The Ten Tribes and the Gathering of Israel

As I picked up the Bible in the commencement of our services for the purpose of finding a certain passage in Jeremiah, I opened mechanically to another part of the Sacred Volume, to find myself looking into that part called the Apocrypha, without knowing that the books known by that name were contained in this particular edition of the Bible lying here on the stand. But finding myself looking into the second book of Esdras, a passage occurred to my mind, which I will read: ¶

"And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable people unto him. These are the Ten Tribes which were carried away captives out of their own land in the time of Oseas, the king, whom Salmanaser, the king of the Assyrians, took captive and crossed them beyond the river; so were they brought into another land, but they took this council to themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and go forth onto a further country, where never man dwelt, that they might keep the statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered in at the narrow passages of the river Euphrates, for the most High then showed them signs and staid the springs of the flood till they were passed over; for through the country there was great journey, even of a year and a half, and the same region is called Arsareth." (2 Esdras 13:39-45.) ¶

A few years ago I had occasion to visit the land of Palestine, and having made a very interesting little tour to the top of Mount Tabor, and to the Sea of Galilee, and had also visited Cana, in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into wine, I found myself back in the little city of Nazareth; thence turning my face toward the south, I commenced a journey of about eighty miles through the heart of Galilee and Samaria to Jerusalem. On that journey I crossed the plain of Esdraelon, and passed by the village of Nain, where the widow's son was raised from the dead in the days of old by our Redeemer. I also passed by Endor, where the woman with a familiar spirit lived in the days of Saul, climbed up the slopes of Mount Gilboa, where Saul committed suicide and his sons were slain, and passed through Dothan, where Joseph was sold by his brethren to the Ishmaelitish merchants, who took him down to Egypt and there sold him. I next found myself passing through Samaria, the old capital of the Ten Tribes. Turning thence a little toward the east, I came to Shechem, and a little east of that I found myself on the plains of Moran, where is situated the well of Jacob and the tomb of Joseph. Changing again my course of travel toward the south, I traversed the plains of Moran in their entire length, and from the south end of the plain I found myself climbing the mountains until I reached the town of Bethel, where Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, had a peculiar dream, in which he saw angels passing up and down, as it were, on a ladder that seemed to connect heaven and earth. And turning my face toward the east a little, I beheld a town situated about half way between Luz and Bethel and the Jordan River, and that town I was told by my Arabian companion was known as Ephraim. At once it dawned upon me that I stood in the midst of the mountains of Ephraim, and that here was the land where the Ten Tribes dwelt, particularly the strongest of all those tribes, the tribe of Joseph or the tribe of Ephraim. I could not then help thinking of this passage that I have just read. When I looked toward the east, I imagined that I could see far away over the plains of Syria into the land of Chaldea, where Abraham once dwelt, and where he was told by the Lord to leave the land of his fathers and come to live as a stranger in the land of Canaan. I thought of how his children, or his descendants, subsequently went down into Egypt, where they dwelt several hundred years, and afterwards came back under Moses and Joshua, and took possession of the land of Canaan, which was then divided between the twelve tribes, and how still later, when the children of Israel did not keep the commandments of God, they divided up into the Northern and Southern Kingdom, the tribe of Judah and part of another tribe only remaining loyal to the house of David, while the Ten Tribes revolted, and chose another king. In this divided condition the children of Israel lived for a number of years, until the wrath of the Almighty was kindled against them, because they would not serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but worshiped strange gods, and the consequence was that Salmanesar came over from Assyria and took them over the river Tigris some seven hundred miles from Samaria. Here we come to the events narrated in the passage which I have read, where it says that the people counseled among themselves, and as they did not like to live among the heathens, they took their goods and chattels and started on a long journey, disappearing in the lands of the north. From history we do not know anything more of them than that. That is where history ends, if we can call the apocryphical writings of Esdras history. There are undoubtedly many things in Esdras that are just as reliable as things found in the scriptures that are called canonical. ¶

We are at the present time commencing investigations from the other end. We are looking very deep into genealogy. We have genealogical societies organized. Among others we have the Genealogical Society of Utah, of which a number of you perhaps are members. Genealogical societies are trying their best to hunt up all the information they can about our forefathers, and in a private way we are endeavoring to go back as far as we can to know from whence we sprang. ¶

It is a source of great pride on the part of many Americans who live on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, to trace their ancestry back to some ship, commencing with the "Mayflower," that brought the Anglo-Saxons over to America. It is a source of pride, I say, for them to trace back their ancestry to that ship, or some other ship, that came over to this land bringing immigrants who laid the foundation of this great commonwealth. In tracing our genealogy we soon find ourselves on the other side of the water among the English people—not among the descendants of the old Britons, as a rule, but among the English people. And the question is then: Whence came the English people? We understand, of course, the close relationship between those on this side and those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean; and we are pleased to note that the two great Anglo-Saxon nations are the banner-bearers today of liberty and the equal rights of men. I take unusual interest in this proposition, because England is ruling her colonies with the same degree of liberality as that which governs the States of our own Union on this side of the Atlantic. This you can find out personally if you visit Australia, New Zealand, and other English colonies, as well as Canada, where the people are enjoying freedom and liberty, the same as we are in the United States of America. But whence came the Anglo-Saxons? Going back into English history, we read of the Danish and of the Norman conquests. But before that, we read about Horsa and Hengist, who came over the North Sea about 449 years after the birth of our Savior, and took possession of England. We need not look into the details of the history of the wars, though we naturally think of how the Vikings fought with the Picts of Scotland and afterwards subdued the Celts or Britons, and introduced what we call the English language in the British Isles. ¶

In the northern part of Europe we find a strong race of people, known as the Germanic race. We also notice as a branch of the Germanic race the Scandinavians. The ancestors of the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians and the Danes subscribed to a universal mythology, and have to a certain extent a common history, and when we read their histories by different authors, all agree in stating that the first inhabitants of those northern countries migrated to the north from the central part of western Asia. This is especially true of those who dwelt in ancient Saxony—not the present Saxony, where Dresden and Leipsig are located, but the old Saxony which was a part of the present Hanover, Mechlenburg and Holstein, etc., and the Angles, who lived in a country a little further north known as Schleswig and Jutland. It is universally understood that the early inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries came from Asia. Take up any history that traces the Scandinavian and German peoples, and they will agree that tradition points to the fact that these early Scandinavian and Germanic races came from the very part of Asia where the Ten Tribes were lost. ¶

This to me is a most interesting study. Referring again to the mythology of the Scandinavians and Germans, what do you find? A religion of good morals. I venture to say that if modern Christianity, corrupted as it is today, is a remnant of the true Christianity introduced by our Savior; if the Free Masonry of today is a remnant and corruption of the true signs and tokens of the Priesthood revealed in the days of Solomon, when the Temple of Solomon was built, then it is easy for us to understand and believe that the mythology of the north is simply a corruption of the true Jehovah-worship, as Abraham knew it and taught it to his children. It is an easy thing to understand and believe this, because the mythology of the north is so godlike, chaste and morally pure, that it is almost heaven compared with the voluptuous worship which was known and practiced in the South. I refer particularly to the Latin and Greek mythologies, and those worships that were adopted by the people of the South or the lands bordering on the Mediterranean. ¶

A great deal could be said in regard to this most interesting theme. We can approach the subject from the earliest dawn of history down the stream of time as far as we can reach; and then we can proceed the other way, going back from ourselves as far as we can, and we meet the proposition in Scandinavia and Northern Germany that the Anglo Saxons, the Germans and the Scandinavians are greatly mixed up with the remnants of the House of Israel. We can scarcely come to any other conclusion. Then we naturally spring another question: Why have the Latter-day Saint missionaries met with much more success among the Anglo-Saxons and the German and Scandinavian races, than among any other races upon the face of the earth? The answer is: We are, in fulfillment of the predictions of the ancient Prophets, gathering Israel. Why do we have so much to say at the present time, and at this conference, about the second, third, fourth and fifth generations of Latter-day Saints? It is the most natural thing in the world. If we are of Israel, our genealogy must assume a shape like that, for the children of Israel, if not corrupted by environments, will naturally worship the God of their fathers. And we are of Israel; there is no doubt of it, and we will find that when our genealogy is revealed in detail, it will lead us back from America to England, from England to Scandinavia and Germany, and from there to the country lying between the Caspian and the Black Sea, that part of Asia where the Ten Tribes were lost. We can then easily trace it back to Palestine and Chaldea; we have the history completed from the Bible. ¶

I rejoice that so many faithful men and women have believed and embraced the gospel as it has been preached by the Latter-day Saints during the last eighty years. I repeat, that when we have turned our attention to Latin or Oriental countries, we have met with but little success. If we have preached the gospel successfully in Australia, it is perhaps because the people there are mainly of English origin, and the same can be said of New Zealand, as to the white population. And if we speak of the Hawaiians and the Samoans and the Maoris, then they are simply another branch of the House of Israel, and that is undoubtedly the reason why we have met with success among them. Study the history of our missionary career ever since the Church was organized and I will venture to say that we hitherto have made very little progress among any people except those who come, as we claim, either pure or mixed from the House of Israel. We have not had success among the Latin or Oriental races, or among the Chinese or Japanese. There may be some of the blood of Israel among them, but so far we have discovered but a very little. Then I say, let us study this matter intelligently, when we endeavor to trace our genealogy and seek to complete the chain connecting us with Father Abraham. The subject is certainly a thing of immense interest to us. ¶

I rejoice that the amalgamation of the Latter-day Saints of different nationalities takes place so beautifully and completely. People who have come from different climes soon become one strong and united community. The way we associate and affiliate, and the way we destroy all differences that naturally would and do exist in many other parts of the world between the Americans and the Germans and the Scandinavians, ought to be a lesson to all others. All differences seem to be passing away and disappearing in a single generation, and thus we are fast becoming "one nation upon the mountains of Ephraim." ¶

Brethren and Sisters, God bless you. May we understand our privileges and live up to them; may we rejoice in the many blessings that we receive almost daily, and appreciate the privilege we have had to be assembled in a splendid conference. The many glorious testimonies, to which we have listened, are certainly calculated to make the heart of every Latter-day Saint rejoice. That we may go away from this conference renewed in our determination to serve God more perfectly hereafter than we have done hitherto, is my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen. ¶