We might proceed with similar quotations relative to subsequent centuries intervening between the fifth and the time of the Reformation, but the foregoing will suffice to show that religious matters grew worse from one age to another, presenting to the world a mass of religious confusion. Although there may have been honorable men who protested against these evils, it is evident that genuine authority and the principles of the Gospel in their purity could not be derived from such a corrupt source. We are informed in the Scriptures that an evil tree will not produce good fruit nor a bitter fountain send forth sweet waters. As neither Luther, Melancthon, Huss, Zwingli, Calvin nor any of the reformers of that age received revelation from heaven authorizing them to establish the Church, we find that the world was still without the plan of salvation, and that the products of the Reformation, as religious bodies, are the offspring of the mother church, described in the Scriptures as the "mother of harlots and abomination of the earth." This unnatural mother, like some of the fashionable women of modern times (whose husbands and illicit patrons are zealously opposing the Latter-day Saints), endeavored to procure abortion, but failing in this, she tried to destroy her children after birth. Both attempts being futile, the children grew to years of maturity and in turn gave birth to other children, and so on until now there are several generations of them living. These offspring, being without natural affection, have been and still are quarreling with each other and casting missiles at their mothers and grandmothers as the case may be. In the midst of this religious spectacle, however, there are and have been many honorable people who have realized the fallen condition of the world and were honest enough to acknowledge the same. From Elder John Morgan's Tract No. 1, we make the following extracts: "Roger Williams refused to continue as pastor over the oldest Baptist church in America on the grounds that there was no regularly constituted church on earth nor any person authorized to administer church ordinances, nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking." (See Picturesque America, page 502.) Smith's Bible Dictionary also says: "We must not expect to see the Church of Holy Scriptures actually existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found thus perfect either in the collected fragments of Christendom or still less in any one of these fragments." The names of sixty-five learned divines and biblical scholars are on the preface page as contributors to and endorsers of this book. Mr. Wesley states that the reason the gifts are no longer in the church, is because the love of many waxed cold and the Christians had turned heathens again and had only a dead form left. (See volume 1, sermon 94.)