The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-10-12
A Schiiiing s. Company
San Francisco


power on earth could destroy it: if it
was mans institution, it would. as the
Jewish lawyer predicted, come to
naught.
The followers of Christ" he said.
built upon the corner stone which
Christ laid and they could not be over
come. The fabric which their labors
made has endured for l 800 years. Their
testimony is now reiterated by thou
sands throughout the world.
The Latter-day Saints. he con-
tinued, have a similar mission to the
early apostles. Yet they have a new
and still more portentious witness to
the world. They proclaim that the
same gospel is on the earth and that
the end of all things is at hand.
Our reception has been similar to
theirs. When the elders told the peo-
pie that Joseph Smith had received
divine ministrations they were met
with the scorn and contumely of the
world. Finally, the great climax of
the opposition came with the martyr
dom of the prophet.
I'VE say, as they said, leave these
men alone, if we are of men we will
come to naught.' Test it by the writ
ten word and if the structure is firm
and complete it cannot be moved by
the wrath of all the opposing forces
in the world. If Joseph Smith was
given the Melchesidech priesthood
from divine beings then all the at
tempts to overcome it will be of no
avail. The elders of this church are
willing to discuss religious problems
with the world. We ask for free and
unprajudiced investigation. They
have done this for sixty years. There
has been no instance in which any
elder preaching the simple tenets of
the gospel, has been confounded by the
ministers of the world.
1.-The Latter-day Saints are full
filters of prophesy. They are gather
ing Israel from the world and building
temples in the mountains, the alti-
tudes where the Lords house was to
be established. Joseph Smiths Sys-
tenn could not have been of man. Wise
men for centuries have tried to in
stitute a system corresponding with
the scriptures. But it remained for
an unlettered boy to accomplish this.
The religiously wise of the world have
sought from the first to find flaw
in Joseph Smiths work, but thus far
they have ANONYMOUSLY failed. The
authenticity of the book Joseph Smith
translated, the Book of Mormon, could
be more easily established before
court of law than could the divine
authenticity of the sectarian Bible.
Eleven witnesses testified that they
saw and handled the plates Besides
this there is a multitude of internal
evidence to demonstrate the faithful
ness of this work. A scientist recently
stated that the civilization of this con-
tinent was older than that of the old
world and that antique inscriptions
found here were in Egyptian char
acters This doctrine is not new to the
Latter-day Saints. We know that
this continent was the home of Adam
and Eve and that the Book of Mormon
was written in reformed Egyptian.
1.-THE time will come when the
divinity of Joseph Smiths mission will
be as universally acknowledged as the
divinity of Jesus Christ now is. 1t was
a wondrous thing that Josiah Quincy
should say that Joseph Smith prob
ably exercised the most powerful in
f1uence of any American upon the
destines of the people.
'The storm clouds of Gods wrath
hang over the nation. Judgments are
coming on the people. No system OF
politics or acts of craftsmanship can
avert these terrible connections that
are even now ready to make the earth
tremble."
Elder David H. Cannon of St.
George, was the final speaker. He re-
ferred to the simplicity of the gospel
and the gathering of Israel to the
mountains. 1t was hard at first to
understand the necessity OF this, but
the Latter-day Saints realized, as the
magnitude of the work became more
apparent, that the Saints could not
have filed their destiny in a scattered
condition. The Saints. he said, could
not have built temples for the saliva
ton of the dead while widely separ-
ated from one another. Elder Cannon
spoke at length upon the essentially
of temple work being performed by
the Latter-day Saints.