The World's Debt to Joseph Smith

The World's Debt to Joseph Smith

BY ELDER ORSON F. WHITNEY, OF THE QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES

No man ever lived who taught the principles of the gospel more plainly than the Prophet Joseph Smith. God sends all great men into the world — poets, philosophers,

painters, musicians, inventors, discoverers, all good and wise teachers ; but the most important mission that can rest upon a human soul is the mission of a Prophet who comes with the divine message of salvation. The world was full of poets, painters, sculptors and musicians, on that great day of Pentecost, when the con-

scious-stricken multitude cried out: "Men and breth- ren, what shall we do?" But the poets could not answer, the sculptors and painters could not answer, not even

Caesar upon his throne could tell men what to do to be saved.

But there stood up a man who could and did give a definite, positive and true answer to the question. He was not an educated man ; he was an unlettered fisher- man, but nevertheless, a Prophet of God, and he told

them just what they must do to be saved. He was, there- fore, the most important man of his generation — Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ.

For the same reason the Prophet Joseph Smith was the most important man of his generation. Some day he will be honored by the whole world as a man who re- stored the lost knowledge of the true and living God, and

answered anew the all-momentous question : "What must we do to be saved?" May the Lord of heaven give to us, and to all man- kind, a knowledge of the truth, and a testimony of the mission of Joseph the Prophet. It was he who taught the

doctrine, a new and strange doctrine to his generation, that husband and wife need not part forever, .when death

separates them. Among many other precious gospel truths, he proclaimed the eternity of the marriage cove- nant, when formed in obedience to the law of God, and showed that there were sacred ties by which husband and wife may be united eternally: the wife to her husband; the husband to his wife; the- parents to their children,

and the children to their parents, forever. This is one of the most comforting of Joseph Smith's teachings. There is no need that death should be an eternal parting —none whatever, if those united under God's law and by his authority perform their part. Let us strive to come to the realization of the truth, that Jesus Christ is the world's Redeemer, and that with-

out him there is no salvation. If he did not rise from the dead, our hope is vain. But it is my testimony that he did so rise, and that he is the author of salvation and eternal life to all who will believe and obey him.

And I testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, raised up to restore the everlasting gospel, the only plan of salvation. By means of this gospel all men may be saved, and those who are saved will be rewarded ac- cording to their works, and inherit celestial, terrestrial, or telestial glory, in the many mansions of our Heavenly Father.