Relating to dress, the Latter-day Saints burial clothes are all sufficient for our day. Anything more is unnecessary, which good, common sense would clearly suggest; while the burial of jewelry with the dead can serve no good purpose. It savors of vanity, and might prove a temptation to grave robbers,—a naturally horrible thought. In like manner with carriages and caskets, only the necessary and modest should be used.—Improvement Era, Vol. 12, December, 1908, p. 145.
WHO CANNOT BE REACHED BY THE GOSPEL? And he that believes, is baptized, and receives the light and testimony of Jesus Christ, and walks well for a season, receiving the fulness of the blessings of the gospel in this world, and afterwards turns wholly unto sin, violating his covenants, he will be among those whom the gospel can never reach in the spirit world; and all such go beyond its saving power, they will taste the second death, and be banished from the presence of God eternally.—Oct. C. R., Deseret Weekly News, Vol. 24, 1875, p. 708.
PRINCIPLE OF BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD. Here will come in the principles of baptism for the dead, and of proxy and heirships, as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, that they may receive a salvation and an exaltation, I will not say a fulness of blessing and glory, but a reward according to their merits and the righteousness and mercy of God, even as it will be with you and with me. But there is this difference between us and the antediluvians—they rejected the gospel, consequently they received not the truth nor the testimony of Jesus Christ; therefore they did not sin against a fulness of light, while we have received the fulness of the gospel; are admitted to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and a knowledge of the living and true God, whose will it is also our privilege to know, that we may do it. Now if we sin, we sin against the light and knowledge, and peradventure we may become guilty of the blood of Jesus Christ, for which sin there is no forgiveness, neither in this world nor in the world to come.—Oct. C. R., Deseret Weekly News, Vol. 24, 1875, p. 708.
CHAPTER XXV
JOSEPH SMITH THE PROPHET
THE REALITY OF JOSEPH'S VISION. Our critics say it was an apparition that the Prophet Joseph saw, but he did not say so. He said the personages who appeared to him were real men, and there is nothing more improbable in his statement than in the recital in the Bible of the conception and birth of Christ, and of John the Baptist. To us has come the account of the birth, life and work of Christ, and there is nothing in the narrative to cause us to believe it more readily than that story of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Christ walked and talked and counseled with his friends when he came down from heaven over 1900 years ago. Is there any reason why he could not come again, why he should not visit this earth once more and talk with men today? If there is I should be glad to hear it.
The thing I want to impress upon you is that God is real, a person of flesh and bones, the same as you are and I am. Christ is the same, but the Holy Ghost is a person of spirit.
If Joseph Smith's teachings were untrue, then those of the Great Nazarene fall to the ground, for they are one and the same. You can't philosophize the truths of the gospel away, nor explain them by saying the prophet was a victim of apparitions, for they are real, tangible facts behind which stand a great mass of proof as good as has ever been offered to substantiate any statement. It is a comfort, a blessing, a delight to me, and I pray that it may ever be so to you.—Logan Journal, March 14, 1911.