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The Question of Rejection—Salvation for the Dead

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Remarks made in the Weber Stake Tabernacle, Ogden City, March 10, 1907, by Elder Joseph F. Smith, Jr.

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My beloved brethren and sisters and friends: The great majority of you who are assembled here today are, without doubt, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I suppose that most of you have a divine testimony of the truth of this latter-day work—the Gospel of Christ—which we have received. To you who have a testimony, my remarks shall not be addressed particularly, but if you will bear with me in what I have to say that I may be led to say something that will strengthen the faith of those who may be weak, or that will encourage those who have no faith at all, I will feel amply paid.

I am not here for the purpose of assailing any man for his religion, for we Latter-day Saints hold that every man is entitled to his religious views and should have the privilege of worshiping according to the dictates of his conscience, let him worship, how, where, or what he may. And we will protect him in this right. But we are opposed to the custom adopted by certain men who travel through the settlements of our people abusing the authorities of the Church, distorting our doctrines and defaming the dead, for the purpose of destroying the faith and confidence of the Latter-day Saints. Therefore in treating the subject of the "Reorganized" Church this afternoon, it will be in the spirit of self-defense.

We will first consider the statement made by the senior senator from Michigan, Mr. Burrows, in his speech delivered in the United States Senate on the 11th of last December. After stating that the membership of the Church at the martyrdom in 1844, was 50,000 adherents, he continues:

"The death of Joseph Smith in 1844, carried dismay and demoralization throughout the entire membership of the Mormon Church, scattering its adherents in divers directions and for the time being seemed to presage the complete overthrow and dissolution of the organization. Recovering, however, from the shock, the scattered bands soon reappeared in various parts of the country and promulgated their doctrines with increased zeal, and set to work to reassemble and reorganize their scattered forces, resulting finally in the formation of what is now known and recognized as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with headquarters at Lamoni, Iowa, and presided over by Joseph Smith, a son of the prophet."

He continues:

"During this period of disintegration one Brigham Young, who had identified himself with the 'Mormon Organization' as early as 1832, a man of indomitable will and undaunted courage, bold and unscrupulous, seized upon the occasion of the demoralization incident to the death of the prophet to place himself at the head of some 5,000 Mormons, and marching over desert and mountain, established himself with his adherents in the valley of Salt Lake, July 24, 1847, then Mexican territory, where he undoubtedly indulged the hope that the new doctrine of polygamy about to be publicly proclaimed by him might be promulgated with impunity and practiced and maintained without interference by the United States."^[1]

Now, this is not true. The senior senator from Michigan has here stated the position of the "Reorganized" Church as capably and clearly as any member of that sect could possibly have done, and in exactly the same way that they have stated it for the past forty-seven years. Why he was led to make such a statement he best may know, but it shows the careful coaching that he has received by members of the "Reorganized" Church in their opposition to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In a pamphlet published by that organization in 1864, the following appears:

"The greater portion of the Church did not follow this Brigham Young, and in obedience to the revelation in relation to gathering, remained around about the land of Zion, waiting for the Lord to again reveal Himself; and today where there is one Saint who was in the Church in the days of Joseph the martyr, now associated with Brigham Young, there are ten of those old members standing aloof or rejoicing under the administration of the word of the Lord through his son Joseph."