Produced by the Mormon Texts Project,
http://bencrowder.net/books/mtp. Volunteers: Benjamin
Bytheway, Jean-Michel Carter, Byron Clark, Ben Crowder,
Meridith Crowder, Tom DeForest, Eric Heaps.
By JAMES E. TALMAGE
D. Sc. D., Ph. D., F. R. S. E.
Press of Zion's Printing and Publishing Company
Independence, Jackson County, Missouri.
Published by the Missions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in America
BUREAU OF INFORMATION—Temple Block, Salt Lake City, Utah.
CALIFORNIA MISSION—153 W. Adams St., Los Angeles, Calif.
CANADIAN MISSION—36 Ferndale Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
CENTRAL STATES MISSION—302 S. Pleasant St., Independence, Mo.
EASTERN STATES MISSION—273 Gates Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y.
HAWAIIAN MISSION—P. O. Box 3228, Honolulu, Hawaii.
MEXICAN MISSION—3531 Fort Blvd., El Paso, Texas, U. S. A.
NORTHERN STATES MISSION—2555 N. Sawyer Ave., Chicago, Ill.
NORTHCENTRAL STATES MISSION—2725 3d Ave.S., Minneapolis, Minn.
NORTHWESTERN STATES MISSION—264 East 25th St., Portland, Ore.
SOUTHERN STATES MISSION—371 E. North Ave., Atlanta. Ga.
WESTERN STATES MISSION—538 East 7th Ave., Denver, Colo.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims therestoration of the Gospel and the re-establishment of the Church as ofold, in this, the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. Suchrestoration and re-establishment, with the modern bestowal of the HolyPriesthood, would be unnecessary and indeed impossible had the Churchof Christ continued among men with unbroken succession of Priesthoodand power, since the "meridian of time."
The restored Church affirms that a general apostasy developed duringand after the apostolic period, and that the primitive Church lost itspower, authority, and graces as a divine institution, and degeneratedinto an earthly organization only. The significance and importance ofthe great apostasy, as a condition precedent to the re-establishmentof the Church in modern times, is obvious. If the alleged apostasy ofthe primitive Church was not a reality, the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints is not the divine institution its name proclaims.
The evidence of the decline and final extinction of the primitiveChurch among men is found in scriptural record and in secular history.In the following pages the author has undertaken to present a summaryof the most important of these evidences. In so doing he has drawnliberally from many sources of information, with due acknowledgment ofall citations. This little work has been written in the hope that itmay prove of service to our missionary elders in the field, to classesand quorum organizations engaged in the study of theological subjectsat home, and to earnest investigators of the teachings and claims ofthe restored Church of Jesus Christ.
Salt Lake City, Utah, JAMES E. TALMAGE.
November 1, 1909.
The first edition of "The Great Apostasy" was issued by the DeseretNews, Salt Lake City, in November, 1909, and comprised ten thousandcopies. The author has learned, with a pleasure that is perhapspardonable, of the favorable reception accorded the little work by themi