THE DISCOVERY OF THE JAREDITE RECORDS--CORIANTUMR--ETHER--THE
DISPERSION AT BABEL--THE JOURNEY OF THE JAREDITES--ATLANTIS.
Let us return to the year 123 B. C. At that time the Nephites in the
land of Nephi were suffering sore afflictions at the hands of the
Lamanites. In this extremity Limhi, their king, sent a company of
forty-three men, with instructions to discover, if possible, their
brethren in the land of Zarahemla, that peradventure they would bring
them succor and deliverance. The expedition was unsuccessful, so far
as its immediate object was concerned. The company missed the land of
Zarahemla, pushed northward into Central America, and how far beyond
we cannot tell. At last they discovered the remains of an ancient
people who had apparently been destroyed in battle. Among other things
they found twenty-four plates of gold, covered with engravings. This
treasure, with some other relics of the vanished race, they took back
to king Limhi.
When, shortly after, this section of the Nephite people escaped from
their Lamanite task-masters and returned to Zarahemla, the twenty-four
golden plates were presented to king Mosiah, the younger, and he being
a seer, translated them by the aid of the Urim and Thummim.
These plates were found to contain the history of the world from the
creation to the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, and of the
race whose remains had been found by the people of Limhi scattered on
the land northward.
This was, however, not the first intimation that the Nephites had
of the existence of this extinct people; for in the days of the
elder Mosiah a large engraved stone was brought to him that had been
discovered by the people of Zarahemla. It gave a very brief account of
this same race, known to us as the Jaredites, but more particularly
referred to its last ruler, named Coriantumr; who had himself been
known to the Zarahemlaites; for he had, previous to his death, resided
in their midst for nine months.
The history that we have of this remarkable people, as given in the
Book of Mormon, is Moroni's abridgment of the record contained on
the twenty-four plates of gold. It commences with the dispersion of
the human family at Babel. Interspersed with the narrative are many
interpolations of Moroni's, in the shape of reflections, prophecies and
explanatory remarks. As these additions or notes are inserted in the
body of the work, and not as foot notes, the reader of this abridgment
has to use care in its perusal, or his ideas may become confused; and
he is troubled to account for statements which grow perfectly plain
when it is understood they were written nearly four hundred years after
the advent of the Savior.
The history of the Jaredites is called the Book of Ether, because
the twenty-four plates from which it is taken were hidden by a
Jaredite prophet of that name, in the place where they were afterwards
discovered by the people of Limhi.
The ancestors of the Jaredites were engaged in the attempt to build
the Tower of Babel. It is probable they were of the family of Shem, as
they were worshipers of the true God, and he conferred upon them his
priesthood. How far they had wandered from the tower, if at all, when
the Lord commenced the revelation of his will to them, is not apparent
from the sacred text. They were commanded by him to go "_down_ into
the valley which is northward," and as the expressions up and down,
when they occur in the Book of Mormon in connection with geographical
locality, are always used with great exactitude, we may venture two
surmises: that Jared and his friends had already wandered into some
not far distant hilly region, or that the valley into which they were
commanded to descend sloped towards the north, the flow of its waters,
if any, being in that direction.
The valley into which the Lord led the Jaredites was called Nimrod,
after that mighty hunter of the early postdiluvian age. Here they
tarried for a time, while they prepared for the long journey which was
before them. Their flocks and herds they had with them; they now went
to work and snared fowls; they carried with them hives of honey bees
(known to them by the name of Deseret); and prepared a vessel in which
they transported the fish of the waters. Everything that could possibly
be of use to them they appear to have collected. They were going to a
land that had been swept clean by the waters of the Deluge; it had been
bereft of all its animal life; the seeds of grains and fruits no longer
germinated in its soil; and the colony had to replenish the continent
with the animal and vegetable life, necessary for their comfort and
sustenance, as though it was a new earth.
When in the valley of Nimrod the Lord came down and talked with the
brother of Jared. But the brother of Jared saw him not, for the Lord
remained concealed in a cloud. He directed that the company should go
forth into the wilderness, into that quarter where man had never yet
been. As they journeyed the Heavenly presence went before them in the
cloud and instructed them and gave directions which way they should
travel. In the course of their journey they had many waters--seas,
rivers, and lakes--to cross, on which occasions they built barges, as
directed by the Lord. It must have been an arduous labor, requiring
much time and great patience to transport their flocks and herds, with
all the rest of their cumbrous freight across these many waters.
We shall not attempt to trace the wanderings of the company on their
way to the promised land. The account given in the Book of Ether is
entirely too meagre for that purpose.
Some suppose that they went as far north as the Caspian Sea, which
they crossed; then turning eastward slowly journeyed along the central
Asia plateau; thence to the Pacific sea-board, most probably on the
coast of China. These suppositions may be correct; the writer does not
know enough to either affirm or deny them; but one thing is certain,
the journey must have been a very long and tedious one. The region
through which they passed was one in which no man dwelt, they could
purchase no supplies, and if they did not live entirely on wild fruit,
fish and small game, it is probable that they tarried now and again,
at favorable points, long enough to plant and reap a crop. As they
advanced to a great distance from the center of population in western
Asia it is possible that they traveled beyond the limits to which
the larger animals had, by that time scattered; and if so, they were
entirely without the aid of the food obtained by the chase; on the
other hand, it is probable that the fish in the lakes and rivers formed
a valuable source of food supply; yet it must also be remembered they
carried fish in a vessel with them.
Through their prayers and faith the founders of the Jaredite nation
obtained many precious promises of the Lord. Among these was the
assurance that their language should not be confounded, and that the
Lord himself would go before them and lead them into a land choice
above every other land. And again, that the nation that they should
found there should be none greater upon all the face of the earth. The
history of their descendants proves how fully this last promise was
realized. The contemporary nations on the eastern continent--Egypt,
Chaldea and Babylonia--were insignificant when compared with the
vast extent of territory held and filled by the Jaredites; they were
the sole rulers of the whole western hemisphere, and possibly the
originals, whence arose the stories of the greatness and grandeur of
the fabled Atlantis; for we have no account in the sacred records that
God shut them out from the knowledge of the rest of mankind when he
planted them in America, as he afterwards did the Nephites; and late
research has shown that the geographical knowledge of the ancients was
much greater in the earlier ages than at the time of the Savior and a
few hundred years previous to his advent.