| 90 not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christians. The real cause was, 'the love of many,' almost of all Christians, so-called, was 'waxed cold.' The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ, than the other heathens. The Son of man, when he came to examine his church, could hardly 'find faith upon earth.' This was the real cause, why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian church; because the Christians were turned heathens again, and had only a dead form left."-Wesley's Sermons, vol. 2, ser. 94.
Alexander Campbell wrote:-
"We want the old gospel back, and sustained by the ancient order of things: and this alone, by the blessing of the Divine Spirit, is all that we do want, or can expect, to reform and save the world. And if this gospel, as proclaimed and enforced on Pentecost, cannot do this, vain are the hopes, and disappointed must be the expectations, of the so-called Christian world."-Christian System, pp. 234, 235; (also St. Louis edition of 1890, p. 250.)
Joseph Smith, then, was not alone in seeing the necessity and in recognizing the possibility of a restoration of the gospel, "sustained by the ancient order of things," the enjoyment of the Holy Spirit, together with its extraordinary gifts. History records the fact, as we have seen, that others held similar views on this subject. However, he did claim more than they, so far as realization is concerned, as in the instance of the healing of Mr. Knight, as recorded above. If in this claim he bore false witness, he should be condemned and the fraud exposed. His claim seems to be remarkably verified, however, by creditable witnesses not of his religious faith.
We give a few out of the many on record as examples of this testimony:-
"Whatever we may say of the moral character of the author of Mormonism, it cannot be denied that Joseph Smith was a man of remarkable power-over others. Added testimony to the stupendous claim of supernatural power, conferred by the direct gift of God, he exercised an almost magnetic
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