The social structures of the nations are being undermined and threatened by a strange revolutionary movement. Thrones and empires seem to be almost trembling in the balance. This is notably the case with the great Russian despotism. The spirit of murder and incendiarism seems to be in the air, filling the high ones of the earth with affright. Foul murder and destructive fire are born of the plottings of secret societies, organized for purposes of assassination, power and plunder. All civilized nations are more or less affected by this hideous affliction, which hangs over some of them like an incubus. It is a sign of the times. The prophet Moroni, by whose hands the plates of the Book of Mormon were hid up in the Hill Cumorah, wrote concerning this very condition. He knew that his words would come forth and be published to the Gentiles, {815} in the latter days, and he directed a prophetic statement to them, which will be found on page 588 of the last edition: "Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that those things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not these murderous combinations to get above you, _which are built up to get power and gain_, and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you. * * * Wherefore the Lord commandeth you _when ye shall see these things come among you_, that you shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, _because of this secret combination which shall be among you_." The same prophet also says: "And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed. What could be plainer than the fulfilment of these predictive words, establishing the prophetic character of the record. If the objector should interpose that he does not believe this prediction was made fourteen hundred years ago, that would not help his side of the question, as it would be a mere shifting of the prophetic mantle from the shoulders of Moroni to those of Joseph Smith. At the time the book was translated and published those secret murderous combinations were almost non-existent compared with their present extent, foothold and power. They now exist to a greater or less degree in all nations, and will continue to increase until they create what the Book of Mormon terms "a great division among the people," and every man's hand will be against his neighbor.