RLDS Church History Context

RLDS History Context Results


Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 34 Page: 685 (~1872)

Read Previous Page / Next Page
685 the specific administrations performed by the various factions above referred to. All legal baptisms are of necessity held to be valid by the elders of the Reorganization; but baptisms to be accepted, must be shown by proper proofs to be legal.

"It has been also the policy of these 'men of the present' to 'preach the gospel;' and to insist that the practice of the principles of 'virtue,' 'honesty,' 'uprightness,' and 'faithful,' 'fair-dealing' between man and man should be the rule in the church; and that tyranny, oppression, and vice are not to be tolerated.

"OUR PRESENT DUTY.

"From a consideration of what is presented in the foregoing pages of this article, our duty is very plain. It is not to sit idly down in the hope that righteousness will spring from the soil to our salvation, nor to the encouragement of a morbid sentimentality under the guise of ascetic religion; nor to a wild and careless enthusiasm that will continue to overlook the practical parts of our faith. No; neither of these lines of policy will do, and hence neither is our duty. We must look all the difficulties surrounding us, and the conditions of our lives, directly in the face, take them all into the account, and with a steadfast purpose fixed upon the object or objects to be obtained, pursue individually and collectively that line of conduct which will best secure those objects.

"We must therefore buy lands, and improve them; plant orchards and vineyards, and eat the fruit of them; build houses and inhabit them; make homes and enjoy them; build cities, villages, and hamlets, and people them; build workshops, manufactories, mills, tanneries, foundries, and all other accessories to useful labor, and run them; establish schools, colleges, business houses, and make use of them; erect meetinghouses, places of worship-temples-and worship in them.

"In doing all this the true and abiding principles of justice and honesty, fair and honorable dealing only will avail us. Duplicity, deceit, and double dealing must ultimately stand

(page 685)

Read Previous Page / Next Page