Joseph Smith opened to America a great spiritual dispensation. It was such the Mormon sisterhood received.
A latter-day prophet! A gospel of miracles! Angels visiting the earth again! Pentecosts in the nineteenth century! This was Mormonism.
These themes were peculiarly fascinating to those earnest apostolic women whom we shall introduce to the reader.
Ever must such themes be potent with woman. She has a divine mission always, both to manifest spiritual gifts and to perpetuate spiritual dispensations.
Woman is child of faith. Indeed she is faith. Man is reason. His mood is skepticism. Left alone to his apostleship, spiritual missions die, though revealed by a cohort of archangels. Men are too apt to lock again the heavens which the angels have opened, and convert priesthood into priestcraft. It is woman who is the chief architect of a spiritual church.
Joseph Smith was a prophet and seer because his mother was a prophetess and seeress. Lucy Smith gave birth to the prophetic genius which has wrought out its manifestations so marvelously in the age. Brigham Young, who is a society-builder, also received his rare endowments from his mother. Though differing from Joseph, Brigham has a potent inspiration.
Thus we trace the Mormon genius to these mothers. They gave birth to the great spiritual dispensation which is destined to incarnate a new and universal Christian church.
Until the faith of Latter-day Saints invoked one, there was no Holy Ghost in the world such as the saints of former days would have recognized. Respectable divines, indeed, had long given out that revelation was done away, because no longer needed. The canon of scripture was said to be full. The voice of prophesy was no more to be heard to the end of time.
But the Mormon prophet invoked the Holy Ghost of the ancient Hebrews, and burst the sealed heavens. The Holy Ghost came, and His apostles published the news abroad.
The initial text of Mormonism was precisely that which formed the basis of Peter's colossal sermon on the day of Pentecost: