Thus you see, brother, how difficult in former and latter days to bring the true faith to the knowledge of men, through prejudice. They have prejudged a matter of which they are almost wholly ignorant. This same notion of treating new matters has veiled the sun in darkness, and hung the Prince of Life in agonies. How long shall this treatment of the Saints be persisted in? How long shall prophets be persecuted and slain, without being fully known, and the servants of God be excluded from an impartial hearing, when they seek to publish good tidings--even salvation to the inhabitants of the earth? Now let me ask my former friends in the eastern churches, with whom I once held sweet intercourse, how it is possible for the Latter-day Saints to introduce their views among the sectarian churches and the world, with any more favourable reception than the Ancient Saints had in introducing theirs? Prejudice and persecution faced them down always, and so it is in these days. It is certainly a mistaken idea to suppose that people are much better now than they were anciently, when the true gospel was misunderstood, and its promoters sincerely accounted disturbers, and heretics worthy of exemplary punishment. But, say the wise and great men among the sectarian churches, "we do understand the true gospel, and have already embraced it, and it is only error and heresy we oppose; and the weight of our contempt and ridicule is hurled at impostors and knaves, who palm off gross deceptions upon the public, and lead captive ignorant zealots by pretended revelations and spurious miracles." But do they not know that substantially the same charge was brought against Jesus Christ and the primitive disciples. Let it be proved that we are what our enemies call us; let us file our respective pleas and come to a speedy and impartial trial. To this our opposers will not consent; they intend to employ all the advantage of education and prejudice to exclude us from a hearing--so did the opposers of the Ancient Saints: but I solemnly ask whether it has ever been necessary, in any moral enterprise, for those who have the truth on their side, especially gospel truth, to defend that truth by foreclosing discussion, and shunning public investigation, and then carry on their depredations by the use of such small arms as ridicule and preconceived objections, that need only be brought to light to be dissipated like fog in the meridian sun?