The struggle began at first in an effort to obtain intellectual freedom. It next included within the objects it designed to accomplish religious freedom, and finally added to these two, civil liberty. A struggle for intellectual, religious and civil liberty must ever be a grand thing, and this was what the revolution of the sixteenth century contended for. Not all at once. It came to it by degrees. Not obtaining all it demanded at the first, but working gradually towards it; and finally it was successful. Not always because of its efforts, but sometimes in spite of its efforts. For there is no sadder truth in all history than this, that those who nobly struggled against the oppression of the Catholic church, and demanded religious liberty for themselves, fell into the error of being intolerant, and were not willing to accord to others the very liberty that they demanded. Hence you have a few sad pages of history filled with accounts of persecution for opinion's sake on the part of the reformers themselves. This is sad, but the principle of liberty was afoot, and neither the mistakes of its friends nor the opposition of its foes could long successfully oppose it. It went on from victory to victory, until it grew and blossomed into the present religious, intellectual and civil freedom that the nations of Europe and America enjoy. This great movement led by brave men was the dawn before the coming of a greater day. You have seen the dawn break over our eastern mountains. You know how the blackness gradually turns to grey, and how the grey brightens before the approaching sun, until the whole heavens become golden; and you know how still richer becomes that light when the sun in its fulness is seen above the mountain tops. So it was with this struggle in the sixteenth century. God then began a great work. The first grey streaks were appearing above the hill-tops. The Lord was about to inaugurate a great work, "a marvelous work and a wonder." He was about to bring full and complete religious liberty to the children of men, and not only full and complete religious liberty, but a fulness of religious truth, even the fulness of the everlasting gospel. He began that work, the great dispensation of the last days in that struggle of the sixteenth century, and the light has been constantly growing brighter, until now the sun has fully risen in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the new dispensation of it revealed to that great modern Prophet Joseph Smith. We who accept the new dispensation, strike hands with the noble revolutionists of the sixteenth century, and acknowledge them as brethren in the same great cause.
IV.
Revelation and Inspiration.[A]
[Footnote A: A discourse delivered before the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Associations, in the Granite Stake Tabernacle, Sunday afternoon, Jan. 15, 1905.]
A correction of some misapprehensions that arose concerning Mormon views on the subject of Revelation and Inspiration during the hearings had in the "Smoot Case" before the United States Committee on Privileges and Elections, 1903-1907.
My brethren and sisters, Plato, in his Timaeus, represents the philosopher Socrates as urging one about to begin a discourse on the nature and origin of the universe to invoke the favor of the gods, to which Critias, who is the one selected to deliver the discourse, replies that all men who are right minded always seek the favor of the gods upon their enterprises, and then he proceeds to pray that his efforts may be agreeable to the gods and intelligible to those who are to listen.
On this present occasion it is not my purpose to undertake the discussion of a subject either so lofty or so difficult as that which the Greek had proposed to himself, and yet as I stand before you for the purpose of addressing you, involuntarily, I am happy to say, my heart is uplifted to God in prayer that what I have to present on this occasion shall meet with the favor of God, and at the same time be intelligible and faith-promoting.
I presume that all of us are more or less conscious of the fact that the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have been undergoing a very crucial test of late. Many principles fundamental to our faith have been the subject of investigation by one of the leading committees of the senate of the United States—the committee on privileges and elections—a committee than which I doubt if there is another superior to it in point of ability within the whole range of the senate committees. It is composed of men who frequently have to determine questions of law as well as of fact, and in consequence of that its members are chosen from among the most distinguished lawyers of the senate; they are men of learning and wide experience, adroit in questions of logic, and capable of pursuing to ultimate analysis any question that may be presented for their consideration. It is such a body of men before whom many of the doctrines of Christ have been presented, discussed and thoroughly analyzed.[A]
[Footnote A: The committee alluded to consisted of Julius C. Burrows, of Michigan; Edmund W. Pettus of Alabama; James B Frazier, of Tennessee; Fred T. Dubois, of Idaho; Chauncey M. Depew, of New York; Lee S. Overman, of North Carolina. The above senators signed the Committee's Report to the effect that Reed Smoot was not entitled to a seat in the Senate as a senator from the State of Utah.
The following senators, members of the committee, dissented from the conclusion of the above majority members of the committee, and published their views: