[2]

Jan. 4, Wed.: Attended forenoon and afternoon sessions of a meeting of the First Presidency, the Twelve, and the First Council of the Seventies, listening to a lengthy but valuable report by Elder B. H. Roberts, relating to his Book of Mormon study. Brother Roberts has assembled a long list of points called "difficulties", meaning thereby what non-believers in the Book of Mormon call discrepancies between that record and the results of archaeological and other scientific investigations. As examples of these "difficulties" may be mentioned the views put forth by some living writers to the effect that no vestige of either Hebrew or Egyptian appears in the language of the American Indians, or Amerinds. Another is the positive declaration by certain writers that the horse did not exist upon the Western

[3]

Continent during historic times prior to the coming of Columbus.

I know the Book of Mormon to be a true record; and many of the "difficulties", or objections as opposing critics would urge, are after all but negative in their nature. The Book of Mormon states that Lehi and his colony found horses upon this continent when they arrived; and therefore horses were here at that time.