Pratt: islands moved and the earth restored to its first condition
interpretation
On: restitution of all things
Linked by verbal allusion. Pratt says “We read that there is to be a restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the holy Prophets,” closely echoing Acts 3:21 without naming the chapter.
Source quotation · Orson Pratt, as reported by George F. Gibbs, 3 December 1876; Journal of Discourses 18, pp. 315–316, one paragraph from “The earth is now divided” through “not mentioned in prophecy.”
The earth is now divided into continents and islands. We may ask, are these to change their location? The answer is, yes. The Apostle and revelator John, in the 6th chapter of Revelations, tells us that he saw, in vision, after the opening of the sixth seal, among other remarkable things, that "every mountain and island were moved out of their places." Such islands as Great Britain will change their location, as well as those of the Pacific Ocean and all others in like manner; and I have no doubt there will be a vast change between the location of continents and the location of the great oceans and seas at that time. The earth will doubtless be rolled back to the position it formerly occupied. We read that there is to be a restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the holy Prophets. If the earth is to be restored to its former condition, as it once existed soon after the creation, then, so far as continents and oceans are concerned, there will be a restitution of those portions of the globe, as well as many things not mentioned in prophecy.
Orson Pratt on prophecies unfulfilled · Journal of Discourses, vol. 18, discourse by Orson Pratt delivered in the Twentieth Ward Meeting House, Salt Lake City, Sunday afternoon, 3 December 1876, reported by George F. Gibbs, beginning p. 314. Selected unit pp. 315–316. JournalofDiscourses.com transcription (https://journalofdiscourses.com/18/40) retrieved 1 October 2026, collated word by word against the Internet Archive JoDV18 OCR text layer, with page images inspected where the witnesses differed; wording and spelling follow the print, punctuation and capitalization follow the electronic witness. HTML markup removed and whitespace normalized. No passages omitted within the selected unit. Print readings restored: “in the 6th chapter of Revelation, tells” → “in the 6th chapter of Revelations, tells”.
Source reuse and transcription
Nineteenth-century historical source text, public domain. Print witness: https://archive.org/details/JoDV18/page/n321/mode/2up.
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2026-10-05T15:53:51+00:00
The earth is now divided into continents and islands. We may ask, are these to change their location? The answer is, yes. The Apostle and revelator John, in the 6th chapter of Revelations, tells us that he saw, in vision, after the opening of the sixth seal, among other remarkable things, that "every mountain and island were moved out of their places." Such islands as Great Britain will change their location, as well as those of the Pacific Ocean and all others in like manner; and I have no doubt there will be a vast change between the location of continents and the location of the great oceans and seas at that time. The earth will doubtless be rolled back to the position it formerly occupied. We read that there is to be a restitution of all things spoken of by the mouth of all the holy Prophets. If the earth is to be restored to its former condition, as it once existed soon after the creation, then, so far as continents and oceans are concerned, there will be a restitution of those portions of the globe, as well as many things not mentioned in prophecy.