Sunday, January 7, 2024

Janne M. Sjodahl on the Post-1830 Fulfillment of 2 Nephi 10:14

  

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:

 

Resources on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies