The United States of America was the favoured nation raised up, with institutions adapted to the protection and free development of the necessary truths, and their practical results. And that Great Prophet, Apostle, and Martyr—
JOSEPH SMITH,
was the Elias, the Restorer, the presiding Messenger, holding the keys of the "Dispensation of the fulness of times."
Yes, that extraordinary man, whose innocent blood is now dripping fresh, as it were, from the hands of assassins and their accessories, in the United States, was the chosen vessel honoured of God, and ordained by angels, to ordain other Apostles and Elders, to restore the Church and kingdom of God, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and to be a messenger in the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare the way of the Lord. "For, behold, he will suddenly come to his temple!"
Like John, who filled a similar mission preparatory to the first advent of the Son of God, he baptized with water unto repentance, for the remission of sins; like him, he was imprisoned; and like him, his life was taken from the earth; and finally, like all other true messengers, his message is being demonstrated by its progressive fulfilment—the powers, gifts, and signs following the administration of his message in all the world, and every minute particular of his predictions fulfilling in the order of events, as the wheels of time bring them due.
But in one important point his message differs from all former messages. The science of Theology revived by him will never decline, nor its keys be taken from the earth. They are committed to man for the last time. Their consummation will restore the tribes of Israel and Judah; overthrow all corrupt institutions; usher in the reign of universal peace and knowledge; introduce to the earth her lawful and eternal King, the crucified Nazarene, the resurrected Messiah; banish darkness and death, sorrow, mourning and tears, from the face of our globe; and crown our race with the laurels of victory and eternal life.
Ages yet unborn will rise up and call him blessed. A thousand generations of countless myriads will laud his praise and recount his deeds, while unnumbered nations bask in the light and enjoy the benefits of the institution founded by his instrumentality.
His kindred, the nation that gave him birth, and exulted at his death, nay, his very murderers and their posterity, will yet come bending unto him, and seek his forgiveness, and the benefits of his labours.
But, Oh! the pain! the dark despair! the torments of a guilty conscience! the blackness of darkness, in the lower hell, which the guilty wretches will experience before that happy day of deliverance!
Oh! the countless myriads of the offspring of innocent and honourable men who will walk the earth, tread on the ashes, or plow and reap over the bones and dust of those miserable murderers and their accomplices who have consented to the shedding of innocent blood! ere the final trump shall sound, which calls up their sleeping dust from its long slumbers in the tomb, and their spirits from the prison of the damned.