Seven hundred years before the birth of the Savior, the Prophet Isaiah, looking down the vista of time, saw the Latter-day gathering of the scattered House of Israel, and said concerning them: ‘They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West.’ We recognize the fulfilment of that prophecy in the founding of this Church by Joseph Smith, a lineal descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who thus lifted the Ensign for the gathering of their descendants from their long dispersion among the nations. But a part of the fulfilment rests with the Gentiles.
Their steamships, their railroads, their means of rapid transit and communication—these are ‘the shoulders of the Philistines, ’ upon which the children of Ephraim have been and are being brought to the West, to the land of Zion, where the New Jerusalem is to rise, where the pure in heart will assemble, and the necessary preparation be made for the coming of the Lord in his glory. God works outside as well as inside his Church, and uses big things and little things for the accomplishment of his purposes.
(Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, Oct. 1919, p. 69)