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How the West Really Lost God
Crisis Magazine ^ | May 10, 2013 | Austin Ruse

Posted on 05/10/2013 3:30:05 PM PDT by NYer

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To: NYer

Willard 2013 “If you meet a person you love, get married. Have a quiver full of kids if you can.”
____________________________________________

Willard 1994 (as a candidate for the US Senate) “I would leave it [gay adoption] up to the states. I would not oppose it or require it.”

Willard 2006, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney told the Boston Globe that same-sex couples have “a legitimate interest in being able to receive adoptive services.”

Willard 2012 (as a candidate for POTUS) “if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, even want to adopt a child — in my state, individuals of the same sex are able to adopt children. In my view, that’s something which people have the right to do.”


21 posted on 05/11/2013 2:39:05 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: District13
The main stream media just can’t get enough of mocking Romney and his religion. Every chance they get.

They just followed in the footsteps of many on FR - nothing original in the derision.

22 posted on 05/11/2013 3:40:55 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: District13

The main stream media just can’t get enough of mocking Romney and his religion.
____________________________________________

Oh I didnt realize Willard was speaking about polygamy

and of course mocking Christianity..

as followers of his religion do...

Thank you...


23 posted on 05/11/2013 4:09:32 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

He kept making us think that he was this normal moderate guy but really he is a religious fanatic
____________________________________________________

“religious fanatic” OK we know hes not a Christian but the member of a cult...

but Willard never made us think he was moderate...

Willard has been a full blown liberal for more than 40 years...


24 posted on 05/11/2013 4:14:29 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Tennessee Nana

Willard, like many politicians, speaks with a forked tongue. When you think of a forked tongue, what creature comes to mind? That’s Willard and all the other politicians who place their self-interest before that of the common good. I was sadly disappointed to learn this week that Paul Ryan has “evolved” on the topic of gay adoptions. I no longer trust any of them.


25 posted on 05/11/2013 5:10:32 AM PDT by NYer (Beware the man of a single book - St. Thomas Aquinas)
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To: NYer

Also, sadly, about babies, Willard has an awful record of pushing abortion...

In 2002 for instance during the debate for Cov of MASS he was asked about the age for girls to have abortions without parental permission...

He said if underage girls wanted an abortion but their parents would not give their permission, if he was Gov he would make sure that the girl could go to a MASS judge who would override the parents authority...

so much for him telling college kids to have children...

so much for the so called “family man”


26 posted on 05/11/2013 5:17:26 AM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: RPTMS; Elsie; greyfoxx39

Mormons have defined Mormonism themselves and declared that they are not Christians.

Elsie has all the appropriate sources.


27 posted on 05/11/2013 6:21:43 AM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: metmom

I did not specify “before marriage”, but will admit that it is perhaps as erosive and destructive as is the practice of dowry, the selling of young women to old men for the profit of her family.

Perhaps it is the custom of dowry which originally led socialists to imagine that a state of “free love” was better than monogamous marriage, which they saw as just a social contrivance, instead of biologically advantageous, far better for all than animalistic reproduction.

Though it was demonstrably a disaster in the early Soviet Union, with Lenin being pragmatic enough to cancel it after introducing it; leftists have still maintained and promulgated the fantasy to this day.

In the United States, a combination of arranged marriage and a stifling and repulsive protestant religious structure in middle America finally resulted with an effort to overcome these things at Indiana University, via the Kinsey organization.

And thus, the “sexual revolution”, replacing repression and inhibition with anarchy, venereal disease, the sexualization of young children, and “survival” oriented offspring, instead of “success” oriented children. Such children are often “Brutish beasts” in their behavior.

To a great extent, this is why America’s prisons are filled with such people, far more than in societies with a strong sense of the value of marriage.

In America, those who suffer the most are those who are the least sexually inhibited. African immigrants who come to America are horrified by, and take steps to avoid, slave-descended black Americans, whose behavior the Africans describe as “like that of animals”. White Americans are forbidden, however, from making the same observation, and go to lengths to conceal it.

And yet, culturally, to point out the horrors that result from sex outside of marriage is also strongly discouraged.

Endless scientific papers try to justify sex outside of marriage by comparing people to primates while neglecting the complete story.

For example, dominant male chimpanzees keep harems of females, yet just outside the male’s territory are other males who seek to cheat with members of his harem. Thus, since chimpanzees do this, it is natural that humans should, as well, goes their argument.

But they never mention that if the dominant male chimpanzee catches them at this, he will kill both the interloper and the female. So human homicide of a cheating spouse and their lover is also “natural”, using their same bad logic.

Ah, but nature itself is rebelling against such nonsense, most recently with a new, improved gonorrhea, antibiotic resistant, that might even prove lethal a few days after infection, due to toxic shock syndrome. And we have no way of curing it, so once infected, people are stuck with it.

And one of the characteristic symptoms of untreated gonorrhea is sterility. So though they will continue to spread the disease, they will produce no more cursed offspring, victims to their parents pursuit of pleasure.


28 posted on 05/11/2013 7:33:03 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

You do realize that you were just courtesy pinged to that post?

My post was not directed to you or YOUR comment.


29 posted on 05/11/2013 7:44:30 AM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: metmom

My apologies. However, I like to introduce less common, complementary arguments in the hope they are novel enough to be both entertaining and perhaps to enrich the discussion.


30 posted on 05/11/2013 8:27:09 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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To: NYer
How the West Really Lost God.

Luke 18:8

I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

31 posted on 05/11/2013 8:40:13 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans
It’s an embarrassment everytime the LDS is compared to Christianity.

Ya think???



Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).
Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).
 
 
 
Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).
 
 
 
Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).
 
 
 
Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses
, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).
 
 
President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).
 
 
 
James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).
 
 
 
President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).
 
 
 
More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).
 
 
 
President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).
 
 
President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

32 posted on 05/11/2013 8:46:52 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans; District13; teppe; Normandy
It’s an embarrassment everytime the LDS is compared to Christianity.

I wonder if MORMONism has changed it's tune any since these QUOTES were spoken?

33 posted on 05/11/2013 8:47:54 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: District13
The main stream media just can’t get enough of mocking Romney and his religion.

Oh; I see you're in this thread already.

Ready for some MORMON scripture?

34 posted on 05/11/2013 8:49:19 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
To a great extent, this is why America’s prisons are filled with such people, far more than in societies with a strong sense of the value of marriage.

There is an excellent book called, *Father Fiction* by Don Miller, which addresses this issue and he is currently making a big push towards resolving the issue.

For example, dominant male chimpanzees keep harems of females, yet just outside the male’s territory are other males who seek to cheat with members of his harem. Thus, since chimpanzees do this, it is natural that humans should, as well, goes their argument.

But they never mention that if the dominant male chimpanzee catches them at this, he will kill both the interloper and the female. So human homicide of a cheating spouse and their lover is also “natural”, using their same bad logic.

I find it ironic that when liberals appeal to nature to justify human behavior, the same argument that is used to justify homosexual behavior, if a conservative agree that homosexuals were acting like animals, they would be castigated.

Sex outside marriage leads to no good thing and I don't see ANY believers giving sex before marriage a free pass. On the contrary, I always hear of attempts, usually and often thwarted by the liberals, to remain chaste until marriage. It's preached regularly from any pulpit I've heard preaching from.

35 posted on 05/11/2013 8:50:13 AM PDT by metmom (For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore & do not submit again to a yoke of slavery)
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To: RPTMS
You’ve already taken it upon yourself to define Mormonism.

SOMEbody has to; for it cannot seem to dom it on it's own.


With the Mormons (to be precise, the members of The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - based in Salt Lake City) intent on being called “Christians” after so many years of eschewing that word, and despite the fact that there are so many fundamental theological differences between Christianity and Mormonism, I often wonder: 

How do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints feel about calling the members of its various spin-off sects Latter-Day Saints, Christians, or Mormons? Or about those sects calling themselves Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? (There was an earlier campaign by LDS to have journalism style books use the word “Mormon” to refer only to LDS, and not RLDS, FLDS, or other LDS sects).

For a man who bragged about holding things together, Joseph Smith, Jr. doesn’t appear go have done a good job of it during his lifetime. Wycam Clark’s “Pure Church of Christ” spun off in 1831. This trend continued. There were six LDS sects spawned in the 1830s, eight in the 1840s, two in the 1850s, and seven in the 1860s.

Do those responsible for the “Mormons are Christians” campaign consider these denominations to be Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? Surely many of these denominations are much closer to mainstream LDS than LDS is to Christianity. Many stick to Smith’s teachings and old temple endowment ceremonies.

Short Creek Community
Latter Day Church of Christ
Apostolic United Brethren
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness [sic] of Times
Church of the Lamb of God
Church of the New Covenant in Christ
Confederate Nations of Israel
Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
School of the Prophets
Centennial Park
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God
True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days
The Church of the Firstborn and the General Assembly of Heaven

Blackmore/Bountiful Community
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ
Order of Enoch
Aaronic Order
Zion’s Order, Inc.
Perfected Church of Jesus Christ of Immaculate Latter-day Saints
Church of Jesus Christ (Bullaite)
Community of Christ
Church of Jesus Christ (Toneyite)
Independent RLDS / Restoration Branches
Church of Jesus Christ Restored 1830
Church of Christ (Lion of God Ministry/Clarkite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Zion’s Branch)
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Fettingite) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ at Halley’s Bluff (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Restored) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ “With the Elijah Message” (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Hancock) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Burtite) (Hendrickite)
Church of Israel (Hendrickite)
Church of Christ with the Elijah Message (The Assured Way of the Lord) (Hendrickite)
The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
True Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Restored Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite)
Holy Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Drewite) (Strangite)
True Church of Jesus Christ Restored (Strangite)
Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Whitmerite)

Or these defunct sects:

Pure Church of Christ (Clarkite)
Independent Church (Hotonite)
Church of Christ (Boothite)
Church of Christ (Parrishite)
Alston Church
Church of Christ (Chubbyite)
Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Church of Christ (Pageite)
True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (this one was particularly curious - started by William Law, editor of The Nauvoo Expositor, just one of many sects started in opposition to plural marriage)
The Church of Zion (Godbeite)
United Order Family of Christ
Church of the Potter Christ
Church of the Firstborn (Morrisite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gibsonite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Most High
Church of the Christian Brotherhood
Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion (Rigdonite) Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Primative Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Christ (Aaron Smith)
Church of the Messiah (Adamsite)
Church of Christ (Wrightite)
Church of Christ (Whitmerite)
Church of Christ (Brewsterite)
The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Congregation of Jehovah’s Presbytery of Zion
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gladdenite)
Independent Latter Day Saints of Nigeria
Independent Latter Day Saints of Ghana
Apostolic Divine Church of Ghana

Are members of those LDS groups “Mormons”? “Latter Day Saints?” “Christians?”

Do the folks in Salt Lake City have a problem with any of those groups, who believe in the restoration of the original church by Joseph Smith, calling themselves Mormons or Saints?

Most of these divisions in the Latter-Day Saint movement occurred over the issue of polygamy or succession of the Prophet. Sects broke off when Joseph Smith was still alive, and when Brigham Young was named prophet, because they didn’t believe in the practice of plural marriage – either publicly, or in some cases when it was practiced in private and denied in public.

Of course, there was the great split between Rocky Mountain Saints and Prairie Saints, when LDS members couldn’t agree on a successor prophet to Smith, Jr., and the church went to Utah, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania under Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon (senior member of the First Presidency), James Strang, Lyman Wight, Alpheus Cutler, William Smith, David Whitmer (a BOM witness), or Joseph Smith III (son of Joseph Smith, Jr.). Almost all of these individuals still has multiple sects in existence that date to an 1844 decision about who should be the next President/Prophet of the church.

The Prairie Saints split into sects over the issue of whether Smith practiced polygamy. Rocky Mountain Saints had many, many spinoff sects after the 1890 Manifesto – groups that still practice plural marriage.

======================================================================================================================================================

Thanks to ScoutMaster for all the hard work here!

36 posted on 05/11/2013 8:52:23 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: trebb

Ah... FINALLY someone on FR that can explain all the BENEFITS of being a MORMON!


37 posted on 05/11/2013 8:53:35 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: metmom
Elsie has all the appropriate sources.

or Inappropriate ones; you hateful BIGOT! --MormonDude(I don't understand EVERYTHING about my chosen religion; but by golly!; I sure follow the rules!)

38 posted on 05/11/2013 8:55:54 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
However, I like to introduce less common, complementary arguments in the hope they are novel enough to be both entertaining and perhaps to enrich the discussion.

Golly!

Me; too!

Try THIS one:

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1.19?lang=eng
 
 

Joseph Smith tells of his ancestry, family members, and their early abodes—An unusual excitement about religion prevails in western New York—He determines to seek wisdom as directed by James—The Father and the Son appear, and Joseph is called to his prophetic ministry. (Verses 1–20.)

1 Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evil-disposed and designing persons, in relation to the rise and progress of aThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church and its progress in the world—I have been induced to write this history, to disabuse the public mind, and put all inquirers after truth in possession of the bfacts, as they have transpired, in relation both to myself and the Church, so far as I have such facts in my possession.

2 In this history I shall present the various events in relation to this Church, in truth and righteousness, as they have transpired, or as they at present exist, being now [1838] the aeighth byear since the organization of the said Church.

3 aI was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five, on the twenty-third day of December, in the town of Sharon, Windsor county, State of Vermont. … My father, bJoseph Smith, Sen., left the State of Vermont, and moved to Palmyra, Ontario (now Wayne) county, in the State of New York, when I was in my tenth year, or thereabouts. In about four years after my father’s arrival in Palmyra, he moved with his family into Manchester in the same county of Ontario—

4 His family consisting of eleven souls, namely, my father, Joseph Smith; my amother, Lucy Smith (whose name, previous to her marriage, was Mack, daughter of Solomon Mack); my brothers, bAlvin (who died November 19th, 1823, in the 26th year of his age), cHyrum, myself, dSamuel Harrison, William, Don Carlos; and my sisters, Sophronia, Catherine, and Lucy.

5 Some time in the second year after our removal to Manchester, there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all the sects in that region of country. Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it, and great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which created no small stir and division amongst the people, some crying, a“Lo, here!” and others, “Lo, there!” Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist.

6 For, notwithstanding the great alove which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more bpretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.

7 I was at this time in my fifteenth year. My father’s family was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, and four of them joined that church, namely, my mother, Lucy; my brothers Hyrum and Samuel Harrison; and my sister Sophronia.

8 During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and astrife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was bright and who was wrong.

9 My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others.

10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be aright, which is it, and how shall I know it?

11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the aEpistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack bwisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

12 Never did any passage of ascripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed bwisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects cunderstood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

13 At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in adarkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would bgive liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture.

14 So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the awoods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a bbeautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to cpray dvocally.

15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was aseized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick bdarkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

16 But, exerting all my powers to acall upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into bdespair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of clight exactly over my head, above the brightness of the dsun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself adelivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I bsaw two cPersonages, whose brightness and dglory defy all description, estanding above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My fBeloved gSon. Hear Him!

18 My object in going to ainquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.

19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all awrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those bprofessors were all ccorrupt; that: “they ddraw near to me with their lips, but their ehearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the fcommandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the gpower thereof.”

20 He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself alying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, bmother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” It seems as though the cadversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me? Why the dopposition and persecution that arose against me, almost in my infancy?


39 posted on 05/11/2013 8:58:42 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: NYer

“Single Women” = Liberal code for “Homosexuals”.


40 posted on 05/11/2013 9:01:33 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off. -786 +969)
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