We do not say that everyone who professes to be a Latter-day Saint is an evidence of the divinity of the gospel. Nor was every individual who professed Christianity an evidence of its truth. On the contrary, many, even in the apostolic age, showed by their deeds that they were nothing but professors; and it is clearly not the profession that is the main feature. A man may profess to be what he is not.
Nor do we contend that the Latter-day Saints, considered as a religious community, are the best people on the earth. This is not for us to decide; nor is that our present question. The Saints may be the best people, taken as a whole, or they may not; yet in their present stage of development they have reached a high standard of excellence that is most desirable. This, however, does not affect our present argument.
What we do contend, and what we urgently invite everybody to ascertain for themselves, is this: that the message delivered through Joseph the Prophet, when accepted and honestly carried out in practice, has a tendency to change men for the better and produce fruits of faith, hope and charity, thus proving its divine origin by its fruits; for no deceptive fraud could produce these fruits. This is what we contend. Facts speak for themselves.
We live in an age when social questions threaten to blast society to its very foundations. Where in the whole world have these questions found their only possible solution to the satisfaction of all parties concerned? Not among the various religious bodies of the world; not among the capitalists, nor among the anarchists, communists, socialists, or nihilists, but among the Saints. Over the thresholds of their peaceful homes these troublesome questions—ghosts at the appearance of which the world trembles—cannot enter. In the valleys of the mountains they are unknown, and must remain so as long as the Gospel is being carried out in practice.
Again, who has solved the question of the true relation between the sexes, at once assigning to marriage its divinity of origin and eternal importance, thereby checking the waves of sin which inundate the world, and securing happiness to all? We answer: The Latter-day Saints. One of the first fruits seen as the result of their doctrines is absolute purity.
Further, who fills the prisons as criminals? Not the Latter-day Saints, but outsiders, those who habitually speak of the degradation of the "Mormons;" those Christian associates give the stuff that contributes to the filling up of the prisons—a fact which of itself ought to be enough to convince the whole world of the divine origin of the message delivered through Joseph the Prophet. It is clear that doctrines which are strong enough to keep humanity from committing crimes—to which every human heart is more or less inclined—must be from God.
It may be asked, who fills the saloons and gambling hells? Who swears and lies and slanders? Who is proud and vain, lazy and filthy? No one who has accepted the Gospel in reality—no Latter-day Saint. The Saints are, as such, temperate, industrious, humble, clean, loving, forbearing, long-suffering, rejoicing, fearing God; in short, bearing the fruits of righteousness. Such virtues the Gospel enjoins and such fruits always accompany its real acceptance.
Could we speak of all the cases where men who were in every respect worldly, walking in sin, accepted the Gospel and became changed in every respect, this evidence would, indeed, amount to demonstration. Thousands are our witnesses to these facts—men who were fallen, on their way down to ruin and hell—families who have been happy by the restoration of their fallen ones to virtue, to society and to God.
Finally, has the world exhibited any nobler examples of self-sacrificing faith, of firmness and endurance under suffering and persecution than have many of those despised followers of the martyred Prophet?
True, persecution has been raging against the Saints; but, like the palm tree, which is said to grow all the higher the more weight there is placed thereon, they have stood firm; in persecution they have been patiently enduring, knowing that, after all, God is the Supreme Ruler, and with this knowledge they have faced all adversity calmly and risen through their faith and hope far above the plots of those who know not God.