My reply was substantially as follows: "I agree with you, Doctor, in nearly all that you have said. But don't deceive yourself with the notion that we "Mormons" are not aware of the strength of our position. We are better aware of it than anyone else. We have not all been to college; we cannot all speak the dead languages; we may be 'ignoramuses', as you say; but we know that we are right, and we know that you are wrong". I was just as frank with him as he had been with me. An Episcopal View. At a later period I conversed with another man of culture, a bishop of the Episcopal Church. He affirmed that if Joseph Smith, at the outset of his career, had become acquainted with the Episcopalians, he would have been content and would have looked no further for spiritual light. "The trouble is", said the Bishop, "Joseph encountered the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians and others, with their conflicting creeds and claims. These failing to satisfy him, he sought elsewhere. Now the Episcopalians have an unbroken succession of authority all down the centuries, and if Joseph Smith had become informed as to them, he would never have taken the trouble to organize another church." And these are some of the views that learned men take of "Mormonism". With all their learning, they are not able to come to a knowledge of the truth. They do not begin to dream of the greatness of God's work, the grandeur of Christ's cause. They have no idea of the real strength of its position. They assume that Joseph Smith stumbled upon something of which he did not know the true value, and that it was sheer luck which gave to "Mormonism" its vantage ground, its recognized strength of position. Never was there a grosser error. There are concepts as much higher than these, as the heavens are higher than the earth. The "Mormons" are not the "ignoramuses" when it comes to a consideration of the Gospel's mighty themes. The Real Reason. Yet it is not because of human "smartness"--not because the followers of Joseph Smith are brainier than other people, that they have a greater knowledge of God and are capable of loftier ideals in religion. It is because they have received, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, a perceptive power, a spiritual illumination which the world, with all its culture, does not possess, and without which no man can know God or comprehend His purposes. It cannot be had from books and schools. Colleges and universities cannot impart it. It can come only in one way--God's way, not man's. The Latter-day Saints have it, not because of any greater natural ability than other men and women possess, but because they have bowed in obedience to the divine will, thus making themselves worthy to receive this inestimable boon. All mankind may have it upon precisely the same conditions. Another Objection.