--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1841 to 1842. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 3 number: 24 published: 1842-10-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“Fallen Away,” *Times and Seasons* 3, no. 24 (October 15, 1842): 954–955." printed_title: FALLEN AWAY. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-10-15_3_24 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n24.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-10-15_3_24 start_page: 954 end_page: 955 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1842 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-10-15_3_24 publication_year: 1842 --- # Fallen Away For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. John, xiv: 30. We quote the above scripture to show that the Savior foretold the reign of Satan upon the earth, mentioned by the apostles at different times and places, as the 'reign of Anti-Christ,' as a warning to the saints to beware of his lying wonders and deceivableness. We shall not, however, enter into the merits of the subject, in this article for the reason that it would occupy more time and space than we can allow. There is, we are well aware, no subject connected with religion, that so deeply concerns the whole human family as the one in question. It brings out at the onset, the great inquiry, if Satan has a specified reign as Anti-Christ-who is right?-This is a solemn question, and nothing but revelation can give the true answer. Men cannot, by the spirit of men, show the true way to heaven; the experience of every age plainly proves this. The religion of Jesus Christ, taught by himself, and practiced by his Apostles under the miraculous "power from on high," began to loose its efficacy, power, simplicity, and glory that surpasseth understanding, when men, so far exceeded the heavenly rule as to use their own opinions, notions, and judgments, in preference to the revealed will of God. To elucidate this principle, we shall bring in a quotation from Mosheim, relative to the apostasy of the church in the fifth century, viz: "The doctrines of religion were, at this time, understood and represented in a manner that savored little of their native purity and simplicity. They were drawn out by labored commentaries beyond the terms in which the divine wisdom had thought fit to reveal them; and were examined with that minuteness and subtilty [subtlety] that were only proper to cover them with obscurity. And what was still worse, the theological notions that generally prevailed, were proved rather by the authorities and logical discussions of the ancient doctors, than by the unerring dictates of the divine word.-And again-this procedure of the Roman tribunal-by which, the authority of certain lawyers-a plurality of voices among them-or the sentiments of the more learned and illustrious, were made to decide the point in dispute-was, in this century, admitted as a standing law, both in the deliberations and councils, and in the management of religious controversy.-Reason, and even common sense, were in some measure, excluded from every question; and that was determined as right and true, which appeared such to the greatest number, or had been approved by doctors of the greatest note in preceding times. The acts of the various councils, yet extant, manifestly show that this was the case." It will readily be seen by the above extract, that men, and not the comforter as prophesied in John, governed the teachings of those who stood as watchmen, or shepherds, for the kingdom of our Lord. Lamentable is the fact, too, from this (5th) century down to the present nineteenth, that not one solitary sample of a better state, or more perfect unity, of the church can be found upon the pages of history: no; more division, more distraction, more persecution of one sect against another; more bloodshed; more folly; more pride, and less spirit; less veneration of sacred things; less brotherly love; less virtue; less temperance; less fruits of humility; and less charity, are visible in each succeeding year, in every country throughout christendom. Since the comforter left men, and pride and ambition have ruled the way wherein some have endeavored to enter into heaven, in a greater or less degree, wealth, and not an "pure heart" has swayed the destinies of what pretended to be the church:"-and the prince of this world has spread his dominions in all the earth: and his wife, as the whore of Babylon, with a multiplicity of daughters playing the harlot among all nations, have left but a small chance for eight hundred millions of people to escape the curse pronounced by the prophet Malachi. Well may the Apostle James exclaim- "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.-Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."