It is, however, with that part of it which relates to the restoration of the gospel that here I have most to do. This the passage: "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred and tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." [1]
However obscure some parts of the Books of Revelation may be considered, this prophecy is perfectly clear. Looked at from any standpoint, it means simply this: In the hour of God's judgment an angel will come from heaven bringing with him the everlasting gospel, which is thence to be preached unto all nations and peoples of the earth. The fact that the gospel is to be restored in the hour of God's judgment by the ministry of an angel, and thence is to be preached to every nation and kindred and tongue and people is proof positive that every nation and kindred and tongue and people in the hour of God's judgment would be without the gospel, hence the necessity of restoring it in the manner described. For if the Lord had a church on the earth, possessing divine authority, there would be no necessity to bring in a new dispensation of the gospel as described in the prophecy under consideration.
In this passage several of the facts for which I have contended meet: First, that there has been a universal apostasy from the gospel, so complete in its departure from the doctrines and rites of the Christian religion, so universal, as to destroy the church of Christ; second, the necessity of restoring the gospel by a re-opening of the heavens; and third, the fact of the restoration of the gospel by the ministration of an angel who commits a new dispensation of it to man, to be preached throughout the world.
Joseph Smith is the New Witness for God; a Prophet Divinely Authorized to Teach the Gospel, and Re-establish the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the western part of the State of New York was a new country, by which I mean--one recently settled, and comparatively a wilderness. At the close of the Revolutionary War, which secured to the former British Colonies independence, the people of the new-born nation found their country and themselves impoverished. Manufactures owing to the narrow and selfish policy of England toward her colonies (that policy had been to discourage the colonies from manufacturing, least they should compete with the manufactures of England) could scarcely be said to have an existence. Commerce, owing to the fact that the new nation had not yet established a commercial standing in the world, afforded little opportunity for American activity. Moreover, the American people themselves, of that generation, because of the conditions which had surrounded them in the New World, were neither skilled artisans capable of competing with the British workmen in manufacturing, nor had they the cunning that comes by training, which qualified them for immediate success. What they did possess was sturdy physical frames--constitutions unimpaired either by the excesses practiced among barbarians, or by the vices which abound in older civilizations. They possessed strong hands, superb courage and simple tastes, and with these they entered into that almost boundless empire of wilderness to the west of them, to make homes for themselves and their children.
