
stagnant lakes usurped the place of flourishing cities, great chasms,
rents and precipices disfigured the face of the earth. Many cities were
destroyed by earthquakes, fire, and the tumultuous overflow of the
waters of the great seas.
Three days of unnatural and impenetrable darkness followed the horrors
of the tempest, and from the heavens the voice of the Lord was heard
by the affrighted people, proclaiming in their terrified ears the
destruction that had taken place.
Terrible was the catalogue of woes that that heavenly voice rehearsed.
The great city of Zarahemla and the inhabitants thereof God had burned
with fire. Moroni had been sunken in the depths of the sea and her
iniquitous children had been drowned. Gilgal had been swallowed up
in an earthquake and her people were entombed in the bowels of
the earth. Onihah, Mocum and Jerusalem had disappeared and waters
overflowed the places where they so lately stood. Gadiandi, Gadiomnah,
Jacob and Gimgimno were all overthrown, and desolate hills and valleys
occupied their places, while their inhabitants were buried deep in the
earth. Jacobugath, Laman, Josh, Gad and Kishkumen had all been burned,
most probably by lightnings from heaven. The desolation was complete,
the face of the land was changed, tens of thousands, probably millions
of souls had been suddenly called to meet the reward of their sinful
lives; for this destruction came upon them that their wickedness and
their abominations might be hid from the face of heaven, and that the
blood of the prophets and the saints might not come up any more in
appeal unto God against them.
[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF ZARAHEMLA.]