This is the distinctive claim of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being under Divine commission so to do, the Church proclaims these solemn truths, with full recognition of the individual rights of men to believe or disbelieve according to their choice.
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DIRECT AND SURE
The Church Bold Yet Tolerant
THE establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was no experiment. Its actual organization as a body corporate was preceded by visitations of heavenly beings, by definite revelation, by prophecies as to the unfolding plan of the Divine purpose in these latter days, and by the publication of the Book of Mormon—a volume of Scripture which, though comprising the record of ancient peoples, was new to the modern world.
These and other heavenly manifestations, including the bestowal of the Holy Priesthood with its expressly defined authority and appointment to organize and build up the Church, were made through Joseph Smith, who at the time of the first visitation was a lad in his fifteenth year.
To the earnest student of this unprecedented series of events a certain dominant characteristic is apparent—the positiveness and certitude with which the successive avowals of the youthful prophet were set forth. From his testimony of the glorious theophany by which the dispensation of the fulness of times was inaugurated, down to his last inspired utterances immediately preceding his martyrdom, his doctrinal teachings, his affirmations and prophecies were unweakened by qualification or ambiguity.
Plain and unembellished by studied rhetoric or dramatic effect, his solemn averments were free from even the shadow of the tentative or provisional. He voiced his message fearlessly and in the strength of simplicity, with no restraining afterthought of opposition, ridicule or persecution.
True to the character of a real prophet, he gave out only as he received—line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. And behold, the precepts have arrayed themselves into a scriptural unity; the lines have fallen into order as verses of a revealed epic; and the little has grown to the fulness of the everlasting Gospel.