I find hope, and have faith in this quote from Joseph Smith:
Letter from Liberty Jail to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 (excerpt)
But, I beg leave to say unto you, Brethren, that ignorance, superstition and bigotry, placing itself where it ought not, is often times in the way of the prosperity of this church, like the torrent of rain from the mountains that floods the most pure and crystal stream with mire and dirt and filthiness and obscures every thing that was clear before and all hurls along in one general deluge. But time weathers tide; and notwithstanding we are rolled in the mire of the flood for the time being, the next surge peradventure, as time rolls on, may bring us to the fountain as clear as crystal and as pure as snow, while all the filthiness, floodwood and rubbish is left and purged out by the way. How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri River, in its decreed course, or to turn it upstream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter day saints.
What is Boggs [an apostate leader] or his murderous party, but wimbling willows upon the shore to catch the floodwood? As well might we argue that water is not water, because the mountain torrents send down mire and riles the crystal stream; although afterwords, renders it more pure than before. Or that fire is not fire, because it is of a quenchable nature by pouring on the flood; as to say that our cause is down because renegades, liars, priests, thieves and murderers, who are all alike tenacious of their crafts and creeds have poured down, from their spiritual wickedness in high places and from their strongholds of the divine, a flood of dirt and mire and filthiness and vomit upon our heads. No God forbid!
Hell may poor forth its rage, like the burning lava of Mount Vesuvius, or of Etna, or of the most terrible of the burning mountains, and yet shall Mormonism stand. Water, fire, truth, and God are all the same. Truth is Mormonism. God is the author of it. He is our shield. It is by Him we received our birth. It was by His voice that we were called, in the beginning of the fullness of times. It was by Him we received the Book of Mormon; and it was by Him that we remain unto this day; and by Him we shall remain, if it shall be for our glory; and in His Almighty name we are determined to endure tribulation as good soldiers unto the end.
