"A. He requires them to repent of all their sins and embrace the message of salvation contained in the Book of Mormon, and be baptized into this church, and prepare themselves for the coming of the Lord. "Q. What will be the consequence if they do not embrace the Book of Mormon as a divine revelation? "A. They will be destroyed from the land and sent down to hell, like all other generations who have rejected a divine message."--Orson Pratt in the Seer, page 215. This claim naturally provokes a most searching investigation of the grounds upon which it rests. When it appears that it involves the eternal reprobation of those who finally reject it, there can be no surprise that the claim is very sharply challenged. It is asserted that "the high claim of the church--is declared in its title--the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;" that "its name was prescribed by Him whose church it is--Jesus, the Christ;" and that, "we affirm that, through the ministration of immortal personages, the holy priesthood has been conferred upon men in the present age, and that under this divine authority the Church of Jesus Christ has been organized." It will be seen that the claim to exclusiveness involves the invalidity of all the church ordinances, and of all ministerial functions, including the right to solemnize marriages, as administered by the Christian church from the second to the nineteenth century. "It (Mormonism) is entirely unlike all plans and systems ever invented by human authority; it has no likeness, connection or fellowship with any of them; it speaks with divine authority, and all nations, without an exception, are required to obey. He that receives the message and endures to the end will be saved; he that rejects it will be damned."--Pratt's Works, paper 1. "These claims in behalf of Mormonism presuppose the destruction of the primitive Christian church, a complete apostasy from the Christian religion."--New Witness for God, preface, page 1. "The very religion of modern Christianity is now about as great a curse as can be inflicted upon its successors without doing violence to their power of free agency. * * *" "The modern Christians with the Bible in their hands are in as gross darkness as the worshipers of Baal. The god they worship is no more like the person of Christ or the person of man than Baal was. Their order of church authorities and church gifts and ordinances of healing and anointing are probably about as remote from the apostolic pattern as the worship of Mohamet or Vishnu is."--Spencer's letters, pages 119 and 120.