Youth Gems: President Gordon B. Hinckley on Accepting Joseph Smith as a Prophet

Gems for Youth
President Gordon B. Hinckley on Accepting Joseph Smith as a Prophet
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“An acquaintance said to me one day: ‘I admire your church very much. I think I could accept everything about it–except Joseph
Smith.’ To which I responded: ‘That statement is a contradiction. If you accept the revelation, you must accept the revelator.’

“It is a constantly recurring mystery to me how some people speak with admiration for the Church and its work while at the same time disdaining him through whom, as a servant of the Lord, came the framework of all that the Church is, of all that it teaches, and of all that it stands for. They would pluck the fruit from the tree while cutting off the root from which it grows.”

Topics: Joseph Smith, prophet

(“Joseph Smith Jr.–Prophet of God, Mighty Servant,” Ensign, Dec. 2005, 2)