The Great Apostasy, Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History

Produced by the Mormon Texts Project,
http://bencrowder.net/books/mtp. Volunteers: Benjamin Bytheway, Jean-Michel Carter, Byron Clark, Ben Crowder, Meridith Crowder, Tom DeForest, Eric Heaps.
By JAMES E. TALMAGE D. Sc. D., Ph. D., F. R. S. E.
Press of Zion's Printing and Publishing Company Independence, Jackson County, Missouri.
Published by the Missions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in America
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims the restoration of the Gospel and the re-establishment of the Church as of old, in this, the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. Such restoration and re-establishment, with the modern bestowal of the Holy Priesthood, would be unnecessary and indeed impossible had the Church of Christ continued among men with unbroken succession of Priesthood and power, since the meridian of time.
The restored Church affirms that a general apostasy developed during and after the apostolic period, and that the primitive Church lost its power, authority, and graces as a divine institution, and degenerated into an earthly organization only. The significance and importance of the great apostasy, as a condition precedent to the re-establishment of the Church in modern times, is obvious. If the alleged apostasy of the primitive Church was not a reality, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the divine institution its name proclaims.