Page:A dictionary of the Book of Mormon.pdf/87

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Amulek.

sisting him in his labors and ministry. The Lord abundantly blessed their efforts, and the Book of Mormon informs us that they imparted the word of God, without any respect of persons, to the people continually; and there was no inequality among them, and the Lord did pour out His Spirit on all of the land that they might enter into His rest.

Amulek seemed to have henceforth devoted his entire life to the preaching of the gospel. We next hear of him (B. C. 75) being in the land of Melek with Zeezrom, whence Alma took them and other brethren to preach to the Zoramites, a body of Nephite dissenters or apostates who laid inordinate stress upon the idea of their predestination to salvation. Here Amulek preached with great zeal and faith, as did the other Elders, resulting in the repentance of many, who, by their more hardened fellow countrymen, were cruelly persecuted and driven into the land of Jershon, whose inhabitants received them with great kindness and ministered to their wants. Here Alma and his fellow laborers still further instructed them in the principles of eternal life. The wicked Zoramites were highly incensed at the kindness shown to their persecuted brethren by the noble-hearted people of Ammon, and made it a pretext for commencing a war of extermination. This war commenced about eight years after the expulsion of Amulek from Ammonihah.

Amulek has the honor of having some of his sermons handed down to us in detail in the Book of Mormon. From them we judge him to have been a man of liberal education, of great faith, of unswerving integrity and untiring zeal for the truth. He was, from the glimpses of his private life that we glean as we pass along, a man of tender and affectionate disposition, exceedingly fond of his home and family, yet these and all else he readily and joyfully gave up for the riches and