B. H. Roberts
"The people of the western world, in brief, had entered upon that final stage of their wickedness which was to terminate in those awful convulsions of nature that should make their lands desolate, and well-nigh destroy the inhabitants thereof. The government itself had become corrupt; so, too, had the priesthood, save a few faithful ones--men of God, who testified that the Messiah had come, and that the time of his passion and resurrection approached. These were secretly haled before the judges, and both priests and lawyers leagued against them for their destruction. When it was feared that the Chief Judge would not sign their death warrants--a thing needful under the Nephite law to make executions legal--they privily put them to death, and thus were guilty of judicial murders. An attempt to overthrow the commonwealth, now perpetuated through more than a hundred and twenty years, ended in anarchy." (New Witnesses For God, vol. 2, p. 237)