BY
ELDER B. H. ROBERTS,
Author of Life of John Taylor; Outlines of EcclesiasticalHistory; New Witnesses, Etc.
Revised and Enlarged Edition.
PUBLISHED BY
GEORGE Q. CANNON & SONS CO.,
Salt Lake City, Utah.
1893.
"Religion, my honored friend, is surely a simplebusiness, as it equally concerns the ignorant and thelearned, the poor and the rich." —Burns.
This work has been written for the purpose ofinstructing the youth of Zion in the firstprinciples of the gospel.
For the most part our parents have beenconverted to the gospel while living in thevarious States of this country, or in foreignlands, by the preaching of the servants of Godsent forth of him to proclaim the ushering in ofthe Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, andto call mankind to repentance. They carefullyand thoroughly examined every principleadvanced by them; for notwithstanding the doctrinestaught by the Elders were older than the earth,and in various dispensations have beenexpounded by prophets and apostles whosetestimony is recorded in the Bible, yet something inthe spirit by which they were proclaimed, andthe manner in which they were combined, madethem a new gospel—a new religion.
Not only did our parents hear the public discoursesof the servants of God, but in the homecircle—to which they invited the teachers of theseemingly New Faith—the gospel, the harmonyand beauty of its principles, the consistentblending in it of justice, and mercy, its sanctifyinginfluence upon the human character, its spiritand powers, were all common topics of theirconversation; until they not only intellectuallyassented to it as a grand system of truth, but alsobecame imbued with its spirit, and felt and enjoyedits powers.
With the youth of Zion it has been different.Being removed from the errors of the sectarianworld, it has been thought they would accept thegospel as a matter of course. It may be statedas a general truth, that too much in this respecthas been taken for granted; and in too manyinstances our youth have not been instructed sothoroughly in the things of God as they ought tohave been. Many have grown up in lamentableignorance of even the First Principles of thegospel—which ignorance is often confoundedwith unbelief, or mistaken for infidelity.
To such the gospel has only to be presentedintelligently, and in its native simplicity, to beaccepted. "Whoever examined our religion,"said one of the Fathers of the early ChristianChurch, "but what he accepted it?" So now:the Gospel has only to be understood to beadmired and believed.
It is to place within their reach a thoroughexposition of the First Principles of the gospelthat this work has been prepared, and is nowpresented to the youth of Zion: and it is theearnest hope of the author that by a patientperusal of these pages those who now believethe gospel will find their faith strengthened andconfirmed; and those who do not believe it, beconvinced of its truth.
It is but fair to the writer to say that the workhas been written amid the busy scenes of missionarylife in a foreign land. Its preparationhas been frequently interrupted by travel, andthe performance of many other duties requiringthe writer's attention. If this work, therefore,in point of excellence shall fall below what wasdesired by the General Superintendency of theMutual Improvement Associations, at whoseinstigation it was written, it is hoped thesecircumstances will in some degree excuse it.
The Author.