Honest professing Christians, of every creed, must freely admit that the position of the Latter-day Saints in regard to what are called the first principles of the doctrine of Christ is invulnerable. They must acknowledge that faith in God, the Eternal Father, in His Son Jesus Christ and the divinity of His mission, and in the Holy Ghost, is unquestionably Scriptural. They must accede also that repentance of sins, as preparatory to their remission, occupies the same Biblical position. Neither can they consistently question the object of baptism, being for the remission of sins--"Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." Nor can the mode (immersion) be questioned by them. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, likens baptism, administered in the proper form, to the burial and resurrection of Christ; a very beautiful figure--immersion in the liquid element. No other method bears the remotest resemblance to being buried and resurrected. Nor do {175} unprejudiced investigators for religious truth deny that the baptism of true Christianity, as taught and administered by John the Baptist, Christ and His disciples, was intended, not for infants, but only for those persons who had reached the years of accountability. This must be obvious, because before people were baptized for the remission of sins it was necessary, as a preparation, that they should believe and repent, a process impossible to little children. The latter being, according to the Savior, of the Kingdom of Heaven, have no sins to remit, for no unclean thing can enter the heavenly kingdom. Sinfulness is uncleanness. It is easy for the Saints to show that the ordinance administered in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of the "Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost," is strictly a Bible practice. Read, for instance, the 8th chapter of the Acts, and numerous other passages, "Then laid they their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost." [1] The necessity of authority to enable man to represent Jesus on the earth in the ministry of the Gospel, is also admitted freely by the unprejudiced. The absence of such authority among the lifeless sects is conspicuous. Paul lays down an unqualified rule upon this point: "No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron." Aaron was called of God by revelation from Him, through the Prophet Moses. The sects of to-day repudiate revelation and its necessity, and how therefore can they be in possession of an authority that can only be given by that means? It is impossible. [2]