To that question the blood sprinkled upon a thousand Jewish altars, and the smoke that darkened the heavens for ages from burnt offerings, answers yes. For those sacrifices, and that sprinkled blood were but typical of the great sacrifice to be made by the Messiah. Even the mythology of heathen nations retains the idea of an atonement that either has been, or is to be made for mankind. Fantastic, distorted, confused; buried under the rubbish of savage superstition it may be, but it nevertheless exists. So easily traced, so distinct is this feature of heathen mythology, that some writers have endeavored to prove that the gospel plan of redemption was derived from heathen mythology. Whereas the fact is that the Gospel was understood and extensively preached in the earliest ages;[C] men retained in their tradition a knowledge of those principles or parts of them, and however much they may have been distorted, traces of them may still be found in nearly all the mythologies of the world. [Footnote C: See Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Moses, pp. 12 to 31. Gal iii, 8. Heb. iv, 2, in connection with latter part of chap iii. I Cor. X, 1-4. Mediation and Atonement by the late Prest. John Taylor --Appendix.] The prophets of the Jewish scriptures answer the foregoing question in the affirmative. The writers of the New Testament make Christ's Atonement the principal theme of their discourses and epistles. The Book of Mormon, speaking as the voice of an entire continent of people, whose prophets and righteous men sought and found God, testifies to the same great fact. The revelations of God as given through the Prophet Joseph Smith are replete with passages confirming this doctrine, and lastly, the Saints who have received this doctrine and walked in obedience to the laws of heaven, bear testimony that the Spirit of God has borne record to their spirits that the Atonement of Christ is a grand reality. This evidence is more than sufficient, it seems to me, to establish the _fact_ of the atonement beyond the possibility of a doubt; and if there are some things in it not within the scope of our comprehension, still there is sufficient foundation for our glorious hope of eternal life through its power; for the evidence proving the fact of that Atonement is sufficient, wanting nothing, either in quality or quantity.