occurred in the following manner:
In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith, then a lad between fourteen and
fifteen years of age, being exercised on the subject of religion, and
not knowing which of the contending sects of religion were accepted by
God as His Church, fortunately came upon that excellent advice given by
the Apostle James, viz.:
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to
all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him"
(James i, 5).
In full, child-like confidence that God would fulfil His word, he
called upon the Lord in prayer, and in answer received an open vision,
in which he beheld the Father and the Son, who revealed to him the
startling truth that man had transgressed the laws of the Gospel,
changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant, and that none
of the churches or sects were acknowledged of His as His church or
kingdom, and he was commanded to join none of them. He was {167} also
informed that the time was at hand when the Gospel would be restored,
and was told that he was a chosen instrument to assist in bringing
about the purposes of God.
Let not the reader impatiently cast away this tract at the statement
that God did not acknowledge any of the sects or churches as His church
or kingdom. Let it be remembered, according to the prophecy of the
Revelator we have quoted (Rev. xiv, 6, 7), that every nation, kindred,
tongue, and people in the hour of God's judgment, are to be without
the Gospel, or why would there be any need of an angel being sent from
heaven with it to the earth, if it was anywhere on the earth? The
learned John Wesley said that the reason the extraordinary gifts of the
Holy Ghost were no longer enjoyed was because the love of many waxed
cold, the Christians had turned heathens again and only had a dead
form left (Wesley's works, vol. VI, ser. 89). The Church of England
in her Homily on Perils of Idolatry (page 3) says: "Laity and clergy,
learned and unlearned, all ages, sects and degrees have been drowned in
abominable idolatry, most detested by God and damnable to man for eight
hundred years or more."
But to return to our account of the restoration of the Gospel. More
than three years passed before Joseph Smith was again blessed with a
heavenly vision. But on the night of the 21st of September, 1823, while
engaged in prayer in his bedchamber, "I discovered," says he,
"A light appearing in the room, which continued to increase until
the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage
appeared at my bed-side, standing in the air, for his feet did not
touch the floor. * * * Not only was his robe exceedingly white,
but his whole person was gloriously beyond description; and his
countenance truly like lightning. * * * He called me by my name,
and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence
of God to me, and that his name was Moroni. That God had work
for me to do, and that my name should be had for good or evil
among all nations, kindred, and tongues; or that it should be
good or evil spoken of among all people. He said that there was
a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of
the former inhabitants of this [the American] continent, and the
source from whence they sprang. He also said that _the fullness of
the everlasting Gospel was contained in it_, as delivered by the
Savior to the ancient inhabitants [or America]. Also that there
were two stones in silver bows (and these stones, fastened to
the breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim of Thummim)
deposited with the plates, and the possession and use of these
stones was what constituted Seers in ancient or former times, and
that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book."
The angel then quoted a number of prophecies from the Jewish
Scriptures, among them the first part of the third chapter {168}
of Malachi, and also the fourth chapter of the same book, the
eleventh chapter of Isaiah, and the second chapter of Joel, from the
twenty-eighth verse to the close. He stated that these prophecies would
be fulfilled in this generation.
Four years after this first visit of the heavenly messenger, in the
meantime being instructed by him in doctrine and principle, the
tablets containing the ancient history of America, together with the
Urim and Thummim by which they were to be translated, were given into
his charge. In the course of two years the work of translation was
completed, and in the winter of 1829-30 the Book of Mormon--for so the
record is called--containing the "fulness of the everlasting Gospel,"
as taught to the ancient peoples of America, was given to the world.
Nor is the world asked to receive this important message on the
statement of Joseph Smith alone, but the Lord has given other
witnesses, and their statement has been published with every edition of
the Book of Mormon, and is as follows: