It stands to reason that if the Lord rejected His Church _with its dead_ because of transgression, or any other cause {84} whatever, that He would not raise up a substitute church to carry on His work on earth and still keep the dead--who could in no wise be held responsible for the rejection--in suspension, and deny to them the privilege of receiving the ordinances of the Gospel by proxy according to the revealed plan of God as it was ordained from before the foundations of the world were laid, as a means of salvation to those who die without a knowledge of the Gospel. To any reasonable mind this truth would need no argument. Yet the "Reorganized" church declares that the Lord did this very thing; and in the light of the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph as well as those in the ancient Scriptures, which bear on this subject of salvation for the dead, their declaration is fatal to their organization; it stamps it as fraudulent and their officers as impostors. A church without salvation for the dead, according to the revealed will of God to the Prophet Joseph Smith, cannot be the Church of Christ. When the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith on the night of September 21, 1823, he imparted to the youthful Seer many truths of the greatest importance pertaining to the restoration of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church which, the angel said, was about to take place. These instructions were of such weight that they were repeated twice more that night and again the following day, in order that this young man, upon whose shoulders the burden of the latter day work should rest, might be sufficiently impressed with the greatness and importance of his mission. Among the instructions given by the angel at this time, the doctrine of salvation for the dead had an important part. This heavenly messenger said that the prophecy of Malachi the Prophet was about to be fulfilled, and he quoted the fourth chapter of Malachi, but with this variation: "For, behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. * * * Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of that great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to their fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming." (History of the Church, Vol. I, page 12.)