Are We of Israel?

The belief that the Latter day Saints hold that the great majority of their number are of the house of Israel, and heirs to the promises made to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, like many other portions of their faith, has received the ridicule of the unthinking and the contempt of the ungodly. However, it is not our present intention to answer such, but to seek to adduce evidence outside of the sure word of modern revelation, to prove that the Latter day Saints have good reasons, drawn from history and analogy, for believing the words of their Patriarchs who, in blessing them, pronounce them of the house of Abraham and of the promised seed of Jacob.