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Show THE MORMON DOCTRINE. ELDER B. H. ROBERTS SPEAKS OF NEW REVELATION. He Says the True Gospel Had Been Lost to the Earth Through Apostasy Until the Mormons ~• u. \ ~ C\ .,.~.,~\~\ ltestored It. (~ - f\ " The Relationship of l\.formonism to Christianity," as Elder Brigham H. Roberts ' expounded it in Hardman Hall last night, is that of a reincarnated spirit to a dead body. Next Sunday he will tell what is the Mormon conception of the Gospel thus revealed afresh. Elder S. W: Richards of Brooklyn made the introduction after a prayer that might have been heard in any non-liturgical Protestant church without surprise, and George D. Pyper sang Mormon hyi;nns to familiar airs. Mr. Roberts described the position taken by the two great divisions of the Christian Church. The Catholics, he said, contend that they have the faith once deliver.ed to the saints, kept intact by a continuing body as direct heirs of the Apostles. The Protestants maintain that the faith was sullied and the integrity of the Church destroyed by idolatries for more than 800 years. The Latter Day Sal.nts hold with the Protest·ants, and add that the Church thus lapsing could not be established again without a new revelation. He quoted several Scripture passages to sustain his position. He cited warnings by Paul that there must be schisms and apostasy, which he interpreted as referring to the Roman Catholic Church. The apocalyptic vision of St. John describes an angel bringing a new Gospel from the heaven to a lost world. Any one who believes in the Bible must therefore believe that the truth must be lost t·o the world and that a new revelation must be given. Persecution and unbelief are to be ex' pected. Prosperity is a sign of the false prophet and persecution a mark of the true teacher. Tha,t is natural because the cons'erva tive priesthood always resent the notion that there is any need of repentance or for improvement in their teaching. Persecu. tion had fallen upon the Church that he represented. That revelation which the Apostle in Patmos foresaw, came, he de' clared, to Joseph Smith, sixty-six years ago. And not only because of prophecy, but qe.cause those _who live by the light of_ that revelation know it was the truth, did he maintain tnat it was the fulfillment of the \ promise that the Gospel should never perish from the earth. 1 The Church thus reconstructed pronounces the remission of sin in baptism and offers I the gif,t of the Holy Ghost in the laying on of hands. It began as the primitive church did with twelve Apostles and seventy elders'. It suffered for the faith in Missouri, and then in Illinois, and because of persecu.tion it moved to the wllderness. where it more kindness from the savages than I found it had received from the Christians. Mr. Richards added an appeal to the audience of about seventy-five persons to hear the rest of the series saying that there are 300,000 members now in the Church, and the salvation of the world depends upon its s1freading to all nations. |
