the present.

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"MORMONISM"

A Distinctive Religious System

IN the popular classification of religious bodies, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, if included at all, is generally given mention apart from churches and sectarian institutions in general. The segregation is eminently proper, for this Church is strictly unique.

No well informed commentator, no capable critic in either friendly or hostile mood, has classed "Mormonism" as the sectarian offspring of any mother church, nor as any mere variation of a preexisting body. No church on earth claims, acknowledges or admits any community of origin with the commonly known but mis-called "Mormon" Church. Nor does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assert any such relationship with other bodies.

At this point it is well to consider the fact that toleration in religious belief and practise is a fundamental tenet of "Mormonism." This is set forth in one of the formulated Articles of Faith: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

We demand no prerogatives, ask no privileges, beyond what we readily accede to be the common rights of mankind. Our distinctive teachings and the claims of the Church as to its commission to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and administer the saving ordinances thereof, must be judged on their merits, and in the spirit of testimony, which we believe the honest-hearted inquirer may gain for himself in the course of unbiased investigation.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unique in that it solemnly affirms to the world that the new dispensation, foretold in prophecy as a characteristic of the last days precedent to the second advent of Christ, is established, and that the Holy Priesthood, with all its ancient authority and power, has been restored to earth.

"Mormonism" affirms that such restoration was a necessity, inasmuch as mankind had fallen away from the Gospel of Christ during the dark ages of history, with the inevitable consequence that the Holy Priesthood had been taken from the earth, and authority to administer the essential and saving ordinances of the Gospel had been lost. The condition of spiritual darkness was foretold by prophets who lived prior to the meridian of time, as also by Jesus Christ while in the flesh, and by His Apostles, who were left to continue the ministry after the Lord's departure.

Furthermore, the fact of the great falling away or general apostasy is admitted, and indeed affirmed, by high ecclesiastical authority. Consider the forceful declaration of the Church of England, embodied in her official "Homily Against Peril of Idolatry," first published about the middle of the 16th century, and still in force as "appointed to be read in churches."

"So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children of whole Christendom—an horrible and most dreadful thing to think—have been at once drowned in abominable idolatry; of all other vices most detested of God, and most damnable to man; and that by the space of eight hundred years and more."

Prophets of olden times were permitted to look beyond the black night of apostasy and to behold the glorious dawn of the restoration. John, the Apostle and Revelator, having seen the events in vision, wrote of the realization as then already attained:

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Rev. 14:6-7.)

We affirm the literal fulfilment of this gladsome promise through the ministration of angels in these latter days, by which the Holy Priesthood has been renewed to man. Thus, in 1823, an angelic personage ministered to Joseph Smith, and later delivered to the mortal prophet the ancient record from which the Book of Mormon has been translated. This record contains "the fulness of the everlasting Gospel" as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants of the Western Continent.

Then, on May 15, 1829, John the Baptist, who held the keys of the Lesser or Aaronic Priesthood in the earlier dispensation, appeared in his resurrected state and ordained Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to that order of Priesthood, comprising "the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins." (D&C 13.)

Later, the presiding three of the ancient Twelve Apostles ordained these men to the holy apostleship, conferring upon them the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood, which comprises all authority for the administration of the prescribed ordinances of the Gospel, and for the building up of the Church of Jesus Christ in the current dispensation, preparatory to the coming of the Christ to reign on earth.

This is the distinctive claim of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being under Divine commission so to do, the Church proclaims these solemn truths, with full recognition of the individual rights of men to believe or disbelieve according to their choice.

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DIRECT AND SURE

The Church Bold Yet Tolerant

THE establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was no experiment. Its actual organization as a body corporate was preceded by visitations of heavenly beings, by definite revelation, by prophecies as to the unfolding plan of the Divine purpose in these latter days, and by the publication of the Book of Mormon—a volume of Scripture which, though comprising the record of ancient peoples, was new to the modern world.

These and other heavenly manifestations, including the bestowal of the Holy Priesthood with its expressly defined authority and appointment to organize and build up the Church, were made through Joseph Smith, who at the time of the first visitation was a lad in his fifteenth year.

To the earnest student of this unprecedented series of events a certain dominant characteristic is apparent—the positiveness and certitude with which the successive avowals of the youthful prophet were set forth. From his testimony of the glorious theophany by which the dispensation of the fulness of times was inaugurated, down to his last inspired utterances immediately preceding his martyrdom, his doctrinal teachings, his affirmations and prophecies were unweakened by qualification or ambiguity.

Plain and unembellished by studied rhetoric or dramatic effect, his solemn averments were free from even the shadow of the tentative or provisional. He voiced his message fearlessly and in the strength of simplicity, with no restraining afterthought of opposition, ridicule or persecution.

True to the character of a real prophet, he gave out only as he received—line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. And behold, the precepts have arrayed themselves into a scriptural unity; the lines have fallen into order as verses of a revealed epic; and the little has grown to the fulness of the everlasting Gospel.

The mission of Joseph Smith and that of the Church he was instrumental in founding have from the first been before the world in their true colors. Though the unity of unalterable purpose and unchanging plan is impressively apparent, there is nothing in the latter-day Scripture that savors of policy or obscure intent.

Granted that the claims of the Church are bold ones, even strikingly so, and that some of them when first enunciated stood in disturbing contrast with certain