I will now read to you a passage which Elder Francis M. Lyman read at one of the public meetings of our recent general conference, and which first suggested to me the thought of taking up this reverend gentleman's discourse for the purpose of showing, at least to our young people, that there was something in the Fifth Gospel worth while considering; that it adds something to our Christian knowledge. Jesus giving instruction to the Nephite disciples, says:
"Verily I say unto you, that whoso repenteth of his sins through your words, and desireth to be baptized in my name, on this wise shall ye baptize them; behold, ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye baptize them.
"And now behold, these are the words which ye shall say, calling them by name:
"Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
"And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come forth again out of the water."
If we had only been so fortunate as to have had such an explicit statement as this in our four gospels, or in one of them, what a world of contention would have been avoided, what a world of Christian persecution of Christians would have been avoided, and what unity and harmony there would have been upon a great Christian ordinance upon which Christians are now unhappily divided. Aside from this statement and the revelations that God has given in these days, there is nothing that definitely instructs the world on the subject of how baptism shall be administered. Jesus came to the disciples after his resurrection and said to them, "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Of course, for some two or three hundred years we have the custom of the Saints as an interpretation of the manner of baptism, and that is, they were immersed; but since Jesus had not specified the manner in which the ordinance was to be administered, men began to wonder after awhile if baptism could not be performed in some other way than immersion, and so they adopted the method of sprinkling, or of pouring the water on the person. And from that departure from the true gospel grew up the varied methods of baptism as we have them today. The Greeks still immerse, and they immerse three times—once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, and once in the name of the Holy Spirit. We have an American sect who hit upon what I suppose they consider a happy thought, and that is, that baptism must not only be thrice performed, but that the candidate must be pushed face downward into the water; for, say they, would you have people going into the kingdom backwards? Of the Protestant sects, some sprinkle and some pour water on the candidate; and one prominent minister, the late Henry Ward Beecher, reduced the ordinance to the mere act of moistening the hand and placing it upon the brow of the candidate, and called that baptism! The great Catholic Church, backed by its "tradition" and its scholarship, insists that sprinkling is a proper method of baptism. And so the world is divided on this great ordinance, which all confess is the visible sign of entrance into the fold of Christ—part of our birth into the kingdom of God.
What parable, what dozen parables, could be so precious in their importance to the Christian world as this explicit statement of how the ordinance of baptism shall be administered, if they would but accept it!
In addition to this doctrine of baptism you will find (though I shall not take time to point it out at length on this occasion) in the Fifth Gospel instructions given by the Savior on the subject of the Sacrament and the purposes for which it was given, which afterwards were crystalized in the prayer of consecration of the emblems, and because they are so crystalized, and therefore briefer, I shall read that instruction to you as it is found in the prayer. The prophet is explaining how the Sacrament was administered after the people received this institution from Jesus:
"And they did kneel down with the church, and pray to the Father in the name of Christ, saying:
"O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee, in the name of thy Son Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in the remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his spirit to be with them. Amen."
If the four gospels had contained the instructions of Jesus Christ on this subject as found in the Fifth Gospel, and finally crystalized those instructions into this beautiful and appropriate prayer of consecration, the Christian world would have escaped one of its bitterest religious controversies, and the Roman Catholic church today would not ask men to be so untrue to their intellectual consciousness as to believe that the wafer which they place upon the tongue of the communicant is the actual body and the actual blood of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Protestant world would not be divided and subdivided, upon this question, but they would have instruction which would enable them to properly hold the great atonement of Jesus Christ in true and objective remembrance in the Sacrament.
I undertake to say now that there cannot be produced from the literature of the world, sacred or profane, a prayer that is the equal of this prayer of consecration, excepting only the Lord's prayer. With that exception, this prayer, for completeness, for a succession of solemn thoughts, fitly spoken, and crystalized into a form from which you can take nothing and to which you can add nothing without marring it, stands alone; and it adds something to our Christian knowledge. It is an important item of Christian instruction and doctrine, and one that the world much needs; you will find its scattered rays in the Fifth Gospel, in the form I have quoted it, it is given by Moroni.
Now, I must pass on hurriedly. There is a singular passage of scripture in John, the 10th chapter and 16th verse, which rather puzzles expounders of the scripture.
"And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."