Doctrine and Covenants 5:10
Reading 1 – Brigham Young said, “What
I have received from the Lord, I have received by Joseph Smith” (Discourses of
Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1941], 458).
Reading 2 - President Harold B.
Lee said: “With the restoration of the true gospel of Jesus Christ and the
establishment of the Church in the dispensation of the fulness of times, we
were given instructions by revelation, the magnitude of which, as the late
President Brigham H. Roberts explained, was ‘not merely as to whether baptism
should be by immersion or for the forgiveness of sins, but the rubbish of
accumulated ages was swept aside, the rocks made bare, and the foundations of
the Kingdom of God were relaid.'”
Reading 3 – Speaking of the First
Vision, President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “For more than a century and a half,
enemies, critics, and some would-be scholars have worn out their lives trying
to disprove the validity of that vision. Of course they cannot understand it.
The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. There had been nothing
of comparable magnitude since the Son of God walked the earth in mortality.
Without it as a foundation stone for our faith and organization, we have
nothing. With it, we have everything.”
Reading 4 – Moses 1:40-41
Speaking about Joseph Smith,
Elder LeGrand Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve said, “As far as our records
show, he has given us more revealed truth than any prophet who has ever lived
upon the face of the earth” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1981, 43; or Ensign,
May 1981, 33).
Reading 5 - John Taylor wrote of
him: Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus
only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever
lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book
of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the
means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the
everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has
brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of
Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the
benefit of the children of men. (D&C 135:3)
Reading 6 – 2 Nephi
3:11-15
Parley P. Pratt's wrote about his
experience when he first read the Book of Mormon: "As I read, the spirit of the Lord was
upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and
manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists" (Autobiography
of Parley P. Pratt, p20)
Reading 6A - President Ezra Taft
Benson said: "The Book of Mormon brings men to Christ. The Doctrine &
Covenants brings men to Christ's kingdom, even The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, 'the only true and living church upon the face of the whole
earth' (D&C 1:30)....
"The Book of Mormon is the 'keystone' of our religion,
and the Doctrine and Covenants is the capstone, with continuing latter-day
revelation. The Lord has placed His stamp of approval on both the keystone and
the capstone" (Ensign, May 1987, p83).
Reading 7 - When the mob attacked
the building, they tossed the unbound pages of the book into the street. Seeing
this, two young Latter-day Saints, Mary Elizabeth Rollins and her sister,
Caroline, at the peril of their own lives, sought to rescue what they could.
Mary Elizabeth recalled:
“[The mob] brought out some large sheets of paper, and said,
‘Here are the Mormon Commandments.’ My sister Caroline and myself were in a
corner of a fence watching them; when they spoke of the commandments I was
determined to have some of them. Sister said if I went to get any of them she
would go too, but said ‘they will kill us.’” While the mob was busy at one end
of the house, the two girls ran and filled their arms with the precious sheets.
The mob saw them and ordered the girls to stop. Mary Elizabeth reported: “We
ran as fast as we could. Two of them started after us. Seeing a gap in a fence,
we entered into a large cornfield, laid the papers on the ground, and hid them
with our persons. The corn was from five to six feet high, and very thick; they
hunted around considerable, and came very near us but did not find us.”
When the ruffians had gone, the girls made their way to an
old log stable. Here, as reported by Mary Elizabeth, they found that “Sister
Phelps and children were carrying in brush and piling it up at one side of the
barn to lay her beds on. She asked me what I had—I told her. She then took them
from us. … They got them bound in small books and sent me one, which I prized
very highly.” (Our Heritage, page 41)
Reading 8 - Elder B.H. Roberts
wrote: "One other document of great
historical and even doctrinal importance was published about the same time as
this Book of Abraham, namely, in the spring of 1842. This document is what is
called The Wentworth Letter. Mr. John Wentworth, editor and proprietor of the
Chicago Democrat, solicited of Joseph Smith a statement concerning the history
and doctrine of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, for his friend Mr.
Barstow, of New Hampshire, who was writing a history of that state. Responding
to this request the Wentworth Letter was prepared by the Prophet. Beginning
with the birth of Joseph Smith, in 1805, it traces in admirable manner the
development of the great latter-day work, the story of its persecutions, up to
the settlement of the saints in Nauvoo; and also details their prosperous
condition and happy prospects at the time the letter was written.
They were not produced by the labored efforts and the
harmonized contentions of scholastics, but were struck off by one mind at a
single effort to make a declaration of that which is most assuredly believed by
the church, for one making earnest inquiry about her history and her fundamental
doctrines. The combined directness, perspicuity, simplicity and
comprehensiveness of this statement of the doctrine of the church is regarded
as strong evidence of a divine inspiration operating upon the mind of Joseph
Smith." (CHC, 2:130-131)
8th Article of Faith
Reading 9 – 1 Nephi 13:24-28
Brother Robert J. Matthews has written: “The Joseph Smith
Translation is not just a better Bible; it was the channel, or the means, of
doctrinal restoration in the infancy of this Church” (Robert J. Matthews, in
The Capstone of Our Religion: Insights into the Doctrine and Covenants [1989],
64)
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