The Lord set up his program of organization fully, gave the governing principles and doctrines, and delegated his full authority to his officers to teach and perform ordinances. He ignored all the multitudinous religious organizations then extant and all their man-made doctrines and philosophies and set up his own divine plan. This is true. If all the proponents of the “-isms” on all the continents disbelieve it, it is still true—an absolute truth.

Even before he went to Calvary, the Lord knew that his young and pitifully small organization could not long resist the wolves of antagonistic philosophies and the terrific persecutions which would come, but he left some stalwart apostles and others to guide and build the kingdom. The Savior knew beyond doubt that an apostasy would come. It did.

Persecution was intolerable. The apostles are said to have suffered martyrs’ deaths. Innumerable others, both priesthood and laity, suffered unbelievable tortures. The Church was uprooted and almost destroyed by physical horrors; then finally, through pagan rulers who were not truly converted, Christianity was accepted and made popular. In order to do so and to get the nations to accept it, pagan superstitions and doctrines were superimposed upon the Christian doctrines and intermingled until the doctrines and ordinances established by the Christ were changed and diluted so that they had only a faint resemblance to the truth. With the authorized servants martyred and both authority and doctrines gone, the world went into a spiritual tailspin and plunged into the Dark Ages, wherein the true understanding of God and his plan was not upon the earth, when gross darkness enveloped the people, when there was little progress even in material things and an almost complete void of spirituality.

This apostasy is a certainty. There is no room for doubt. God’s church was lost for the moment, as it had been through many centuries in the past. The true plan of life was placed upon the earth in the beginning when it was given to Adam. After a few generations, the descendants of Adam went the way of the world and most of the earth’s children lost the truths and the knowledge of God and of the gospel. One descendant of Adam—Enoch—again established good communications with God and again established the truths upon the earth, but only comparatively few of the inhabitants listened and accepted; hence, there was another great apostasy from the truth.

The people of the world became so wicked that they were literally drowned and washed off the earth. Noah, a righteous prophet, reestablished communication with the Lord and carried on the work of the Lord, but only for a brief period, for weak mortal man permitted the flesh to control the spirit again, and another great apostasy took place and most of the people were without a knowledge and understanding of God.

Time passed, idolatry prevailed, wickedness increased—but finally the Lord sent a superior spirit to the earth, born the son of Terah. Though all on earth were apostate, having turned to the worship of idols and to murder, adultery, drunkenness, bribery, and all manner of evil, this child—Abraham—grew up with sufficient power and goodness to cause the heavens to open again, and God revealed again to him all these truths I am writing about. Abraham spent a glorious life teaching righteousness to his own numerous posterity and to others. As in all other dispensations, the majority went foul, ignored the true way, and followed the way of the world.

Then the Savior was born in Judea, ushering in another dispensation. He reestablished his truths on the earth—the priesthood, the power, the organization, the knowledge to save and exalt men—but, as stated earlier, this lasted only a few generations and was gone again.

Now, with the doctrines perverted, the priesthood gone, the organization corrupted, and the knowledge lost, there must come another awakening. And, as the prophet Daniel prophesied millennia ago, there finally came a day when another restoration of truth should come, this time never to be lost. We have that promise now, that even though individuals may fall, the Church and the gospel are here to stay, and all the powers of the earth and hell cannot effect total apostasy again. This much-needed restoration came through the Prophet Joseph Smith, who followed in the march of the prophets Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the Church organized through revelation by the Savior: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was organized by revelation from Jesus Christ. It was given full and complete authority, full and complete plans and programs.

This restoration was preceded by a long period of preparation. The Pilgrims and other Europeans were inspired to find this American haven of refuge and thus people this land with honest and God-fearing citizens. Washington and his fellows were inspired to revolt from England and bring political liberty to this land, along with the more valuable treasure of religious liberty so that the soil might be prepared for the seed of the truth when it should again be sown.

So, in the early nineteenth century, the “marvelous work and a wonder” was reintroduced into the world. The youthful Prophet, whose mind had not been contaminated with the sins of the world or prejudiced by false philosophies of men, was the instrument of the Restoration. As in all of the other dispensations, and especially the one preceding it when Jesus personally came to restore it, the little seed of truth had to fight a mountain of falsehood.

Church organizations made by men, without claim to divinity or revelation, were everywhere in abundance. The corrupted doctrines of former centuries were all there. Religious confusion reigned and most of the world opposed the work bitterly and cried “false prophet” at the first mention of the restored truth.

The tiny organization, begun in 1830 with six members, has had phenomenal growth to some four million in that short period. It is here to stay. This church of Jesus Christ (nicknamed Mormon) is the “only true and living church” that is fully recognized with the authority to perform for him, and the only one with a total and comprehensive and true program which will carry men to powers unbelievable and to realms incredible.

This is an absolute truth. It cannot be disproved. It is as true as the near-spherical shape of the earth, and as gravity; as true as the shining of the sun—as positive as the truth that we live. Most of the world disbelieves it; ministers attempt to disprove it; intellectuals think to rationalize it out of existence; but when all the people of the world are dead, and the ministers and priests are ashes, and the highly trained are mouldering in their graves, the truth will go forward—the Church will continue triumphant and the gospel will still be true.