"Mormonism" lives because it is healthy, normal and undeformed. In general, a healthy organism is assured of life, barring destruction from external violence or deprivation of physical necessities; whereas one that is abnormal and sickly is doomed to decline. Opposition to the Church, the pitiless maltreatment to which its people have been subjected, comprising mobbings, drivings, spoliation, scourgings, assassination, and murder marked by every conceivable accompaniment of barbarity, have operated to strengthen the Church, body and soul. True, the heat of persecution has scorched and withered a few of the sickly plants such as had no depth of sincerity; but the general effect has been to promote a fuller growth, and to make richer and more fertile the Garden of the Lord. "Mormonism" thrives and is extending its influence, leavening the thoughts of men, because its distinctive doctrines are those of progression, in accord with the better manifestations of the spirit of the times, best adapted to meet the vital needs of the age. The timeliness of its establishment is significant and largely explanatory of its success. The seed of the restored Gospel was planted by the Divine Husbandman only after due preparation of the soil. The place of planting was no less carefully selected than the time of seeding. In the economy of God, America, which is veritably the land of Zion, was aforetime consecrated as the home of a free and independent nation. Only in such soil could the germ of the Gospel of true liberty sprout and thrive. "Mormonism" lives because its claims are consistent and its position impregnable. It affirms the literal fulfilment of scriptural predictions of a great falling away from the truth, a cessation of spiritual gifts and Divine authority, in short a world-wide apostasy from the Church established by the Lord Jesus Christ in the meridian of time. This condition of apostasy is that pictured by Isaiah: "The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." (Isaiah 24:5.) And by Amos, in his fateful utterance: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." (Amos 8:11, 12.) The certainty of a general declension in spirituality among men, the rise of false Christs and false prophets, of mystic and deceiving voices from the desert and from secret chambers was foretold by the Christ Himself (Matt. 24:4-5, 10, 13, 25-26). So avowed also the Apostles Peter (2 Peter 2:1-3), and Paul (Acts 20:29-30, 1 Tim. 4:1-3, 2 Tim. 4:1-4, 2 Thess. 2:3-4), Jude (17, 18), and John (Rev. 13:4, 6-9).