Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 2 of 2)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Latter Day Saint churches
On this whole question of collaboration, and conspiracy by Rigdon,
Pratt and Smith in the production of the Book of Mormon the following
paragraph from the writings of Elder George Reynolds is most convincing:
"Has it ever entered into the thoughts of our opponents that if
Sidney Rigdon was the author or adapter of the Book of Mormon how
vast and wide spread must have been the conspiracy that foisted it
upon the world? Whole families must have been engaged in it. Men
of all ages and various conditions in life, and living in widely
separate portions of the country must have been connected with it.
First we must include in the catalogue of conspirators the whole
of the Smith family, then the Whitmers, Martin Harris and Oliver
Cowdery; further, to carry out this absurd idea, Sidney Rigdon and
Parley P. Pratt must have been their active fellow-conspirators in
arranging, carrying out and consummating their iniquitous fraud.
To do this they must have traveled thousands of miles and spent
months, perhaps years, to accomplish--what? That is the unsolved
problem. Was it for the purpose of duping the world? They, at any
rate the great majority of them, were of all men most unlikely to
be engaged in such a folly. Their habits, surroundings, station
in life, youth and inexperience all forbid such a thought. What
could they gain, in any light that could be then presented to
their minds, by palming [off] such a deception upon the world?
This is another unanswerable question. Then comes the staggering
fact, if the book be a falsity, that all these families, all these
diverse characters, in all the trouble, perplexity, persecution
and suffering through which they passed, never wavered in their
testimony, never changed their statements, never 'went back' on
their original declarations, but continued unto death (and they
have all passed away), proclaiming that the Book of Mormon was a
divine revelation, and that its record was true. Was there ever
such an exhibition in the history of the world of such continued,
such unabating, such undeviating falsehood? If falsehood it was.
We cannot find a place in the annals of their lives where they
wavered, and what makes the matter more remarkable is that it
can be said of most of them, as is elsewhere said of the three
witnesses, they became offended with the Prophet Joseph, and a
number of them openly rebelled against him; but they never retraced
one word with regard to the genuineness of Mormon's inspired
record. Whether they were friends or foes to Joseph, whether
they regarded him as God's continued mouthpiece or as a fallen
Prophet, they still persisted in their statements with regard to
the book and the veracity of their earlier testimonies. How can we
possibly with our knowledge of human nature make this undeviating,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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