Millions hail the prophet

The modern successor of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith joined millions of people Friday in celebrating the 200th anniversary of Smith's birth on Dec. 23, 1805. Satellite technology brought the commemoration to church members and others in 61 countries around the globe.

Speaking from Sharon, Vt., to thousands in the church's Conference Center in Salt Lake City and more thousands in countless sites beyond, President Gordon B. Hinckley recalled the legacy of the man "whose written testimony is repeated, it is echoed and re-echoed in scores of languages throughout the world."

President Hinckley's remarks were presented from a spot next to a life-size bronze statue of Smith on the grounds of the Sharon visitors complex. The center itself was decorated for Christmas, with artists' depictions of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The current church leader's remarks closed the 90-minute program in Vermont, which occurred simultaneously and was interwoven with an observance in the Salt Lake LDS Conference Center, with a capacity 21,000-person crowd. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir provided musical numbers at the Salt Lake site.

President Hinckley said the sense of history at marking Smith's bicentennial "overwhelms me. I feel as if I am straddling the centuries," as he recounted Smith's accomplishments.

"This is a glorious and wonderful day. It is a day of remembrance, a day of great rejoicing, a day for gratitude and thanksgiving, a day in which we acknowledge the moving hand of God in bringing to pass his eternal purposes in behalf of his sons and daughters of all generations."

The firmness of Smith's convictions about the work he said God had given him to do — including translation of the Book of Mormon — stand solid two centuries after his birth, President Hinckley said. Some 130 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been printed in 77 languages, with 4 million additional copies printed each year.

"In an age of skepticism and doubt, his witness is unequivocal and certain" that God speaks to men from the heavens and restored the gospel of Jesus Christ and its priesthood to the Earth, President Hinckley said.

He and his counselors in the First Presidency, who presided in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, lauded the sweep of the faith that now numbers 12 million members worldwide some 175 years after it was organized on April 6, 1830.

"Joseph was a simple farm boy," said President Hinckley. "His family had nothing, really. Palmyra (N.Y., where Smith said he saw God and Jesus Christ in vision at age 14) was a largely unknown rural village. But (an angel named) Moroni said to him . . . that his name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues.