Letter to Governor Dunklin Answering his of April 20th, Wherein he Cautioned the Saints to Keep their Enemies in the Wrong. Letter to Colonel S. D. Lucas Asking About Arms Surrendered at Independence. Reply of the General Government to the Petition of the Saints. {XXV} Introduction. Antiquity of the Gospel. The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also the history of the opening and progress of the Dispensation of the fullness of Times; and as that dispensation bears an important relation to all dispensations which have preceded it, let us here ascertain in what that relation consists. By doing so we shall have a better appreciation of the full import of those events which make up the history of the Church. A dispensation, without reference to any specific application or limitation of the term, is the act of dealing out or distributing, such as the dispensation of justice by courts, the dispensation of blessings or afflictions by the hand of Providence. Theologically a dispensation is defined as one of the several systems or bodies of law in which at different periods God has revealed his mind and will to man, such as the Patriarchal Dispensation, the Mosaic Dispensation, or the Christian Dispensation. The word is also sometimes applied to the periods of time during which the said laws obtain. That is, the period from Adam to Noah is usually called the Patriarchal Dispensation. From Noah to the calling of Abraham, the Noachian Dispensation; and from Abraham to the calling of Moses, the Abrahamic Dispensation. But the word dispensation as connected with the Gospel of Jesus Christ means the opening of the heavens to men; the giving out or dispensing to them the word of God; the revealing to men in whole or the part the principles and ordinances of the Gospel; the conferring of divine authority upon certain chosen ones, by which they are empowered to act in the name, that is, in the authority of God, and for Him. That is a dispensation as relating to the Gospel; and the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times is the dispensation which includes all others and gathers to itself all things which bear any relation whatsoever to the work of God. Also it is the last dispensation, the one in which will be gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him. [1] It is the dispensation which will see fulfilled all the decrees of God respecting the salvation of men and the redemption of the earth itself; and bears such relation to all other {XXVI} dispensations of the Gospel as the ocean does to all earth's streams. It receives and unites them all in itself.