THOMAS CARLYLE ONCE WROTE THAT BOOKS CARRY MORE THAN "AN ARTICULATE, AUDIBLE VOICE" OF THE PAST. THEY CARRY, HE SAID, "THE VERY SOUL" OF WHAT LIFE HAS BEEN AND WHAT IT CAN YET BECOME.
NO BOOK REPRESENTS MORE OF THE "SOUL" OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS THAN DOES THE BOOK OF MORMON. PERHAPS THE MOST POWERFUL AND PENETRATING THING EVER SAID ABOUT THIS - OR ANY - BOOK WAS UTTERED BY THE MAN WHO, WITH HIS OWN BLOOD, SEALED HIS TESTIMONY OF BOTH ITS ORIGIN AND ITS TRUTHFULNESS."I told the brethren," said the Prophet Joseph Smith, "that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." (DHC. 4:461)
The most correct book on earth. The keystone of our religion. The book to bring us nearer to God than any other book.
These are astounding statements and astonishing promises, yet millions of readers stretching over more than 160 years of experience know them to be true, know that the Book of Mormon rests at the very center - the very soul - of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and their individual testimonies of it. Little wonder God could lament that "the children of Zion" had "treated lightly the things you have received," specifically "the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon." (See D&C 84:54-57.)
But in spite of some members who treat it lightly, and a century and a half of enemies who have tried to disprove or destroy it, the Book of Mormon continues to stand brightly at the very core of the Latter-day message. Its unequivocal, and in many ways unequaled, declaration of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world make it the key document in the revelations of the Restoration.
If the Book of Mormon were not true, then Joseph Smith would not be the prophet he said he was and this would not be the restored Church of Jesus Christ. As President Ezra Taft Benson has said, the Church stands or falls with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. But the book is true and the prophetic legacy the Prophet Joseph left us features in a pre-eminent way the Book of Mormon, "keystone of our religion."
Some disbelievers find it hard to accept that divine beings and divine powers aided Joseph Smith in producing this "testament of Jesus Christ." But believers find it infinitely harder to believe that one whom Isaiah prophesied to be "not learned" could produce the book without divine assistance in any length of time, let alone in just over 60 days. For 160 years no answer regarding the book's origin has stood the withering examination of time and opposition except the explanation given by the Prophet Joseph himself - "I translated it by the gift and power of God."
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