“Ancient Ruins.” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois) 5, no.

“Ancient Ruins.” Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois) 5, no. 23 (15 December 1844): 744– 48.
ANCIENT RUINS.
Recently so much is said about the discoveries of ancient ruins, that we feel inclined to offer a few ideas upon the subject. Were it necessary, in order to establish the truth of their reality, just as they are found, showing that civilized nations, possessing the highest attainments in the arts and sciences, once occupied this whole land, and we add, world,— we might go behind the flood of Noah, and bring in the ante-deluvians, those “ men of renown,” and suppose a few cases of their “ ruins”— for there were “ giants in the earth in those days,” and put curiosity on the stretch: but there have been a plenty of events since the flood, to answer our purpose, notwithstanding the soil and sand which tumbled round the globe during the year when the “ waters prevailed exceedingly,” must have buried, cities, towns and curiosities equal to any of the nineteenth century. From many of the speculations of this age upon the grandeur of the ruins, discovered in Central and South America, it might be supposed, that no nations but those of the nineteenth century, could enjoy and execute the prerogatives of national greatness, national refinment, and worldly improvment. So small are the hidden mysteries and mighty acts of God, compared to the sword of a less than Bonaparte, and the purse of a poorer than Rothchilds. But to the point: ruins are almost the lion of the day. In our last paper may be seen the “Interesting discovery in South America,” and the “Disinterment of Nineveh.” The prophecies must be fulfilled. There is nothing hidden that shall not be uncovered. Many are very anxious to find out something ancient and new— but few are willing to give God the glory. He may have peopled the earth, and des-[744] troyed cities, kingdoms, nations, and their works for wickedness, and who acknowledges the arm of Jehovah in it? Who, over this wile world, when a nation is scourged with war; rebuked by earthquakes, storms, and disasters, comes out and says— ah, Lord it is thou that liftest up and thou that puttest down— in wrath remember mercy? By excepting the Latter-day Saints, it may be said with shame to the world, not one! Singular as it may seem, all Christendom, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherians, Presbyterians, Babtists, Methodists, Quakers, Universalians, Deists, and all other denominations, (but the Mormons) worship a God afar off, and not near at hand; and add to this idea, the refinment of the age, and the spiritual wisdom of priestcraft, and a majority of the christian population, actually worship nothing— because King James’ translators, not called, nor sanctioned by revelation, rendered, by supplying “ is” in a certain passage in John, “God is a spirit;” when common sense, in connection, with the rest of the Bible, from Genesis, where the “spirit” of God moved upon the waters, to Revelations where the testimony of Jesus is the “spirit” of prophecy, would show that God has a spirit: that God and angels dined with Abram on a calf, and that Jesus after the resurrection ate a broiled fish and honey-comb. If, then, men have strayed so far from the just idea of the true God, is it any thing strange that they should lose the true knowledge of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof? Talk about “ruins” of cities in America; and “ruins” of ancient splendor in Asia; and what of them?— until the people believe in revelation, and in a God that has substance, and that created man in his own “image” and will raise the whole house of Israel in their flesh and bones, to dwell in their own land on earth, that they may be like him, and he like them; for he is their brethren; and has said— YE ARE GODS— until this is bona fidely the case, all we can say is, the wisdom of man is foolishness mith God. Man was created upright, but he has sought out many inventions. The world has been cumbered with Nimrods, Pharaohs, Alexanders, Nebuchadnezzars, Neros and a host of others, who, whether they built a tower to frustrate the designs of God; or, prepared catacombs to preserve the embalmed dead; guarded Thebes with an hundred thonsand men at an hundred gates; conquered the world, and mourned because there was not another to conquer; looked upon themselves as God, and cropped the grass of the field, with beasts, till seven times passed over them for their sinning against heaven;— made a city the mistress of the world, or burned it to cope with religion:— it is all the same: God was not in all their ways; and though they may have tried to ascend into heaven, or dig down into hell; piled monuments to the clouds; spread dominions from sea to sea, and “walked among the stones of fire:” yet their fame has fled; their greatness has departed; their splendor has withered; their palaces have mouldered back to dust; wastes, deserts, lakes, and mountains sit in judgment upon their ruins and their spirits linger in prison, and will linger till the uttermost farthing is paid. Many of these inheritors of folly, might as well not have been born, or been an untimely birth and slept, as Job said: “With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver; Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.” The way of man has been evil continually, and if we had the history of the abominations bloodsheds and mighty acts of men during the first thousand years, as we now have the last it would exhibit a course of moral depravity, fallen greatness, and beastly corruption, as sickening and shocking to the feelings of good men as the customs of cannibals. To strengthen this idea let us introduce a few paragraphs from the Book of Jasher, not allowing it to be revelation but history sustained by other history. That book says: “And all the sons of men departed from the ways of the Lord in those days as they multiplied upon the face of the earth with sons and daughters, and they taught one another their evil practices, and they continued sinning against the Lord. And every man made unto himself a god, and they robbed and plundered every man his neighbor as well as his relative, and they corrupted the earth, and the earth was filled with violence. And their judges and rulers went to the daughters of men and took their wives by force from their husbands according to their choice, and the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and [745] God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals. And the Lord said, I will blot out man that I created from the face of the earth, yea, from man to the birds of the air, together with cattle and beasts that are in the field, for I repent that I made them. And all men who walked in the ways of the Lord died in those days, before the Lord brought the evil upon man which he had declared, for this was from the Lord, that they should not see the evil which the Lord spoke of concerning the sons of men. And Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord chose him and his children to raise up seed from them upon the face of the whole earth.” This is simply a corroboration of the Bible: The wickedness of man became so great that God had to destroy the whole world, wherein was life, by the flood to subdue it, agreeably to a part of the command given to Adam. But leaving matters before the flood, to be explained when Enoch’s pillar is found, and the record it encloses made public, there is plenty of proof to warrant the belief that ruins may be expected all over the earth. When the tower was building we find this record in the Bible, which the Lord must have spoken: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” From this definite account of driving the “nations apart, when the ancient hills did bow,” all reflecting minds may judge that man was scattered over the whole face of the earth: and with the superior knowledge of men like Noah, Shem, (who was Melchisedec) and Abram, the father of the faithful, three cotemporaries, holding the keys of the highest order of the priesthood; connecting the creation, and fall; memorising the righteousness of Enoch; and glorying in the construction of the ark for the salvation of a world; still retaining the model and pattern of that ark, than which a greater, ah, we may say, half so great a vessel has never been built since; for another ark, be it remembered, with such a ponderous living freight will never be prepared as a vessel of mercy by command of Jehovah: That was so perfectly built as to brave the fury of the elements a year: and with the image of the tower whose peering top reached the sky in daring magnificence; and with that mighty combination of intellect, when the whole earth was of one language, and the plains of Shinar the capitol,— with all these and thousands of others,— where is the man so self biased for his own age, as to wonder who peopled the ruinous cities of the south, or reared the time defying mounds of the north? If the first and second thousand years produced the Zion of Enoch and its translation to heaven; the ark and the flood; the tower and the dispersion; who is so narrow minded, so destitute of the matter of man, as not to suppose, that greater things, larger schemes and mightier monuments of both wisdom and wickedness, would characterize the third and fourth thousand years than had the preceding two? One God fashioned the spirits of all men; and, in all ages the same superior intellects, talents and ambition, in all the various grades and trades among men, bring out about the same current of excellence, improvement, vanity, virtue, public good, and national evil. Splendor, renown and ruins, since the flood, ought not to astonish any one: for there must have been much, both from the wisdom and folly of men who had the scope of a thousand years life, to exercise their powers upon. Josephus says many lived to be one thousand years before the flood. Of matters since then, the scriptures are not silent. Jeremiah says: “ arise, get you up unto the wealthy nation, that dwell without care, saith the Lord, which have neither gates nor bars, that dwell alone,” This was spoken in the days of Nebuchadnezzar; and it is well known that he did not allow any nation to dwell alone without gates and bars; so the wealthy nation, must have dwelt alone on this continent. As to the original inhabitants of the continent of America, the Book of Mormon, backs up the description of immense “ ruins” in Central America, dispels all doubt. And while that book opens the sleeping history of two or three thousand years past, we can see the two families that came out from the tower, spreading from sea to sea, waxing more and more, greater and greater, until they had occupied the entire country fifteen hundred years, In honor of one of the two first families, they were called ‘ Jaredites.’ After they had almost covered the land with cities, and probably made the present prairies [ 746] by extensive cultivation. The Book of Mormon says: “ And it came to pass that Riplakish did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines, and did lay that upon men’s shoulders which was grievous to be borne; yea, he did tax them with heavy taxes; and with the taxes he did build many spaciouss buildings. And he did erect him an exceeding beautiful throne, and he did build many prisons, and whoso would not be subject unto taxes, he did cast into prison; and whoso was not able to pay taxes, he did cast into prison; and he did cause that they should labor continually for their support; and whoso refused to labor, he did cause to be put to death; wherefore he did obtain all his fine work; yea, even his fine gold he did cause to be refined in prison, and all manner of fine workmanship he did cause to be wrought in prisons. And it came to pass that he did afflict the people with his whoredoms and abominations; and when he had reigned for the space of forty and two years, the people did raise up in rebellion against him, and there began to be war again in the land, insomuch that Riplakish was killed, and his descendants were driven out of the land.” The ‘ Jaredites,’ were destroyed for their wickedness, but how many “ spacious buildings,” and doleful “ prisons,” remain among the ruins of departed things, as witnesses of their fame and folly, needs a little revelation to unravel: a portion of that spirit which showed a Daniel Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and image might solve the mystery. If the “ ruins,” of Egypt, Balbec, Babylon, and Pompeii, exhibit in the smallest degree, the greatness and glory of the Oriental world, in past ages; so do the “ ruins” of Central and South America declare the splendor, genius, intellect, refinement, and power that once actuated the master spirits and their hosts upon these uttermost parts of the earth., It takes some men a great while to consider upon the reality of revelation; they want the privilege of bringing up their “ strong reasons” to refute it, when at the same time, a novel or other trite matter, will pass along for truth, without even a hint that all is vanity.— This is not right: it destroys the efficacy of truth and religion at the same time, and introduces the wild imaginations of men in the place of the revealed will of God. Oneness and union are the only principles upon which Jehovah acts. Oneness of purpose and union to effect it. The course of men, since the fall, has been the reverse. Diversity for satisfaction, and division for success: by which means, the affections have been alienated; love banished by hatred; true religion driven into the wilderness by popularity and public patronage, and the whole world “ from the rivers to the end of the earth” has become the market place of speculation: and there are men ready to furnish the market with every thing;— law, religion, politics, souls, bodies, diseases, cures, curiosities, paintings and even “ ruins;”— but, except the Mormons, no one comes to market in the name of Israel’s God, with revelation, declaring the meaning of the handwriting upon the wall; showing a wondering world what has been; what is; what will be; and the way of the Lord. To turn the attention of such as may read the works of Stevens’ upon the “ ruins” of Central America, we ask a perusal of the following from the writings of Nephi in the Book of Mormon: “ Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the earth; yea, and the city Onihah, and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mecum, and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem, and the inhabitants thereof, and waters have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gadiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Jacob, and the city Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof, and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, that great city Jacobugath which was inhabited by the people of the king of Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire, because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people, and the govern-[ 747] ment of the land: therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them. And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations; and because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them, might not cry unto me from the ground against them; and many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations.” Now, gentle reader, with all these facts before you, and the light and knowledge of the nineteenth century to explain them, what think ye of the “ ruins,” and what think ye of the spirit of revelation? What has the boasted wit, wisdom, and learning, of the Gentile world performed in the space of four thousand years? Ah! the problem is easily solved. They have made a great noise in piling up monuments of their greatness which after generations discover as “ ruins.” So let us say once for all:— without revelation from God the world is but a wilderness.