(7/13/03)
"Could any historian be expected to describe this event any more clearly than to say that the Lord and Moses talked with each other 'face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend'? Does anyone need to be told how a man speaks to his friend? The Father and the Son spoke with Joseph Smith 'face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.' There is only one thing that made this possible, and that is the fact that God did create man in his own image and likeness. Could any other image or likeness have been half so wonderful?" — LeGrand Richards, "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1950], p. 16

(7/14/03)
"We need not expect nor seek open visions and personal interviews.... We do not need them. These great revelations to the Prophets were given to open dispensations and are for the benefit of all. We are expected to get our concepts of the true and living God from them, particularly from the teachings and testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith; for the Lord has said that this generation is to receive His word through the Prophet. (See D&C 5:10) This we can and must do. But we must go further. We must each obtain for ourselves a personal witness that the testimonies of the prophets are true." -- Marion G. Romney, "BYU Speeches of the Year," 1962, p. 6

(7/15/03)
"This clear and certain knowledge of God the Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son and man's likeness and relationship to them was given to Moses at the time he led Israel from Egypt. The revelation was then necessary, because during their bondage Israel's knowledge of God had been corrupted." -- Marion G. Romney, "Conference Report," April 1970, p. 68

(7/16/03)
"God has promised in the sermon on the mount a very great blessing to the pure in heart:—'Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.' How great is the blessing that is here pronounced! They shall see God. God is a being who is willing to reveal himself, even to his children here on the earth. If they will abide by law, give heed to the ordinances that he has ordained, and walk in consistency with the principles that are revealed, they may come up to that high privilege here, in time, that the veil will be taken away and their eyes can look on the face of the Lord, for they are pure in heart. I know it is written in other places that no man hath seen God at any time. In the book of Exodus 1t is written that 'no man shall see my face;' and then again, the same book says that Jacob saw God face to face and talked with him. Again it is written that Moses talked with the Lord face to face as a man talks with his friend. How shall we reconcile these passages of scripture? If we take the scriptures in their true import, and according to the general tenor of their reading, they are easily reconciled. No natural man hath seen God at any time. A natural man could not behold the face of the Lord in his glory, for he could not endure it; but when a mortal man or woman here on the earth has put away the natural or carnal mind; when he or she has put away all sin and iniquity, and has complied with the laws and commandments of God, then, like Jacob of old, he or she may see God face to face, and, like Moses, talk with the Lord as one man talks with another." -- Orson Pratt, "Journal of Discourses," 14:273

(7/17/03)
"Atheists have jeered at the naiveté of the boy's story, and at the credulity of them who believe in him. To those who so jeer, it need only be said: Repent and turn to God, lest his judgments come upon you.

"Others, professing Christ, have ridiculed the fact that God and the Son should come to a boy. But is this stranger than that the Lord should come to young Samuel in the temple after nightfall, and call Samuel to his service, or that the spirit of the Lord should rest upon the youth David, to the performance of his task?

"Others have scoffed at his struggle with the evil power, and at his coming to, lying upon his back upon the ground, at the shaft of light, at the appearances of the heavenly beings, and at his weariness, declaring that all this was but an epileptic fit.

"But what will these scoffers say of the experience of Saul, of the light that shone about him, of his falling to the ground, of his blindness, so that he must be led by the hand, of his extreme exhaustion? Will any Christian dare characterize that as an epileptic fit?

"And what of Daniel's experience, when his vision came to him, when he was left without strength, fell into a deep sleep on his face which was towards the ground, when the personage spoke to him, and gave him commands, and then afterwards Daniel was strengthened. Was this, too, epilepsy?

"Was Jacob's wrestling with the Lord, at the time the Lord gave him the name of Israel, and he saw God face to face,—an epileptic fit?

"When at the time of the transfiguration, a great light appeared, and heavenly beings appeared, with whom Jesus talked, while Peter, James, and John slept, and awakened confused, but saw the glory of these beings? Was this, too, a fit?

"When Jesus went to the Garden to pray on the night of the betrayal, while Peter, James, and John waited 'a stone's cast' away, and falling to the ground on his face, he prayed: 'Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.' Was this reality, or some physical impairment?

"And what of Stephen, the first martyr of the Primitive Church, who, responsive to the enquiry of the high priest, bore his testimony of the Christ to the Council of the Jews, and they hearing and frenzied by Satan 'gnashed on him with their teeth,' and he, 'being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.' Are Christians ready to dismiss this as epilepsy, or as an hallucination? And before they answer yes, let them listen and try to hear the crunching of Stephen's bones as the mob stoned this martyr to death, Saul witnessing; let them try to vision Stephen, with pain-taut, agonized features, as his spirit struggled to be free, but with glorious exaltation in his eyes, crying out as he neared death:

"'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.... Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.'

"And what of Pentecost, and the 'sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,' and the coming 'unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them,' and of their speaking in tongues, being filled with the Holy Ghost, and then the great multitude, 'devout men, out of every nation under heaven,' each hearing the Apostles' testimony in his own tongue, saying among themselves, what meaneth this, and some, mocking, declaring: 'These men are full of new wine.' Was this, too, epilepsy, a mob hallucination? Deny the verity of this, Christians who can, and then try to get on your knees and pray to God, through our mediator, Jesus Christ.

"The vision of Joseph, when he saw the Father and the Son, was real, just as all these we have named were real. It was not the vagary or hallucination of a disease-preyed mind. Joseph saw, even as Moses saw,—the one no less certainly than the other.