NO
KING AGAINST THE LORD
For he that raiseth up a king
against me shall perish, for I, the Lord, the king of heaven, will be their
king.-2 Nephi 10:14.
These are given us as the words of
the Lord through Jacob, the son of Lehi. The prophet tells us, that the Jews
will be restored to the land of their fathers, while his descendants and those
of his brethren will inherit America. And then he says that this land shall be
a land of liberty to the gentiles as well, and that he that fighteth against
this land - Zion—shall perish; also that he who raiseth up a king here against
the Lord, shall perish, for the Lord himself will be the " king" of
this country.
. . .
This prediction has also been
verified in later times.
In May, 1822, Augustus Iturbide
proclaimed himself emperor of Mexico, and was crowned the following July under
the name of Augustin I. His empire included, in addition to the Mexico of
today, large portions of the United States and the Central American countries.
But the Mexicans soon drove him from the throne into exile. The country treated
him liberally, in recognition of former patriotic services. An allowance of $
25,000 a year was voted for him, provided he would remain abroad. But some power
seemed to prompt him to return. He arrived in Mexico in 1824, and was killed as
an enemy of the country on July 19, that year.
Those who were engaged in the
efforts to establish Archduke Maximilian, of Hapsburg, a brother of the late
Emperor Francis Joseph, of Austria -Hungary, on a Mexican imperial throne,
fared no better. The proposition, in all probability, came, with the consent of
the pope, from Napoleon III, who, at any rate, furnished the military force for
the enterprise. Marshal Bazaine was the commander of those troops. The outcome
of it was one of the great tragedies of history. Maximilian, abandoned by
Napoleon and betrayed by some of his generals, was captured and shot to death,
June 18, 1867. His wife, Princess Carlotte, a sister of King Leopold, of
Belgium, became insane. Napoleon early in the war with Germany, 1870-1, was
captured at Sedan and died in exile. Bazaine was captured with a force of
173,000 men, and he was, subsequently, tried by a court martial and condemned to
degradation and death, although the death sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment. Verily, "he that raiseth up a king against me ”—in this
land of liberty -"shall perish. '
There is, perhaps, no more tragic
experience in all history than that of Maximilian and Carlotte. When Louis
Napoleon III of France in 1863, decided to step into the imbroglio in Mexico,
a committee of Mexican nobles went to Miramir and asked Maximilian to become their
emperor. He hesitated, and Carlotte is said to have made the decision for him.
They entered Vera Cruz harbor in 1864 on a French cruiser and were well
received. The United States, having emerged from its Civil war troubles, made a
vigorous restatement of the Monroe doctrine, and Louis Napoleon hurriedly
withdrew his troops. Bereft of his patron's support, Maximilian saw the
scattered bands of guerillas become a united army, directed against his throne.
Carlotte, foreseeing doom, fled to France to plead with Napoleon to return his
troops and support her husband.
How she humbled her pride before
the French sovereign and subsequently pleaded in vain for aid from the Vatican
form the most dramatic episodes of her long life. Her interview with Napoleon
was held secret, but at its close an attendant heard her shriek: "I ought
never to have forgotten what I am and what you are! I ought not to have
forgotten that there is Bourbon blood in my veins! I should not have disgraced
my descent by lowering myself before a Bonaparte and being led away by an
adventurer!" Louis Napoleon left in the midst of her tirade,
and attendants found her swooning
on the floor. Some accounts have it that her mind failed her then, but the fact
remains that her will drove her to the Vatican, where she also created a scene.
After this fruitless appeal in her
husband's behalf, she is said to have been found wandering the streets of Rome,
washing her hands in the fountains and babbling incoherently. Accounts differ as
to whether Carlotte ever knew that Maximilian was betrayed and captured, or
that he died with her name on his lips before a firing squad at Queretaro, on June
19, 1867.
Such is some of the testimony of
secular history to the truth of the Book of Mormon. (Janne M. Sjodahl, An
Introduction to the Study of the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: The
Deseret News Press, 1927], 215, 219-22)
Further
Reading:
