"St. Luke's "Second Treatise" or Discourse, (The Acts) addressed to Theophilus, bears a title apt to mislead the reader; a title certainly not given it by its author. It contains no full account of the "Acts of the Apostles." Most of them are never mentioned even by name, after the list given in the first chapter; and the history of St. Paul is not brought down to his death. Its true subject is the fulfillment of the promise of the Father by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the results of that outpouring, in the diffusion of the Gospel among Jews and Gentiles. It deals only with the beginning of this great theme; and, having shown us the full establishment of Christ's Church, first in the Holy Land, then in those Eastern and Grecian provinces of the Roman empire which the Jews were wont to regard as representing the whole Gentile world, and finally at Rome; it leaves all the future progress of the Gospel to be recorded by the Church itself. "And the point where the sacred history thus breaks off is marked by a most striking change in the character of the records. There is a great gulf between the last verses of the 'Acts' and the last allusions in the Epistles of St. Paul, and the earliest authentic chapters of what is called 'Ecclesiastical History.' The chasm is only bridged over by traditions of uncertain value, in which even the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul is disfigured by childish legends, and worldly principles are already seen at work in the kingdom of Christ." (Ibid, p. 378.) It will greatly aid in understanding the doctrinal development of this dispensation if it is remembered that the Gospels of the New Testament were not written first, nor even the Acts of the Apostles; that most likely some of the epistles of Paul form the older written documents of the Meridian Dispensation (for the probable order in which these epistles were written see Seventy's Year Book, No. I. note, pp. 88-9); and, that while the Apostle of the Gentiles had the personal, verbal narratives of some of the Apostles who were companions of the Master to aid him in forming his conceptions of the Life and Mission of Christ, he had no such written treasury as we now have in the four-fold story of the Evangelists. The literature of the Meridian Dispensation on the Western hemisphere is found in the Book of Mormon. Prophetically (and it should be remembered that prophecy is but reversed history) in the record on the small plates of Nephi (the first 157 pages of the book), as also in the abridged records of Mormon, more especially the Book of Alma (12, 13 and 42nd chapters); and Historically in III Nephi, which has not inappropriately been called "The Fifth Gospel," and "The American Gospel" (See Lecture on the subject, "Defense of the Faith and the Saints" pp. 371-399), because it details the ministry of the Christ in the western hemisphere, and adds largely to views of the world-mission of the Christ, the Christ.