But among all these Churches where are the characteristics of Zion? We hunt for them in vain. Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses XIV:346
Thrones shall be cast down, and the Ancient of Days shall sit, and the body of the fourth beast (or Babylon) shall be given to the devouring flame, and then shall the remnant of the heathen know that the Lord is God, for they shall see and hear of his judgments, which he shall execute upon the corrupt powers of the earth under the name of modern Christianity, scripturally called Babylon the Great — The whore of all the earth with whom the nations for centuries have committed fornication, and have drank out of her filthy cup. O Babylon! Thou hast decked thyself with costly ornaments! Thou has clothed thyself with the most gaudy apparel! Thy seminaries of learning, and thy theological institutions have been multiplied far and wide. Thy priests are polished with all the refinements of a profound and extensive education. Thy costly and magnificent churches have been erected in great numbers throughout all thy borders. The merchants of the earth have made themselves rich through the abundance of thy luxuries. The learned — the great — the mighty — the kings of the earth, have glorified themselves in thy grand and superb palaces. Thou hast indeed enrobed thyself in the royal splendors of a queen. Thine external appearance has excited the admiration of all nations. But internally thou art rotten with the filth of thy whoredoms. Orson Pratt, The Essential Orson Pratt p109
The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church is the great corrupt ecclesiastic power, represented by great Babylon which has made all nations drunk with her wickedness, and she must fall, after she has been warned with the sound of the everlasting gospel. Her overthrow will be by a series of the most terrible judgments which will quickly succeed each other, and sweep over the nations where she has her dominion, and at last she will be utterly burned by fire, for thus hath the Lord spoken. Great, and fearful, and most terrible judgments are decreed upon these corrupt powers, the nations of modern Christendom; for strong is the Lord God who shall execute His fierce wrath upon them, and He will not cease until He has made a full end, and until their names be blotted out from under heaven. Orson Pratt, Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon pp84-85
A great portion of the oriental country has been preserved from the grossest idolatry, wickedness, confusion, bloodshed, murders, cruelty, and errors in religion that have overspread the rest of the world, under the name of Christianity, or mystery of iniquity. An open defiance of God is no mystery; open drunkenness, and revelling debauchery, and all manner of wickedness and immorality professed by sinners who profess to be nothing else, are no mystery; they do not deceive anybody; but when all manner of wickedness, idolatry, drunkenness, and corruption is cloaked under a sacred name, under an outward sanctity and holiness, and under as high and dignified an appellation as Christian, it is a mystery of iniquity; and that has overspread a great portion of the world, and has borne rule until the present day, sometimes under the name of Roman universality, sometimes under the name of the Greek Church, and at other times under various classes and names.
... If such institutions actually professed wickedness, they would go for what they were worth; but when a thing professes to be holy, and takes the name of Christ as its founder, and the holy Prophets and Apostles, to carry out all manner of oppression, all manner of idolatry and idol worship, all manner of priestcraft and kingcraft, and more or less instigating division among nations and governments, all to carry out bloodshed, cruelty, the rack, the inquisition, and holding of men in bondage, ruling them with a red of iron, it is a mystery of iniquity calculated to deceive millions.
But returning to the general corruption that has prevailed nationally, politically, and religiously, under the name of Christianity, leaving out Christ and his Apostles, I do think there has been no idolatry in the world, under any form or system, that could surpass it. It is the mystery of iniquity, the great whore of all the earth. It has brought the whole earth under a lasting curse, having departed from the laws of God, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant, in consequence of which the earth is destined to be burned, and few men left. Parley P Pratt, Journal of Discourses III:41
Do you suppose that God in person called upon Joseph Smith, our Prophet? God called upon him; but God did not come himself and call, but he sent Peter to do it. Do you not see? He sent Peter and sent Moroni to Joseph, and told him that he had got the plates. Heber C Kimball, Journal of Discourses VI:29
You call us fools; but the day will be, gentlemen and ladies, whether you belong to this Church or not, when you will prize brother Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Living God, and look upon him as a God, and also upon Brigham Young, our Governor. Heber C Kimball, Journal of Discourses V:88
When Joseph Smith was about fourteen or fifteen years old ... he went humbly before the Lord and inquired of Him, and the Lord answered his prayer, and revealed to Joseph, by the ministration of angels, the true condition of the religious world. When the holy angel appeared, Joseph inquired which of all these denominations was right and which he should join, and was told they were all wrong. George A Smith, Journal of Discourses XII:333-334
He sought the Lord by day and by night, and was enlightened by the vision of an holy angel. When this personage appeared to him, of his first inquiries was, ‘Which of the denominations of Christians in the vicinity was right?’ George A Smith, Journal of Discourses XIII:77-78
At length he determined to call upon the Lord until he should get a manifestation from him. He accordingly went out into the woods and falling upon his knees called for a long time upon the Lord for wisdom and knowledge. While engaged in prayer a light appeared in the heavens, and descended until it rested upon the trees where he was. It appeared like fire. But to his great astonishment, did not burn the trees. An angel then appeared to him and conversed with him upon many things. He told him that none of the sects were right; but that if he was faithful in keeping the commandments he should receive, the true way should be made known to him; that his sins were forgiven, etc. A more elaborate and accurate description of his vision, however, will be found in his own history. William Smith, On Mormonism pp8-9
Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. Gordon B Hinckley
According to Joseph Smith, he told the story of the vision immediately after it happened the early spring of 1820. As a result, he said, he received immediate criticism in the community. There is little if any evidence, however, that by the early 1830s Joseph Smith was telling the story in public. At least if he were telling it, no one seemed to consider it important enough to have recorded it at the time, and no one was criticizing him for it ... The fact that none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830s, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered, mentions the story of the first vision is convincing evidence that at best it received only limited circulation in those early days. James B Allen, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought pp30-34
On the evening of the 21st of September, 1823, previous to retiring to rest, our brother’s mind was unusually wrought up on the subject which had so long agitated his mind, all he desired was to be prepared in heart to commune with some kind of messenger who could communicate to him the desired information of his acceptance with God. While continuing in prayer for a manifestation in some way that his sins were forgiven; endeavoring to exercise faith in the scriptures, on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a purer and far more glorious appearance and brightness burst into the room. It is no easy task to describe the appearance of a messenger from the skies. But it may be well to relate the particulars as far as given — the stature of this personage was a little above the common size of men in this age; his garment was perfectly white, and had the appearance of being without seam. Though fear was banished from his heart, yet his surprise was no less when he heard him declare himself to be a messenger sent by commandment of the Lord, to deliver a special message, and to witness to him that his sins were forgiven, and that his prayers were heard. Oliver Cowdery with Joseph Smith’s help, Messenger and Advocate Kirtland Ohio December 1834 vol 1 no 3
... in the evening with Joseph Smith Junior at his house, in company with John Corrill, and after pure water was prepared, called upon the Lord and proceeded to wash each other’s bodies, and bathe the same with whiskey, perfumed with cinnamon. This we did that we might be clean before the Lord for the Sabbath, confessing our sins and covenanting to be faith to God. Oliver Cowdery
In his first handwritten history, Joseph Smith seems to have been unaware of the name of the angel who appeared to him. He merely stated that it was ‘an angel of the Lord’.
In 1835, however, Smith identified the celestial visitor as ‘Moroni’ and seemed to hold to this view until 1838 ...
When Joseph Smith published his official version of Mormon Church history in 1842 in the Times and Seasons vol 3, p753 it became obvious that he had changed his mind — the angel was really ‘Nephi’: ‘He called me by name and said ... that his name was Nephi.’ The Church at that time seemed to accept Joseph Smith’s identification of the angel. A few months later the Church’s Millennial Star printed in England also published Joseph Smith’s story stating that the angel’s name was ‘Nephi’ (vol 3 p53). On page 71 of the same volume, we read that the ‘message of the angel Nephi ... opened a new dispensation to man’. The name was also published in the 1851 edition of the Pearl of Great Price as ‘Nephi’.
By 1878, however, Church leaders had become concerned about Joseph Smith’s conflicting accounts and when Apostle Orson Pratt published a new edition of the Pearl of Great Price that year, the name had been altered to read ‘Moroni’. This falsified reading still appears in modern editions of the Pearl of Great Price: ‘He called me by name, and said ... that his name was Moroni’. Jerald & Sandra Tanner
He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Nephi. Times and Seasons III:749