Hope through Jesus Christ is the anchor with which we can secure our lives. President James E. Faust observed: “Hope is the anchor of our souls. I know of no one who is not in need of hope—young or old, strong or weak, rich or poor. As the prophet Ether exhorted, ‘Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God’” (“Hope, an Anchor of the Soul,” 59).
The ancient prophets Nephi and Isaiah had seen and foretold that which Mormon prophesied concerning the destiny of both the Lamanites and the land of America—that the Lord would reserve the blessings the wicked Lamanites might have received “in the land” for the future Gentiles who would “possess the land” (Mormon 5:16–20; see also 1 Nephi 13:13–15; 2 Nephi 12:2).
The history of the early discovery and colonization of America illustrates the fulfillment of Mormon’s prophecy. Recent revisions in estimates of native populations north of Mexico suggest as few as two million and as many as ten million, most scholars generally accepting the indigenous population to have been approximately five million in 1492 (see Taylor, American Colonies, 40). Through three periods of contact and interaction—the early age of discovery, of settlement and colonization, and of pre-Revolutionary emigration from Europe (see Morison, European Discovery of America; Morgan, Wilderness at Dawn; and Bailyn, Peopling of British North America)—a disastrous depopulation of Native America ensued, mostly due to disease. Within the first decade, studies suggest, half of the native population had been decimated. After fifty years, only one-tenth remained (see Taylor, American Colonies, 39–40).
By contrast, the various immigrations created a “Gentile” population of one quarter of a million by 1700. By 1775 the early settlers had increased ten-fold to approximately two million and continued to double every twenty-five years thereafter (see Current et al., American History, 33). One scholar noted: “Although disastrous for the American natives, the post-1492 New and Old World exchange of microbes and plants provided a double boon to Europeans. First, they obtained an expanded food supply that permitted their reproduction at an unprecedented rate. Second, they acquired access to fertile and extensive new lands largely emptied of native peoples by the exported diseases. In effect, the post-Columbian exchange depleted people on the American side of the Atlantic while swelling those on the European … shores. Eventually, the surplus population flowed westward to refill the demographic vacuum created on the American side of the Atlantic World” (Taylor, American Colonies, 46).
The repopulation of America by the “Gentiles” with the accompanying conquest of the “land” are a direct fulfillment of Mormon’s prophecy upon the Lamanite people who were “led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind” (Mormon 5:18). Nephi described this circumstance in no uncertain terms: “I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and smitten. … I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance” (1 Nephi 13:14–15, emphasis added).