refer in this text to Mosiah 5:2, 7; Mosiah 27:24-26; Alma 5:7, 12-14; Moro. 7:16
“[The Holy Ghost] has a more powerful effect upon the soul than anything else received in any other way. A millennium of experience through sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and all the powers of the universe combined cannot approach the sublime and complete experience of one brief moment under the influence of the Holy Ghost.” (Keith B. McMullin, Ensign, May 1996, p. 9)
A Witness to the Truthfulness of the Book of Mormon
1 Ne. 10:17-19; 15:24; 2 Ne. 25:22; 29:11; Morm. 8:12; D&C 8:2-3; 17:6; Ensign, Apr. 1994, pp. 12-16; refer in this text to 2 Ne. 33:4, 14
“May I test your unity as Latter-day Saints? Have ye received a witness of the Spirit to your souls testifying that this is the truth?” (Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, Apr. 1950, pp. 99-100)
“Search the scriptures … and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you, and if you do it with an eye single to His glory nothing doubting, He will answer you by the power of His Holy Spirit. You will then know for yourselves and not for another. You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God; nor will there be any room for speculation.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 11-12)
“We have a great many members of this Church who have never reached a manifestation through the Holy Ghost. Why? Because they have not made their lives conform to the truth.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Church News, Nov. 4, 1961, p. 14)
“I believe that no man can open that book and read it with a prayerful heart and ask God, in the name of Jesus Christ for a testimony regarding its divinity, but what the Lord will manifest unto him by His Spirit the truth of the book. Now that is the promise made in the book itself, and God has performed it; He has done it in thousands of cases. There is a mark of divinity on this book; and I maintain that no man could read [it] … without receiving an impression of this kind.” (Heber J. Grant, Conference Report, Apr. 1908, p. 57)
“To meet the difficulties that are coming, it will be necessary for you to have a knowledge of the truth of this work for yourselves. The difficulties will be of such a character that the man or woman who does not possess this personal knowledge or witness will fall. If you have not got the testimony, live right and call upon the Lord and cease not till you obtain it. If you do not you will not stand… . The time will come when no man nor woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?” (Heber C. Kimball, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Whitney, p. 450)
“Social, ethical, cultural, or educational converts will not survive under the heat of the day unless their taproots go down to the fulness of the gospel which the Book of Mormon contains.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, May 1975, p. 65)
“No man had yet so much as heard the Book of Mormon but what the Spirit of the Lord whispered quietly to his soul that the book was true.” (Brigham Young, quoted by B. H. Roberts, Conference Report, Oct. 1905, pp. 44, 45)
“Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion?” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 71)