Page:A dictionary of the Book of Mormon.pdf/298

Rh When 600 years had passed since Lehi left Jerusalem, the wicked and perverse raised a great outcry that the prophecies had failed and the believers were deluded, that the delusion was a danger to the state, and those who adhered to it should be slain. They even appointed a day on which to carry out their sanguinary threats should the promised signs not be first given. These were days of anxiety and dread to Nephi. For consolation he sought the Lord in long and fervent prayers. And his prayers received a full and joyous answer. The word of the Lord came to him that that night the looked-for sign should be given, and on the morrow Jesus would come into the world. And so it came to pass. The new star appeared in the heavens, there were two days and a night of undiminished light, and all the people, both the righteous and the evildoers, recognized the sign and accepted its signification; the Lord of Life and Glory was clothed with humanity.

For about thirty years we have no direct statement of the work done by Nephi as a minister of God's word. Those thirty years were a period marked with many vicissitudes in the national and spiritual history of the Nephites. For seventeen years from the time of the birth of our Savior they gradually increased in wickedness; war and desolations afflicted them until, in their extremity, they were brought to repentance. But their repentance did not bring immediate deliverance from earthly troubles — the Gadianton robbers held the upper hand, and it was not until A. C. 21 that, by a signal victory, they freed themselves from their oppressors and invaders. Then followed a short period of peace and prosperity, with its usual train of consequences — riches, pride, inequality, oppression and varied iniquities, and year by year they grew worse, until A. C. 29. But even then they had not descended to their lowest; the next