We had a neighbor with a remarkable gift—the gift of hope. Though her physical frame was severely racked with the effects of a degenerative disease, she persisted resolutely in staying the course, preserving her gracious smile, confirming her faith and trust in the Lord, and speaking nothing but uplifting and positive words at every turn. To see her walking the halls of the chapel or bearing her testimony from the podium was to see the embodiment of hope in our midst in all its majesty. The physicians shook their heads in wonder at her resiliency. Her friends nodded their heads in admiration at her faith. Though she has since gone to her heavenly reward, her example of hope lives on.
When Moroni sealed up his final testimony with the sacred records, surrounded on all sides with the most hopeless and atrocious depravity on the part of his degenerate compatriots, what did he write about? Of hope. In the bleak environment of anger and hatred that characterized the prevailing conditions, he quoted his father concerning how to “search diligently in the light of Christ” (Moroni 7:19) with an eye to discovering the keys to faith, hope, and charity. Hope is a pervasive theme in the Book of Mormon. Toward the beginning of the chronicle, Nephi counseled us never to give up hope: “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20).
It was toward the end of his father’s ministry that Moroni received the epistle concerning the unspeakable suffering of the women and children at the hands of the merciless mobs who were committing atrocities of plunder and rape on every side. In similar outrages, the Saints of the Restoration were subjected to the most brutal and cruel persecution. On Thursday, October 18, 1838, the sister-in-law of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Agnes Smith, was driven out into a snow storm by mob fanatics, who plundered and burned her house. Thus, while her husband Don Carlos, brother of the Prophet, was away on a mission for the Church in Tennessee, she was forced to walk three miles, her two tiny infants in arms, and then wade across a river to safety. The Prophet writes in his journal: “Women and children, some in the most delicate condition, were thus obliged to leave their homes and travel several miles in order to effect their escape. My feelings were such as I cannot describe when I saw them flock into the village [Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri], almost entirely destitute of clothes, and only escaping with their lives” (HC 3:163). The state militia was called out to dispense the villains, but this was only a temporary solution. Some of the mobbers even burned their own vacated homes, claiming the Mormons did it (HC 3:164). The persecution was to continue for many years. Still the Saints did not give up hope, and the Restoration continued until the kingdom of God emerged in its full glory.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of hope. The Book of Mormon is the handbook of hope. The history of God’s people is the chronicle of hope. Hope will ultimately prevail over the forces of evil that conspire relentlessly to undermine hope and degrade faith. But such conspiracies will not stand, because the mission of Christ is the mission of supreme and triumphant hope for all who receive it in the spirit of meekness and love. (Richard J. Allen)