Joseph Smith, whom God chose to establish this work, was poor and uneducated, and belonged to no popular denomination of Christians. He was a mere boy, honest, full of integrity, unacquainted with the trickery, cunning and sophistry employed by politicians and religious hypocrites to accomplish their ends. Like Moses of old, he felt incompetent and unqualified for the task—to stand forth as a religious reformer, in a position the most unpopular—to battle against opinions and creeds which have stood for ages, having had the sanction and support of men the most profound in theological lore; but God had called him to deliver the poor and honest-hearted of all nations from their spiritual and temporal thralldom. And God promised him that whosoever should receive and obey his message, and whosoever would receive baptism for the remission of sins, with honesty of purpose, should receive divine manifestations—should receive the Holy Ghost—should receive the same Gospel blessings which were promised and obtained through the Gospel, as preached by the ancient Apostles: and this message, this promise, was to be in force wherever and to whomsoever it should be carried by the Elders, God's authorized messengers. So said Joseph Smith, the uneducated, the unsophisticated, the plain, simple, honest boy.
It is through the virtue and force of this boy's statement that I speak this afternoon to assembled thousands. In the integrity of my heart, with honesty of purpose to know the the truth, I received the message—I obeyed this form of doctrine, and I received, in the most tangible and satisfactory manner, a divine manifestation, the promised blessing—a knowledge of this work. Am I the only witness? How is it with the experience of thousands whom I now address? Are you also witnesses? If you are not, I ask you in the name of common sense, Why are you here? Why did you leave your homes and countries, giving your sanction to the truth of a system which promised you divine manifestations, but which you failed in experiencing? Being honest ourselves, if we cannot bear a solemn testimony of having received divine manifestations of the great fact that God himself has founded this order of things, then it becomes a serious fact that we are witnesses, and in truth the only proper witnesses, that this whole plan and pretension of Joseph Smith is a sheer falsehood—a miserable fabrication.
It will be recollected that this Gospel message proposed to give us divine manifestations through our doing certain specified acts; we have performed those acts in precisely the manner indicated. None but ourselves have attempted to conform to this arrangement, consequently, no other people are prepared to be witnesses either for or against this system.
The Gospel, as recorded in the New Testament, in its promises and provisions, was precisely similar. It required certain specified acts to be done, with promises that divine manifestations should follow their performance. Jesus said, "He that will do the will of God shall know of the doctrine." Peter, on the day of Pentecost, said, "Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Ghost." Again, Jesus said, "These signs shall follow them that believe," etc. A multitude of testimonies could be produced from the New Testament, showing that divine manifestations and perfect knowledge were promised to and were actually received in a specified and tangible form by those who then obeyed the Gospel. Those who obeyed its requirements were the only competent witnesses for or against its divine authenticity. After honestly complying with its requisitions, viz.: repenting of, and forsaking their sins, being immersed in water for the remission of sins, and receiving the ordinance of the laying on of hands; then had they failed to receive the Holy Ghost, with its gifts and promised knowledge and attendant signs, they would have seen that the entire Apostolic scheme of salvation rested on a baseless fabric.
When the Gospel, or order of things which we have received, was presented to us, we carefully compared it with the Gospel recorded in the Scriptures, and found it alike precisely, in every particular, as regarded its forms, ordinances, and the authority to administer them: its promise of the Holy Ghost and of the signs that should follow, together with a promise of a knowledge of its divinity. In many instances it was brought to us by men with whose character we were perfectly familiar, and for whose honesty and integrity we could vouch; who solemnly stated, in private and in public, that through an obedience to its requirements, they had obtained, in a tangible form, a perfect knowledge of its heaven-born principles.
This was my experience, and after having complied with its demands, and thereupon received a knowledge of its genuineness, and having obtained authority to preach and administer its ordinances, I commenced forthwith to proclaim it to the world; and no doubt there are persons in this audience, out of different nations, to whom I have administered this Gospel, who can witness to its virtue and efficacy. Many years I have been engaged in forwarding the interests of this order of things, and you are the proper judges whether it be of God or of man.
We have the same Gospel the primitive churches had, and the same knowledge and evidence they had of its divine authenticity; and we have just as honest and brave men to preach it as they had—men that have proved their integrity through sacrifice as great as the Elders of the primitive churches ever made. The testimony of our Elders is as valid and worthy of credit as the testimony of their Elders. Our Apostles who are living are as honest as the Apostles of the New Testament, and their testimony is as worthy of credit, so far as they live and speak according to the Scriptural law and testimony. If this order of things which we have obeyed is not the Gospel—if these evidences, these manifestations, this knowledge, this Holy Ghost, these deliverances from misery and bondage, and being placed in comfortable and happy circumstances, living together in peace and harmony, building beautiful towns and cities, free from demoralizing institutions, be not the legitimate fruits of the working of a pure and holy system established by God, through Joseph Smith, we shall be compelled to question the genuineness of the Gospel of the former day Saints, as recorded in the New Testament.
By some it has been argued that Joseph Smith and his prominent Elders were the most corrupt, wicked and infamous of impostors, but his followers, the Latter-day Saints in general, though deceived, were very good people, and scrupulously honest in their religious opinions.
From what I have already said in regard to the operations and effects of this work, it is easy to be seen that, if it be an imposition, it is not confined exclusively to the leaders of this people, but this whole community are actively and knowingly engaged in a stupendous scheme of deception and hypocrisy; and by the way, as I before hinted, if this could be proved to be the case, we should be driven to the belief that the former day Saints, also, had been engaged in the same disgraceful imposition. More than one hundred thousand people now dwell in these valleys, many of them having come from distant climes and nations. In this great fact they willingly and understandingly exhibit to the world a clear and powerful testimony—more expressive and powerful than any language could command—that they did undeniably and most positively receive, through the ordinances of this Gospel, administered unto them by our Elders, a knowledge of this work through the divine manifestations of the Almighty.
But it may be objected that, whereas members of this community were found by our missionaries in great poverty and distress, therefore they obeyed the Gospel and emigrated here to better their circumstances financially, without any regard to its truth or falsity, as a divine system. This might be true in some instances, but impossible as regards its application to this people as a community. Those persons who received this work without religious motives, and without honest convictions of its divine requirements, but solely for the "loaves and fishes," cannot possibly abide the test to which every one's faith, sooner or later, must be brought, but will have every particle of his dishonesty and hypocrisy exposed, and will sooner or later apostatize.