The young man became interested. He said, "Bishop, can I come down to your house and spend an evening with you?" "Come along and you can spend a dozen"; and he did spend an evening, two or three evenings, and bought the Book of Mormon and studied the gospel. He afterwards resigned his salary received from the Methodist Episcopal church and went back to England—not for a salary—to preach the gospel, but he went back without money and without price, and at his own expense, to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ which he had found to be true and which he had embraced. One of the first men that he called on was the minister of the church that he belonged to before he came to Utah. The minister was delighted to meet him, and welcomed him back home. He had heard nothing of his conversion to "Mormonism." The young man took some "Mormon" tracts out of his pocket, and he said in substance to the minister: "I wish you would tell me how to answer these claims of the Latter-day Saints." He then asked a number of questions. The minister commenced floundering around like a fish out of water, and finally he turned, and with a word that some people say is not profanity but only emphasis, he shook his fist at the young man and said "D—n you, I believe you have joined that church." The young man smiled and said "Yes." Then he jumped up, and with some more emphasis he ordered him out of his house. That is the way he answered the arguments of the young man.
I hold in my hand a letter written by a man who came to Utah, representing a church here; and he was told that we Latter-day Saints, commonly called "Mormons," were practically a lot of heathens and barbarians. He discovered we were an intelligent people; that we were a God-fearing people; that we had brotherly love one for another; that we were industrious; that according to the Savior's rule—"By their fruits ye shall know them"—that this was about the finest community he had ever lived in. He lived in one of our southern counties. Afterwards he was transferred to one of our northern counties, and he found that same state of affairs; and finally he writes:
"You will agree with me that from the position of a regularly ordained minister to the confession of truth and divinity of the gospel of 'Mormonism' is a long road to travel. It is because I believe that I have traveled that road that I want to write to you. As I see it now, this is my confession of faith. I believe that the gospel of Christ is taught in its purity by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that his work is owned of God. I believe in the restoration of the gospel and in the authority of the priesthood, and I believe that the sects of modern Christendom are the result of the spiritual darkness in the world. I know from experience how impossible it is for the blind to lead the blind."
I remember when I was in Europe—and I have quoted it many times—reading with a great deal of interest a book entitled, "The Young Man and the World," written by Senator Beveridge. In this book the senator said that during an entire summer vacation, a man with good opportunities to get proper answers, asked of a large number of ministers through the New England states, three questions:
"Do you believe in God, the Father; God a person, God a definite and tangible intelligence—not a congeries of laws floating like a fog through the universe; but God a person in whose image you were made? Don't argue; don't explain; but is your mind in a condition where you can answer yes or no?" Not one minister answered, Yes.
The next question was: "Do you believe that Christ was the son of the living God, sent by him to save the world? I am not asking whether you believe that he was inspired in the sense that the great moral teachers are inspired—nobody has any difficulty about that. But do you believe that Christ was God's very Son, with a divinely appointed and definite mission, dying on the cross and raised from the dead?" Not one minister answered, Yes.
The third question was: "Do you believe that when you die you will live again as a conscious intelligence, knowing who you are and who other people are?" Not a man answered Yes.
He said that these ministers were particularly high-grade ministers. Many of them had gained renown for their piety and for their eloquence in proclaiming the gospel, as they understood it, and yet all of them were regretting the lack of interest in the gospel and the absence of audiences to listen to their preaching. Mr. Beveridge says: "How could such priests of ice warm the souls of men? How could such apostles of interrogation convert a world?" There are no priests of interrogation among the Latter-day Saints. The answer by every preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, to these questions, down to our children that go to Sabbath school, is Yes, Yes, Yes, without a moment's hesitation. There is no doubt; there is no dubiety in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints. We have, behind the shadow of a doubt, the absolute witness of the Spirit that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the true and living God. We know that the gifts and graces that belonged in the ancient church are to be found here today; we know that the gift of tongues is enjoyed by the Latter-day Saints; and these are some of the fruits of the gospel of Jesus Christ as enjoyed by the early Saints.
"O, but—" says one, "I don't believe that you have any gift of tongues by the inspiration of the spirit of God."
As a boy, I once took hold of the ends of an electric battery. They had some handles for me to take hold of. I was a child at that time. I had never had any shock of electricity; and the teacher who was manipulating it was not very well posted, and he turned on altogether too strong a current, and I could not let go. I hopped around there and yelled "Turn it off, turn it off!" Well, somebody who did not see, or feel, or know anything about electricity would say, "What is the matter with that fool, with a couple of pieces of tin in his hand, yelling 'Turn it off?'"