Proceeding upon the legitimate assumption that the effect of obedience to the requirements of the doctrines of faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands, does produce the promised imparting of the Holy Ghost, what is the proper conclusion? It must be that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet, for the reason that the giving of the Holy Ghost necessarily shows divine recognition. No such effect could possibly result from the teachings and administrations of an impostor. The reader may say that he is not willing to accept of the testimony of the Latter-day Saints, on the ground of the probability of their being interested witnesses. What reason would he have for supposing then, that he would have received the evidence of the Former-day Saints? They were open to the same objection, if it be one, and they had no more proof to advance that their claim was valid than is now offered in support of the same Gospel restored in its power in these days. One thing is very evident in this connection: there is but one {206} process by which the position of the Latter-day Saints can be consistently refuted. That is by the testing method, which is open to all. It consists of implicit compliance with the conditions stated to be requisite to insure a personal testimony or witness to the obedient. Until the opponents of the divine system take this course, consistency would appear to demand that they hold their peace, lest they be, ignorantly or otherwise, found fighting against God. However, as the Saints know, experimentally, that honest truth-seekers receive, through obedience, the witness of the Spirit, they know the work they are engaged in is secure from successful assault from that method. The reader has probably been heretofore misled regarding the faith and doctrines professed by the Latter-day Saints, and may consequently be surprised at their being identical with the teachings of the Bible. He has perhaps been under the impression that the Old and New Testaments were discarded and what is known as the Book of Mormon adopted instead. Such an impression, which is only too general, is altogether erroneous. It is true, however, that, in addition to the Bible, the Saints accept the Book of Mormon as a divine revelation, it being in accordance with the genius of their faith, to adopt whatever the Almighty chooses to offer for the information and salvation of His children.