Show UNWITTING WITNESSES x isaiah is made to say woe to arlel ariel to ariel the city here david dwelt 1 by the explanatory notes in the margin n we learn that the above is the e language and construction of the not a literal nor even an approximately correct meaning of tue the words and sentiments of the prophet ProP phet bet according to the annata toras corrections the words should read 0 0 ariel the lion of god of the wy where david dwelt the context which is of the na ture te of prophecy does not portray the ale subsequent history of the jewish pital ital only in a very limited limited degree but it does describe with great clear the destiny of that branch of the he house of israel which was transplanted under divine guidance and WOIS took root mot upon american soil baalam speaking under inspire thorl aon from god said concerning Is steb nel 1 l C brought him forth out of 0 egypt t he couched he 1 own as a lion and as a great pa who shall stir him up 11 num 8 9 judah udah is in a lions whelp from the prey ny MY son thou art gone u up he a ip down he couched as allon a lion kaad jaa as as alft old lion bon who shall rouse hm aw IV gen alix 9 the he term ariel or lion bon of god is applied to the whole or apt part of the house of israel but it i t altogether sher inappropriate to jerusalem abor or any other city haa the prophet isaiah evidently had prophetic vision directed to the of lehi and his fellow and the sweep of his di line ite acuity embraced the events of daany y centuries aho CI i will cack against thee round with gut OA and will lay against thee acS 9 mount forts and I 1 will raise amt th i Is 3 tle ue book of mormon gives ao a aws 48 of these military camps es mounts and forts and their ns exist upon the face of the standing dIng witnesses U k and thou be brought down and speak out of the ground and thy speech shall be low out of the dust and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar f spirit out of the ground and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust isaiah 4 there is no people known to whom these prophetic utterances will apply except those of whom the book of mormon speaks whose history furnishes their literal fulfillment relies are brought to light daily fragments of stone and tablets inscribed with strange are exhumed from dark and mysterious libraries beneath the surface of the ground gruesome skulls and clammy skeletons gape and protrude from the ground and strike with grave wonderment the sage explorer the following foretells to the word some of the fearful visitations of the judgments of the almighty upon the people of lehi which we have already given from the book odmor mon record thou shall be visited of the lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and with great noise with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire isaiah 6 the significance of the alth and verses of the same chapter is so remarkably clear and pointed that it seems no one can separate isaials Isaia hs prophetic book from the plates containing the words of the book ot of mormon after the identity has been pointed out and the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that th at is sealed which men deliver unto one that is learned lear saying read bead this I 1 pray thee and he saith I 1 cannot for it is sealed I 1 and the book is delivered to him that is not learned saying read bead this I 1 pray thee aua and he saith I 1 am not learned the word men in the translation is not in the original as is indicated by the italics the words of the book or a portion of the characters upon the plates were taken to one who was learned and he used faed almost the same words quoted above he said 1 q I cannot read a sealed book we have already considered several classes of earth works found upon the face of the american continent such as those constructed for defense sepulchre and the irregular tumultuous heaps thrown up probably in some instances in the mining operations carried on so exten in many parts of the country we are about to refer to elevations and structures of a diffie different rent character to those already noticed on page of the book of mormon we read and the people who were in the IA land nd northward did dwell in tents and ii ic rin in houses of cement and they did suffer whatsoever tree should spring 8 r ng up upon the face ot the land agat that it should grow up that in time that they might have timber to build their houses yea their cities and their temples and their synagogues and their sanctuaries and all manner of their buildings and it came to pass as timber was exceeding scarce in the land northward north ward they did send forth much by the way of abi shipping in but cibat behold aap a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people yea the account of the Lama and of the Nep hites and their ware and contentions and dissensions and their preaching and their prophecies and their shipping and their building of ships and their building of temples and of syn synagogues ngue and their sanctuaries cannot be contained in this work again on page and anna alma and amules went forth preaching repentance to the people in their temples and in their sanctuaries and also in their synagogues which were built amr after the manner of the jews on page alma says saljr and we have entered in into to th their air houses and taught them and we have taught tau ht them in their streets yea and any we have taught them upon their hills and we nave have also entered into their temples and their synagogues and taught them and we have been cast out dut and mocked and spit upon and smote upon our cheeks and we have been stoned and taken and bound with strong cords and east cast into prison and and through the power bower and wisdom of god we have been delivered again J the reference to timber shows that this material must have been used very plentifully in the construction of their numerous buildings that so little of materials of this character should be found in existing ruins is ac attributable to the perishable nature of these substances still many proofs exist in the discoveries that have been made of the accuracy of lamans He record some of these have already been noticed as stockades timber breastworks breast works ete etc prof swallow describes a mound at new madeira feet in circumference at its base and feet at its summit the interior of this mound was a large chamber with timber employed for its support immense trees of elm and cypress were set as rafters in the roof of the building and thus supported the superincumbent materials the spaces between the rafters were filled in with reeds the whole was then plastered with marl and carefully smoothed and colored with red achre ochre report to peabody institute 1876 1875 page 17 another noteworthy point in the book of mormon record is the remarkable clearness which characterizes accounts of the erection and uses of buildings for public worship and other religious purposes three distinct classes are mentioned temples synagogues and sanctuaries those edifices were constructed after the manner of the jews jewe a distinction of great importance as this bold declara declaration ilon establishes one of the crucial tests of the verity verify of the record about 40 years after the landing of the lehine colony nephi in consequence of the hatred of his brethren left the main body of the people and with a considerable number of friends and relations relation went out into the wilderness and established a new settlement in what was called the land of nephi great prosperity attended the little band nephi says and I 1 did teach my peo people le ll 11 to build buildings and to work in n all manner of wood and of iron and of copper and of brass and of steel and copper 0 of I 1 gold and of silver and of precious ores which were in great abundance and I 1 nephi did build a temple and I 1 did construct it after the manner of the temple of solomon save it were not built of so many precious things tor for they were not to be found upon the land wherefore it could not be built like like unto solomona temple but the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of solomon and the workmanship was exceeding i ang fine II 11 nephi nepal v 16 1516 16 an interesting and suggestive feature of what squier calls sacred enclosures so frequently met with all over north america is the remarkable resemblance they bear in lineament arrangement and style of architecture to Ismeli tish taberna clem temples and sanctuaries they were always laid out with great topographical skill and displayed careful attention to a general and peculiar design to which the constructors tors conformed with accuracy and precision they were of various forms but the square oval and circular vastly preponderated there is no doubt that the character of the surface to be covered had a great deal to do in determining the shape of the structure as was the case with solomons temple at jerusalem sometimes the styles above named were combined in one and the same design there is an enclosure of this complex character at liberty ohio and another at port fort hall in the same state the outer wals walls of the first enclose an area of III acres inside of this is a smaller square and this encloses a still smaller wall of circular form these inner enclosures are considered by squier and others to be places sacred to religious rites or to the councils of the chiefs 11 breckenridge in his views of louisiana 11 describes in pike cou county n penn a perfect square enclosed within a circle constructed with no less regularity at portsmouth are four concentric circles intersected with wide avenues perfectly true to the cardinal points breckenridge further says the mounds near st louis formed three sides of a parallelogram about yards long by wide the fourth side was shut in by three smaller mounds 11 conant speaks of an enclosure on the root river biver miss the most important to is an elevation 12 f feet e et high by 34 in diameter it is perfectly round and enclosed by another circle A triangle formed of equal ridges feet in length with entrances at each angle completes the design the diameter of these ridges are three four and five f feet ee ta respectively ively it is remarkable that these heights taken together i 1 e equal the height of the central mound and when they are multiplied together the length of the sides of the triangle are attained viz in I 1 footprints of vanished races page 30 mention Is made of several other earth works of rectangular form where a similar relation exists between the different measurements of heights and lengths and breadths these peculiarities of tri trl unity in configuration this concordance in measurements and geometrical precision with regard to the points poin ta of the compass must strike every one as being remarkably mosaic in character and the city lieth foursquare and the length is as large as the breadth and he measured the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs ion s the length and the breadth any and the height of it are equal rev axi 16 undoubtedly many of the temples synagogues and sanctuaries erected by the Nep hites were costly and magnificent structures when they were first designed and built and while that mighty nation was at the zenith of its civilization and glory such edifices would suffer from the wear of ages and the attrition of the elements as also alio from the ravages and spoliations of successive generations of a declining race every traveler in any part of the world is constantly regain led of what time and spoliation will effect efreb for the ruin and annihilation of the most splendid and costly works of man in their primitive times and while they were struggling with the hardships of war and poverty the Nep hites would construct their sacred and other public resorts of the natural materials earth and stone and these would resemble in general design the more elaborate edifices and these natural elements would endure offering no inducement to the spoiler their general figure and dimensions would not be altered or destroyed it is the handiwork of man that decays and the richest adornments and the most skillful products of his labor are am the first to be rifled and destroyed but the earthy sub substances stances remal remain it to mark the spot where the treasure was enshrined hence so many ot of the earth works remain almost intact not only those arec erected d as fortifications ficat ions but those also believed by eminent scientists to have been used for religious purposes in soule some cases the entire structure ture exists al a most as it was reared because it was formed of materials that time could not demolish nor plunder carry away if the book of mormon is true there should be found upon the fat of this land signs and relics of jewish jellish religion and sach architecture explorers and tj travel ravel ers testify that such mementoes do exist in great abundance ar it is probable that each 1 ao sod city had its temple synagogues an other sacred shrines and eva aou would id not no that the smallest village be without its sanctuary and pu puw W ic lectern lec turn the character of f the exist ing rein remains ains and their according to a general curton makes this supposition almost oe CW the tto tain some writers believe that small inclosure always joined to the large one was the chiefs chief Is dwelling but recent discoveries have shown that this notion is incorrect ther their mode of construction and the nature nata of the remains found in them thein 10 T against the idea of their being vate dwellings while there exists a singular bar mony of the parts to the entire PIA i the in each individual structure turey structures as groups are u not ot u n nadi in size or figure some are rot jut a others oval ova polygonal or square they always end in a platform at a ulc t 14 top geo E squier in his an monuments express his belief some at least of these truncated pyramids were temples they have often aften the essential features of the mple at jerusalem by being built itt in successive terraces r the rhe most remarkable pyramid of this is character yet discovered is that of f cahokia ill it has been often described A gentleman named W D D hass in a report to the peabody institute vol 2 page says this great mound has a height of ninety one feet its base measures M lw by feet the platform laffonn surmounting it is ty by the raw maas is estimated to contain no less than roan twenty five millions of cubic roelof material used in its construe on it must have taken thousands of r workmen many years to bull build i it it must have required a most pow ww and absorbing animus such as glon or ethical ardor alone can inspire aspire to have prompted and completed aple ted such a gigantic work there 1 here we are traces of other buildings ron the platform used perhaps by elsts ts as the remains or of an altar with h the signs of offerings and sacrifices ces have been found among the debris abris all the approaches to the abound were defended by smaller founds facing east west north and auth south another at Seltzer town is described beld by squier and davis in ancient monuments in the api valley 11 page the base jaa s a parallelogram feet long by soe with a height of 40 feet the platform is reached by a flight of stairs and contains an area of three acres res here the mosaic design is preserved in essentials pon the platform there rises three mounds bounds of different heights the beat is 40 feet another specimen mound is situ atad at at Maton tiple it is of considerable size and surrounded by a cir vw cle of smaller mounds Oel beneral leral harrison mentions some wae structures at the junction of the ohio and muskingum ngum rivers claere here are two parallelograms of un nual atal size the walls are 27 feet wide de at their base in the center of the larger enclosure there stands four pyramids the summit of three baaree baree can be reached by a |