93. Ethics and Religion--A Distinction with a Difference 94. Religion Active and Passive--Effort Essential to Salvation 95. Remember the Sabbath Day--A Law unto Man from the Beginning 96. The Foolishness of God--And the Wisdom of Men 97. Freedom Through Obedience--Release from Autocracy of Sin 98. He Went and Washed--And Came Seeing 99. The Rod of Iron--A Dependable Support 100. Liar and Murderer--From the Beginning 101. On the Devil's Ground--Prisoners to Satan 102. What Doth It Profit a Man?--Worldly Gain--Eternal Loss 103. The Garden of God--And the Weeds of Human Culture 104. The Last Dispensation--Today is the Sum of all the Yesterdays THE VITALITY OF MORMONISM -- 1 -- THE MUSTARD SEED AND THE TREE Development, Not Growth Alone WHY does "Mormonism" persist? The question is perennial, while the fact implied therein commands increasing interest and concern. Determined attempts were made to stifle the system at its birth, to destroy the mustard seed at the planting; and, paradoxically, in proportion as the actuality of its survival has become generally evident, the assumed certainty of its imminent decline has been the more confidently proclaimed. The fall of the spreading tree, whose branches afford unfailing food and shelter, has been predicted time and again, but never realized. On the sixth day of April, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized as a body corporate at Fayette in the State of New York, with a membership of six persons. True, at that time a few times six had associated themselves more or less closely with the new religious movement; but, as the laws of the State specified six as the minimum required to form a religious corporation, only that number took part in the legal procedure. And they, save one, were relatively obscure. The name of Joseph Smith had already been heard beyond his home district. He was at the time a subject of widening notoriety if not of enviable fame. The Book of Mormon, purporting to be a record of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Continent, had already been published. In reference to the title page of this work the appellation "Mormons" came to be fastened upon members of the Church. Such a beginning as that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would seem to afford little ground of either hope or fear as to future developments. What was there to cause hostile concern over the voluntary association of six men and a few of their friends in an organization of openly expressed purpose, and that, the peaceful promulgation of what they verily believed to be the uplifting religion of life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Whatever may be the answer to the query, the fact that the Church met opposition, which for a long period was increasingly severe, is abundantly attested by history. [1]