“Q[uestion]. After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven, what was left?

“A[nswer].  A set of wicked Apostates, murderers, and idolaters, who, after having made war with the saints, and overcome them, and destroyed them out of the earth, were left to follow the wicked imaginations of their own corrupt hearts, and to build up churches by human authority, and to follow after the cunning craftiness of uninspired men; having no Apostle, Prophet, or Revelator to inquire of God for them: and thus, because of wickedness, the Church, and Priesthood, and gifts, and ordinances and blessings of the everlasting Gospel, were taken from the earth, and reserved in heaven until the fullness of times, when it was predicted that they should again be restored among men to continue until the end should come.”

Orson Pratt, The Seer (Washington, D. C.: Orson Pratt, January 1854), 205.