 Well, brothers and sisters, I can honestly say it's the first time I've ever been introduced by a major general. So probably the last hopefully and I want to Just first of all take a moment to thank all of you for your service both to your fellow man to your communities to your nations and And to your God. I really appreciate the sacrifice that all of you make I thought that I would start with something pretty interesting when you're a Historian and you're a one-trick pony you do that trick all the time and so You know, this is some of the interesting documents that we covered when we were going through the Joseph Smith papers These are some of the characters drawn off of off of the gold plates And so you can kind of go through them and you know, maybe you can have an idea what each might be We've got you know an upside-down birthday cake upside-down birthday cake upside-down birthday cake A lot of upside-down birthday cake. So to me. I'm thinking probably and it came to pass, right? And then you got you know Backwards fish head backwards fish head backwards fish. It's probably layman and when we'll begin sitting again, right? I love this document because it speaks to the reality of Of the gold plates plates actually existed characters were drawn off of them Joseph really was called to do a great work. But of course when Joseph was called to do that great work He was told by the angel who first spoke to him that Though God had a work for me to do that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations kindreds and tongues Or that should be both good and evil spoken of among all people now I had a very Interesting experience Learning this when I first came to Utah I finished my my my PhD at the University of Colorado and was hired by the Joseph Smith papers project my wife and I Moved to the Layton area. We were building a home there But like all homes that have ever been built by anyone ever they weren't finished on time And so we were temporarily living in in in another ward a ward that we knew we'd only be in for a few months And my wife at the time was was pretty ill with a pregnancy and so one Sunday, I was at church happening fast and testimony meeting and I I want to tell you especially in the presence of General officers and authorities that I was paying very close attention to all the testimonies being born but I know exactly what I was doing and I was Changing my fantasy football lineup on my phone because I just found out that my quarterback was injured and I thought well well Well, my attention was taken away from My fantasy lineup pretty quickly as I heard someone get up and begin to bear a testimony and as as he began to bear His testimony immediately I could tell that this person was either Not a member of our faith or a brand-new member had just been baptized by the missionaries and brought to this meeting You know Using the phraseologies he was using as he has he told the story of the Holy Spirit coming into his heart So I was very paying close attention because like I said, it was odd It was different and I watched him go and sit down as he sat down Another person who was sitting next to him dressed very nice went up only this person had a stack of papers with them And as he got up he began to read through a litany of all the reasons why the church is not true for his testimony And they were the common that come sometimes from Evangelical Christians not of our faith as he went proceeded to go through, you know The Bible says no man has seen God at any time So if anyone claims in this area that Joseph Smith saw God they're obviously a liar because that didn't happen Well at this point I was paying a lot of attention It just so happened that our bishop who was there it wasn't there He was out of town our first counselor was out of town and our second counselor in the bishop It had actually just been called to be the second counselor And I think it was actually his first sacrament meeting that he was conducting So as he stood there as this man kept going through this obviously this prepared attack on the faith I was unsure what was going to happen. He got up eventually and whispered to the man I'm I'm guessing this isn't appropriate or something like that and the man simply shrugged his shoulders and continued going on Isaiah tells us there's no other gods before him But some people is sitting here seem to think that there are other gods and that's how you know that they're not and just going on And so it was obvious as I saw that there were multiple Members of this group that they'd come in to take over the sacrament meeting I saw them send the little deacon runner out They had a little deacon runner up there They sent him out to go find and I figured they were going to go find the stake present because we were in the stake center and And Eventually the stake present came in stake president also whispered to the man the man looked at him and just kept right on going So at this point I thought well, we're about to be on YouTube for I'm not sure what's going to happen But I'm pretty sure this is going to be Not good, but he'd run out of material and I saw his his fellows who also had reams of paper And they went to position themselves to bear the next testimony But there was one fatal flaw in their plan They hadn't attended enough fast and testimony meetings to realize how they work and they didn't realize you could go up on the stand to wait To bear the testimony so they just were sitting in the front row. And so when the man closed I sprinted from the back of the chapel to the podium got there before the of them could get up And then I simply filibustered the whole rest of the fast and testimony meeting Gave a 35-minute testimony until I got kind of the the okay sign for the stake president and then closing we ended the meeting Now the whole time I was up there. I wasn't just reading the phone book You know I I was I would love to tell you that I Wasn't feeling a kind of Anger honestly that here in my place of worship the Prophet Joseph Smith Especially was being attacked as well as my faith And so I began to proceed point by point to respond to what the person said bearing testimony The meeting closed I went to my class and and I Was up on the stage was an older building and as I was sitting in the back of the class I could hear our stake president's very distinctive voice going from room to room looking for someone that he thought Was named Dirk Moss My last name is Dirk Mott and it's a very Dutch name and it's very difficult to pronounce and and I could hear him Going from classroom to classroom because we had those little dividers in the in the gym, you know Is there a Dirk Moss? Is there a brother Moss in here brother Moss? No, I've never heard no brother Moss He kept going on He eventually came and I was sinking further and further in the in the chair at this point He eventually came to The stage knocked on the door and says is there a brother Moss in here a Dirk Moss And I'm assuming that what happened is he asked the second counselor. Who was that and the second counselor said I Brother, I think is a Dirk Dirk Dirk Mott, right? So he thought my first name was Dirk and my last name was Moss So as he came to the door, he said is there a brother Moss in here and the teacher said no, no There's not and then he saw me back brother Moss and he came striding over Well at this point after someone shouted your name incorrectly 20 or 30 times You kind of like you got to let him go with it, right? You know and and and he's a brother Moss I want to thank you so much for getting up and and defending the church and they said brother Moss How did you know those things? You were telling stories about Joseph Smith that I've never heard before of course I was working on the Joseph Smith papers, right? You were telling stories about Joseph Smith that I've never heard of before and I was like, I don't know just lucky I guess you know and one of the whole thing then and so He left now the best part about that story is actually not even I don't even know It's a part of the story, but our house was finished almost immediately thereafter, and we never actually went back to that ward so so what I what I want to believe is that stake president went back to his office and And he looked and on the church records. He saw that there was no Dirk Moss There had never been a Dirk Moss in my stake He was there by himself He seemed to know a lot about Joseph Smith almost like he was there One of the three Nephites right so if you ever hear a story out of Layton that Says that well, it was just me Now the reality is people have been attacking Joseph Smith since even before the Book of Mormon was published what I have up before you here now is The earliest lengthy account that there's made of Joseph Smith receiving the plates and people's reaction to them It's made by a man by the name of Jonathan Hadley Hadley is someone who Joseph approached to publish the Book of Mormon, but He was unable to do it Hadley sent him to one of his friends up in Rochester But the Rochester friend was also unable to do it So Joseph eventually ended up with publishing with E.B. Grandin But E.B. Grandin was Jonathan Hadley's crosstown rival The Palmyre Freeman was the other newspaper in town And so he was quite irate when he found out that these $3,000 was going to be flowing into the coffers of his political and economic enemy to give you an idea of how much money $3,000 is at the time Joseph Smith Owned we'll put that in quotation marks. He was paying on just like just like I own my house I'm pretty sure Wells Fargo owns it, but and if you miss a payment, they let you know who owns it the He owned a 14-acre farm that had a home on it and that the entirety the value of that was $200 right so the the cost of printing the Book of Mormon was 15 times Joseph Smith's entire worldly value if he actually owned his home, which he didn't right you can see that it's just this massive amount well when Hadley Finds out that Joseph Smith is in fact going to his rival He makes this very ardent attack. You can see by the date there Maybe you can't I should have made this a little bit bigger, but you can see the date there is August 11th 1829 that's three weeks before even the first Word of the Book of Mormon is typeset. This is almost a year before there actually is a church There's not a whole bunch of followers of Joseph Smith There's basically his family some of the Whitmer's Martin Harris every once in a while and There's there's just not a There's no fear that there's this great ground swell of support to follow after this as he would call it golden Bible Speculation so I want to share with you a little bit about what he had to say I know you probably weren't anticipating coming here and having some and Anti anti material read to you, but I thought this is how you don't ever get asked to come again Now he's he's gonna speak this tongue-in-cheek, but like I said This is the earliest account we have of many of these things the greatest piece of superstition that's ever come within the sphere of Our knowledge is one that has for some time past and still occupies the attention of a few superstitious and bigoted individuals in this quarter Back in the 19th century the term bigoted it it meant uneducated. It meant it meant dumb I mean it means that now, but you know also has a different connotation now It is generally known and spoken of as the golden bible Its proselytes give the following account of it in the fall of 1827 a person by the name of joes of smith Of manchester ontario county reported that he'd been visited in a dream by the spirit of the almighty And informed that in a certain hill in that town was deposited this golden bible Containing an ancient record of divine nature and origin After having been thrice thus visited as he states now He starts to throw that in because he doesn't want anyone to think that he believes this This is just what he said to me right of course. I don't believe right He proceeded to the spot and the bible was found together with a huge pair of spectacles He had been directed however not to let anyone any mortal being examined them under no less penalty than instant death He's laying it on pretty thick here, right? They were therefore nicely wrapped up and excluded from the vulgar gaze of poor wicked mortals It was said that the leaves of the bible were plates of gold About eight inches long six wide one eighth of an inch thick on which were engraved Characters or hieroglyphics by placing the spectacles into a hat and looking into it smith could he said to at least interpret these characters So this is his attack on the story of the gold plates How's he doing? I mean it's This is it's fairly accurate. I mean the sarcasm aside. I mean, uh, he he's basically telling the story fairly fairly as closely as he's got it And the reason why for that Is that he doesn't perceive a threat from joseph smith or any of his followers The reality is joseph smith is saying that an angel appeared to him He thinks that's enough so that no one will ever believe him In fact, uh, you might consider yourselves as after you're after you're leaving this meeting terribly disappointed after my talk, uh, that That someone were to in the parking garage come up to you and say hey, I just saw an angel Your first response would probably be I don't think so you might not say that to them But in your mind no and we're latter-day saints We literally believe in the ministering of angels and yet if someone said I saw an angel you would probably say no No, how much money do you need? Right? um And so that's what hadley thinks he thinks the story is so preposterous and angels appearing to him He says he found plates behind his house. He thinks no one's going to listen simply by the fact that He he says that there's an angel involved And of course hadley who hasn't seen the book of mormon yet the book of mormon hasn't been published yet But he knows joseph smith so he thinks it's preposterous That someone like joseph could produce a work It equal to or superior to the bible. In fact, he will say uh as he closes off his little tirade We're up here Now it appears not a little strange that there should have been deposit of this western world in the secluded town of Manchester too a record of this description and still more so that a person like this smith You can see what he has there in parentheses Very illiterate Should have been gifted by inspiration to find and interpret it For jonathan hadley who knew joseph smith He knew there was no way joseph smith could have produced some book like the bible But of course there wasn't a book of mormon yet So he didn't he just assumed that would never actually happen and that no one would believe the story because it involves angels It involves ancient prophets. It involves special interpretation instruments But then the book of mormon is published and after it's published people begin to believe the earliest uh Attacks on joseph after the book of mormon is published one of the earliest comes from alexander cambell the founder of the disciples of christ Campbell early on makes arguments that joseph smith must have written the entire book of mormon. Of course alexander cambell doesn't know joseph smith, but for cambell Someone who is a a christian primitivist who believed absolutely that only the word of god could come from the bible He thought the book of mormon couldn't be true simply because it's not the bible And if it's not the bible then it's not true and therefore joseph can't really have been a prophet In fact, he's going to claim that it's certainly smith's fabrication as satan is the father of lies The problem is people continue to believe it and as people continue to believe it You need a better explanation other than this is crazy. No one will ever believe this or only Uneducated and stupid people could possibly believe this. In fact, this is what happens In kirtland as the saints arriving there hundreds begin to convert and then soon thousands You're no longer able to simply say only uneducated People would possibly believe this because people that you know that you respect are becoming latter-day saints At this point I'd like to introduce you to someone in our story Who has probably one of the greatest names in church history His name is dr. Philastus hurlbut We don't have any Images of him unfortunately. We don't have any any paintings any sketches So I've taken the liberty of creating some possible artist renditions I'm not sure If any of them fit him but Dr. Philastus hurlbut could could be called in fact perhaps the father of of of anti-latter-day saint of thought Hurlbut was himself a latter-day saint. He was an elder in the in the church. He was sent on a mission to western pennsylvania and their Committed multiple adulteries and was as excommunicated from the church. Oh, I should probably tell you before we get too far down the road That before you start thinking that dr. Hurlbut perhaps has his phd in history or theology You should know that in fact, that's his first name. His parents named him doctor So I figured that would be like me naming my son mvp of the mba finals durk mod And and you'd have to call him that that's his name mvp and he looks like he might at some point make it there, right? You'll at least make it to cold stone Um These are the the minutes of the meeting in which uh hurlbut was excommunicated Saying that because of his uh Unchristian conduct with members of the female sex Well hurlbut's going to be excommunicated. He'll actually be readmitted after begging forgiveness And and begging joseph to be lenient and joseph will let him in he'll be excommunicated again Again for adultery only this time he will undertake a speaking circuit and tour to try to destroy joseph smith claiming that he had inside information because he was an elder in Mormonism as he called it at the time in fact joseph smith is going to This is a letter joseph writes He is going to to write about how difficult their times are because of hurlbut We're suffering great persecution on account of one man by the name of dr. Hurlbut I love the fact he spelled his name wrong there who has been expelled from the church Um That's probably how joseph pronounced church actually he uh, he spelled a lot of things phonetically I know whenever we see a movie we we think of joseph as having a nice utah accent, but He was born in vermont. He's raised in new hampshire. He grows up the rest of his life in new york It's not the church. It's the chitch So if you don't want to think of joseph talking that way you don't have to but um, uh, he seems to spell it that way a lot But he's lying in a wonderful manner and the people are running after him giving him money to break down Mormonism Which much endangers our lives at present in fact hurlbut had claimed that he would wash his hands in the blood of joseph smith That's uh A claim and a charge that he makes publicly enough that he actually gets arrested for it And actually at a time when latter-day saints never get justice in the courts He's actually given essentially six months probation in order to pay a huge fine And so uh, joseph really did fear for his life Uh hurlbut is going to partner uh with um A man by the name of eber howe eber howe is the most prominent newspaper editor in the ohio area He is no fan of organized religion to begin with But even less a fan of latter-day saints with their claim to miracles and new scripture He becomes even less a fan when his sister joins the church and then it's personal And then even less a fan when his wife joins the church Not only does his wife join the church, his wife is actually one of the women that we have On record as donating money to the zines camp march in 1834 So how we'll do everything he can to try to destroy The church he'll pay hurlbut to go back to Pennsylvania and new york to collect as many Negative affidavits as he can about joseph smith the publication of the book of Mormon the smith family In order to discredit joseph So in in a space of about four years We've gone from people simply telling the story because there's no possible way anyone could believe it To making character assassination attacks on joseph because the problem was people were believing it And this is actually going to set the stage this book that that how will produce here Mormonism Unveiled it will Be the standard of of antagonistic anti-latter-day st. Literature for the remainder of the decade and even today Anti-latter-day st. Literature if it has anything to do with the early days of joseph smith You can almost guarantee it comes from this this book collected by a philastas hurlbut the good doctor and and eber how Now what I want to talk. Oh, this is the book here if you wanted to take a look at it What I wanted to uh to to reference is that the reality is we we are fighting a war President Hinckley in 1986 Referenced in a talk the war we are winning that the war in heaven continues on earth A battle for men and women's souls He's gonna quote wilfred woodruff in his 1896 general conference address where wilfred woodruff says There are two powers on the earth in the midst of the inhabitants of the earth the power of god and the power of the devil When god has a people on the earth that matters not in what age lucifer the son of the morning And the millions of fallen spirits that were cast out of heaven have warred against god against christ against the work of god And against the people of god And they are not backward in doing it in our day and generation Whenever the lord has set his hand to perform any work these powers labored to overthrow it And I think that that's something that we all experience in our various walks of life And certainly you do as you minister uh to to latter-day saints who may be struggling in their faith What is antagonistic material like today? You probably already know and I apologize if so much of what i'm saying You're nodding your head saying yes, of course. I already know this But I like to call it actually gotcha Antagonistic material or anti-latter-day st material Because the point today is no longer like the people taking over my fast and testimony meeting To convince people of a different kind of christianity in general The the the point is today to cause people to lose faith entirely by presenting them with a To sow the seeds of doubt with an idea Or a different strange sounding historical fact that the member of the church hasn't heard before and placing it in a negative context For instance, you know joseph smith put magic rocks and a magic hat to translate the book of mormon, don't you? How can you believe that that's just crazy, right? The idea being that the that the person that's so confronted will not even know about that will then feel undermined in their faith and then Possibly precipitated faith crisis This is something that that that happens to people and so I'd like to spend a little bit of time to to provide some ways that we might be able to Respond when we are confronted with that Um When we're ministering to those with doubts I I think it's first and foremost important that we prepare ourselves by study and also by faith No one can know everything Well, obviously the lord can but no one in mortality can The reality is we study we try we pray we hope But there are simply things that we just don't know when we won't know But that doesn't mean that we can't take steps to come to know some of the things that the church has provided materials for us to know In an address to ces educators Um, uh, of course, they're speaking primarily to institute students But I think for many of the people you minister that this this might feel Also appropriate elder and now president boward gave Some information that I think is helpful It was only a generation ago that our young people's access to information about our history Doctrine and practices was basically limited to materials printed by the church Few students came in contact with alternative interpretations Mostly our young people lived a sheltered life our curriculum at that time though well meaning Did not prepare students for today a day when students have instant access to virtually everything about the church from every possible point of view Elder boward went on to say that church leaders are fully today are fully conscious of the unlimited access to information And we are making extraordinary efforts to provide accurate context and understanding of the teachings of the restoration A prime example of this effort is the 11 gospel topics essays on churchofjesuschrist.org That provide balanced and reliable interpretations of the facts For controversial and unfamiliar church related subjects As he explains those he also gives some other resources He says you should also become familiar with the joseph smith papers website The church history section on churchofjesuschrist.org and other sources by faithful latter-day saint scholars The effort for gospel transparency and spiritual inoculation through a thoughtful study of the doctrine and history Couple with a burning testimony is the best antidote we have To help members avoid or deal with questions doubt or faith crises. They may face in this information age All of you ministered to different groups at different times But the reality of the information age and the antagonistic attacks that come upon those that we love Those who are sometimes struggling members of our faith. They have this common denominator We live in a different time And so I think it's important that we Know how to respond so first of all we prepare ourselves By studying those gospel topics essays Becoming acquainted with them The church has spent considerable time and effort to provide though. They're they're also in your gospel library app You can access them under the church history gospel library app the gospel topics essays And they approach many of the these sometimes controversial subjects It's also important that we respond with empathy and love It is difficult when someone is perhaps attacking our faith To maintain that In the late navu period there was all kinds of people dissenting people Apostatizing from the church and one of the last public addresses he gave our first Latter-day saint chaplain Hiram Smith who is the chaplain of the navu legion you can see him there and also Co-president of the church in 1844 He gives a talk that provides some insight I'm sorry It's a little rough because the person taking the notes on the talk doesn't doesn't get every article in there But I still believe it's something valuable We are apt to suffer prejudice to get into our hearts and hearing reports And we should never do it never should pass judgment until we hear both sides If we hear that such a brother that he is rather inclined to apostasy Don't let prejudice arise Pray for him God may feel after him and he and he return never speak reproachfully nor disrespectfully He is in the hands of god I'm one of those peacemakers who takes a stand above all these little things Never take to Undertake to destroy men because they do some evil thing We ought to be careful what we say and take the example of jesus and cast over the mantle of charity And try to cover their faults We are made to enlighten and not to darken one another Save and not destroy Those people who come to you with faith crisis will often come to you troubled They will come to you upset They will come to you feeling that what they thought they knew for so long has been pulled out from under them Because that is the point of the adversary in these antagonistic attacks Know that they are looking for answers and that they are children of god Men and women who certainly can have the truth of the spirit re-enlightening their lives You can then help them find answers emphasizing that learning comes by study and also by faith For all the things that we can read all the answers we can give of course Only the holy spirit can give the answer to the question that we all need most The truths about god ultimately can only be known by the holy spirit No matter how much we study or how little the only way we can come to know many of them is through the holy spirit of god Now we can prepare and guide and help them as they Use the gospel topics essays. These are the the topics there of the gospel topics essays one of them If you remember the antagonistic attack that I brought up. Oh, you think joseph smith used magic rocks and a magic hat Well, one of our gospel topics essays that the church has produced is on the book of Mormon translation You can have having read that before you encounter this you'll have ways to respond and minister to these People who are struggling and you'll have a resource that you can direct them to as well as of course The book of Mormon itself because the ultimate proof of whether or not this is a the word of god comes from from god Sometimes we're afraid of knowledge I've often had people ask me. Oh in all your time studying. You know, I've worked on the joseph smith papers now for almost a decade People will sometimes after a fireside come up to me and whisper softly Have you ever read anything up there that's ever made you you know kind of question whether or not joseph's a prophet I can say unequivocally That has not happened In fact, I can't count the number of times as i'm reading a letter a diary The minutes of a meeting that joseph is speaking in that the holy spirit has spoken to my mind that this man is a prophet of god The reality is the more knowledge we gain The more likely we are to be able to to handle difficult Fiery darts of the adversary Knowledge as joseph taught does away with darkness suspense and doubt for knowledge is there is no doubt Nor suspense nor darkness in knowledge. There is power god has more power than all other beings because he has greater knowledge You will find in your attempts to minister to those with doubts Those who are struggling That oftentimes they they may be too far Down the rabbit hole at that moment Too far convinced that perhaps their faith is erroneous But they may not listen faith is a choice As alma teaches us in the book of Mormon you have to have a desire to believe All the great learning in the world can't convince anyone If they aren't willing to allow the holy spirit into their heart And so maybe One of the ways we need to prepare ourselves is for when they don't listen I counsel with people all the time At the requests of those who are hoping that talking about the early church history with with them or their loved one Might help write someone's path that they're on And sometimes they are great successes and other times. I'm a spectacular failure I'm desperately trying to help people see that this god's true church But i'm not always successful in that But it's important that we show to those people That even if they don't believe god still loves them This plan of happiness is for them even if they don't accept it I one time met with a couple A few years ago after I got to byu She was already ready to remove her name from the church. He was a Was struggling but thought he would need to follow his wife out I met with them For several hours as we discussed their concerns about church history. I bore testimony as best I could And after that meeting was over. I went away feeling that I had failed That despite my education of my learning I had not convinced these people that this was god's church I hadn't been able to remove that impediment that kept the spirit from touching their heart I received an email from a colleague earlier this year Telling me do you know and then named these people? I thought yeah He said well, they just moved to my ward They left the church several years ago. They told me that They never could get out of their mind though the meeting that they had with you and the way that they felt So though they left the church, they've been rebaptized and they're now fully active in our ward You don't know what the end result of your ministering will be You may be like a bennadine have people Seemingly reject everything that it is that you have to say But you don't know how the long-term efforts The long-term results of your efforts might be So even if it appears that that outcome isn't great remember That these are children of god Hopeful you've planted a seed of faith and love them no matter what as chaplains you all experience working with those of other faiths You you have this This innate ability to reach out to people who don't believe what you believe but still carry them The love of jesus That's the most beautiful thing about what you do I want to share with you a little bit from a talk that joseph smith gave on religious liberty This was from the council of 50 minutes that recently was published by the church It's one of the joseph smith papers volumes that I worked on A quote that I want you to notice that comes out of it is this one here Where joseph talking about those that aren't of our faith says we must not despise a man on account of infirmity We ought to love a man more for his infirmity So much so our our our natural human tendency is to do the opposite Is to try to push away from those who don't believe or reject what we have to say But the prophet joseph was a lover of people And he loved people whether they agreed with them or not Whether they joined the church or not whether they followed all of the church's principles or not In fact, uh, as I have a little time. I'll share this with you the council of 50 was designed to prepare The place that they were moving to they were leaving the united states They were going to go somewhere else and set up a kingdom of god on earth And and there were some non-members that were a member of this council preparing to to leave with them As joseph, uh, quoted this is william quate william clayton at the uh, recording joseph speaking He went on to say that for the benefit of mankind as exceeding generations He wished it to be recorded that there were men admitted members of this honorable council That were not members of the church of jesus christ the latter-day saints neither profess any creed or religious sentiment whatever I'll give you a little visual on it To show that the organization Of this kingdom men are not consulted as to their religious opinions or notions in any shape form Whatever and then we act upon the broad and liberal principle that all men have equal rights and ought to be respected And that every man has a privilege in this organization of choosing for himself voluntarily his god And what he pleases for his religion in as much as there is no danger But that every man will embrace the greatest light God cannot savor damn a man only on the principle that every man acts chooses and worships for himself Hence the importance of thrusting from us every spirit of bigotry and intolerance Towards a man's religious sentiment That spirit that has drenched the earth and blood when a man feels the least temptation to such intolerance He ought to spurn it from him. It becomes our duty on account of this intolerance and corruption It being in the inalienable right of a man to think as he pleases to worship as he pleases It being the first law of everything that is sacred to guard every ground all the days of our lives And I will appeal to every man in this council beginning at the youngest that when he arrives at the years of a horry age He will have to say that the principles of intolerance and bigotry Never had a place in this kingdom nor in my breast And that he is even then ready to die than to yield to such things We must not despise a man on account of infirmity We ought to love a man more for his infirmity Nothing is more congenial to my feelings and the principles than the principles of universal freedom And it has been from the beginning if I know that a man is susceptible of good feelings and integrity and will stand by his friends And he is my friend The only thing I'm afraid of is that I will not live long enough to enjoy the society of these my friends as long as I want to Let us from henceforth drive from us every species of intolerance When I've used every means in my power to exalt a man's mind and have taught him righteous principles To no effect And he's still inclined in his darkness Yet the same principles of liberty and charity would ever be manifested by me as though we had embraced it In closing I'd like to say In my efforts at researching One of the things that I did this last summer was at the huntington library in california The huntington library happens to have The pioneer diaries of aliza r snow Eliza r snow the prophetess of zion One of my heroes in church history Someone who once she came to know the truth Put her hand to that plow and she never looked back And it didn't matter that she lost many homes that she lost her friends that she was constantly ridiculed Here is that little diary that she carried across the plains to show you how small it is You can see where her little hands were wrapped around this As she carried it forward every day One of the things that I like to impress upon people who are feeling a moment of doubt in a faith crisis Is these people who knew joseph and brigham who knew them best were certain they were prophets of god We owe something to them We owe to aliza r snow For her faith that we don't casually toss away ours That we at least take the time to find out if the 2000 miles she walked was worth it If the difficulty she suffered in life were worth it I bear you my testimony that I know that joseph smith was a prophet that this is god's church that wrestle m Nelson's a prophet of god there are many doubters and dissenters in this world Many of them will say if only you knew what I know, then you wouldn't believe It's offensive to me because having studied as much of joseph smith's writings as I as I can Everything that I know that he has it's written. I know that joseph's a prophet And more importantly, I know that all of us can know and those we minister to can know Because it's not by reading everything that joseph ever wrote It's by the holy spirit of god By trusting in the faith of those who have it until we have stronger faith That we can know that this is god's church and I say this in the name of jesus christ amen