authority to baptize both priests and people, rich and poor, bond and free, with a promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost. But what was the result? How were they received? Were they accounted good, peaceable men, and well spoken of? No! far from it; most all people spoke against them, and no doubt considered them wicked, designing men, for they immediately set about whipping, stoning, imprisoning and killing them. Their own brethren, the Jews, who were best acquainted with them, were the most industriously engaged in this business. Ministers of the Jewish laws, those educated for the purpose and who made it their daily employment to expound and teach the people the word of God delivered by the holy Prophets, were generally the foremost and most bitter in these crusades against Jesus Christ, the Apostles and the Saints. Had those persons who professed to understand the Scriptures and to whom the people looked for proper explanations, been honest and virtuous men, and used a righteous influence with the people, thousands, in room of rejecting Jesus Christ and His Apostles, would have received their testimony. So, in reference to ourselves, had the ministers and clergy come to us like the good Jethro to Israel, with kind sympathy in their bosoms, and shown us that friendship which one religious class of people ought always to manifest for another, or had they used even a moral influence in our favor, the evils and cruelties heaped upon us by our enemies would have been much lessened, and those persons, like Jethro, would have been spoken of with praise and honor to the latest ages of posterity. But, alas! few instances of this kind can be recorded. It is with pleasure, however, that we here mention that in times of deep distress, brought upon the Saints by these persecutions, when large public meetings were called in various parts of the United States by virtuous and honorable citizens of the country, to express their abhorrence and detestation of those crimes and cruelties, those professing themselves ministers of the Gospel, in some instances, came forward at those meetings and discountenanced the persecutions of the Saints. Such acts of nobleness, independence of mind and human sympathy will not be forgotten. The relation of these scenes of persecution is not offered as direct evidence of the truth of our religion; but it is a plain evidence of the corruption of any people who persecute or look silently on without raising their voice or influence in behalf of the persecuted. The evidence of the authenticity of our religion is to be found in the fact of our possessing the fruits of the ancient Gospel, the gifts and blessings promised the true believers; and if found in possession of these blessings, that is a sufficient explanation of the cause of those horrid persecutions.