| 642 including about two acres of ground. The only descent from this place is between two rocks, for about thirty feet, when a bench of the ledge presents itself from two to five feet in width and ninety feet long. This bench is the only road or path up from the water's edge to the summit. But just at the foot of the two rocks where they reach this path and within thirty feet of the top of the rock, are five rooms, which have been formed by dint of labor. The entrance to these rooms is very small, but when within, they are found to communicate with each other by doors or appertures [apertures]."
Mr. Furguson thinks them to have been constructed during some dreadful war, and those who constructed them, to have acted on the defensive; and believes that twenty men could have withstood the whole army of Xerxes, as it was impossible for more than one to pass at a time, and might by the slightest push, be hurled at least an hundred and fifty feet down the rocks.
Book of Mormon, page 479, 2nd Ed., "And it came to pass that the ninety and third year (of the reign of the Judges over the people of Nephi) did also pass away in peace, save it was for the Gadianton robbers, who dwelt upon the Mountains, who did infest the land; for so strong were their holds and their secret places, that the people could not overpower them; therefore they did commit many murders, and did so much slaughter among the people." Again; Book of Mormon, page 481, "And it came to pass in the commencement of the fourteenth year, (form [from] the time the sign was given of the birth of Christ,) the war between the robbers and the people of Nephi did continue, and did become exceeding sore; nevertheless the people of Nephi did gain some advantage of the robbers, insomuch [inasmuch] that they did drive them back out of their land into the mountains and into their secret places." Again; Book of Mormon, page 485, 2nd Ed., "But it came to pass that in the latter end of the eighteenth year, those armies of robbers had prepared for battle and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills, and out of the mountains and the wilderness, and their strong holds and their secret places, and began to take possession of the lands." And on the 487 and 488 pages, we are informed how these robbers were finally destroyed; it was by a stratagem. A part of the Nephite armies getting between the robbers and their secret places and strong holds, by which they were cut off in their retreat.
This again, is evidence that the Book of Mormon is true, and that this band of robbers were the constructors of this strong hold and these secret rooms which Mr. Furguson has described; for mark! this discovery was not made untill [until] two years after the Book of Mormon was published, consequently the writer of the Book of Mormon could not have written this tale concerning the robbers, to account for the construction of those caverns, for it was not known that there was such a place in existence, until after the book was written and published. And thus we have abundance of proof from recent discoveries, American Antiquities and prophecy, that the history contained in the Book of Mormon is true.
Again; this history informs us that about four hundred years after Christ, this nation of Nephites were brought down and destroyed by the Lamanites; and this because they became proud and lifted up, practising [practicing] all manner of wickedness and abominations, and they refused to repent and turn again unto God; therefore because they were more wicked than the Lamanites, God stirred up the Lamanites to camp against them round about, and to raise forts against them with a mount, and thus they were brought down. But just before their final overthrow, a man by the names of Mormon took their record containing their history and sacred writings, from the time they left Jerusalem, (the city where David dwelt,) unto his days, and made an abridgement [abridgment] therefrom, and engraved it upon plates which he made out of ore. These plates, after Mormon's death, fell into the hands of Moroni, his son, who survived the entire destruction of the Nephites, finished the record, and deposited it in a stone box in the earth, that it might not be destroyed; to come forth in due time for a sign to Israel, that the time of their redemption had come. And also, in connection with the Bible, to be set up as an ensign for the nations; and thus, this nation of Nephites possessing the light of God's revelation, which constituted them Ariel, or Lion of God, and being "of the city
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