These points, then, are demonstrated by the first vision of Joseph Smith:--the word of God is to be relied upon; spiritual gifts will attend the faithful even at the present day; the Christian churches of the world are without authority; the God of heaven is a God of personal, tangible form; the members of the Godhead are separate and distinct in person; and, finally, the Church of Christ must be favored with continued revelation, else it must suffer spiritual death. But all these points were contrary to the doctrines of both Catholic and Protestant churches. In upholding them, the boy-prophet aroused against himself the opposition of the whole religious world. Is it a matter of wonder, then, that the name of Joseph Smith is known the world over for good or for ill? Is it a matter of wonder that the religious world should take cognizance of the boy's prophetic sight, or that it should writhe under the arraignment of the first vision? Is it not rather a matter of wonder and admiration, that the boy, scarce fourteen years old, evilly spoken of and persecuted, should still persist in his testimony that he had seen a vision? And from that first vision what further has grown adds further to the wonder and admiration of the boy selected to usher in another dispensation. III. SEVEN MARKS OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. Perhaps the most important count in the arraignment of Joseph Smith's first vision is that the Christian world has departed from the simple Gospel of the Lord Jesus. "They draw near me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men: having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof," the Lord said to the prophet in speaking of the Christian denominations. And, surely, the tumult, the strife, the confusion of such religious revivals as that of 1820, are sufficient evidence that the words of the Savior were true. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism"[A] had been the doctrine of Jesus and the apostles. In 1820, there were many faiths, and many baptisms. [Footnote A: Eph. 4:1-13.] That this condition should exist in the religious world of the nineteenth century, was only a natural consequence in the course of history. Jesus and the apostles had taught in early times the Gospel in its pure simplicity. Soon after the passing of the apostles, however, the Christian church had departed from the orthodox doctrines of the Lord, and had become corrupt in many ways. Persecution, waged by both the Jews and the Gentiles, was in part responsible for the great apostasy; but possibly prosperity, and the adoption of Christianity as the state form of worship, were even more productive of a general abandonment of the religious doctrines taught by Jesus and the apostles. In a general way, there are seven points in which the apostasy of the early Christian church is marked.