Orson Pratt

“ May the Lord who has redeemed us from among the nations bestow upon us the rich blessings of his kingdom, which he has decreed to bestow upon his people in the latter days! And may this people spread forth on the right hand and on the left; may they enlarge the place of their dwelling, and stretch forth the curtains of their habitation, until they shall become a great mountain, as the Prophet Daniel has predicted, and fill the whole earth, until the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole heavens ”

“ These plagues named in John's revelations, will take place literally—"The Lord God will curse the waters of the great deep, and they shall be turned into blood." "The sea shall become as the blood of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea shall be destroyed." ”

“ All you have to do is to make yourselves acquainted with the fact. You will find that the Gospel message has been carried out by our missionaries to the nations of Great Britain and Ireland, to France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the countries of Scandinavia, to Austria and Russia, to Asia and Africa, to Australia and the island of New Zealand, and the various islands of the South Pacific Ocean, as well as to the Sandwich and Society Islands. Among all these nations, this work has gone in fulfillment of prophecy, published before there was any Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ”

“ Woe unto them who wait to see if God will really fulfill the prophecies of his servants, and who repent not of their sins! But, blessed are they who repent as soon as they hear the sound of the message, and who turn unto the Lord their God with all their hearts, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, which bears record of the Father and the Son, and they shall be prepared for the dispensation of his providences, and hail his coming with great joy. The people of the antediluvian world waited one day too long ”

“ First, upon the Gentile nations, when their times are fulfilled. In what way? By visiting upon them famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes; nation rising against nation in war, etc., until the Gentile nations are overthrown. Or, to speak in the language of John, who declared that after the angel shall bring the Gospel, another angel shall follow, crying with a loud voice, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication; she is fallen like a great millstone, cast into the depths of the sea, and no more place found for her. ”

“ Until another angel should fly through the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to commit to the earth, with power to again administer its ordinances. To whom is the angel to bring the Gospel? The Scriptures say, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The Gentiles were the last to receive the Gospel in ancient times, but on its restoration by the angel in the last days, they are to receive it first, and then the Jews. ”

“ And the time will come, when the seven angels having the seven last trumps will sound their trumps literally, and the sound thereof will be heard among the nations, just preparatory to the coming of the Son of man; and all the judgments foretold by John, which are to succeed the sound of each of the seven trumpets, will be fulfilled literally upon the earth in their times and seasons. And the wicked will gnaw their tongues for peace, and will curse God, wishing to die because of their pain. ”

“ I will refer you to another ancient prophecy contained in the 4th chapter of the second of Timothy—"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables;" ”

“ In other lands, persecution existed in consequence of men's religious convictions; here all religious societies enjoyed the freedom of religious liberty to the fullest extent. If an impostor were going to prophesy, would he not be most likely to predict something that would suit the popular feeling of the people, something that would naturally come to pass? ”