Shall I, who have witnessed the visions of eternity; and beheld the glories of the mansions of bliss; and the regions and misery of the damned; shall I turn <​to be​> a Judas? Shall I, who have heard the voice of God, and communed with angels; and spake as moved by the Holy Ghost for the renewal of the everlasting covenant, and for the gathering of Israel in the last days; Shall I worm myself into a political hypocrite? Shall I, who hold the keys of the last kingdom, in which is the dispensation of the fulness of all things spoken by the mouths of all the <​holy​> prophets since the world began; under the authority <​sealing power​> of the Melchizedek priesthood; shall I stoop from the sublime authority of Almighty God, to be handled as a monkey’s cat’s paw,— and pettify myself into a clown to act the farce of political demagoguery? No, no <​verily​>; no! The whole earth shall bear me witness that I <​like the towering Rock, in the midst of the ocean, which has withstood the mighty surges of the warring waves, for centuries, am impregnable,​> <​and​> am a faithful friend to virtue, and a fearless <​foe​> to vice; no odds whether the former was sold as a pearl in Asia, or hid as a gem in ; and the latter dazzles in palaces or glimmers among the tombs.

I combat the errors of ages; and <​I​> meet the violence of mobs; and <​I​> cope with illegal proceedings from executive authority; I and cut the Gordian knot of powers; and I solve mathematical problems of Universities; with truth, diamond truth, and God is my “right hand man.” [p. [4b]]