When it was my turn to speak I asked the reverend gentleman to occupy my seat. I did not want more than thirty minutes to reply. I said to the assembly that a sense of duty to the truth, and the cause I had espoused, alone prompted me to make any reply to the long tirade of abuse and sarcasm they had been listening to. The gentleman and his prompters had gathered quite an angry-looking cloud of pamphlets and newspaper slang and abuse, without quoting a single passage of Scripture to disprove my position, or in support of their own. But on the contrary, he had become an accuser of the brethren, speaking evil of things he knew not. The spirit of persecution, hatred, and malice is not the spirit of the meek and lowly Saviour. The gentleman tells you that the day of perfection has arrived, that Satan is bound in the gospel chain, that we have no need of spiritual manifestations, that this is the reign of Christ. Now, I will say that if this is the millennial reign of Christ, and the devil is bound in the gospel chain, I pity the inhabitants of the earth when he gets loose again. After reading the description of the millennial reign, as it shall be, as described by the Prophet Isaiah, can anyone be so stupid as to believe that we are now living in that holy day? Shame on him who would deceive and tamper with the souls of men! The gentleman who told you this, doesn't believe it.
The gentleman has challenged me to produce anything from the Bible equaling in strangeness the building of a boat like a fish, in which the Nephites crossed the ocean from Asia to America. I call his attention to the first chapter of the Book of Jonah. Here a very strange craft was used for three days and nights, in which to send a missionary to Nineveh. This craft was constructed after the manner of the boat spoken of in the Book of Mormon. If the prophet was correct in the description of his craft, he too scooted through the water in the same way that the Nephites did in their boat. The Book of Mormon is nothing more or less than a book containing the history of a portion of the House of Israel, who left Jerusalem about the time of the reign of Zedekiah, King of Judah, and crossed the ocean to America; containing also the gospel which was preached to them on this continent, which is the same gospel as that preached by' Christ and His Apostles at Jerusalem. The Bible and the Book of Mormon both contain a history of the different branches of the House of Israel, and each contains the gospel of Christ as it was preached unto them, the different branches of the house of Israel, and to all nations. Both testify of each other, and point with exactness to the dispensation of the fullness of time. The Book of Mormon does not contain a new gospel; it is the same gospel as that preached by Christ. It is a mysterious book, just what the prophet said it should be, "a marvelous work, a wonder." But my friend says that it is too mysterious, too wonderful, for human credence, and challenges me to point out anything told in the Bible that seems inconsistent with reason or experience. Now, which is the more reasonable, that Nephi built a boat after the pattern mentioned in the Mormon Bible, being directed by God how to build it, and then crossed the ocean to this continent, or that Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days and three nights, and then made a safe landing? Or would it sound any better if Nephi had said that when he and his company came to the great waters, the Lord had prepared whales, two or more, to receive them and their outfit, and set them over on this side?
Nothing is impossible with God. If He saw fit to send Jonah on his mission in a whale's belly, I have no fault to find with Him for so doing. He has the right to do His own will and pleasure; and if He instructed Nephi how to fashion his boat, or Noah to build an ark against the deluge, or caused Balaam's ass to speak and rebuke the madness of his master, or Moses to lead the children of Israel through the Red Sea, without any boat at all, or the walls of Jericho to fall to the ground, and the people to become paralyzed through the tooting of rams' horns, or empowered Joshua to command the sun to stand still while he slaughtered his enemies, is any of these things more wonderful than the other?
Now one of these instances that I have selected from the Bible, if found in the Book of Mormon, would be sufficient to stamp it with absurdity and everlasting contempt, according to the gentlemen who oppose me; but when found in the Bible the story assumes another phase entirely. It is as the Saviour said of the Pharisees, "Ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." My opponent strains at a gnat, when found in the Book of Mormon, but if camels are discovered in the Bible he swallows them by the herd. I cannot see why a big story, told in the Bible, should be believed any more readily than one found in the Book of Mormon.
It is not my purpose to find discrepancies in the characters of the ancient prophets or inspired writers, but my opponent has challenged me to produce from the Bible a character of such disrepute as that of Joseph, the Mormon Prophet. Now I will say that of the characters I shall mention we have only their own history or account of what they did. Their enemies and contemporaries have long since passed away. But if their enemies could speak worse of them than they have of themselves, decency would blush to read their story. I will refer to only a few instances.
Moses, the meek, as he is called, murdered an Egyptian that strove with an Israelite, and had to run away from his country for the offense. He was afterwards sent by God to bring the Israelites out of bondage. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He built the ark, and was saved through the deluge. His name has been handed down from posterity to posterity, in honorable remembrance, as one who feared God and worked righteousness. But we find him soon after the Flood getting drunk, exposing his nakedness, and cursing a portion of his own posterity. Lot, whose family was the only God-fearing family in Sodom and Gomorrah, rescued by the angel of God from the judgments that overwhelmed those cities, when only a short distance from Sodom became drunk and debauched his daughters. Think of the conduct of David with Uriah's wife - and David was, we are told, a man after God's own heart. Also Judah, Judge in Israel. Peter cursed and swore and denied his Master. The enemies of Christ said He was a gluttonous man and a wine bibber, a friend of the publicans and sinners; that after the people at the marriage feast were well drunken, He turned water into wine that they might have more to drink; that in the cornfield He plucked the cars of corn and ate them; that He saw an ass hitched, and without leave took it and rode into Jerusalem; that He went into the Temple and overset the tables of the money changers and took cords and whaled them out, telling them they had made His Father's house a den of thieves. I am aware that all Christians justify the acts of Christ, because He was the Son of God. But the people at that time did not believe Him to be the Son of God, any more than the gentleman believes that Joseph is the prophet of God. I have alluded to these instances merely in answer to the challenge imposed upon me by my opponent.
Few seem to comprehend that man, in and of himself, is frail, weak, needy, and dependent, although the Creator placed within his reach, as a free agent, good and evil, and instilled in the heart of every rational being a degree of light that makes us sensitive to, and teaches us right from, wrong. As the Saviour says:
"There is a light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
My argument as I relate it here has been abbreviated very much, lest I tire my readers. I had scarcely closed speaking before my reverend opponents were making for the door. They would have nothing more to do with the Mormons. Some were honest enough, however, to acknowledge that Mormonism had stood the test; that it could not be disproved from the Bible, and sooner or later all other creeds would have to give way to it, or deny the Bible, for the more it was investigated the more popular it would become, as it would expose the many weak points and inconsistencies of the different denominations. Others denounced it as an imposition, and warned their adherents to have nothing to do with it. This kind of talk from the pulpit served to give Mormonism a new impetus. I soon baptized many converts, and organized branches in that and adjoining counties of over one hundred members.