from faith to positive assertion, and the first men of talent who became converts—such as Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Pratt, and other prominent elders—readily furnished him with the confirmation of his calling. These elders had nearly all been preachers, teachers, or exhorters, and they were not slow to discover that the Old Testament abounded with, to them, evidences of prediction about America, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the reign of the Saints on earth. The Bible, that before was a sealed book, suddenly opened with living truths of the closest personal application to the new disciples and their destiny. Every verse from Genesis to Revelation was scanned with microscopic scrutiny for evidence relative to the new faith, and, with the general reverence of Christendom for the Bible and the ready credence accorded to chapter and verse, the Mormon elders were astonishingly successful with the young and piously inclined of the labouring and mechanical classes, although their teachings were not so readily accepted by the more intellectual and better taught.
From the preaching of faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, and the gifts of the Spirit as enjoyed by the primitive Christian Church, it was an easy step for the young believer to accept Joseph Smith's statement that it had been revealed to him that "the set time to restore the kingdom to Israel" had come, and that the temporal dominion of the world by an inspired prophet was not only a proper thing, but was the consistent sequence of that prophet being chosen as the recognized medium between the heavens and the earth. It had been predicted that Christ should some day return to earth in power and great glory to reign a thousand years; hence the necessity of the Saints gathering together to prepare for the day of his coming; and in this "gathering "was laid, by the Prophet, the first stepping stone to worldly power.[1]
- ↑ As early as the second year of the Church, some of the leading elders of Zion (in Missouri) were "accusing Brother" Joseph in rather an indirect way of seeking "after monarchical power and authority." Vide Orson Hyde and Hyrum Smith's Epistle to "the bishop, his councillors, and the inhabitants of Zion."
