The assertions made by the Latter-day Saints that God has raised up a Prophet and Apostles in these days, who have the authority to teach and instruct men in the principles of His kingdom, and that their teachings and counsels are entitled to consideration and obedience, are statements that are looked upon by many to be little less than blasphemous. Many cannot conceive how individuals, who are apparently so sane and possessed of good judgment on other subjects, should be so visionary, and so wholly absorbed in the strange belief of there being men who hold this power on the earth in these days. They, nevertheless, believe that men clothed with this power have existed upon the earth at various times, who were inspired to speak and write; and they are quite willing to receive the writings, said to be theirs, upon very slight testimony, and rest all their hopes of future and eternal blessedness upon their veracity. They have an idea that it is perfectly reasonable to believe in the words of the Apostles and Prophets who lived thousands of years ago, and they think that, were they alive now, they could place all reliance and confidence in their words as the word of God. Peter, James and John, with their brethren, are looked up to as having been something superior to mortal, and many, forgetting that they were but human, think that it would only be necessary, did they live now, for them to declare this message and state that they were empowered to teach it, and men without the slightest demur would instantly embrace its doctrines. This professed admiration of dead Prophets and Seers, however, is not confined to this generation alone; it was a characteristic of other generations. The Jews, when Jesus was in their midst, would build and adorn the tombs of the Prophets {169} whom their fathers had slain, and say that if they had lived in the days of their fathers they would not have persecuted or killed them, while at the same time they were thirsting for the blood of the Son of God, and they did not rest until He had shared the same fate with the Prophets whom they so ostentatiously honored. But what is there visible at the present time from which we can infer that were any of the ancient Prophets or Apostles in the midst of this generation, they would be any better treated, or their teachings given more heed to, than they were in the generation in which they lived? The present ideas of professing Christians--that the canon of Scripture is full--and that there is no further need of direct revelation--would not admit of their recognizing a Prophet or an Apostle, should they be so fortunate as to have one sent into their midst. They are, in this respect, in a similar situation to the Jews at the time of the advent of the Messiah. They were in possession of the writings of the Prophets, and held them as the present sects of Christendom hold the Bible. Their writings were their oracles, and they indulged in the idea, as the modern sects do