BYU Devotional: Tad Callister

Great story about Sidney Rigdon:

First, Sidney Rigdon’s daughter, Nancy Rigdon Ellis, was eight years old when Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery presented her father with a copy of the Book of Mormon in their home. She said that she recalled the event because of the conflict that arose:

I saw them hand [my father] the book, and I am as positive as can be that he never saw it before. He read it and examined it for about an hour and then threw it down and said he did not believe a word in it.

Later, however, he did accept the Book of Mormon, joined the Church, and became one of its leaders.

Second, Sidney Rigdon’s son John spoke to his father as he lay on his deathbed: “[Father], you owe it to me and to your family to tell [the truth about the Book of Mormon].”

In other words, this is the day of reckoning; be totally honest before you go to the judgment bar.

The son then recounted his father’s response: “My father looked at me a moment, raised his hand above his head and slowly said, with tears glistening in his eyes: ‘My son, I can swear before high heaven that what I have told you about the origin of that book is true.’”

After this tender moment, the son said, “I believed him.”

Later, John joined the Church, and thus another argument fell by the wayside.

Parable of the Diamond (Hugh Nibley):

A young man once long ago claimed he had found a large diamond in his field as he was ploughing. He put the stone on display to the public free of charge, and everyone took sides. A psychologist showed, by citing some famous case studies, that the young man was suffering from a well-known form of delusion. An historian showed that other men have also claimed to have found diamonds in fields and been deceived. A geologist proved that there were no diamonds in the area but only quartz. . . . When asked to inspect the stone itself, the geologist declined with a weary, tolerant smile and a kindly shake of the head. . . . A sociologist showed that only three out of 177 florists’ assistants in four major cities believed the stone was genuine. A clergyman wrote a book to show that it was not the young man but someone else who had found the stone.

Finally an indigent jeweler . . . pointed out that since the stone was still available for examination the answer to the question of whether it was a diamond or not had absolutely nothing to do with who found it, or whether the finder was honest or sane, or who believed him, or whether he would know a diamond from a brick . . . , but was to be answered simply and solely by putting the stone to certain well-known tests for diamonds. Experts on diamonds were called in. Some of them declared it genuine. The others made nervous jokes about it and declared that they could not very well jeopardize their dignity and reputations by appearing to take the thing too seriously. To hide the bad impression thus made, someone came out with the theory that the stone was really a synthetic diamond, very skillfully made, but a fake just the same. The objection to this is that the production of a good synthetic diamond [in that day and age] would have been an even more remarkable feat than the finding of a real one.