Osborne J. P. Widtsoe

“ But the "Book of Mormon" is more than history. The angel that John the Revelator saw fly in the midst of heaven, had the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. That is why the "Book of Mormon" is more than history. It contains the fulness of the everlasting Gospel as delivered to the Nephites. It is so simple that the child will read its pages with interest, yet it contains a profound treatment of the philosophy of the Gospel. In the restoration of this sacred record, the prediction of the Apostle John was indeed beautifully fulfilled. ”

“ But it is only fair to assume that life would have been as dear to him as to anyone else. It is not probable that he would have laid down his life for a mere imposture. It is not probable that he would have been willing to make so rich a sacrifice, had it been possible for him to recant—to deny what was an untruth anyway. More probably, if he had been an imposter, Joseph Smith would have saved his life, at the last, by avowing the imposture he had attempted to establish. But Joseph Smith did not deny his divine, prophetic calling. ”

“ In 1841, in a general conference of the Church held at Nauvoo, he said, "There is never a time, when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within reach of pardoning mercy, who have not committed the unpardonable sin, which hath no forgiveness, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. There is a way to release the spirits of the dead! that is by the power and authority of the Priesthood—by binding and loosing on earth. This doctrine appears glorious, inasmuch as it exhibits the greatness of divine compassion and benevolence in the extent of the plan of human salvation. ”

“ One dies and is buried, having never heard the gospel of reconciliation; to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it, and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition? ”

“ But this church was without divine authority. It had no divinely appointed Priesthood. Its doctrines were perverted, and before it the people bowed in submission in fear and trembling.
This awful state of affairs brought about the "reformation," when the Lord raised up courageous men to shatter these fetters of bondage, that freedom might be given to the people and the way prepared in part for the re-establishment of truth, when the proper time should come. But Luther and the other "reformers" were without the power and authority to act in the name of the Lord. ”

“ The Lord who is rich in mercy, and ever willing to answer the consistent prayer of the humble, after we had called upon Him in a fervent manner, aside from the abodes of men, condescended to manifest to us His will. On a sudden, as from the midst of eternity, the voice of the Redeemer spake peace to us, while the vail was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked for message, and the keys of the Gospel of repentance. ”

“ For how can a church fulfill the measure of its existence unless it possess the very powers here ascribed to the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek?
It is really a matter of wonder that Joseph Smith, an unlearned youth—for he was less than twenty-four years of age at the time of the restoration of the Melchizedekian Priesthood—should have felt himself unauthorized fully to represent God until the two orders of priesthood were conferred upon him. The so-called reformers were nearly all learned men. They knew the scriptures not only in translation but in the original tongue. ”

“ Again, in the book of the prophet Malachi, occur passages that point unmistakably to a time of restoration. The Lord promises to send a messenger, before He shall come suddenly to His temple. Then only the righteous shall stand, for He shall be like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. [C] Again, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord—when all the proud and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble—the Lord promises to send Elijah, to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers," that the earth may not be smitten with a curse. ”

“ Man may deceive his fellow-man, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit of falsehood carries in its current the giddy to the grave; but one touch with the finger of his love, yes, one ray of glory from the upper world, or one word from the mouth of the Savior, from the bosom of eternity strikes it all into insignificance, and blots it forever from the mind! ”

“ Indeed, when the Church of Christ is upon the earth, there must also be revelation, or communication with God. When revelation ceases, the true church also ceases, for it drifts like a rudderless ship from its course.
These points, then, are demonstrated by the first vision of Joseph Smith:—the word of God is to be relied upon; spiritual gifts will attend the faithful even at the present day; the Christian churches of the world are without authority; the God of heaven is a God of personal, tangible form; the members of the Godhead are separate and distinct in person ”

“ Would he then dare these men of superior literary ability to write a single revelation equal to the least of his? Remember also that we of today have better educational advantages than even the most favorably situated of Joseph's day. Would then an impostor, so farsighted as Joseph Smith seems to have been, have left on record a challenge for all succeeding generations to write a single revelation equal to the least of his? Would not, rather, an intelligent impostor refrain from calling undue attention to his purported revelations? ”

“ At the prison, the Prophet and his friends manifested the same fearless spirit, the same degree of divine inspiration, and the same devotion to the cause of Truth. Joseph Smith, and Hyrum Smith, and their associates, took turns preaching to the guards. These noble men explained to their keepers the true nature of their missions upon earth, and bore irrefragable testimonies to the truth of the Gospel that they preached. Now, the guards were themselves poisoned by bigotry, by prejudice, by bitter hatred. Many of them belonged to the mob-militia that was sworn to murder the Prophet. ”

“ Perhaps the most important count in the arraignment of Joseph Smith's first vision is that the Christian world has departed from the simple Gospel of the Lord Jesus. "They draw near me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men: having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof," the Lord said to the prophet in speaking of the Christian denominations. And, surely, the tumult, the strife, the confusion of such religious revivals as that of 1820, are sufficient evidence that the words of the Savior were true. ”

“ William E. M'Lellin—who had taught school successfully in five states of the Union, and who was noted for a ready flow of good language—to write a single section like the least of the revelations in the book of commandments! Was it unparalleled conceit and presumption that prompted such fearlessness, or was it implicit confidence in the unique quality of the revelations dictated by divine inspiration? Would not so bold a declaration tempt even men of superior wisdom to pit themselves against the reputed man of God? ”

“ Now, what is the significance of this glorious vision of John the Baptist? It means, first, that man must have authority to act for God; secondly, that the religious world in the time of this vision had no authority to act for God. It is unreasonable to suppose that any one should presume, without authority, to take another's place in the business affairs of this world; or that any one would, without protest, permit another to usurp his place and authority in the business transactions of this world. ”

“ This, I take it, is the basic principle of the Gospel Brotherhood of the United Order of God. To collect a number of unrepentant sinners and convicts; to organize them into an ideal brotherhood; to hope that they will learn as a community to know the ways of God—is indeed Utopian. The hope cannot be realized. ”

“ Through all the years his testimony had not been broken. It was not broken now even by the fear of death. Could he have been an imposter?
No!
The fame of him has spread the world over. His followers are numbered by the hundreds of thousands. Everywhere he is spoken of for good or for ill. Gradually his friends are increasing. The good that is said of him is growing; the evil is diminishing. Already many declare that he was murdered in cold blood. The evidence of his great life-work is fast establishing him in the hearts of men as a true Prophet of God. ”

“ Only those who have been divinely called have been qualified to speak in the name of the Lord. This statement is as true for the modern Prophet as it is for the prophets of old. For it may be said with truth, that few things about Joseph Smith are more striking or unquestionable than his sense of the necessity of authority. He had seen the Father and the Son in vision; he had been visited repeatedly by an angel of heaven; he had translated a sacred record by the power of God,—yet, he did not presume to promulgate the restored Gospel, or to send others to do so, or to organize a Church. ”

“ For many ages following the departure from the Gospel as it was introduced by the Author of our Salvation, the world was under the bondage of sin. All mankind, both clergy and laity, were united in the fallacious belief that the canon of scripture was full and complete; and, notwithstanding the predictions of those scriptures to the contrary, had declared that there was to be no more revelation, neither ministering of angels nor other heavenly manifestation of divine will. ”

“ If the Church was taken away from the earth, and the Gospel replaced by another which was a perverted, defiled, and man-made system, nothing short of a restoration would bring back to mankind that which was lost. ”

“ For the question might be asked, have men authority to administer in the name of Christ, who deny revelations, when His testimony is no less than the spirit of prophecy and His religion based, built, and sustained by immediate revelations in all ages of the world when He has had a people on earth? ”

“ The mob leaders declared openly, "The law is too short for these men, but they must not be suffered to go at large"—"if the law will not reach them, powder and ball must." In short, Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were overcome finally, not by the just decisions of a properly constituted court of law, but by the bloodthirsty passion of an infuriated mob. As with the lowly Nazarene, so with the humble American Prophet, the law would have washed its hands of the case, for it found in the Prophet an innocent man void of offense; but the lawless, passion-ruled mob would not have it so. ”

“ Whatever Joseph Smith was or was not, he was certainly fearless in all his assertions of divine inspiration. We have learned that, at a time when high religious excitement proclaimed belief in an immaterial God, and in the actual unity of an immaterial trinity, the boy-prophet declared that he had beheld a vision in which the Father and the Son, had appeared to him, as two separate beings, and as beings of tangible existence in the form of man. ”

“ Opposition began immediately when he revealed the fact of the first vision, and followed him to his death. Malignation and persecution pursued him relentlessly. Mobs wreaked vengeance upon him for his Godliness, in acts of violence. Perjured judges committed him to prison, not for any criminal act, but for testifying of the Lord Jesus. Finally, he sacrificed his life, not for any offense small or great against the law of the land, but for being a prophet of the living God. He sealed his testimony with his blood. Is there left to the world any excuse for not accepting his testimony? ”

“ Gradually, the chosen servants of God have been trained, and prepared for the great responsibility of organization. Gradually, the "marvelous work and a wonder" has itself grown and made friends, that it might bear fruit in membership. And now the number of those who can testify to the divine origin of the great work is materially increased. It is not Joseph Smith alone; nor is it he alone with his associate Oliver; nor is it they alone with the three witnesses; nor yet is it they alone with the eight witnesses. It is now the Church membership. ”