It Is the Pure Testimony of the Spirit

It is the pure testimony of the Spirit that reaches the hearts of the children of men. As I listened this morning to the President of the Church and the other speakers, I recalled the words which the haughty and wicked king of Babylon addressed to Daniel, the Hebrew prophet. The king said to him : ¶

"And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dissolve doubts." (Daniel 5:16.) ¶

Could a more eloquent tribute be paid to the prophetic office of a man of God than that? Is it not wonderful to dispel darkness and to dissolve doubt ? It is the truth, as the Savior said, that makes us free. ¶

With all my heart I believe that the gospel is a dissolver of doubt. One of the greatest editors that this country has ever produced lost his boy, five years old, by death. Friends endeavored to console him in this great bereavement. The man of letters said : ¶

"Now, all that deeply concerns me is the evidence that we shall live hereafter, and especially that we shall live with and know those we loved here, if I felt sure on the point of identifying and being with our loved ones in the world to come," etc. ¶

The gospel answers this question. The Apostle Paul said : ¶

"But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (2 Timothy 1 :10.) ¶

The Prophet Joseph Smith, the founder of this Church, through the will of God, was given a most comprehensive and inspired definition of truth. ¶

"And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come." (Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 93:24.) ¶

This choice seer "gazed on the past, the future, too, and opened the heavenly worlds to view." ¶

This religion of which I am proud, this religion designated by the world as "Mormonism," brings the consolation of divine comfort to the hearts of stricken parents, that their babies laid away in death, their youth who have been called to the other side, shall be restored to them in the resurrection, and that parents shall have the joy of rearing infant children, in the resurrection, to manhood and to womanhood, for "God will finish what he hath begun." ¶

"Mormonism" dissolves doubt as to the origin of man. We believe in the immortal origin of men and women : that God is the Father of our spirits — that we had a royal ancestry. And the Latter-day Saint, whose path is lighted by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, will never say to the Almighty, as he said some people would say: "Thou formed me not." No, "Mormonism" gives the answer, vouchsafed to us in holy writ and modern and ancient revelation, that the Almighty is the Father of our spirits, that we lived as individuals in spiritual form before we came to this earth. ¶

Another thing: "Mormonism" dissolves any and every doubt concerning the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon, which is another witness for God, testifies (and that is one of the main purposes for which it was written) that Jesus is the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, and the Savior of mankind; that he redeemed us from death, and brought to light life and immortality, through obedience to the gospel. This is the testimony that we bear to the world. Our doubts have been dissolved by the gospel ; and, instead of doubt and uncertainty, the light, the testimony of the Holy Ghost, the power that guides into all truth, fills our hearts, and we can say, with Job, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." ¶

Thank God for the gospel. Thank God for the Holy Ghost. Thank God for the inspired prophets, seers and revelators who, by their ministry and the word of life, have dissolved all doubts and dispelled the clouds of darkness. ¶

I bear you my testimony that Jesus Christ is the Son of God ; that Joseph Smith was his prophet, and that he, like Daniel, was a dissolver of doubts, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶