"There are in the Church two Priesthoods, namely, the Melchizedek and Aaronic, including the Levitical Priesthood. Why the first is called the Melchizedek Priesthood is because Melchizedek was such a great high priest. Before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood after the order of the Son of God." The Melchizedek priesthood holds the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church, of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, of communion with the general assembly and Church of the first born, and the presence of God, the Father, and Jesus, the Mediator. The Aaronic priesthood is an appendage to the first, and holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and the outward ordinances and letter of the gospel, the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, agreeable to the covenants and commandments. The Melchizedek priesthood which Christ restored to the earth, remained among men between three and four hundred years afterwards. When in consequence of transgressions, apostasy from the true order of the priesthood and Church of Christ, the innovations of priestcraft and paganism, the true order of God was lost, the holy priesthood was taken from the earth, and the Church of Christ ceased to be among men, so far as we have any knowledge by revelation or from the history and records of the past. Then were fulfilled many predictions of the prophets and apostles, contained in the word of God. Among them the word of God spoken by John, in the 12th chapter of Revelations, and the prophecy of Amos: "Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." (Amos {240} 8:11, 12.) The proclamation of the word of the Lord is, and always has been dependent upon the authority of the holy priesthood. How could they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent? The Gentiles among whom the priesthood had been established and the gospel preached, fell away also after the example of unbelief and the manner of the Jews, or children of Israel. God who spared not the natural branches, also cut off engrafted ones, and "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth," was set up as foretold by the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John. This power made war with the Saints, and overcame them, changed time and laws, "wore out the Saints of the Most High," was drunken with their blood and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and destroyed the holy people. But this mystical power, in turn, is to be overcome and, in the due time of the Lord, utterly destroyed.