In these passages the special calling and duties of the Seventies are so clearly set forth that neither comment nor amplification is necessary, since these foregoing quotations are the word of the Lord, and evidence the fact that the Twelve, with the Seventy, constitute the foreign ministry of the Church. They are special witnesses of God and Christ to the truth of the gospel, and that is their special and peculiar calling in the Church. Not that the whole responsibility of preaching the gospel rests upon the Twelve and the Seventy alone. That responsibility rests upon the whole body of the Church. These quorums, the Twelve and Seventy, are merely the instrumentality through which the Church discharges its obligations to the people of the world in making known to them the truth. 7. _President Joseph F. Smith on the Calling of the Seventy:_ We have also in the Church today, I am informed, 146 quorums of Seventy [the number in 1904]. These constitute a body of Elders of somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 men, whose special duty it is to respond to the call of the Apostles to preach the gospel, without purse or scrip, to all the nations of the earth. They are minute men. It is expected that they will be ready, whenever they are called, to go out in the world, or to go out to the various organizations of the Church to fulfill missions and to perform such duties as shall be required of them, in order that the work of the Lord and the work of the ministry may be upheld and sustained and carried on in the Church and throughout the world. These councils or quorums of Seventy are not always full, a full council being 70 Elders. But there are approximately 10,000 Elders who now hold that position in the Church. They are called to an apostolic calling. They are required to be special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is expected of this body of men that they will have burning in their souls the testimony of Jesus Christ, which is the spirit of prophecy; that they will be full of light and of the knowledge of the truth; that they will be enthusiastic in their calling, and in the cause of Zion, and that they will be ready at any moment, when required, to go out into the world, or anywhere throughout the Church and bear testimony of the truth, preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and set examples before the world of purity, love, honesty, uprightness and integrity to the truth. (The General Conference Reports, October 6th, 1904, p. 3.) Footnotes 1. Richards and Little's, of "The Seventy's Indispensible Library," always meant. 2. Third edition always quoted. 3. "After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel."--Joseph Smith. 4. Third edition always quoted.