“A new revelation!” he repeated, in a tone of utter incredulity. “Listen again to God’s own word, inspired and written many hundreds of years before the birth of your so-called prophets, (‘false prophets, dreamers of dreams, who have spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God ... to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in’).”
Opening to the very last page of the New Testament he read again: “I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
She gazed at him for an instant in awestruck silence, then rousing herself, said slowly, “But they say there are corruptions, mis-translations.” She paused, leaving her sentence unfinished.
“There is no lack of proof that the Scriptures are the revealed word of God, that the writers were inspired by God, and that if any corruptions or mis-translations have crept in they are so few and slight as to be of little account, making small difference in the meaning,” he said. “The proofs of the authenticity and inspiration of the Scriptures are so many that it would take a long time to state them all.”
“There is no need in my case, sir,” she interrupted. “I know they are divine; the internal evidence alone would be all-sufficient to me.”
“And yet their teachings are directly opposed to those of Mormonism.”
“Not against polygamy, surely? God knows I would be glad to think so; but how many of the prominent characters of the Old Testament had a plurality of wives. Even David, ‘the man after God’s own heart,’ had many more than one.”
“But the Bible nowhere tells us that God approved of the practice; and how often the history it gives shows that polygamy brought sin and misery on those who practised it. God made but one wife for Adam.”
“But Sarai gave Hagar to Abram.”
“But God did not command it, nor are we anywhere told that he approved it. It was a sinful deed done in unbelief, and brought forth the bitter fruits of sin.”