The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

JAMES E. TALMAGE
One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS

The message of Mormonism is of summoning interest in the world today. People of serious mind are not satisfied with the unsupported generalization that it is naught but the outgrowth of delusion and error.
Fungi of fallacy, particularly in the field of modern religious systems, are of no such sturdy growth and wholesome fruitage as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has progressively manifested.
Mormonism, mis-named though it be, stands for the principles of eternal truth as enunciated by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by His duly commissioned Apostles and Prophets. The basis of Mormonism is fairly summarized in the following outline of facts and premises:
1. The eternal existence of a living personal God; and the preexistence and eternal duration of mankind as His literal offspring.
2. The placing of man upon the earth as an embodied spirit to undergo the experiences of an intermediate probation.
3. The transgression and fall of the first parents of the race, by which man became mortal, or in other words was doomed to suffer a separation of spirit and body through death.