THE LAST LONG SERIES OF WARS—MORMON—THE FINAL CONFLICT AT CUMORAH—THE LAST OF THE NEPHITES.

(MORMON.)

IT WAS in the year 322 A. C. that actual war broke out between the Nephites and Lamanites, for the first time since the Redeemer's appearing. It commenced in the land of Zarahemla near the waters of Sidon. A number of battles were fought, in which the armies of the former were victorious. Four years later the savage contest was renewed. In the interim iniquity had greatly increased. As foretold by the prophets, men's property became slippery, things movable were subject to unaccountable disappearances, and dread and distrust filled the hearts of the disobedient. When the war recommenced, the youthful Mormon was chosen to lead the armies of his nation.

The next year saw disaster follow the Nephite cause. The people retreated before the Lamanites to the north countries. The year following they met with still further reverses, and in A. C. 329 rapine, revolution and carnage prevailed throughout all the land.

In 330 the Lamanite king, Aaron, with an army of forty-four thousand men, was defeated by Mormon, who had forty-two thousand warriors under his command.

Five years later the Lamanites drove the degenerate Nephites to the land of Jashon, and thence yet further northward to the land of Shem. But in the year following the tide of victory changed, and Mormon, with thirty thousand troops, defeated fifty thousand of the enemy in the land of Shem; then he followed up with such energetic measures that by the year 349 the Nephites had again taken possession of the lands of their inheritance.

These successes resulted in a treaty between the Nephites as one party and the Lamanites and Gadianton robbers as the other. By its provisions the Nephites possessed the country north of the Isthmus, while the Lamanites held the regions south. A peace of ten years followed this treaty.

In the year 360, the king of the Lamanites again declared war. To repel the expected invasion, the people of Nephi gathered at the land of Desolation. There the Lamanites attacked them, were defeated, and returned home. Not content with this repulse, the succeeding year they made another inroad into the northern country, and were again repulsed. The Nephites then took the initiative and invaded the southern continent, but being unsuccessful, were driven back to the frontier at Desolation (A. C. 363). The same season, the city of Desolation was captured by the Lamanitish warriors, but was wrested from them the year following.

This state of things continued another twenty years; war, contention, rapine, pillage, and all the horrors incident to the letting loose of men's most depraved and brutal passions, filled the land. Sometimes one army conquered, sometimes the other. Now it was the Nephites who were pouring their forces into the south; then the Lamanites who were overflowing the north. Whichever side triumphed, that triumph was of short duration; but to all it meant sacrifice, cruelty, blood-guiltiness and woe. At last, when every nerve had been strained for conquest, every man collected who could be found, the two vast hosts, with unquenchable hatred and unrelenting obstinacy, met at the hill Cumorah to decide the destiny of half the world. It was the final struggle, which was to end in the extermination of one or both of the races that had conjointly ruled America for nearly a thousand years (A. C. 385). When the days of that last fearful struggle were ended, all but twenty-four of the Nephite race had been, by the hand of violence, swept into untimely graves, save a few, a very few, who had fled into the south country. The powers, the glories, the beauties of this favored branch of Israel's chosen race had sunk beneath a sea of blood; the word of their God, whom they had so long disregarded, was vindicated; the warnings of his servants were fulfilled.

The Lamanites were now rulers of the western world, their traditional enemies being utterly destroyed. But they did not cultivate peace; no sooner were the Nephites obliterated, than they commenced fighting among themselves. The lonely Moroni, the last of the Nephites, tells us, A. C. 400, that the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the face of the land is one continued round of murder and bloodshed; and no man knoweth the end of the war. And again, yet later, he writes: Their wars are exceeding fierce among themselves.

Such was the sad condition of the Lamanite race in the early part of the fifth century after Christ. There the inspired record closes; henceforth we have nothing but uncertain tradition. The various contending tribes, in their thirst for blood so long gratified, sunk deeper and deeper into savage degradation; the arts of civilization were almost entirely lost to the great mass of the people. Decades and centuries rolled by, and after a time, in some parts, a better state of things slowly uprose. In Central America, Mexico, Peru, and other places, the foundations of new kingdoms were laid, in which were gradually built up civilizations peculiarly their own, but in many ways bearing record to the idiosyncrasies of their ancient predecessors. With this we have here little to do; many of their traditions (though disregarded by mankind) bear unequivocal testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon, and we have the joyous assurance that as the words of their ancient prophets recorded therein have been fulfilled to the letter in their humiliation; and as they have drunk to the dregs from the cup of bitterness of the wrath of God, so is the glorious day now dawning, when the light of the eternal gospel shall illumine the hearts of their descendants; fill them with the love of God; renew their ancient steadfastness and faith, and make them the fitting instruments in his hands of accomplishing all his holy purposes with regard to them, in which also shall be fulfilled all the gracious, glorious promises made by Jehovah to this transplanted branch of the olive tree of Israel.