PART SEVEN

POWERS AND PRINCIPLES

ARTICLE TWENTY-EIGHT.

The Priesthood.

What "Priesthood" Means.--Divine authority, or the right to rule, inherent in the supreme Source of all power--such is the primal meaning of "Priesthood." It also signifies the men in whom that authority is vested--the servants of the Lord, who officiate for him and administer the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

Why Necessary.--Divine laws, like human laws, require officers and a government to administer them. God, being in the form of man, cannot be everywhere present in his own person. Immanent by the spirit that proceeds from him, omnipresent by his power, influence and authority, He cannot, as a personage, occupy two places at the same time, any more than he can make something out of nothing or do aught else that is impossible. To say that Deity can do that which cannot be done, is no glorification of Deity. It is sheer nonsense, nothing more.

Since the Supreme Being cannot be everywhere present in person, cannot be in Heaven and on Earth simultaneously, he requires representatives to carry on his work in this as in other parts of the universe. Herein is the prime reason, the fundamental fact, underlying the necessity for a Priesthood and a Church organization.

A Twofold Power.--There are two priesthoods in the Church of Christ, or, more properly, two grand divisions of priesthood, namely, the Melchizedek and the Aaronic, the latter an appendage to the former. [1] This dualism is owing to the fact that Divine Government takes cognizance of and deals with things temporal as well as with things spiritual. Nevertheless, all things are spiritual to Deity. [2] As Eternity includes Time, so the spiritual includes the temporal.

Origin of Names.--The Melchizedek Priesthood was named for Melchizedek, king of Salem. [3] The powers of this priesthood are unlimited. It wields authority over all things. Holding "the keys of the Kingdom of God," it is the divinely ordained "channel through which every important matter is revealed from Heaven." [4] The Aaronic or Lesser Priesthood takes its name from Aaron, the brother of Moses. It operates within a limited sphere, having a special calling to administer in temporal affairs, in material things.

Symbolized by the Soul.--The Government of God, with its two mighty wings of priestly power and authority, corresponds to and is symbolized by the soul. As spirit and body constitute the soul, so the Melchizedek and Aaronic priesthoods constitute the government of the Church of Christ. Through the medium of the body, with its various members and organs, the things of this life are possessed and utilized, while those pertaining to a higher state of existence are apprehended and made use of by means of the spiritual faculties. Even so, by these two priesthoods, differing in powers and prerogatives, yet allied, interwoven and harmonious in their mutual workings, is carried on in all worlds the sublime work of Omnipotence.

Furthermore, to extend the analogy, it is the spirit or higher part of man that controls, directs and supplies the motive power of the body, being the vital mainspring of this wondrous piece of machinery, whose functions are forwarded by the animation resulting from the union of the twain. In like manner, the Melchizedek Priesthood, holding the keys of presidency, controls and directs the entire body of the Church; delegating, however, a portion of its authority to the Lesser Priesthood, that it likewise may wield a legitimate influence and execute the purposes for which it was designed.

"No Man Taketh This Honor."--Men cannot constitute themselves servants of the Lord. They must be called by him--literally called and ordained, or they are not qualified to speak and act in his name and stead. While there is no ban upon doing good, and all are free to promote truth and practice righteousness, and will reap sure reward for so doing, there is no such thing as heavenly sanction upon usurped office and authority. The Scriptures make this fact exceedingly plain. [5] "God will not acknowledge that which he has not called, ordained and chosen." [6]

Christ The Head.--Jesus Christ is the great "Apostle and High Priest," [7] standing at the head of the priestly-kingly Order of Melchizedek. It was originally styled "The Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God;" but this title was changed out of reverence for the Supreme Being, to avoid "the too frequent repetition" of the all-sacred name. Melchizedek's name was substituted, because he "was such a great High Priest." [8] "Apostle" means "Messenger," or one who is sent. The use of the term, as one of the titles of the Savior, is warranted by the fact that the Son was sent forth by the Father. [9] He was therefore the Father's messenger. In like manner, those sent forth by the Son are his apostles or messengers, particularly the twelve special witnesses.

Adam Stands Next.--Next to the Savior in divine authority, stands Adam, Ancient of Days, the father of the whole human family. So says Joseph the Prophet, in his great discourse on Priesthood. "The priesthood was first given to Adam; he obtained the First Presidency, and held the keys of it from generation to generation. He obtained it .. before the world was formed. . He had dominion given him over every living creature. He is Michael the Archangel." [10]

Noah's Position.--"Then to Noah, who is Gabriel; he stands next in authority to Adam in the Priesthood. He was called of God to this office, and was the father of all living in his day, and to him was given the dominion. These men held keys first on earth and then in heaven." [11]

These inspired utterances regarding Adam and Noah ought to set at rest the question with which they deal. They are a sufficient answer to the charge, sometimes made, that the Latter-day Saints rank Joseph Smith as next in dignity and power to Jesus Christ. It is fitting that the Prophet himself should supply the refutation.

An Everlasting Principle.--He goes on to say: "The Priesthood is an everlasting principle, and existed with God from eternity, and will to eternity, without beginning of days or end of years. The keys have to be brought from heaven whenever the Gospel is sent. When they are revealed from heaven, it is by Adam's authority." [12]

Succession and Descent.--From Adam, the Priesthood descended through the following line: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Esaias, Gad, Jeremy, Elihu, Caleb, Jethro and Moses. [13] Says the Prophet "The Savior, Moses and Elias gave the keys to Peter, James and John, on the Mount, when they were transfigured before him." He then asks: "How have we come at the Priesthood in the last days?"--and answers thus: "It came down, down, in regular succession. Peter, James and John had it given to them, and they gave it to others." The "others" include Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the earliest Elders of the Latter-day Church. [14]

Agents of the Almighty.--Inherent in the Priesthood is the principle of representation. So plenary and far-reaching are its powers, that when those holding this authority are in the line of their duty, and possess the spirit of their calling, their official acts and utterances are as valid and as binding as if the Lord himself were present, doing and saying what his servants do and say for him.

This is what it means to bear the Priesthood. It constitutes men agents of the Almighty, transacting sacred business in the interest of the one who sent them. These agents should represent their Principal fairly and faithfully, reflecting, as far as possible, his intelligence and goodness, living so near to him that when their letter of instructions (the written word) falls short, the Spirit that indited it, resting upon them as a continual benediction, can give "line upon line" of revelation, flash upon flash of inspired thought, to illumine and make plain the path they are to tread.

"And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation." [15]

No Unrighteous Dominion.--A tremendous power for frail mortal man to wield! Yes, and to guard against its abuse, the exercise of this divine prerogative is hedged about with certain conditions and limitations. Thus:

"No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the Priesthood, only by persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile, reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy." [16]

Again:

"The rights of the Priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and .. the powers of heaven cannot be controlled or handled only upon the principles of righteousness . . . . When we undertake to cover our sins, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves, the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the Priesthood or the authority of that man." [17]

An Echo From the Heights Eternal, where the Gods, in solemn council before the creation of the world, decreed freedom, not tyranny; persuasion, not compulsion; charity, not intolerance, the platform upon which the Lord's servants should stand. There is no room in all the Government of God for the exercise of "unrighteous dominion."

The Other Side.--But there is another side to the question. If the men bearing this sacred authority confine themselves to the lawful use of the powers conferred upon them, doing no other than the things enjoined by divine revelation or inspired by the Holy Spirit--what then? In that event the responsibility shifts to other shoulders; and just how weighty the responsibility is, the Savior himself shows in his parable of the Last Judgment, where is indicated the standard or one of the standards by which He will judge the world. [18]

Before the Bar of God.--When the Son of Man, sitting upon "the throne of his glory," shall require of all nations and of all men a final accounting, and shall put to them the crucial question: "How did you treat my servants whom I sent unto you?" happy the nation or the man who can reply: "Lord, I showed them the respect to which they were entitled--I honored them as I would have honored Thee."

Warning and Exhortation.--Grievous the sin and heavy the penalty incurred by those who mistreat the servants of the Master. But more grievous and more weighty still, the sin and punishment of those who betray them. "See to it," says the Prophet to the Elders of the Church, "that ye do not this thing, lest innocent blood be found upon your skirts, and you go down to hell. All other sins are not to be compared to sinning against the Holy Ghost and proving a traitor to the brethren." [19]

Again that ancient admonition, sounding down the centuries, "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm!" blending with the Savior's solemn warning to the world: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

Footnotes

1. Hist. Ch. Vol. 4, p. 207; D. & C. 107:1-20.

2. D. & C. 29:34, 35.

3. Gen. 14:18; Heb. 7:1-21.

4. Hist. Ch. Vol. 4, p.207.

5. 1 Sam. 13:9-14; 2 Sam. 6:6, 7; 2 Chron. 26:18-21; Heb. 5:4.

6. Hist. Ch. Vol. 4. pp. 208, 209.

7. Heb. 3:1.

8. D. & C. 107:2-4.

9. Abr. 3:27; John 14:24.

10. Ib. p. 386.

11. Ib.p. 386.

12. Ib. p. 386.

13. D. & C. 84:6-17. See also 107:40-52.

14. D. & C. 13. Ib. 128:20.

15. Ib. 68:4.

16. D. & C. 121:41-43.

17. Ib. vv. 36,37.

18. Matt. 25:21-46.

19. Hist. Ch. Vol.3, p. 385.

ARTICLE TWENTY-NINE.

Church Government

An Incomparable System.--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is conceded, even by many outside its pale, to be a most admirable and most thorough system of government. It ought to be; for it is a product of divine wisdom. The Church on Earth is the counterpart, so far as mortal conditions will permit, of the Church in Heaven, as beheld in vision by Joseph the Seer. [1] While the Church founded by him is not yet perfect, it is approximately so, and is destined to attain that condition. It is doubtful that the Church of Christ in any former age had so complete an organization as it possesses at the present time. This wonderful scheme of spiritual-temporal government was revealed from above, and established here below, that the Lord's will might be done on earth even as it is done in heaven.

Earliest Offices.--The earliest offices in the Church were those of Elder, Priest, Teacher and Deacon; all, excepting Elder, callings in the Aaronic Priesthood. [2] Other offices, mostly in the Priesthood of Melchizedek, were evolved as fast as they became necessary. [3] The first Bishops were ordained in 1831, the year after the Church was organized. There was no First Presidency until 1833, and no Stake organization until 1834. The Twelve Apostles and their assistants, the Seventies, were not chosen until 1835. But all these offices and callings were inherent in the two priesthoods conferred upon the founder of the Church before its organization.

First and Second Elders--Other Titles.--Joseph Smith was the first President of the Church. His original title was "First Elder;" Oliver Cowdery being the "Second Elder." The initial use of these titles--an anticipative use--was by John the Baptist, the angel who ordained Joseph and Oliver to the Aaronic Priesthood. He told them of their future ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood, and of their calling as "Elders" thereunder. [4] As early as the date of the Church's organization, the titles of Seer, Translator, Prophet and Apostle, were conferred upon Joseph, and that of Apostle upon Oliver, by revelation. [5]

Puerile Complaints. In after years President Joseph Smith and his associates were criticised by seceders from the Church, because of additions made to the original list of offices, as the result of growth and development on the part of the infant organization. It was contended that since it came into existence with Elders, Priests, Teachers and Deacons as its governing powers, and this by divine direction, therefore these orders should have been deemed sufficient, to the exclusion of High Priest and other titles claimed to have been added by "ambitious and spiritually blind" leaders. [6] Such objections are manifestly puerile. The faultfinders would have been no more inconsistent, had they contended that a new-born babe should remain a babe, instead of growing up to manhood or womanhood and fulfilling the measure of its creation.

The Correct View.--President George A. Smith, in speaking of the progress of the Church, was fond of using, as a comparison, the growth of a hill of corn--first, a single blade of green shooting up from the soil; then two or three such blades; and afterwards a stalk, with ears of corn and silken tassels pendant. One who made no allowance for the growth of the "hill," might be mystified at beholding it in these various stages of development; but those familiar with the changes incidental to such an evolution would see the matter in a clear light.

Greater Follows Lesser.--What more consistent, more in harmony with correct principle and historical precedent, than for the greater to follow the lesser, as when the Melchizedek Priesthood came to Joseph and Oliver, after their ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood? The lesser prepares the way before the greater. But according to the logic of the Prophet's critics, that first ordination should have been all-sufficient; there should have been no second ordination, and no further development of the Lord's work. It ought to have halted then and there, when the keys of the Lesser Priesthood were given. But the Lord knew best, and his inspired servants knew. There was to be, and there has been, a great and mighty development, as the present status of the Church testifies. It has had a wonderful history and a marvelous growth. Never so strong or so well equipped as now, its future is bright with glorious promise.

Offices in the Aaronic Priesthood.--The offices of the Aaronic Priesthood, graded upward, are Deacon, Teacher and Priest. The presidency of this priesthood is the Bishopric. The Bishop has charge of the Church property. He receives and disburses, under the direction of the higher authorities, the tithes and offerings of the people. A Presiding Bishopric of three have general charge of the funds provided for the support of the poor, for the building of temples, for the creation and maintenance of schools, and for other purposes. The Church's general financial records are also in their keeping. A bishop must be a lineal descendant of Aaron--in which event he can serve without counselors--or else a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, [7] having as his counselors two other high priests of that order. Under the jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishopric, in temporal matters, are the ward bishoprics.

Wards and Stakes.--The Ward is a division of the Stake as the Stake is a division of the Church. A stake, in territorial extent, frequently corresponds to a county, though in populous districts one county may contain several stakes. There are four stakes in Salt Lake City. Each stake has a presidency of three, and a high council of twelve, and these have jurisdiction over all members and organizations in the stake, including the ward bishoprics. Each of the latter constitutes a tribunal for the trial of members who transgress the church laws and regulations. From the decision of the Bishop's Court, either party in a case may appeal to the High Council, and from a decision of this appellate court an appeal may be taken to the First Presidency. They review the evidence, and if any injustice has been done, the case is remanded for a new trial. If a President of the Church were tried, it would be before "The Common Council of the Church," assisted by "twelve counselors of the high priesthood." [8] The extreme penalty imposed by any of the Church tribunals is excommunication.

Administration of Ordinances.--The Aaronic Priesthood administers in outward ordinances, such as baptism, and the sacrament of the Lord's supper. The higher ordinances--confirmations, sealings, adoptions, and other temple ceremonies--must be administered by the Priesthood of Melchizedek.

Offices in the High Priesthood--Quorums and Councils.--The Melchizedek Priesthood comprises, in an ascending scale, the offices of Elder, Seventy and High Priest. The Patriarch, the Apostle, and the President must all be high priests after this order. Each specific body of priesthood is called a quorum, though most of the general priesthood organizations are termed councils.

The General Authorities.--The highest council in the Church is the First Presidency. It is composed of three high priests, one of whom is the President, the others being his First and Second counselors. These three preside over the entire Church. The President is its Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and also its Trustee-in-Trust, holding the legal title to its property.

Next to the First Presidency are the Twelve Apostles. Their special calling is to preach the Gospel or to have it preached, in all nations. The Twelve are equal in authority to the First Presidency, but they exercise the fulness of their powers only in the absence of the higher council. They have the right to regulate and set in order the whole Church, but they act under the direction of the First Presidency. The death of the President dissolves that council, and makes necessary a new organization thereof. The Apostles nominate the President, who then chooses his Counselors, and the three are upheld and sustained by the Church in its public assemblies, called conferences. The duty of the Presiding Patriarch is to bless the Church, give individual blessings to its members, and comfort them with spiritual ministrations. He also assists the Apostles in visiting conferences and missions, and performing other duties as required.

The First Council of the Seventy, seven in number, preside over the entire body of the Seventies. These, however, are divided into quorums of seventy, each quorum having seven presidents of its own. In the absence of the First Presidency and the Twelve, the First Council of the Seventy would preside over the Church, associated with sixty-three others, the senior presidents of the first sixty-three quorums of seventy. The Seventies labor under the direction of the Twelve Apostles. They are independent of the stake presidencies and bishoprics, as quorums, but not as individual members. They are the "minute men" of the Church, subject to sudden calls into the mission field.

The First Presidency, the Twelve Apostles, the Presiding Patriarch, the First Council of the Seventy, and the Presiding Bishopric, constitute the General Authorities of the Church. Their names are submitted to the General Conference, held twice a year, to be voted upon by the members. They are also presented at the stake conferences, held quarterly, to be voted upon, with the stake officers, in like manner.

High Priests, Patriarchs and Elders.--Each Stake has a quorum of high priests, indefinite in number, presided over by three of its members. The High Priesthood holds the inherent right of presidency. All the general authorities, excepting the First Council of the Seventy, must be high priests; and the same is true of stake presidencies and ward bishoprics. In each stake are one or more patriarchs, performing, when active, duties similar to those of the Presiding Patriarch. A Stake has one or more quorums of Elders, each composed of ninety-six members, three of whom preside. Each ward should have one or more quorums of priests (forty-eight), teachers (twenty-four), and deacons (twelve), each with a presidency of three. The ward bishopric presides in a general way over all the quorums of the Aaronic Priesthood in the ward, and over all church members, as individuals, residing therein. The bishop of the ward is ex officio president of the priest's quorum. The Elder's office is the lowest in the Melchizedek Priesthood. The duties of an elder are similar to those of a seventy, though intended to be exercised more at home than abroad.

The Lesser Quorums.--The highest office in the Aaronic Priesthood, except bishop, is that of priest. The bishop, however, is a priest, and officiates as such when sitting as a judge; when presiding over his ward, it is by virtue of the higher priesthood held by him. The priest may preach, baptize and administer the Sacrament, but has not the right to lay on hands and give the Holy Ghost; that being a function of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

The teacher is a peacemaker. He settles difficulties arising between church members in his district; or, if he cannot settle them, he reports them to the bishop. Two or more teachers labor regularly in each of the districts into which a ward is divided. It is incumbent upon them to visit from house to house, to see that no iniquity exists among the members, and that they are attentive to their religious duties. The teachers report monthly, or as often as required, to the ward bishopric. The deacons have charge of the ward property, and they assist the teachers, as the teachers assist the priests.

Auxiliaries--Church Schools. All the organizations named are strictly within the pale of the Priesthood. In addition, there are a number of auxiliary organizations--helps to the Priesthood in the government of the Church--such as relief societies, Sabbath schools, young peoples' mutual improvement associations, primary associations, and religion classes. Church schools, of which the religion classes are an adjunct, exist in many of the stakes. The more notable of the schools are the Brigham Young University at Provo, the Brigham Young College at Logan, and the Latter-day Saints University at Salt Lake City. For the maintenance of its splendid educational system, the Church makes an appropriation of nearly three quarters of a million dollars, annually. All branches of learning find place in the curricula of these institutions, but religion is the principal feature; the object being to develop the spiritual, as well as the mental, physical, and moral faculties of the student--in short, "to make Latter-day Saints." [9]

The Present Status.--At the period of this writing there are eighty-five Stakes of Zion, all located in the region of the Rocky Mountains. The Church's twenty-four outside missions comprise most of the countries of the globe. The Latter-day Saints, in all the world, number about half a million.

Footnotes

1. D. & C. 76:54; 107:93.

2. Ib. 20:38-64.

3. Ib. vv. 65-67. Note.

4. Hist. Ch. Vol. 1, pp. 40, 41, 77, 78.

5. D. & C. 21:1.

6. David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, in a pamphlet published after his excommunication from the Church, put forth such a plea. He also found fault with the Prophet for receiving revelations without the aid of a seer-stone, previously used by him, but laid aside after he had fully mastered his gift, which David seems to have regarded as of less consequence than the stone, which was no longer needed.--"Address to All True Believers in Christ," by David Whitmer, 1881.

7. D. & C. 68:14-21; 107:16, 17, 69-76.

8. Ib. 107:82.

9. For further information on Priesthood and Church Government, the reader is referred to Sections 20, 68, 84, 107, 112 and 114, Doctrine and Covenants; also to Volume 3, p. 385 and Vol. 4, p. 207, History of the Church.

ARTICLE THIRTY.

The Law of Obedience.

"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated; and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."--Joseph Smith. [1]

Pope and His Proverb.--"Order is heaven's first law," said Alexander Pope; [2] and many have accepted the poet's dictum as final. It sounds well, but is it true? President George Q. Cannon denied its truth, affirming order to be an effect rather than a cause, a result flowing from obedience, without which order would be impossible. Obedience, he maintained, is heaven's first law, and the order that reigns there, a condition consequent. Manifestly this is a correct position.

Human and Divine Government.--That obedience is essential to order, must be apparent even to a casual observer of the every-day life of men and nations. All governments demand from their people obedience to the laws enacted for the general welfare. Without it there would be no peace, no protection. Confusion would prevail, and anarchy reign supreme. This is readily conceded by most men as to human governments; but some think it strange that divine government should be administered upon like principles, and for similar though higher ends.

Aliens Must Be Naturalized.--A friend of mine, somewhat of a skeptic, asked me: "Why must I belong to a church, or subscribe to a creed, or undergo any particular ceremony, in order to be saved? I have always done what I thought was right--have been truthful, honest, virtuous and benevolent. Why is that not enough? Why will it not suffice to make my peace with God and pave my way to Heaven?"

I answered: "Suppose you were an alien, born in some country of Europe, or on some island of the sea, and you came to America desiring to become a citizen of the United States. When told that you must declare your intentions, take out naturalization papers, forswear allegiance to any foreign power, and honor and uphold the Constitution and laws of this Republic, suppose you were to reply: Why, what is the need of all that? I am a good man; I have always acted honorably; am clean, moral and upright in conduct and conversation. Why is that not sufficient to entitle me to vote, to hold office, take up land, and enjoy all the rights and privileges of an American freeman? Do you think such a plea would avail? No, you do not. You see its inconsistency as quickly as the Government would see it and reject your application. You would not expect to become a citizen of the United States on your own terms. Why, then, should you hope for admittance into the Kingdom of Heaven upon any conditions other than those which the King himself has laid down?"

Man's Proper Attitude.--Men must not count upon their personal qualities, when applying for citizenship in the Eternal Commonwealth. The proper attitude is one of humility, not self-righteousness. The Pharisee who prayed, thanking the Lord that he was better than other men, was less justified than the Publican who also prayed, but in a different spirit, meekly murmuring: "God be merciful to me, a sinner." [3] A disposition to laud self, or dictate the terms upon which one is willing to be blest, is anything but modest, anything but reasonable. Truthfulness, honesty, virtue, benevolence--these are precious qualities, treasures enriching the soul under all conditions, inside or outside the Kingdom of Heaven. But they are not valuable enough to purchase a passport into that Kingdom. They go far, but not far enough to secure salvation.

Better Than Sacrifice.--"To obey is better than sacrifice." So said obedient Samuel to disobedient Saul. [4] Abraham's willingness to obey, when the Lord commanded him to offer up Isaac, was accepted in lieu of the offering. A literal sacrifice was not necessary in that case; but the offer to make it was necessary; for thus was symbolized the most important event in all history--the offering by the Eternal Father of his beloved Son for the redemption of the fallen human race. The Patriarch's willingness having been shown, the Lord, who had directed Abraham to offer up his son, sent an angel with the countermanding order: "Lay not thine hand upon the lad." [5] The offering had been accepted, and he who made it was rewarded as abundantly as if the sacrifice had been consummated.

Dead Letter and Living Oracle.--But what if Abraham, when commanded to offer up his son, had refused, citing in support of his position the divine law against homicide, a law dating from the time of Cain and Abel--would that have justified him? No; God's word is his law, and the word last spoken by him must have precedence over any earlier revelation on the same subject. If Abraham, after being forbidden to slay his son, had fanatically persisted in slaying him, he would have been a transgressor, just as much as if he had refused to obey in the first instance. After receiving the second command, he could not consistently plead that he was under obligation to carry out the first. Had he done so, he would have placed himself in a false position, that of honoring the dead letter above the living oracle.

The Will for the Deed.--Let me give this principle another application. A soldier goes forth to fight the battles of his country, goes with a willing heart, offering his life that justice may prevail and freedom endure. Having done his duty, he returns unscathed from the conflict where many went down to death. Is not his offering as acceptable as that of his comrade who makes what is called "the supreme sacrifice?" He certainly offers as much, the only difference being that not as much of his offering is taken.

All honor to those who, during the dreadful war of recent years, perished in the blood-soaked trenches, or fell in the open field with Prussian or Austrian bullets in their breasts! All honor to those who met death by accident or disease, in training camp or at battle-front, on land or on sea, losing their lives while faithfully playing their part in the great world tragedy! Heroes, every one! But the gallant fellows who lived through it all, patiently enduring hardships and privations, dying daily by anticipation, and by willingness to sacrifice all for the common good--be it not forgotten that in spirit they gave as much as any; and the fact that their offering was not taken, does not discount the motive that actuated them, nor diminish the credit due. "As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff; they shall part alike." [6]

The Just and the Unjust.--All blessings come by obedience. When the Savior said of the Father: "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." [7] he did not mean that no distinction is made between the two classes. He meant that the Great Judge is just to both--just even to the unjust, sending to them his rain and his sunshine, causing their orchards to bloom and their vineyards to bear equally with those of the righteous, provided similar conditions surround, and both classes are equally obedient to the laws governing the culture of the soil.

They Kept the First Estate.--But rain and sunshine, like all other blessings, are for those who merit them. If the unjust (unjust here) had not "kept their first estate," had not manifested in a previous life some degree of obedience to divine law, they would not have been given a "second estate," would not have been placed where the sunlight and the showers could reach them.

Obedience Must Continue.--In this life, however, further obedience is necessary, in order that greater blessings may come. God's gifts are both spiritual and temporal; but whatever they are, their bestowal is regulated by the great Law of Obedience. A good man may be a poor farmer, and thus fail to raise the full crop that he might have reaped had he been more skillful or more thorough in the practice of his vocation. On the other hand, a bad man may be an expert tiller of the soil, realizing bounteous returns because of his strict observance of the law in that particular department of industry.

Higher Laws and Higher Blessings.--There are greater blessings, however, than those pertaining to the harvest field and the workshop, and they also are to be had only by obedience to the laws governing their bestowal and distribution. One cannot become a member of the Church of Christ by being a successful merchant or stockraiser; and one may hold church membership, yet not be entitled to the privileges of the Temple. It takes more than the skill of a mechanic to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. There is but one way into that kingdom, and he who tries to pick the lock or climb over the wall, will be treated as a trespasser or a robber.

Rod and Rock.--Obedience is the rod of power which smites the rock of divine resource, causing it to flow with the waters of human weal. And the most obedient are the most blest. There are "many mansions" in the great House of God, and the highest are for those who render unto the Master of the House the fulness of their obedience.

Footnotes

1. D. & C. 130:20,

2. "Essay on Man," Epis 4, line 49.

3. Luke 18:10-14.

4. 1 Sam. 15:22.

5. Gen. 22:12.

6. 1 Sam. 30:24.

7. Matt. 5:45.

ARTICLE THIRTY-ONE.

The Divine Doorway.

The Most Important Personage.--What particular acts of obedience are required from man, in order that the One who redeemed may likewise save and exalt him? What must he do for himself, to the end that he may profit by the great things done in his behalf? In other words, how shall the alien seeking citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven, obtain it? What are the divine laws of naturalization? The one who can answer such questions, is easily the most important personage of his time. Such a one was Peter, the Galilean fisherman, chief of the twelve special witnesses of the Savior.

The Pentecostal Proclamation.--When Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, preached "Christ and him crucified," and the conscience-stricken multitude, "pricked in their heart," cried out, "men and brethren, what shall we do?" a question was propounded which the most learned philosophers of that age could not answer. Caesar, sitting upon the throne of the world, would have been mystified had the question been put to him--What shall men do to be saved? Not so, the Galilean fisherman. He knew, and he told them straightway:

"Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." [1]

The Gospel Unchangeable.--These requirements have not changed. They are in force today. They will remain in force so long as the Gospel is preached. The Apostle did not say that these were all the requirements. But he answered the question put to him, and it was the appropriate and sufficient reply for that occasion.

In the Pit.--When Adam and Eve had transgressed the divine command by partaking of the forbidden fruit, it was as if the human race had fallen into a pit, from which they were powerless, by any act of their own, to emerge. They could not climb out, for they knew not how to climb; and even if they had known, there was no means by which to ascend. Human endeavor, unassisted, could accomplish nothing in the way of deliverance. Man in his mortal condition needed revelation, spiritual enlightenment, having forgotten all that he had previously known. He also needed a ladder.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the ladder to Freedom and Light. Without it there is no salvation, no exaltation. The Tower of Babel symbolizes the situation. All man's efforts to reach Heaven without divine assistance, must end in confusion and failure.

Self-Help Necessary.--Before there was a Ladder, or while it was not within reach, fallen man could not climb. All his intelligence and skill were unavailing. But the ladder having been let down, if he will use his God-given powers and all the means provided for the purpose, he can mount from Earth to Heaven, round by round. If he refuses to climb, who but himself is to blame for his remaining at the bottom of the pit? The Gospel is not a substitute for self-help. It does not supersede man's efforts in his own behalf. It is the divinely appointed means whereby those efforts are made effectual. It does for man what he cannot do for himself.

Redemption by Grace.--The Gospel of Salvation rests upon the rock of Christ's Atonement--an act of grace, a free gift from God to man, to the wicked as well as to the righteous. All profit by it, for through that atonement, all are brought forth from the grave. This is eminently just. Adam's posterity were consigned to death for no deed of their own doing. It is fitting, therefore, that their redemption should be unconditional.

Salvation by Obedience.--But redemption is not salvation, nor salvation exaltation. Men must "work out" their salvation, [2] and gain exaltation by continuous upward striving. Depending primarily upon the grace of God, salvation and exaltation are likewise the fruits of man's acceptance of the Gospel, and of his steadfast adherence thereto, until it shall have done for him its perfect work.

The First Requirement.--Faith is the first requirement of the Gospel. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." So the Savior declared, when he commissioned his Apostles to "go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." [3] Peter's Pentecostal sermon omitted faith from the list of essentials, doubtless for the reason that those whom the Apostle addressed already had faith, a fact plainly shown by the question put to him. Evidently they believed what he had told them about the crucified Redeemer; else they would not have been "pricked in their heart," and would not have anxiously inquired, "What shall we do?"

In like manner, the Savior, when making his conditional promise of salvation, left out repentance, it being implied, virtually included, in the admonition to believe and be baptized; since baptism is "for the remission of sins"--sins of which man has repented. Faith, not repentance, is the first essential--the initial requirement made of the seeker for salvation.

The Second Step.--The first fruit of faith is repentance. It follows faith as naturally as kindness follows love, as obedience springs from reverence, as a desire to be congenial with, succeeds admiration for, one whose example is deemed worthy of emulation. God commands all men to repent; and a desire to please him and become acceptable in his sight, naturally leads the soul of faith to repentance.

"Sin No More."--Repentance is not that superficial sorrow felt by the wrongdoer when "caught in the act"--a sorrow not for sin, but for sin's detection. Chagrin is not repentance. Mortification and shame alone bring no change of heart toward right feeling and right living. Even remorse is not all there is to repentance. In highest meaning and fullest measure, repentance is equivalent to reformation; the beginning of the reformatory process being a resolve to "sin no more." "By this ye may know that a man repenteth of his sins: Behold he will confess them and forsake them." [4]

What is Sin?--Sin is the transgression of divine law, as made known through the conscience or by revelation. A man sins when he violates his conscience, going contrary to light and knowledge--not the light and knowledge that has come to his neighbor, but that which has come to himself. He sins when he does the opposite of what he knows to be right. Up to that point he only blunders. One may suffer painful consequences for only blundering, but he cannot commit sin unless he knows better than to do the thing in which the sin consists. One must have a conscience before he can violate it. "Where there is no law given, there is no punishment . . . . no condemnation." [5] "He that knoweth not good from; evil is blameless." [6]

Degrees of Damnation.--Souls who know that they have sinned, and who refuse to forsake their sins, will be damned. They damn themselves by that refusal. Damnation is no part of the Gospel. It is simply the sad alternative, the inevitable consequence of rejecting the offer of salvation. Damnation (condemnation) is not necessarily permanent, and it may exist in degrees, the degree being determined by the measure of culpability in the one condemned. Even the damned can be saved if they repent.

The Sin Unpardonable.--It is possible, however, to sin so far and so deeply that repentance is impossible. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of one of his characters--the guilty King Claudius--this speech:

"Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one cannot repent?" [7]

Those who cannot repent are sons of perdition. Their sin is unpardonable, involving utter recreancy to divine light and power previously possessed.

The Washing of Regeneration.--Sin must not only be repented of; it must be blotted out. The soul must be cleansed of it. Baptism is the soul-cleansing process, the divinely instituted means whereby sins are remitted--that is, forgiven and washed away. Immersion in water, symbolizing birth, or burial and resurrection, is the true form of the baptismal ordinance. Baptism is the third principle of the Gospel.

Divine Illumination.--The soul cleansed from sin is in a condition to enjoy the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, which "dwelleth not in unclean tabernacles." Through this precious gift comes the divine light that "leads into all truth," making manifest the things of God, past, present, and to come. There is a light that illumines, in greater or less degree, every soul that cometh into the world; but the Gift of the Holy Ghost, imparted by the laying on of hands of one divinely authorized to bestow it, is a special endowment, and only those having membership in the Church of Christ can possess it. Each is thus given a direct personal testimony of the Truth, and is founded upon the Rock of Revelation, against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail.

Gospel Principles Eternal.--The Everlasting Gospel is not an empty phrase. It means just what it says. The principles underlying it are eternal. "Intelligence or the light of truth was not created or made, neither indeed can be." [8] The same is true of faith and repentance. God did not make them. They are self-existent. Such ordinances as baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the gift (giving) of the Holy Ghost, might indeed be created, and doubtless were; but not the fundamental facts upon which they are based. It did not require a divine edict to make washing (baptism) a prerequisite to cleanliness; nor light (the Holy Spirit) the means of illumination.

A code or system of laws and ordinances can readily be conceived of as a creation. Not so the principles embodied therein. The Gospel, like all other creations, was organized out of materials already in existence--eternal principles adapted to the needs of man and the purposes of Deity. The Supreme Intelligence, recognizing these principles as ennobling and exalting in their tendency, created a plan embodying them as the most effectual means for man's uplift and promotion. That plan, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is the divinely appointed doorway into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Footnotes

1. Acts 2:38.

2. Phil. 2:12.

3. Mark 16:15, 6.

4. D. & C. 58:43.

5. 2 Nephi 9:25.

6. Alma 29:5.

7. Hamlet, Act. 3, Scene 3.

8. D. & C. 93:29.

ARTICLE THIRTY-TWO.

The Second Birth.

The Edict of the King.--"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." [1]

So said the King of that Kingdom, the only one empowered to prescribe conditions upon which men may become his subjects, or his fellow citizens in the Eternal Commonwealth. Nicodemus, to whom Jesus spoke those words, was a ruler of the Jews, a Pharisee, and, as some suppose, a member of the Sanhedrin, or supreme Jewish council. Favorably inclined toward the unpopular Nazarene, yet too politic to be seen associating with him openly, this man sought him out by night, avowing a belief that he was "a teacher come from God." In response to this confession of faith, Jesus taught Nicodemus the doctrine of baptism.

A Subject of Controversy.--The meaning of the language in which the teaching was conveyed, though perfectly plain to Christians anciently, has been a matter of uncertainty to their successors all down the centuries. From the days of the early Greek fathers of the Christian Church, to the days of St. Augustine, the great theologian of the Western or Roman Catholic division of that Church; from his time to the time of Luther and Calvin, and thence on into the present age, men have disputed over the mystical Second Birth, declared by the World's Redeemer to be the portal of admittance into his Kingdom.

Over the general meaning of the phrase, "Born of Water and of the Spirit," there may have been no serious contention. In all or most of the Christian denominations, it means baptism, the ordinance whereby a person is initiated into the Church. But the meaning of baptism, the significance, form, purpose and effects of the ordinance, and whether or not it is necessary to salvation--these questions have furnished the backbone of the controversy; questions easily answered, problems readily solved, if the Holy Spirit be taken for a guide, and there be no wresting of the scriptures.

The Savior's Example.--The words of Jesus to Nicodemus ought to set at rest the question of necessity. But as a clincher we have the Savior's declaration regarding his own baptism. Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized by John. The Baptist, deeming himself unworthy of that high honor, demurred, saying: "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" Jesus, answering, said: "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him." [2]

Now, if it was becoming in the Son of God to be baptized, it is becoming in all who follow in his footsteps and hope to be with him hereafter. They must be baptized with the baptism that he was baptized with--the baptism of water and of the Spirit, received by him at the river Jordan nearly two thousand years ago.

King and Subject. There are those who contend that the baptism of Jesus was all-sufficient; that it answered for the whole human race, thereby obviating the necessity of baptism in general. To all such I put this question Can you conceive of a kingdom in which the king is required to obey the laws ordained for its government, while the subjects are not required to obey them? Far more likely, is it not, that the king, rather than the subject, would be exempt from such obedience? But the laws of Christ's Kingdom are just and impartial. They bear with equal pressure upon all. The Son doeth nothing but what he hath seen the Father do, [3] nor does he require from men an obedience that he himself is not willing to render. "Follow Me," is the watchword of his mission.

"To Fulfil All Righteousness."--True, baptism is "for the remission of sins," [4] and in the Savior there was no sin to remit. Why, then, was he baptized? John saw this point, when Jesus presented himself for baptism; and that, no doubt, was one reason why he demurred to the request. We cannot impute sin to the Sinless, but we are in duty bound to accept and obey his instruction. He did not say: Thus it becometh Me to fulfill all righteousness. He put it in the plural, thus giving it general application.

Baptism Not Done Away.--Christ's baptism, whether for original sin--the sin of the world, which he had assumed--or purely as an example, did not do away with baptism, any more than his endurance of the pangs of Adam's race [5] obviated human suffering. Men and women still suffer, notwithstanding that infinite atonement. All must be baptized for the remission of their own sins, notwithstanding the baptism of "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." [6]

Exempt From Baptism.--Little children, too young to have sinned, and therefore without need of repentance, are exempt from baptism, and it is a sin to baptize them, involving as it does the vain use of a sacred ordinance. [7] Redeemed by the blood of Christ from the foundation of the world, their innocence and purity are typical of the saved condition of men and women, who must become like them before entering into the Kingdom of Heaven. As children advance in years, however, they become account-able, and must then yield obedience to the requirements of the Gospel. [8] Eight years is the recognized age of accountability in the Church of Christ. [9]

Redeemed Without Law.--There is another class mentioned in sacred writ, for whom, in the language of the Book of Mormon, "baptism availeth nothing." The "heathen nations," who "died without law," are to be "redeemed without law," and shall "have part in the first resurrection." [10] These, however, are not heirs celestial. Theirs is "the glory of the terrestrial" in the great Kingdom of the Future.

Vicarious Ministrations.--So necessary is baptism, on the part of all capable of intelligent obedience, that the Gospel makes provision for the vicarious baptism of those who pass away without undergoing this ordinance for themselves. Work of this character, when divinely authorized, is acceptable to the Lord; a fact that should occasion little wonder in Christian minds, when it is remembered that the whole fabric of Christianity rests upon the vicarious work wrought by Jesus Christ for the redemption of a world powerless to redeem itself. Men cannot answer by proxy for the deeds done in the body, but there have always been sacred ceremonies that one person might perform for another. Baptism is among them. [11]

For the Remission of Sins.--Baptism is the divinely instituted process whereby sins are remitted. All men have sinned, and in order to bring them back into God's pure presence, where nothing sinful can come, it is necessary that they be first cleansed from sin. Water baptism is the beginning of the cleansing process.

Means and Accessories.--Water, in and of itself, cannot wash away sin; but obedience, typified by the water, can and does, when the ordinance is lawfully and properly administered. [12] The case of Naaman the Syrian, cleansed of leprosy by dipping seven times in the river Jordan, is often cited as an illustration. [13] It was not the water that cured Naaman, but his obedience to the Prophet who had told him to dip seven times in that particular stream. Had he dipped in any other stream, or any other number of times but just seven, his disease would still have clung to him. But he did as he had been directed, and his faith, manifested by his obedience, worked the cure, bringing down the power of God for that purpose. The water was only the medium through which the power operated. Likewise, when Christ anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, causing him to see, it was faith that wrought the miracle, not the clay, which was only an accessory. It is the same with consecrated oil, as used in the healing ordinance of the Church. [14]

Effect of Baptism.--Baptism cleanses and illumines the soul, and it is by water and by Spirit that the cleansing and illumination come. They are indispensable in the process. The sick can be healed without the use of consecrated oil, or even without the laying on of hands. But no sinner can be baptized--cleansed and illumined--without the water and the Spirit.

Children in Christ.--The effect of baptism is to make men and women childlike--not in ignorance, nor in weakness, but in innocence and humility. "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." By baptism, following faith and repentance and administered by divine authority, the soul is "born again," and is typical, in its infant-like purity, of the soul raised to immortality. By baptism we are as effectually freed from sin, as by death, burial and resurrection, the mortal is changed to immortal and ushered into a new existence. Hence, baptism is termed "the washing of regeneration." Regeneration means "new birth."

Early Christian Views.--The earliest Christians did not doubt the necessity of baptism. On the contrary, they strongly insisted upon it, as indispensable to a saved condition. During the Patristic age--that of the post-apostolic Fathers--the conviction that no soul could be saved without baptism was so firm that it led to pedobaptism--the baptism of infants--and to other innovations upon the primitive faith. It was seen that infants could not believe in Christ, nor repent of sins that they had not committed; but it was held that the Church, or those who stood sponsor for the little ones, could believe for them, and they were baptized for original sin, the sin of Adam, which they were supposed to have inherited. Peter's words in promising the Holy Ghost, "For the promise is unto you and to your children." [15] were construed to sustain infant baptism. It was even assumed that the Savior authorized it in saying, "Suffer little children to come unto me."

Pedobaptism.--Holders of such views have never explained why infant baptism did not become prevalent until two or three centuries after Christ; and why such eminent Christians of the fourth century as Gregory of Nazianzum, the son of a bishop; Basil the Great of Cappadocia; Chrysostom of Antioch, and Augustine of Numida--whose mothers were pious Christians--were not baptized until they were over thirty years of age, Paul's affirmation that "children are holy," [16] and the Savior's declaration, "Of such is the kingdom of God," [17] are a sufficient answer to the assumption that children under the age of accountability have need to be baptized. Those who introduced the practice of baptizing infants for original sin, over-looked or were blind to the fact that Christ atoned for original guilt, and that men are accountable for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression.

Other Innovations.--One innovation led to another. Martyrs who had shed their blood in defense of the Church, or for its sake, but had never confessed Christ nor been baptized--what of them? For their benefit another doctrine was introduced. They were held to have been baptized in their own blood. Finally, out of deference to the claims of a far more numerous class--worthy men and women, many of whom had lived and died before the Christian Church was founded, while others, though living contemporaneously with it, were never reached by its missionaries--the idea gradually obtained that baptism was not essential to salvation. All this might have been obviated, and the Church spared much ridicule and skepticism, the result of its rambling inconsistencies, had it kept the key to the situation--Baptism for the Dead.

Gradual Growth of a Heresy.--The idea that baptism is non-essential did not become fixed and popular until many centuries after the Apostles "fell asleep." Saint Augustine, who figured in the latter part of the fourth and in the first half of the fifth century after Christ, and who advanced the notion that water baptism was "the outward sign of an inward grace," held, nevertheless, that no soul could be saved without it--not even infants; though their condemnation, resulting from non-baptism, would be of the mildest character. Augustine's concept of baptism, with some modifications, is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and of the orthodox Protestant churches at the present time. Luther held baptism to be essential to salvation; Calvin and Zwingli did not; and there, in the sixteenth century, it appears, began the schism of opinion concerning it that divides Christendom today.

Footnotes

1. John 3:3, 5.

2. Matt. 3:13.

3. John 5:19.

4. Mark 1:4; Acts 2:38.

5. 2 Nephi 9:21, 22.

6. John 1:29.

7. Moroni 8:8-10, 19, 22.

8. Moses 6:55.

9. D. & C. 68:25-27.

10. Mosiah 3:11; Moroni 8:22; D. & C. 45:54; Ib. 76:72.

11. I Cor. 15:29.

12. Moses 6:60.

13. 2 Kings 5:1-14.

14. James 5:14, 15.

15. Acts 2:29.

16. 1 Cor. 7:14.

17. Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16.

ARTICLE THIRTY-THREE.

Meaning And Mode Of Baptism.

The Lesser Suggests the Greater.--When Jesus told Nicodemus that man must be born of Water and of the Spirit, he virtually declared the meaning of baptism and prescribed the mode of its administration. It was to prepare the way before a greater principle, that Christ taught and exemplified the principle of baptism. He compared it to birth, the entry into mortal life; and this pointed to resurrection, the entry into immortal glory.

Men's minds, therefore, should be ready to receive something suggestive of birth and resurrection, in the ceremony authorized by the Son of God as the means of admission into his Kingdom. This suggestion is fully realized in the true form of the baptismal ordinance, namely, immersion--going down into the water and coming up out of the water, in the similitude of burial and resurrection, of birth into a higher life.

The Proper Form.--That immersion was the form of the ordinance introduced by John the Baptist, submitted to by the Savior, and perpetuated by his Apostles, is a plain and reasonable inference from the teachings of the New Testament. Jesus, when about to be baptized, must have gone down into the water; for after baptism, he "went up straightway out of the water." [1] When Philip baptized the Eunuch, "they went down both into the water." [2] John baptized "in Aenon, near to Salim, because there was much water there" [3]--another proof presumptive of immersion, the only mode requiring "much water" for its performance.

If this had not been the proper form, Paul would not have compared baptism to burial and resurrection; [4] nor would he have recognized as baptism the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. [5] Note also his words to the Corinthians relative to vicarious baptism and in support of resurrection, a doctrine that some of them denied: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" [6] In other words, why use the symbol of the resurrection, if there be no resurrection--if the symbol does not symbolize?

Additional Evidence.--In addition to what the Bible tells, we have the statements of archaeologists and historians, to the effect that baptism, in the first ages of Christianity, was a dipping or submersion in water. This, in fact, as philologists testify, is the meaning of the Greek word from which the English word "baptism" is derived. Ancient baptisteries and other monumental remains in Asia, Africa and Europe, show that immersion was the act of baptism. The Christian churches of the Orient--Greek, Russian, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic and others, have always practiced immersion and allow nothing else for baptism. The Western churches preserved this form for thirteen centuries, and then gradually introduced pouring or sprinkling--ceremonies in no way symbolical of birth and resurrection, and therefore not in harmony with the divine purpose for which baptism was instituted.

Clinic Baptism.--Baptisms by pouring or sprinkling were exceptional in the early ages of the Christian Church. They were called clinic baptisms, because administered as a rule to the sick, who could not be taken from their beds to be immersed; but they were rare, and were regarded only as quasi-baptisms. [7]

Immersion Made Optional.--Baptism by immersion was practiced regularly in the Roman Catholic Church until the year 1311, when the Council of Ravenna authorized a change, leaving it optional with the officiating minister to baptize either by immersion or by sprinkling. Even infants were baptized by immersion until about the end of the thirteenth century when sprinkling came into common use.

Luther and Calvin.--Luther favored immersion and sought, against the tendency of the times, to restore it; but Calvin, while admitting that the word "baptism" means immersion, and that this was certainly the practice of the ancient Church, held that the mode was of no consequence. A Greater than Calvin, however, had decreed otherwise, and had set the example that all were to follow.

Modern Methods.--Pouring is the present practice in the Roman Catholic Church; sprinkling in the Church of England and in the Methodist Church. A choice of modes is permitted by the Presbyterians, though sprinkling is the regular form. The Baptists as their name implies, are strong advocates of immersion. The Quakers repudiate baptism altogether.

The Authorized Practice.--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has but one form of baptism--the one authorized by the Savior and practiced by his Apostles, namely, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. [8] The Church derives its knowledge of this sacred ordinance, not mainly from the Bible, nor from the Book of Mormon, nor from any other record. It came by direct revelation to Joseph the Seer, restoring that which was lost. Brushing aside the dust and cobwebs of tradition concealing the precious jewel of truth, he brought back the knowledge of the "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" of the ancients. [9]

Baptism and Resurrection.--Baptism was made universal, and became the doorway to the Church of Christ, the Kingdom of God on earth, because it represents resurrection, which is likewise universal and without which no man can enter into the Celestial Kingdom. Christ, the great Exemplar of baptism, was the first to rise from the dead. It was fitting, therefore, that he should undergo the ordinance symbolizing the mighty fact for which he stands--redemption from the grave and eternal life beyond.

Symbolical of the Soul.--Baptism is twofold, corresponding to its subject, the soul, which is both spiritual and temporal. The body is represented by the water; the spirit by the Holy Ghost. Both are essential in the process, since it is not the body alone, nor the spirit alone, that is baptized, but body and spirit in one. Consequently, baptism is administered in a temporal world, where body and spirit can both be present, and where the watery element abounds. A person can believe and repent in the spirit world, but cannot be baptized there. This makes necessary baptism by proxy.

The Blood that Cleanseth.--In reality there are three factors in baptism--the Spirit, the Water and the Blood. Only two of them are used in the ceremony. But without the atoning blood of Christ, there could be no baptism of a saving character. Hence it is written: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." [10]

Three in One.--The Water and the Spirit, representing earth and heaven, are made effectual by the Blood. Man and God are thus reconciled, Christ being the reconciler. There are three that bear record in heaven--the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and there are three that bear witness on earth--the Spirit, the Water and the Blood. Each group corresponds to the other; each three agree in one. Therefore, when a soul is baptized, it must be by Water and by Spirit, made effectual by Blood, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

A Divine Exegesis--The Lord explained this principle to Adam thus: "Inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water and blood and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the Kingdom of Heaven, of water and of the spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory:

"For by the Water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the Blood ye are sanctified." [11]

The Mediator.--Spirit, Water and Blood--the three elements of baptism--were combined in the person of Jesus Christ, when baptized by John in the Jordan. Standing upon the river's brink, his sacred from dripping with the waters from which he had just emerged, he was crowned with the Holy Ghost, descending upon him from above. Yet it was necessary that his blood should be shed, in order that the Spirit might come in full force unto his disciples. Not until the Mediator had hung between heaven and earth, were the Apostles endued with power from on High. Then it was that the Spirit of God moved with full effect upon the waters of this world, coming, as in the first instance, that there might be a creation, a new birth, a regeneration for the human race.

Immersion in the Spirit.--So much stress being laid upon immersion, and upon the twofold character of baptism, one may be led to inquire: Why is it not an immersion in the Spirit as well as in the Water? To which I answer: Is it not so? When John the Baptist, proclaiming the Christ, said, "I indeed have baptized you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost," [12] it was baptism in each instance, and baptism signifies immersion. [13]

The Laying on of Hands.--The Holy Ghost is imparted by the laying on of hands. [14] Possibly this ceremony was intended to typify the glorious baptism that Earth will undergo when the Spirit is poured out upon her from on High. The laying on of hands for the giving of the Holy Ghost was an ordinance in the Christian Church for centuries. Cyprian mentions it in the third century; Augustine in the fourth. Gradually, however, it began to be neglected, until finally some of the sects discarded it, while others, retaining the form, "denied the power thereof."

The Fathers Understood.--The Greek fathers of the Church held correct ideas concerning baptism. They termed it "initiation," from its introductory character; "regeneration," from its being regarded as a new birth; "the great circumcision," because it was held to have superseded the circumcision of the Mosaic law; also "illumination" and "the gift of the Lord." [15]

Censured for Truth's Sake.--The Greek Christians of the early centuries, like the Saints of New Testament times, baptized for the remission of sins. They have been censured by modern critics for magnifying the importance of water baptism, and at the same time insisting on the purely ethical or spiritual nature of the rite; for confounding the sign with the thing signified, the action of the water with the action of the Spirit, in the process of regeneration. But they were not any more insistent upon these points than the Apostles themselves.

Augustine's Theory.--St. Augustine is complimented by the same critics for formulating the first strict scientific theory of the nature and effects of baptism. He drew a sharp distinction between "the outward sign"--water baptism--and the inward change of heart resulting from the operation of the Holy Ghost. Yet even he is charged with laying too much stress upon the value of "the outward sign," which he held to be essential to salvation. Protestant theologians have been commended for keeping the "sign" in due subordination to "the thing signified," for justifying themselves by faith, and ignoring to a great extent outward ordinances.

But the Greek Christians, whatever their defects, were nearer right than St. Augustine, and St. Augustine was nearer right than the Protestant theologians who followed him. Baptism, as taught in the New Testament, is not the mere "outward sign of an inward grace." The action of the water and the action of the Spirit are not to be separated in any analysis of the nature and effects of baptism. Both are essential in the soul-cleansing, soul-enlightening process.

A Symbol of Creation.--Every baptism, every resurrection, implies a birth. No seed germinates until it dies, or appears to die, and is buried. The gardener plants that there may be a springing forth of new life from the germ of the old. [16] Coming into this world involves departure out of a previous world, and burial here implies birth hereafter. The sun sets upon the Eastern hemisphere to rise upon the Western, and sets upon the Western to rise upon the Eastern. The setting and rising of the sun; sleep followed by waking; winter with its icy fetters and snowy shroud, succeeded by spring in garments of green, with bright flowers, singing birds and laughing streams; all these suggest baptism, for they symbolize birth, burial and resurrection.

Begotten and Born of God.--We have a Father and a Mother in heaven, in whose image we were created, male and female. We were begotten and born in the spirit before we were begotten and born in the flesh; and we must be begotten and born again, in the similitude of those earlier begettings and births, or we cannot regain the presence of our eternal Father and Mother.

Babes in Christ.--Baptism signifies the creation of souls for the Kingdom of God. The one who baptizes is the spiritual progenitor of the one baptized. This is why the Apostles referred to those who received baptism at their hands as "children of my begetting," "babes in Christ," to be fed "the milk" before "the meat of the word." [17] To baptize is to perform spiritually the functions of fatherhood. Motherhood is symbolized by the baptismal font. Hence, baptism must be by divine authority, must have God's sanction upon it. Heavenly and earthly powers must join, must be wedded for the bringing forth of the redeemed soul; otherwise, the baptism will be unlawful, the birth illegitimate, the act of begetting a sin. Baptisms, like marriages, performed without divine authority, will have no effect "when men are dead."

Suggestive Symbolism.--The significance of baptism and the very form of the ceremony are suggested by the career of that Divine Being whose descent from heaven to earth, and whose ascent from earth to heaven, are the sum and substance of the Gospel Story. Descending below and rising above--such was his experience from the time he left his celestial throne to the time he returned to his glorious exaltation. It is not possible that the sacred ordinance of baptism was intended to symbolize that wonderful event--God's merciful condescension for the sake of fallen man? Was it not instituted in anticipation and as a memorial of that mighty Birth, with its mortal burial and its immortal resurrection?

A Watery World.--Moreover, in the symbolism of the Scriptures, this world is represented by water. [18] "All things are water," said the Greek Thales. At the very dawn of creation, Spirit and Water, the two elements used in baptism, were both present--the one creative, the other createable. [19] "Let the dry land appear!" The very words suggest baptism, birth, creation--the emergence of an infant planet from the womb of the waters. And when the Almighty was about to send the Flood, he said to Noah, concerning the wicked: "Behold, I will destroy them with the earth." [20] Did he mean the watery element which enters so largely into the composition of the earth?

A Double Doorway.--Water represents the temporal part of creation, including the body or mortal part of man. Baptism therefore, in its twofold character, suggests the passing out from this watery world into the spirit world, and thence by resurrection into eternal glory. It is only a suggestion, but it emphasizes for me the reason why the doorway to the Church and Kingdom of God is a double doorway, a dual birth, a baptism of Water and of the Spirit.

Footnotes

1. Matt. 3:16.

2. Acts 8:38.

3. John 3:23.

4. Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12.

5. 1 Cor. 10:1, 2.

6. Ib. 15:29.

7. The first recorded case of clinic baptism is mentioned by Eusebius as having occurred in the third century.

8. 3 Nephi 11:23-29.

9. Eph. 4:5.

10. 1 John 1:7.

11. Moses 6:59, 60.

12. Mark 1:8.

13. President Lorenzo Snow, in describing the effect of the Spirit upon himself, after his baptism in water, says: "It was a complete baptism--a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost."--Improvement Era, June, 1919, p. 654.

14. Acts 8:17.

15. Other synonyms were "consecration" and "consummation." Those baptized were understood to have consecrated their lives to God, and to have consummated or completed their preparation for communion with the Church of Christ. Only to such was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper administered.

16. 1 Cor. 15:35-44.

17. 1 Cor. 3:1,2; Heb. 5:13, 14.

18. Dan. 7; Rev. 13, 17.

19. Gen. 1:2.

20. Ib. 6:13.

ARTICLE THIRTY-FOUR.

The Gospel's Accessories.

Many Ways to the Heart.--There is only one way into the Kingdom of Heaven, but there are many ways into the human heart; and the Church of Christ, in its mission of promulgating truth and turning souls to righteousness, has legitimate use for every avenue to that heart. Poetry, music, art in general, as well as science and philosophy--all these can be utilized as auxiliaries in the carrying on of the Lord's manifold work. They may not be essential parts of the divine message, but they prepare the way for its acceptance and are the forerunners of greater things. This, to my thinking, is the main reason why they are in the world. There is something purifying, ennobling, exalting, in all true poetry, true music, real science and genuine philosophy.

The Poet's Mission.--"The poets of the world," says the poetic Dr. Holland, "are the prophets of humanity. They forever reach after and foresee the ultimate good. They are evermore building the paradise that is to be, painting the millennium that is to come, restoring the lost image of God in the human soul. When the world shall reach the poet's ideal, it will arrive at perfection; and much good will it do the world to measure itself by this ideal and struggle to lift the real to its lofty level." [1]

In the light of such a noble utterance, how paltry the ordinary concept of the poet as a mere verse-builder. His true mission is to exalt the ideal, and encourage the listless or struggling real to advance toward it and eventually attain perfection.

Dreamers and Builders.--In this age of money-worship, the poet is often referred to, and at times even ridiculed, as a "dreamer." But the ridicule, when applied to a real poet, a true son or daughter of the Muses, is pointless. The poet _is_ a dreamer; but so is the architect and the projector of railroads. All creative minds are dreamful, imaginative, poetic. Were it otherwise, nothing worth while would be created. If there were no dreamers, there would be no builders. Both are necessary to progress. Every art and every science has its share of poetic idealism, of poetic enthusiasm, and must have it, in order to achieve best results.

Well worthy of a place beside Doctor Holland's beautiful thought on poets and their ideals, is the following sentiment on dreamers, from the pen of the popular essayist, James Allen: "As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the _realities_ which it shall one day see and know. Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish." [2]

Poets and Prophets.--Poets are prophets of a lesser degree; and the prophets are the mightiest of the poets. They hold the key to the symbolism of the universe, and they alone are qualified to interpret it.

Prophets, mightiest of the poets, They to whom the Gods tell secrets, Doing naught till true revealings Have made wise their trusted servants, Who in turn make wise the people; Bringing past and future present For the betterment of all men, Earth for every change preparing On her pilgrimage to glory. [3]

Rhymes and Rhymesters.--There are rhymesters who are neither poets nor prophets; and there are prophets and poets who never build a verse nor make a rhyme. Rhyme is no essential element of poetry. Versification is an art used by the poet to make his thought more attractive. The rhyme pleases the ear and helps the sentiment to reach the heart--a ticket of admission, as it were. A musical instrument is painted and gilded, not to improve its melodic or harmonic powers, but to make it beautiful to the eye, while its music appeals to the ear and charms the soul. Rhyme sustains about the same relation to poetry, as paint or gold leaf to the piano or organ. Clothing adds nothing to one's stature, to one's mental or moral worth; but it enables one to appear well in society. "The apparel" may "proclaim," but it does not _make_ "the man." Neither does rhyme make poetry.

The Essence of Poetry.--The essence of poetry is its idealism, its symbolism. The Creator has built his universe upon symbols, the lesser suggesting and leading up to the greater; and the poetic faculty--possessed in fulness by the prophet--recognizes and interprets them. "All things have their likeness.' [4] All creations testify of their creator. They point to something above and beyond themselves. That is why poetry of the highest order is always prophetic or infinitely suggestive; and that is why the poet is a prophet, and why there is such a thing as poetic prose.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." [5]

That is poetry, real poetry, full of rhythm, yet having no rhyme.

Above and Beyond.--Anything is poetic that suggests something greater than itself. The lilies of the field suggested to the Savior's poetic mind the glory of Solomon. He used them as a means of instilling into the minds of his doubting disciples the great lesson of trust in Providence.

Man, fashioned in the divine image, suggests God, and is therefore "a symbol of God," as Carlyle affirms. [6] But Joseph Smith said it first and more fully. He declared God to be "An Exalted Man." To narrow minds, this is blasphemy. To the broad-minded, it is poetry--poetry of the sublimest type.

Poetic Ordinances.--The bread and water used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, represent something greater than those emblems--something above and beyond. The whole sacred ceremony is a poem in word and action.

The same is true of Baptism, which stands for birth, creation, burial and resurrection. Fatherhood and motherhood are both symbolized in the baptismal ordinance, the true form of which is immersion. Any deviation from that mode destroys its poetic suggestiveness, its symbolism.

The Greatest Poet and Prophet.--Jesus Christ, the greatest of all prophets, was likewise the greatest of all poets. He comprehended the universe and its symbolism as no one else ever did or could. He knew it through and through. What wonder? Had he not created it, and was it not made to bear record of him? [7] He taught in poetic parables, taking simple things as types of greater things, and teaching lessons that lead the mind upward towards the ideal, towards perfection. The Gospel of Christ is replete with poetry. It is one vast poem from beginning to end.

What of Philosophy--"Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world." So says that great modern philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson. [8] In Article Eleven I have pointed out the similarity between Plato's concept of causes that produced the universe, and Joseph Smith's teaching upon the origin and purpose of the great plan of eternal progression. But Joseph did not get his philosophy from Plato. He had it directly from the divine Source of Plato's inspiration. There is no plagiarism in this semi-paralleling of a sublime thought. In like manner Confucius taught, in a negative way, the Golden Rule, afterwards taught affirmatively and more fully by Jesus of Nazareth. Truth, whether uttered by ancient sage or by modern seer, is worthy of all acceptance.

Emerson on "Compensation."--Few things of a philosophic nature appeal to me more strongly than Emerson's great essay on "Compensation." Says that master of thought and expression: "Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure, has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life."

"Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of conditions tend to equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others."

"The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid dear for his White House."

"The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the benefit, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they why do not the thing have not the power."

"As the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offense, poverty, prove benefactors."

"Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until we are pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the indignation which arms itself with secret forces. Blame is safter than praise."

"The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the world. It is the whipper who is whipped, and the tyrant who is undone."

"The changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men, are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. We cannot part with our friends. We cannot part our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in."

"The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character." And the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men." [9]

Divers Teachers.--Philosophy, like poetry, wins its way, where Truth's fulness, preached in power, might offend. The plain blunt message of the prophet who comes proclaiming, "Thus saith the Lord," repels and antagonizes many who will listen to and be impressed by the philosopher, with his cogent reasoning; or charmed by the poet, with his melodious verse and appealing illustrations; or won over by the scientist, with his clear-cut, convincing demonstrations. All kinds of teachers go before the prophet, preparing his way, or follow after him, confirming his testimony. [10]

The Divine Art.--Music softens the heart, thus preparing the way before the Gospel. "The song of the righteous is a prayer unto me," saith the Lord. [11] Nothing brings the good spirit into a meeting more quickly than sweet and soulful singing, especially when choir and congregation join. Tourists come in a constant stream to listen to the organ and the choir in our great Tabernacle. The Gospel is not always preached to them; they do not always desire it. But they are mellowed by the music, and go away with kinder feelings toward, and a better understanding of, the people who build such instruments, organize such choirs, and rear such structures. Their works speak for them. Depraved wretches, such as the majority of Utah's people are falsely represented to be, do not love music, care nothing for poetry and philosophy, do not cultivate the arts and sciences, nor rear tabernacles and temples unto God.

Seeing and Hearing.--In the year 1875 President Ulysses S. Grant came to Utah--the first Executive of the Nation to set foot within the Territory, now a State. It was at a time when, all over this broad land, bitter prejudice against the Latter-day Saints prevailed. It was freely asserted that the man who had finished with the South, would "make short work" of Utah and the "Mormons." Among the places visited by the President and his party during their stay, was the Salt Lake Tabernacle, where he heard the organ played by Joseph J. Daynes. What the President thought of it, I never learned; but Mrs. Grant, her face streaming with tears, turned to Captain Hooper, who had been Utah's delegate in Congress, and said with deep feeling: "I wish I could do something for these good Mormon people." The music had touched her heart, and perhaps the heart of her noble husband; for Grant was noble, though yielding at times to intense prejudice. [12]

No Substitute for the Gospel.--Let it not be supposed, however, that music, poetry, painting, sculpture, science, or any other thing, can take the place of the great uplifting Plan whereby the world, already redeemed, is yet to be glorified. No gift can vie with the Giver, no creature usurp the functions of the Creator. He will use everything true and good and beautiful to melt the hearts of men and prepare them to be saved; but salvation itself comes only by one route--the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the great Ideal, and it must be honored and maintained as such. In dealing with it, no Procrustean process is permissible. It must not be chopped off because men think it too long, nor stretched out because they deem it too short. It did not come into the world to be mutilated. Revelation cannot bow down to tradition. Truth is the standard--truth as Heaven reveals it--and the opinions and theories of men must give way. The Gospel's accessories are no substitute for the Gospel.

Footnotes

1. Lessons in Life, by Timothy Titcomb (J. G. Holland)--Lesson 22, "The Poetic Test."

2. As a Man Thinketh, "Visions and Ideals."

3. "Love and the Light," p. 68.

4. Moses 6:63.

5. Matt. 6:28, 29; Luke 12:27.

6. Sartor Resartus, 3, "Symbols."

7. Moses 6:63.

8. Representative Men, Plato, p. 51.

9. Emerson's Essays, 3, "Compensation."

10. A friend of mine, a medical practitioner, was conversing with a learned physician in the great city of London. The subject was the Word of Wisdom (D. & C. 89) wherein the Lord, after deprecating the use of strong drink, tobacco and other things "not good for man," goes on to say that "all wholesome herbs," "every fruit in the season thereof," and all grains are ordained for man's use. "Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine and for all beasts of the field and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks," etc. The learned man asked: "Where did Joseph Smith get this information? These teachings are based upon scientific principles, recognized as such by the medical profession; but they are of comparatively recent discovery. They were not known in Joseph Smith's time." My friend, being a Latter-day Saint, did not lose the opportunity thus afforded of bearing testimony to Joseph Smith's mission as a prophet.

11. D. & C. 25:12.

12. Before reaching the Tabernacle, President Grant passed up South Temple Street, lined on both sides with sabbath school children, neatly and tastefully attired, waving banners and mottoes of welcome in honor of the nation's chief. Riding in an open carriage, and running the gauntlet of applause and cheers, the honored guest turned to the Governor of Utah, Hon. George W. Emery, who sat beside him, and inquired: "What children are these?" "Mormon children," replied the Governor. "The Silent Man" mused for a moment, and was then heard to murmur, "I have been deceived."

He never was deceived again--in the same way. He could trust his eyes when he looked upon those beautiful children. They were not the product of crime and depravity, not the offspring of savages and criminals. He could trust his ears, too, when he heard that choir and that organ. No one could make him believe, after his visit to the "Mormon City," that its inhabitants were as black as they had been painted.

ARTICLE THIRTY-FIVE.

What Are Miracles?

Not Contrary to Law.--Miracles are results flowing from superior means and methods of doing things. They do not happen contrary to law. They are in strict conformity therewith. It could not be otherwise; for the universe, natural and supernatural, is governed by law. But there are greater laws and lesser laws, and the greater have power to suspend the operation of the lesser. When this occurs, people exclaim: "A miracle!" Others say: "It never happened, for it is contrary to law." And indeed it may seem contrary to ordinary law, with the workings of which their everyday experience is familiar. But that does not prove it contrary to some higher law concerning which they may know little or nothing.

Elisha and the Axe.--When the Prophet Elisha relieved the distress of the young man who had lost an axe--a borrowed axe--in the stream on the bank of which he was hewing timber, [1] it may have been supposed, by some skeptical on-looker, that the man of God was working in opposition to law. The account given states that "he cut down a stick" and cast it into the water, and "the iron did swim"--in spite of the fact that it is the nature of iron to sink. The law of gravitation required that the axe remain at the bottom of the stream, unless, by the application of some counter-force, ordinary or otherwise, it could be recovered. The force applied in this case was extraordinary. Elisha invoked a law superior to the law of gravitation, suspending its complete action upon that particular piece of iron. [2]

Scientific Achievements.--Today, iron ships are floating upon every sea. While this is not a miracle such as Elisha wrought, it would have been deemed a miracle in earlier ages of the world, before such wonders became commonplace. The achievements of modern science, compared with past conditions in the same field of thought and action, ought to convince any reasonable mind that the days of miracles are not over.

Light Production.--Men once made light by briskly rubbing together two pieces of wood, until friction generated flame. Gas light or electric light, with the present means of producing them, would have filled the souls of such men with fear and wonder. To them it would have been a miracle. And yet, to press a button or turn a switch, and thus obtain light, is a very clumsy device--or will be so considered when men learn to make light as God made it on the morning of creation. [3]

"The Earth Moves."--The telegraph, the telephone, the electric car, the automobile, the airship--these and a hundred other marvelous manifestations of scientific power, now quite common, would have been deemed visionary and impossible in former ages. To have avowed even a belief in them would have imperiled one's life or deprived him of his liberty, in the days when Galileo was threatened with torture for declaring that the earth moves, or when women, in later times were hanged or burned as witches for nothing at all. So dangerous is human prejudice, in its fanatical opposition to things new and strange. This, of course, refers only to former ages and to semibenighted peoples. We would not have done as our forefathers did! So each generation thinks. Let us be thankful that the earth "does move," and that the mind of man moves with it, so that perils such as confronted Galileo and others of his class are now less likely to show their ugly features.

The Other Extreme.--But just a word of caution here. We must not rush to the opposite extreme, and become obsessed with that ultra-practical spirit which would make all things commonplace, not only in manifestation, but in origin. Miracles, after all, are facts, not fictions, and some of them have their causes far back of and beyond the known principles of science.

Disbelief in Divine Interposition.--But there is a disposition in these modern days to do away with everything savoring of the supernatural, "Higher Criticism," so-called, seems to regard this as its special mission. Some people, even if they give credence to works of wonder, invariably refer them to ordinary causes--anything rather than acknowledge divine interposition.

Moses and the Red Sea.--For instance, when they read of Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea, they either deny the event in toto, or set Moses and the miracle aside, and substitute some convulsion of nature as the accidental cause of the mighty deliverance, when those waters, after allowing the Israelites to pass through in safety, returned just in time to engulf their pursuing enemies, the Egyptians. [4]

A very convenient earthquake, truly! Nothing could have been more timely! But why could not Divine Power have done it all--done it designedly, in the manner and with the means specified in the sacred narrative? [5] Is God impotent in the presence of Nature--fettered by his own creation? Alas! these learned theorists believe not in God, and that is why they deny his works and put nature with its blind forces in his stead.

Joshua and the Sun.--They laugh to scorn the idea of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, deeming it "a sin and a disgrace" that such things should be preached and taught, and denying, of course, that the miracle ever took place. Because, forsooth, the whole solar system would have come crashing down into chaos, had the sun halted for one moment in its decreed course! Yes, that might have happened, such a calamity might have occurred--had there been no God to uphold the solar system and administer the law for its preservation.

"The Lord Fought for Israel."--But there is a God, and he was there as he is everywhere, by his all-protective, all-administrative power--the God to whom Joshua prayed before uttering the sublime command: "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!" [6] "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies; . . . . for the Lord fought for Israel." [7]

There you have it--it was the Lord's doing. Joshua was merely the instrument, just as Moses had been. But because such things are not happening every day, and because doubt cannot do them, therefore are they impossible to Faith! Such is the logic of those who scoff at the power of Deity and deny even the miracles of the Savior.

Nothing Too Difficult for Omnipotence.--For my part, I see nothing inconsistent in these Bible stories--nothing to justify doubt or denial. A Power that could create the sun and moon and set them whirling in their orbits, could stop them in their decreed course--or stop the earth, so that sun and moon would seem to be stayed--and at the same time uphold the universe, while this part of it remained stationary. Of course, man could not do it; but human power is not the measure of Omnipotence.

What Our Century Needs.--What the Twentieth Century needs, more than anything else, is an honest belief that there is actually a God in heaven, and that his power is superior to man's. The Great Creator has not let out his universe, to be governed by law independently of the Law-giver. The God of Israel is a God who answers prayer, and who works miracles whenever the need arises and conditions warrant--works them according to law. But He administers that law--it does not administer him.

Greater and Lesser Laws.--Some laws are fundamental. The Almighty did not create them; but he controls them and overrules their workings for the welfare of his creatures. According to Joseph Smith, certain laws were "instituted" at the beginning, as a means for human progression. These are eternal principles whereby our great and benevolent Father proposes to save and exalt his children, and give perpetuity to all things necessary for their happiness and glory.

Who, having faith in a Maker of the universe, can question his power to govern that universe, the workmanship of his hands? And if he controls the fundamental laws--those uncreatable, self-existent principles which are as the Constitution of Eternity, surely he can suspend the operation of lesser laws based thereon, setting aside at will his own enactments.

An Illustration.--Suppose a child to be lying at the point of death. The family physician, having done his best and failed, informs the sad-hearted parents that their little one cannot live till morning. Medical science so decrees, in accordance with the law under which the physician has been operating. But, bearing in mind the apostolic injunction, "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the Elders of the Church," [8] the parents send for the Elders. They come and pray over the child, and the prayer of faith "saves the sick," notwithstanding the good doctor's prognostication. A miracle? Yes, if one chooses to call it so. In other words, the suspension of a lesser law by a greater, the former requiring the death of the child, the latter permitting it to live; the lower inoperative in the presence of the higher.

Biggest Things Yet to Be.--Miracles belong to no particular time or place. Whenever and wherever there is sufficient faith and a reasonable demand for its exercise, Divine Power will act, and marvels will result. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in human "philosophy," and the biggest things are yet to be. God's work is progressive, and the miracles of the future will cause the miracles of the past to pale.

Divine Adaptation.--Progression's highest methods cannot be employed in dealing with undeveloped man. The All-wise adapts himself to the conditions environing those whom he aims to uplift and glorify. "All things are in a scale," rendering necessary a diversity of laws and operations. Even the divine dictum, "Let there be light!" does not represent the last word in light production. God is Light, and has only to appear, and all darkness will flee away. When the sun rises, the moon and stars must "hide their diminished heads." When God dawns upon the world, not even the sun will shine.

Footnotes

1. 2 Kings 6:1-7.

2. "What are the Laws of Nature?" asks Carlyle, and continues: "To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these laws, but a confirmation, if some far deeper law, now first penetrated into, and by spiritual force, even as the rest have all been, were brought to bear on us with its material force."

"'But is it not the deepest law of Nature that she be constant?' cried an illuminated class: 'Is not the machine of the universe fixt to move by unalterable rules?' Probable enough good friends. . . . . And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same unalterable rules, forming the complete statute book of Nature, may possibly be?

"'They stand written in our works of science,' say you; 'in the accumulated record of man's experience.' Was man with his experience present at the creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the foundations of the universe, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into his counsel, that they read his ground-plan of the incomprehensible All, and can say, This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not in any wise!" . . . .

"To the minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident, of its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow understand the ocean tides and periodic currents, the trade winds and monsoons and moon's eclipses, by all which the condition of its little creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (unmiraculously enough) be quite upset and reversed? Such a minnow is man; his creek this planet earth; his ocean the immeasurable All; his monsoons and periodic currents the mysterious force of Providence through aeons of aeons."--Sartor Resartus, Natural Supernaturalism, pp. 275-278.

3. Gen. 1:3.

4. "Everybody recalls how the Red Sea was rolled aside in order that the Isaraelites under Moses might pass over safely; how the river Jordan, a few later, was driven back, that Joshua and his army might cross; and how Sodom and Gomorrah were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone for their sins . . . . Geologists are now inclined to believe that the recession of the sea might have been caused by an earthquake pushing up a rock stratum under tremendous pressure. The water would return in some degree upon the subsidence of the stratum. The various miraculous events referred to occurred about the year 1500 B. C., and there is a curious similarity between them. It now appears probable from scientific research that these occurrences were the last of a series of terrific earthquake disturbances that changed the entire surface of the globe."--W. H. Ballou, D. Sc.

5. Ex. 14:21-31.

6. Joshua 10:12.

7. Ib. vv. 13, 14.

8. James 5:14.

ARTICLE THIRTY-SIX.

The Mainspring of Power.

The Moving Cause.--All power springs from faith. It is "the moving cause of all action" and "the foundation of all righteousness." [1] God did not create the principle of faith, but by means of it he created the worlds, and by means of it he continues to exercise control and dominion over them. It is the faith of Omnipotence that upholds the universe.

A Negative Opinion.--A Christian minister, not of the orthodox school, with whom I was conversing on the subject of faith, tried to convince me that it was anything but an admirable quality. He even called it contemptible, declaring that it consisted of a weak willingness to believe--to believe anything, however improbable or absurd. In short, it was mere credulity, nothing more.

A Spiritual Force.--When I referred to faith as a spiritual force, a principle of power, he said I was attaching to the term a significance that it had never borne, and for which there was no warrant. I then reminded him of the Savior's words: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, 'Remove hence to yonder place,' and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you." [2] Whereupon he flippantly remarked: "Oh, it takes picks and shovels to move mountains."

Picks and Shovels.--And so it does--if one has no better way of moving them. But what about the faith necessary to handle pick and shovel? All energy springs from faith, and whether mountains are moved by man or by his Maker, it is faith that precedes the action and renders it possible. Yet here was a professed minister of Christ, ignoring the teachings of Christ, and denying what all true Christians believe--that the smallest as well as the greatest acts of our lives spring from the exercise of faith.

Misplaced Confidence.--In its incipient stages, faith may at times resemble mere credulity. The untutored savage who was told by one of the early settlers of New England, that if he planted gunpowder it would "grow" gunpowder, believed it, not yet having learned that the white man could lie. He therefore parted with his valuable furs, in exchange for a small quantity of powder, and planted it, showing his confidence in the settler's word. But of course the desired result did not follow; for faith, to be effectual, must be rightly based, must have a reasonable foundation. The Spirit of Truth must inspire it. This was not the case with the poor misguided Indian. He trusted in a falsehood, and was deceived. Still, some good came of it--he ascertained the falsity of the settler's statement. If the planting did not produce powder, it produced a wiser Indian.

Faith's Possibilities.--Had the red man's faith been perfect--an intelligent, rational, heaven-inspired faith--he could have produced gunpowder or any other commodity from the all-containing elements around him. And that, too, without planting a seed or employing any ordinary process of manufacture. The miracles wrought by the Savior--his turning of water into wine, his miraculous feeding of the multitude, his walking on the waves, healing of the sick, raising of the dead, and other wonderful works--what were they but manifestations of an all-powerful faith, to possess which is to have the power to move mountains, without picks and shovels, my skeptical friend to the contrary notwithstanding? Faith is not to confounded with blind ignorant credulity. It is a divine energy, operating upon natural principles and by natural processes--natural, though unknown to "the natural man," and termed by him "supernatural."

"As a Grain of Mustard Seed."--When the Savior spoke of the faith that moves mountains, he was not measuring the quantity of the faith by the size of the mustard seed. Neither was it an Oriental hyperbole. Jesus was speaking literally. Mountains had been moved before by the power of faith; [3] then why not now? [4]

An Impelling Force.--Faith is the beating heart of the universe. Without it nothing was ever accomplished, small or great, commonplace or miraculous. No work ever succeeded that was not backed by confidence in some power, human or superhuman, that impelled and pushed forward the enterprise.

Those Who Believe.--It was not doubt that drove Columbus across the sea; it was faith--the impelling force of the Spirit of the Lord. [5] It was not doubt that inspired Jefferson, Franklin, and the other patriot fathers to lay broad and deep the foundations of this mighty republic, as a hope and a refuge for oppressed humanity. It is not doubt that causes nations to rise and flourish, that induces great and good men in all ages and in all climes to teach and toil and sacrifice for the benefit of their fellows. It is faith that does such things. Doubt only hinders what faith would achieve. The men and women who move the world are the men and women who believe.

Mahomet and Islam.--Carlyle, in splendid phrasing, depicts the wonderful change that came over the Arabian people when they abandoned idolatry, the insincere worship of "sticks and stones," and became a believing nation. "It was as a birth from darkness into light; Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world; a hero-prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe; see, the unnoticed becomes world-notable, the small has become world-great; within one century afterward Arabia is at Granada on this hand, at Delhi on that--glancing in valor and splendor and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, life-giving. The history of a nation becomes fruitful, soul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes." [6]

Achievements of Christendom.--The same philosophy, with far greater emphasis, applies to Christendom and its glorious achievements all down the centuries. What has caused Christian nations to flourish so mightily? What has enabled Christianity, in spite of its errors, to survive the wreck of empires and to weather the storms of time? Faith in the Christ, imperfect though that faith has been. The faith of any people--its trust in and reliance upon some power deemed by it divine--constitutes its main source of strength.

Faith Must Be Genuine.--But faith must be genuine. Pretense and formalism will not avail. Hypocrisy is the worst form of unbelief. Honest idolatry is infinitely preferable to dishonest worship. Better burn incense to Diana, believing it to be right, than bow down to Christ in hollow-hearted insincerity. Mighty Rome did not fall until she had ceased to worship sincerely the gods enshrined within her Pantheon. Glorious Greece did not succumb until her believers had become doubters, until skeptical philosophy had supplanted religious enthusiasm, and the worship of freedom, grace and beauty had degenerated into unbridled license and groveling sensuality. No nation ever crumbled to ruin until false to itself, false to the true principles of success, the basic one of which is _To Believe_.

Germany's Mistake.--The world in recent years has witnessed the sad spectacle of a great nation, or the ruling powers of that nation, turning from Christ and substituting for Christian faith a godless pagan philosophy. Discarding the just and merciful principles of the Gospel, and adopting the false notion that might makes right, the fallen Teutonic empire has shown, by the revolting cruelties practiced in pursuance of that doctrine, what science (kultur) is capable of, when it parts company with God and morality. The land of Goethe and Wagner, and alas! the land also of the Hohenzollern and the Hindenburg, far from winning the "place in the sun" that she so coveted, has lost the proud place already held by her when the mad ambition of her military chiefs plunged her into ruin. The one thing that can now redeem her and lift her up out of the pit into which she has fallen, is faith in the true God, and the works by which that faith is made manifest.

According to Their Faith.--God deals with men ac-according to their faith. The Savior wrought mighty miracles, by his own faith, but most of them were faith abounded in the hearts of the people. In other places he did not do many mighty works, "because of their unbelief." Faith is a gift from God, and they who serve him best have most of it. Faith is the soil that brings forth miracles. "All things are possible to them that believe."

Footnotes

1. D. & C. Lectures on Faith, Lec. 1, pp. 1, 2; See also Heb. 11.

2. Matt. 17:20.

3. Ether 12:30.

4. It is my belief that the Savior, in his reference to the mustard seed, meant that if man would obey the divine law given for his government as faithfully as that tiny germ obeys the law given for its government, he could wield infinitely more power than he now possesses. Solid stone pavements are upheaved and cracked asunder by the gradual growth or expansion of a seed or root buried underneath. Such things indicate a hidden force even in the lowliest creations. It is written that the earth "filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the law." (D. & C. 88:25). If man were that obedient, he would have the power to "move mountains."

5. 1 Nephi 13:12.

6. "Heroes and Hero Worship," Lec. 2.

PART EIGHTH

BEYOND THE HORIZON

ARTICLE THIRTY-SEVEN.

The Spirit World.

Not Heaven.--That there is a Spirit World, and that it is closely connected with the material world--the one we now inhabit--has been a tenet in the religious philosophy of wise and good men all down the ages. In the minds of many people, the Spirit World and Heaven are synonymous terms, indicating one and the same place. But in reality there is a wide difference between them. A State of rest, such as the spirit life is understood to be for the righteous--though "rest" should not be interpreted as idleness or want of occupation--might easily pass for heaven, when contrasted with this life of pain, sorrow and trouble. But that is only relative. It is not saying too much--indeed it may be saying too little--to affirm that there is just as much difference between the spirit world and heaven, as between the mortal and the spiritual phases of man's existence.

Here on Earth.--According to Parley P. Pratt, the Spirit World is the spiritual part of this planet--or, to use his exact language: "The earth and other planets of a like order have their inward or spiritual spheres, as well as their outward or temporal. The one is peopled by temporal tabernacles, and the other by spirits." "As to its location," he says, "it is here on the very planet where we were born." [1]

All Things Before Created.--The proposition that Earth has a spiritual as well as a temporal sphere is a reassertion of the doctrine of duality, embodied in ancient and modern revelation, and particularly emphasized by Joseph the Seer. A careful reading of the Book of Genesis (the King James version) discloses, though somewhat vaguely, the fact of this duality, as applied to the works of creation. Thus, after giving an account of the earth and of all things connected therewith, the sacred writer says:

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." [2]

"Not a man to till the ground"--and yet man had been created, as well as the plants and herbs that existed "before they grew." The apparent contradiction--apparent though not real--was explained by the Prophet when, by the Spirit of Revelation, he revised the Scriptures, giving a more ample account of the creation than the ordinary Bible contains. From that account the following sentences are taken:

"For I the Lord God created all things of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. . . . . And I the Lord had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground. For in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air . . . . Nevertheless, all things were before created." [3]

First Spiritual, Then Temporal.--In other words, there were two creations--or rather, the creation had two phases, the first spiritual, the second temporal. When the Creator made man and beast and fish and fowl, he made them twice--first in the spirit, then in the body; and the same is true of the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, and all other created things. They were made spiritually and temporally, the spirit and the body constituting the soul. [4]

Not Far Away.--The Spirit World is not a thing afar off. Our thoughts need not sail away millions of miles into space to find it. According to the best evidence we possess, it is near to us--right around us. We have but to emerge from the body, and we are in the spirit world. Out of it we came, and unto it we shall return. "The spirits of the just," says the Prophet Joseph, "are not far from us;" they "know and understand our thoughts, feelings and motions, and are often pained therewith." [5]

Just and Unjust.--The spirits of the unjust likewise inhabit the spirit world, though they are separated from the righteous, and are not in a state of rest. Light and darkness divide that realm, each domain having its appropriate population. So far from being Heaven, part of the spirit world is Hades or Hell. Referring to the class who people that part, the Prophet says: "The great misery of departed spirits ... is to know that they come short of the glory that others enjoy and that they might have enjoyed themselves; and they are their own accusers." [6]

Jesus and the Penitent Thief.--"In the spirit world," says Parley P. Pratt, "are all the varieties and grades of intellectual beings which exist in the present world. For instance, Jesus Christ and the thief on the cross both went to the same place." That is to say, they both went to the spirit world.

Jesus, it will be borne in mind, had been crucified between two thieves, one of whom derided him, insulting his dying agonies. The other, being penitent, prayed: "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." To him the Savior said: "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." [7] Because of this utterance--which Joseph Smith declared to be a mistranslation, maintaining that "paradise" should read "world of spirits" [8]--uninspired minds have drawn the conclusion that the penitent thief was promised immediate heavenly exaltation, for repenting at the last moment and professing faith in the Redeemer. This notion is still entertained. The criminal who has forfeited his life and is under sentence of death, because unfit to dwell among his fallen fellow creatures, is made to believe that by confessing Christ, even on the scaffold, he is fitted at once for the society of Gods and angels, and will be wafted to never-ending bliss.

A False Doctrine.--Jesus never taught such a doctrine, nor did any authorized servant of the Lord. It is a man-made theory, based upon faulty inference and misinterpretation. The Scriptures plainly teach that men will be judged according to their works, [9] and receive rewards as varied as their deeds. [10] It was best for the thief, of course, to repent even at the eleventh hour; but he could not be exalted until prepared for it, if it took a thousand years. When Christ said: "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there ye may be also," [11] he was not speaking to murderers and malefactors, but to his pure-minded, right-living disciples, those only to whom such a promise could consistently be given.

What Goes on There.--Jesus Christ and the thief both went to the world of spirits, a place of rest for the righteous, a place of correction for the wicked. "But," as the Apostle Parley goes on to say, "the one was there in all the intelligence, happiness, benevolence and charity which characterize a teacher, a messenger anointed to preach glad tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to comfort those who mourned, to preach deliverance to the captive, and open the prison to those who were bound; or, in other words, to preach the Gospel to the spirits in prison, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh; while the other was there as a thief, who had expired on the cross for crime, and who was guilty, ignorant, uncultivated, and unprepared for resurrection, having need of remission of sins and to be instructed in the science of salvation."

Thus is told in part what goes on in the spirit world. "It is a place," continues our Apostle, "where the Gospel is preached, where faith, repentance and charity may be exercised, a place of waiting for the resurrection or redemption of the body; while to those who deserve it, it is a place of punishment, a purgatory or hell, where spirits are buffeted until the day of redemption."

Alma's Teaching.--To the foregoing should be added the testimony of Alma the Nephite, upon the same subject:

"Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection--Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life.

"And then shall it come to pass that the spirits of those who are righteous, are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise; a state of rest; a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.

"And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil--for behold, they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold, they chose evil works rather than good; therefore the spirit of the devil did enter into them, and take possession of their house--and these shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and this because of their own iniquity; being led captive by the will of the devil.

"Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection." [12]

A Vision of Redemption.--President Joseph F. Smith, only a short while before his death, saw in a "vision of the redemption of the dead," the Savior's visit to the world of spirits, as recorded in the first epistle of Peter. [13] The President's account of what he beheld follows:

"I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great, and there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just ... They were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand... The Son of God appeared, and preached to them the everlasting gospel.

"I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them; but behold from among the righteous he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men.

"I beheld that the faithful Elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel.... among those who are in darkness and under bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead." [14]

Personal and Proxy Ministrations.--The new light here thrown upon the subject proceeds from the declaration that when the Savior visited the inhabitants of the spirit world, it was by proxy, and not in person, so far as the wicked were concerned. He ministered to the righteous directly, and to the unrighteous indirectly, sending to the latter his servants, bearing the authority of the Priesthood, and duly commissioned to speak and act for him. President Smith's pronouncement modifies the view commonly taken, that the Savior's personal ministry was to both classes of spirits. [15]

A Temporary Abode.--Thus we see that the Spirit World is not Heaven, except in a relative sense, and then only in part. It is a temporary abode for God's children, while undergoing processes of purification and development, as a preparation for better things beyond. Heaven, on the other hand--heaven in the highest degree--is the permanent home of the perfected and glorified.

Footnotes

1. Key to Theology. Chapt. 14.

2. Gen. 2:4, 5.

3. Moses 3:5, 7.

4. D. & C. 88:15; Moses 3:9.

5. Hist. Ch. Vol. 6, p. 52.

6. Ib. Vol. 5, p. 425.

7. Luke 23:43.

8. Hist. Ch. Vol. 5, pp. 424, 425.

9. Rev. 20:12, 13.

10. D. & C. 76.

11. John 14:2, 3.

12. Alma 40:11-14.

13. 1 Peter 3:18-20.

14. Gospel Doctrine, pp. 596-601.

15. Compare 3 Nephi 15:21-24; D. & C. 76:112.

ARTICLE THIRTY-EIGHT.

Spirit Promptings

Spirit Memories.--Writing one day upon the subject of spirit memories, and the influence exerted upon the affairs of this life by the awakened recollections of a former experience, I found myself indulging in the following reflections:

Why are we drawn toward certain persons, and they toward us, independently of any known previous acquaintance? Is it a fact, or only a fancy, that we and they were mutually acquainted and mutually attracted in some earlier period of our eternal existence? Is there something, after all, in that much abused term "affinity," and is this the basis of its claim? More than once, after meeting someone whom I had never met before on earth, I have wondered why his or her face seemed so familiar. Many times, upon hearing a noble sentiment expressed, though unable to recall having heard it until then, I have been thrilled by it, and felt as if I had always known it. The same is true of music, some strains of which are like echoes from afar, sounds falling from celestial heights, notes struck from the vibrant harps of eternity. I do not assert pre-acquaintance in all such cases, but as one thought suggests another, these queries arise in the mind.

The Shepherd's Voice.--When it comes to the Gospel, I feel more positive. Why did the Savior say: "My sheep know my voice?" Can a sheep know the voice of its shepherd, if it has never heard that voice before? They who love Truth, and to whom it appeals most powerfully, were they not its best friends in a previous state of existence? I think so. I believe that we knew the Gospel before we came here, and it is this knowledge, this acquaintance, that gives to it a familiar sound.

Very much in the same vein, I once wrote to President Joseph F. Smith--he at the time in Utah, and I on a mission in Europe. Here is his reply:

President Smith's View.--"I heartily endorse your sentiments respecting congeniality of spirits. Our knowledge of persons and things before we came here, combined with the divinity awakened within our souls through obedience to the gospel, powerfully affects, in my opinion, all our likes and dislikes, and guides our preferences in the course of this life, provided we give careful heed to the admonitions of the Spirit.

"All those salient truths which come so forcibly to the head and heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit. Can we know anything here that we did not know before we came? Are not the means of knowledge in the first estate equal those of this? I think that the spirit, before and after this probation, possesses greater facilities, aye, manifold greater, for the acquisition of knowledge, than while manacled and shut up in the prison-house of mortality. I believe that our Savior possessed a foreknowledge of all the vicissitudes through which he would have to pass in the mortal tabernacle.

"If Christ knew beforehand, so did we. But in coming here, we forgot all, that our agency might be free indeed, to choose good or evil, that we might merit the reward of our own choice and conduct. But by the power of the Spirit, in the redemption of Christ, through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul, which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home." [1]

"A Glance Behind the Curtain."--Closely akin to these reflections, are some pointed and telling lines in which the poet Lowell expresses his conviction regarding the influence of the unseen world upon the world visible. The action of the poem from which the lines are taken deals with Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden, English patriots, who are represented as about to flee from the tyranny of King Charles the First, and seek a new home overseas, joining the little band of Puritans who have already found a haven on western Atlantic shores. Hampden urges flight, but Cromwell hesitates. Something within tells him not to go--tells him that Freedom has a work for him to go--tells him that Freedom has a work for him to do, not in America, but in his own land, where he afterwards overthrew the royal tyrant, became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and broadened and deepened the foundations of English liberty. The opening verses of the poem contain the crux of the whole matter under discussion:

We see but half the causes of our deeds, Seeking them wholly in the outer life, And heedless of the encircling spirit world, Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us All germs of pure and world-wide purposes.

The fate of England and of freedom once Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man. One step of his, and the great dial-hand That marks the destined progress of the world In the eternal round from wisdom on To higher wisdom, had been made to pause A hundred years.

That step he did not take-- He knew not why, nor we, but only God, And lived to make his simple oaken chair More terrible and grandly beautiful, More full of majesty than any throne, Before or after, of a British king. [2]

A Well Warranted Conviction.--How much of fact and how much of fiction, are here interwoven, matters not for the purpose of this argument. It was the poet's belief that such things could be, a belief shared by myriads of Christian men and women, and confirmed by a multiplicity of experiences.

Columbus and "The Voice."--In another poem--"Columbus"--Lowell sets forth the same idea, that of whisperings or suggestions from beyond the "veil" hiding the spirit world from this world of flesh and blood. The great mariner is supposed to be standing on the deck of his ocean-tossed vessel, soliloquizing over the situation surrounding him: A yet undiscovered country ahead, a mutinous and grumbling crew behind, threatening to put him in irons and turn the ship's prow toward Spain, if sight of the promised shore of India--for which Columus set sail--came not with the break of dawn. A world of care weighs him down, a sense of solitude and utter loneliness, but his soul hears "the voice that errs not," and is patient and trustful to the hour of complete triumph. [3]

Nephi and the Spirit.--That it was indeed "the voice that errs not" which inspired Columbus, upholding and urging him on to the consummation of the great enterprise he had undertaken, we have sacred and indisputable evidence. Long before Columbus crossed the ocean, an American prophet and seer, Nephi by name, looking down the vista of twenty centuries, forecast the career of that man of destiny, telling how "the Spirit of God" would impel him to cross "the many waters" to this "promised land;" and how the same Spirit, moving upon others, would induce them to follow in the wake of the mighty explorer. That prophet beheld in vision the war for American Independence, the successful struggle of the oppressed colonies against the mother country, and the founding here of a free government, a heaven-favored nation, destined to foster and give protection to the growing work of God in after days. And this revealing Spirit--so Nephi affirms--was more than an inward monitor: "I spake unto him as a man speaketh, for I beheld that he was in the form of man; yet, nevertheless, I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord! and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another." [4]

The Holy Ghost.--Evidently it was the Holy Ghost who communed with Nephi, though he is here spoken of as "the Spirit of God, and 'the Spirit of the Lord." "The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit," [5] and though not in a tabernacle like the Father or the Son, he is nevertheless in human form, and Nephi beheld him and conversed with him.

The Unerring Guide.--The experience of Columbus differed from that of Nephi, notably in this particular: Nephi "beheld," while Columbus was moved upon--yet it was the same Spirit in each instance. It was of the Holy Ghost that the Savior was speaking, when he said to his disciples: "He will guide you into all truth." [6] The mission of the Holy Ghost is to make manifest the things of God, past, present and future, explaining the purpose of this mortal life, revealing to man his eternal origin and destiny, and answering the otherwise unanswerable questions--whence? whither? and why?

Wordsworth's "Intimation."--It was this Spirit that inspired the poet Wordsworth, bringing the forgotten past to his remembrance, and prompting the utterance of the noble thoughts embodied in these lofty lines:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home. [7]

Truth and Bigotry.--The big thought was too broad for the narrow, rigid orthodoxy of Wordsworth's time, which could allow for the pre-existence of the Son of God, but not for that of the race in general. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." [8] This wonderful prayer from the lips of the Savior was too plain to be misunderstood. It was clear that Jesus Christ, "the Word" that was "in the beginning with God," and "was God," before he "was made flesh," [9] had lived before this life. But man, "mere man," was an earth-worm, made out of nothing, and consequently had no pre-existence. So Christian orthodoxy maintained; and Wordsworth had to recant or half-way deny that his heaven-inspired "intimation" meant as much as his bigoted censors seemed to fear. Nevertheless,

"Got but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born, that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake."

The truth uttered by the great "poet of nature" touching the previous life, was probably accepted by thousands of advanced thinkers; and their acceptance helped to prepare the way for a more positive and more complete presentation of the great doctrine of man's pre-existence. In this connection the subjoined verses from the pen of a "Mormon" poet, tell their own eloquent story:

O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place! When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face? In thy holy habitation Did my spirit once reside; In my first primeval childhood Was I nurtured near thy side.

For a wise and glorious purpose Thou hast placed me here on earth, And withheld the recollection Of my former friends and birth. Yet, ofttimes a secret something Whispered, "You're a stranger here," And I felt that I had wandered From a more exalted sphere.

I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high; But until the Key of Knowledge Was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason-truth eternal Tells me I've a Mother there.

When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I meet you In your royal courts on high? Then, at length, when I've completed All you sent me forth to do, With your mutual approbation Let me come and dwell with you. [10]

How wonderfully clear and comprehensive!--past, present and future circumscribed in brief compass, the mystery of the former life unfolded, the meaning of all existence made plain.

Maeterlinck and "The Bluebird."--Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, author of "The Bluebird," in that section of his dramatic masterpiece entitled "The Kingdom of the Future," deals with the pre-mortal life, and with the spirits of little children waiting to be brought down to earth to be born here. Old Father Time is there with his barge, gathering in the tiny passengers, holding back some whose turn is not yet, and permitting others whose birth-hour is about to strike. The barge being filled, he sails away, and mingling with the sweet strains of children's voices, hailing the distant planet that is to be their new abode, rises from below the song of the mothers coming out to meet them. When the poet's inspired mind conceived this beautiful creation, had he heard of Eliza R. Snow and her invocation to the Eternal Father and Mother?

The Same Note.--I do not impute plagiarism in such cases. There is no monopoly of Truth. It reveals itself to whomsoever it will, and sometimes it tells to several persons, at different times and places, the same thing. Suffice it, that Eliza R. Snow, when she sang of the "first primeval childhood," sounded the identical note subsequently struck by Maurice Maeterlinck, when portraying so tenderly and so tellingly the heavenly origin and earthly advent of the spirits that tabernacle in mortality.

Fame's Partiality.--Inspiration was kind to both poets, but fame has been somewhat partial. Some day, when bigotry is dead and prejudice no longer has power to blind men's eyes to the truth and pervert their judgment, the just claims of all inspired teachers will be recognized, if not recompensed. Meanwhile the world will go on glorifying one and crying down another, as it always has done. It will continue "tossing high its ready cap" in honor of Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, for the beautiful truths set forth in his sublime symbolic drama; little realizing that the American prophet, Joseph Smith, and some who sat at his feet learning wisdom from his lips, taught the same and greater truths long before Maeterlinck was born.

Communications from the Departed.--Many instances might be given of the action and influence of "the other world" upon this world The experiences of the Latter-day Saints alone would fill volumes. I refer particularly to those connected with the gathering up of genealogies for use in temple work, and the work itself done vicariously for the benefit of the departed. By dreams and visions, by voices and other manifestations, spirits "behind the veil" have made known their wishes to surviving relatives in the flesh, so that their left-over tasks might be done for them, the records of their ancestors secured, and they in like manner redeemed through sacred ordinances performed in their behalf and necessary to their progress and happiness in spheres beyond.

Footnotes

1. Gospel Doctrine, pp. 15, 16. "Columbus."

2. J. R. Lowell's Poems, "A Glance Behind the Curtain."

4. 1 Nephi 11:11; 13:10:19.

5. D. & C. 130:22.

6. John 16:13.

7. Wordsworth's Poems, "Intimations of Immortality," first published in 1807.

8. John 17:5.

9. Ib. 1:1-14.

10. Eliza R. Snow's "Invocation," L. D. S. Hymn Book.

ARTICLE THIRTY-NINE.

Do the Dead Return?

Hamlet and the Ghost.--I had always thought it strange that a great Christian poet like Shakespeare, after portraying, as he does in "Hamlet," an interview between the Prince of Denmark and his father's ghost, should refer to the spirit world as "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." Had not the ghost returned from that very "country," for the special purpose of this interview?

While deeming it contradictory, my admiration and reverence for the immortal bard induced me to minimize and even excuse the apparent inconsistency. In his behalf I argued that it was Hamlet, not Shakespeare, who interviewed the Ghost at Castle Elsinore; that it was the prince and not the poet who soliloquized relative to the non-returning "traveler." I took the ground that Shakespeare, in writing the play of "Hamlet," was not presenting the author's autobiography, and should not, therefore, be held responsible for the idiosyncrasies of "the melancholy Dane;" he being mad, and mad people having the right to say what they please, no matter how much they contradict themselves or speak and act inconsistently.

A Better Defense.--But all the while there was a better defense for both Shakespeare and Hamlet--it a certain hypothesis be well founded, the supporters of which would have us believe that the famed soliloquy, "To be or not be," wherein the allusion to the spirit "traveler" occurs, originally had place nearer the beginning of the play and before Hamlet had seen the Ghost. Not Shakespeare, therefore, nor Hamlet, but some one who tampered with the poet's masterpiece after his death--"a custom more honored in the breach than the observance"--is to be held responsible for the incongruity. Such is the suggestion put forth by one or more literary savants. Allowing it to be true, Shakespeare and the Bible are thus reconciled, and Hamlet is no longer in the attitude of disputing the sacred account of the risen Savior's personal appearing to his disciples, after his return from the spirit world. [1]

Belasco and "Peter Grimm."--That the creator of Hamlet and Macbeth believed in spirits, and made plentiful use of them as part of his "celestial machinery," is evident from the works of the master dramatist; and that his talented disciple, David Belasco, likewise favors such usage, is plainly shown in that intensely interesting book and play, "The Return of Peter Grimm." Let me briefly review the story.

Peter Grimm, an honest, elderly Dutch-American, carrying on the business of florist at Grimm Manor, a suburb of New York City, has a friend and family physician in Alexander McPherson, who, I need not say, is a Scotchman. He is also a spiritualist, deeply interested in the laws of psychic phenomena, and exceedingly tenacious of his occult views.

Grim is bluntly skeptical upon the subject, and he and his Scotch friend have many a warm debate thereon. Finally McPherson proposes a compact to this effect: Whichever one of the twain shall pass away first, his spirit will return, if possible, and communicate with the other, making known the secrets of the after life. Grimm laughs at the idea, even ridicules it, but at last consents, and with a flash of humor suggestive of his name, says: "If I find I am wrong, when I come back I will apologize."

A little later the florist dies suddenly of heart failure. He passes into the spirit world, and there obtains leave to "revisit the glimpses of the moon," as Hamlet puts it; in other words, to return to Grimm Manor and rectify a mistake made by him while in the flesh--a mistake affecting the happiness of his adopted daughter Kathrien, who, yielding to his insistence, has given up the man she loved, and has agreed to marry Grimm's nephew, Frederic. This young man is a villain, whose unworthiness his uncle discovers after his arrival in "the undiscovered country," from which he now proposes to "return" and prevent the marriage previously planned.

The wrong is to be righted by the delivery of a message. But how "get the message across?" That is the problem of the play. "Not every one can receive a communication from the spirit world." So McPherson has said in one of his conversations with Grimm, adding that "the receiver must be a sensitive, a medium."

Strange to say, the old Scotch physician is of no help whatever in the predicament now facing his departed friend. He knows all about spirits--is saturated with the lore of the subject; but he is not a "sensitive," and cannot therefore "receive."

The spirit of Grimm, re-entering his old home, makes persistent efforts to be seen or heard by some member of the household; but all in vain. None of his family, none of his friends, can behold him or hear his pathetic pleadings. Yes--there is one who can; a little invalid boy, Frederick's illegitimate child, who is wasting away with a fever. The veil is thin between him and the spirit land, to which he will accompany Peter Grimm, after the latter's earthly errand is accomplished. This little lad is a "sensitive." He sees the spirit, receives the message, and the threatened misalliance is averted, Kathrien and her worthy lover being happily reunited.

Fiction and Fact.--Such is the story of Peter Grimm and his return from the world of spirits. It is pure fiction, of course; but fiction often supports fact, and is even less strange, as a well-worn proverb affirms. Nevertheless, it will be seen from what follows that I am not in absolute harmony with Belasco's ingenious presentation of the spiritualistic theme. My views upon the subject are not based upon the theories of men; they are founded upon the revelations of God.

Spirits in Prison.--That the inhabitants of the spirit world, or some of them, return at times and communicate with mortals, I am perfectly well assured. But I am not convinced that any and every spirit is at liberty to return, whatever the "compacts" that may have been entered into beforehand. Some spirits are "in prison." [2] Of what avail would a compact be in their case, unless their jailor or some higher power were a party to it? Evidently the spirits that communicate with mortals are not of that class, unless it be in exceptional cases, where leave of absence has been granted for some special reason.

A House of Order.--God's house is a house of order, and the spirit world is a room in that house. This being the case, it is only reasonable to conclude that before anything important or unusual can take place there, the Master of the Mansion must first give consent. Otherwise confusion would prevail, and the divine purpose for which the veil was dropped between the two worlds might be thwarted.

Unembodied and Disembodied Spirits.--Spirits are of two kinds--the unembodied and the disembodied; that is to say, those who have not tabernacled in the flesh, and those who after taking bodies on earth, have passed out of them. It matters not which class is considered; in any case, permission from the Great Father would have to be obtained before one of his children, either an unembodied or a disembodied spirit, could make itself manifest to mortals.

The Question of Receptivity.--Moreover, as Belasco, through Dr. McPherson, aims to show, not every mortal is qualified to receive a message from "the other side." One must be fittingly endowed, must have the proper gift, in order to get a communication of that kind. [3] Earthly ties would not necessarily govern. Other and higher relationships are involved. There must be capacity as well as a desire to receive. Because men like Moses and Joseph Smith saw God, is no sign that any man can see him. "Choice seers" were they, very different from ordinary men. All human beings can obtain blessings from heaven, but not always in the same way. There are diversities of gifts and varying degrees of receptivity. Wireless telegraphy furnishes a hint in this connection. Unless there be a receiving station with an apparatus properly attuned, a message launched upon the ether would find, like Noah's dove, "no rest for the sole of her foot." [4]

Future Occupations.--In one of the supposed conversations between Peter Grimm and Doctor McPherson, the subject of future occupations is discussed. The "compact" having been entered into, the Doctor says: "I would like you to find out, if you can, what we do in the other world. I would like to know if I have got to go on being a bone-setter throughout all eternity." Grimm's reply is characteristic: "Well, you would stand a better chance for success, having practiced it all your life here, than a novice who simply took it up there, wouldn't you?"

The florist's argument is logical, but like the question that called it forth, somewhat misapplied. "A spirit hath not flesh and bones." [5] Bone-setting, therefore, does not belong to the spirit world. Nevertheless, there must be occupations in the future life, of which those in the present life may be regarded as typical, or in the nature of a preparation, leading up to loftier employments. If a follower of Joseph Smith were asked: "How do you expect to spend eternity?" he would not agree with that clergyman who said, in answer to the same question: "I expect to spend the first million years gazing upon the face of the Savior." The Latter-day Saint would be very apt to reply: "I expect to do hereafter what I have learned to do here, but with more perfect means and in higher and better ways."

"And every power find sweet employ In that eternal world of joy."

Evil Spirits at Large.--A very important question now arises: How may good or bad spirits be known? For every spirit is not good, nor is every spiritual manifestation genuine. There are frauds and counterfeits innumerable. Even if real spirits and actual manifestations are alone considered, we must still be on our guard against deception. There are many evil spirits in this world--spirits that have never had bodies. They are here by permission or toleration of the Most High, against whom they rebelled when the Savior was chosen. Satan and his legions, those cast out of heaven, are all wicked spirits, and they wander up and down the world, endeavoring to lead mortals astray. Wherever possible, they take possession of the bodies of men and even of the lower animals. [6] Therefore is power given to the Priesthood to "cast out devils." [7] Against these fallen spirits, mortals must be ever on the defensive, lest their souls be ensnared. Temptation, however, is an important factor in man's probation; for by resisting it, the soul is developed and made stronger. This is probably one reason why the pernicious activity of such spirits is tolerated. Punished in part by being denied bodies, the full penalty for their misdeeds--the second death--is yet to be visited upon them.

Spiritualism a Reality.--Spiritualism is not altogether what some people imagine. Despite the frauds connected with it, it is a reality, and was recognized as such long before Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir A. Conan Doyle proclaimed their conversion thereto, thus lending to it the prestige of their illustrious names. But all realities are not righteous. Because there is a devil--an actual demon and his dupes, is no reason why we should associate with them, confide in them, or accept their evil communications.

How can We Know?--There are bad spirits as well as good, and the vital question is: How can we know the difference between them? Let us at this stage consult an expert--for there are such--one who came in contact with spiritual forces to a marvelous extent, not only receiving messages from other worlds, but also interviewing the messengers. Joseph Smith knew the difference between good and evil communicants, and here is his testimony concerning them:

Expert Testimony.--"When a messenger comes, saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand, and request him to shake hands with you.

"If he be an angel, he will do so, and you will feel his hand." [An angel is a resurrected being, with a body as tangible as man's.]

"If he be the spirit of a just man made perfect, he will come in his glory; for that is the only way he can appear.

"Ask him to shake hands with you, but he will not move, because it is contrary to the order of heaven for a just man to deceive; but he will still deliver his message.

"If it be the Devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to shake hands, he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything [he also being without a body]. You may therefore detect him." [8]

In another place, the Prophet says: "Wicked spirits have their bounds, limits and laws, by which they are governed; and it is very evident that they possess a power that none but those who have the Priesthood can control." [9] To his declaration that "a man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge," he adds that if men do not get knowledge, including the knowledge of how to control evil spirits, the latter will have more power than the former, and thus be able to dominate them. This is precisely the condition of "the spirits in prison." They are dominated by a power which they cannot control. They are in Hell, and Satan sways the scepter over his own dominion.

Seek Knowledge Aright.--To those in quest of spiritual light, this word of counsel: Seek it only in the Lord's appointed way. Follow the advice of the Apostle James and the example of Joseph the Prophet. [10] Never go upon the Devil's ground. Keep away from all deceptive influence. One may believe in hypnotism, without being a hypnotist, without surrendering one's will to the will of the person exercising that power--a very dangerous power when wielded by an unprincipled possessor. In like manner, one may believe spiritualism real, without becoming a spiritualist, without attending "seances," without consulting "mediums," without putting trust in planchettes, ouija boards, automatic pencils, false impersonations, or in any way encouraging the advances of designing spirits, who thus gain an ascendancy over their victims, leading them into mazes of delusion, and often into depths of despair. Go not after them; and if they come to you, put them to the test. "Try the spirits." [11] If they speak not according to revealed truth, if they conform not to divine standards, "it is because there is no light in them." [12]

The Great Return.--Yes, the dead, or the departed, do return. They are no more dead than we are. Nay, not so much. The Savior's reappearance after death to his amazed and incredulous disciples--what was that but a return, a real return, from the realm of the departed, where in the interim between his crucifixion and resurrection, he "preached to the spirits in prison?" Moreover, the ascended Lord promised another return, or his angel promised it for him, when the "men of Galilee" stood "gazing up into heaven," after "a cloud" had "received him out of their sight." [13] That glorious return is nigh. All the signs so indicate. May the kingly Traveler from heaven to earth meet a royal welcome when he appears!

Footnotes

1. Luke 24:36-39.

2. 1 Peter 3:18-20.

3. 1 Cor. 12:4-11.

4. Gen. 8:9.

5. Luke 24:39.

6. Acts 19:13-16; Mark 5:12, 3.

7. Ib. 16:17; Hist. Ch. Vol. 5, p. 403.

8. D. & C. 129:4-8.

9. Hist. Ch. Vol. 4, p. 576.

10. James 1:5; Hist. Ch. Vol. 1, pp. 4, 5.

11. 1 John 4:1.

12. Isa. 8:20.

13. Acts 1:9-11.

ARTICLE FORTY.

The Goal Eternal.

Dante and the Divine Comedy.--In the thirteenth century a great Italian poet, the immortal Dante, produced a wonderful work, "La Divina Comedia"--in English, "The Divine Comedy." In one part of the poem the author represents himself as passing through Hades. In the first circle of the infernal depths, a region called "Limbo"--described by a footnote in my copy of the work as a place "containing the souls of unbaptized children and of those virtuous men and women who lived before the birth of our Savior"--he comes upon such characters as Homer, Virgil, Plato and others of their class, and the spirit guide who is conducting him through "the realms of shade," says:

--Inquirest thou not what spirits Are these, which thou beholdest? Ere thou pass Farther, I would thou know, that these of sin Were blameless; and if aught they merited It profits not, since baptism was not theirs, The portal to thy faith. If they before The Gospel lived, they served not God aright; And among such am I. For these defects And for no other evil, we are lost; Only so far afflicted, that we live Desiring without hope. [1]

And this was all that thirteenth century theology could say for worthies of that stamp--the best and brightest spirits of their times. Blameless, and yet in hell, "desiring without hope," simply because they had lived on earth when the Gospel was not on earth, and had not been baptized! Whether or not, as some think, it was the intent of the poet to covertly satirize such teachings, is immaterial at the present time. It is sufficient that he had such teachings to satirize.

Truth's Restoration Imperative.--If any reader of mine wishes to know why Joseph Smith and "Mormonism" came into the world, he need look no further to find one of the cardinal reasons. It is furnished in those lines from Dante's masterpiece, setting forth the orthodox tenet and teaching of the Christian Church regarding the spirits of the good who depart this life without undergoing the baptismal ordinance. This, and that other man-made doctrine, that half to be damned, regardless of any good or evil done by them--little children being included in both classes--were widely preached in Christendom at the time of the advent of "Mormonism." It was imperative that a prophet should arise, that the pure primitive faith should be restored, and God's word go forth once more on its mission of justice and mercy.

"According to Their Works."--Whatever Christian theology may have taught, or whatever it may teach, in support of such doctrines, the fact remains that the Gospel of Christ does not, and never did dispose of men's precious souls in that unrighteous, unreasonable, unscriptural manner. It does not prejudge, nor save nor damn, regardless of men's deserts. Rewarding all according to their works, [2] it gives to every creature, living or dead, the opportunity to accept or reject it before final judgment. [3] God is not trying to damn the world; he is trying to save it--but not independently of the principles of truth and righteousness.

A Nautical Illustration.--I was crossing the Atlantic on an ocean-liner, and had been fortunate enough to secure a first-cabin berth, the only one remaining unsold when I made my purchase. There were upwards of a hundred passengers in that part of the vessel. The second-cabin compartment contained perhaps twice as many; and in the steerage were several hundred more.

The first-cabin berths were the best furnished and the most favorably situated for comfort, convenience and safety. The passengers were shown every courtesy; their food was of the choicest; the captain and other officers were their associates, and they enjoyed the full freedom of the ship. They might go down onto the second-cabin deck, or lower down, into the steerage, and return without hindrance or question. They had paid for these privileges, and were therefore entitled to them.

But it was different in the lower compartment. There the food was not so good, the berths were less comfortable, and the privileges fewer. The second-class passengers could descend into the steerage, but were not permitted upon the first-cabin deck.

Conditions in the steerage were even less favorable. The food was still poorer, and the restrictions were yet more rigid. The occupants of that section were not allowed even second-class privileges. They had to remain right where they were. Having paid only for steerage accommodations, these were all that they could consistently claim.

A Likeness of Human Destiny.--I was struck with the analogy existing between the things that I beheld and the higher things which they seemed to symbolize. I saw another illustration of the proverb, "The earthly typifies the heavenly," and received fresh confirmation of the poetic truth: "All things have their likeness." That ocean-going steamer was a likeness of human destiny, projecting the eternal future of Adam's race, as made known by divine revelation. All souls rewarded according to their works--their varied works--and saved and glorified in the "many mansions" of the Father. [4]

Celestial Glory--The Church of the First Born.--"And this is the testimony of the gospel of Christ concerning those who come forth in the resurrection of the just:

"They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name, and were baptized after the manner of his burial; . . . .

"That by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power;

"And who overcome by faith, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, which the Father sheds forth upon all those who are just and true . . . .

"They are they who are the Church of the First-born.

"They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things--

"They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness and of his glory . . . .

"Wherefore, as it is written, they are Gods, even the sons of God--

"Wherefore, all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ's and Christ is God's . . . .

"These shall dwell in the presence of God and his Christ forever and ever . . . .

"These are they whom he shall bring with him, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven, to reign on the earth over his people.

"These are they who shall have part in the first resurrection.

"These are they who shall come forth in the resurrection of the just.

"These are they who are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly place, the holiest of all.

"These are they who have come to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of Enoch, and of the first-born.

"These are they whose names are written in heaven, where God and Christ are the judge of all.

"These are they who are just men made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood.

"These are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical." [5]

In other words--if the maritime metaphor be allowed--they were first-cabin passengers over the sea of mortal life. They gave to the great Captain the fulness of their obedience, and received from him the fulness of recognition and reward. All privileges, all possessions, are theirs. They associate with divine beings, and are themselves divine.

Terrestrial Glory.--Concerning those who attain to a terrestrial sphere, "whose glory differs from that of the Church of the First-Born, as the moon differs from the sun," the Vision goes on to say:

"Behold, these are they who died without law.

"And also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh.

"Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.

"These are they who are honorable men of the earth who were blinded by the craftiness of men.

"These are they who receive of his glory, but not of his fulness.

"These are they who receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father;

"Wherefore they are bodies terrestrial, and not bodies celestial, and differ in glory as the moon differs from the sun.

"These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus; wherefore they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God." [6]

Continuing the comparison: These voyagers paid only for second-rate privileges. They "drew the line," giving a part but not all of their allegiance to Him who hath said: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The things of this world were more precious in their eyes than the riches that perish not and that thieves cannot steal. They loved Truth, but not whole-heartedly. They loved money and pleasure more, and strove for fame and the applause of this world, rather than for the approval of heaven. Though clean of conduct and honorable in deal, they were not zealous for Christ, and knew not the meaning of self-sacrifice. These are worthy of the Kingdom, but not of the Crown; and they shine, not like the golden sun, but like the silvery moon, with a diminished or secondary radiance, with reflected rather than with original light.

Telestial Glory--Servants of the Most High.--As for those who inherit telestial conditions, differing from the terrestrial as the stars differ from the moon--were they not symbolized by the steerage and its occupants?

"These are they who are thrust down to hell. These are they who shall not be redeemed from the Devil, until the last resurrection," at the close of the Millennial reign. Criminals of every type and grade, they "suffer the wrath of God until the fulness of times, until Christ shall have subdued all enemies under his feet and shall have perfected his work." They receive not of "his fulness in the eternal world, but of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of the terrestrial; and the terrestrial through the ministration of the celestial. And also the telestial receive it of the administering of angels who are appointed to minister for them, or who are appointed to be ministering spirits for them, for they shall be heirs of salvation." [7]

The heirs telestial are those who "receive not the Gospel, neither the testimony of Jesus, neither the prophets, neither the everlasting covenant." According to the Vision, they "were as innumerable as the stars in the firmament of heaven, or as the sands upon the seashore." Concerning this vast multitude, the voice of the Lord was heard, saying:

"These all shall bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to Him who sits upon the throne forever and ever.

"For they shall be judged according to their works, and every man shall receive according to his own works his own dominion in the mansions which are prepared.

"And they shall be servants of the Most High, but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end." [8]

The Damned Can Be Saved.--Yes, such is "Mormonism's" astounding declaration--and not only saved, but glorified, if they will repent. The glorified planets are God's kingdoms, and "all kingdoms have a law given"--celestial, terrestrial or telestial. Whosoever inherits any of these kingdoms, must abide the law pertaining to that kingdom. If he cannot abide "the Law of Christ," he must inherit a glory other than the celestial--even a terrestrial or a telestial glory. If he cannot abide a telestial law, he is "not meet for a kingdom of glory;" and if he willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, then must he "remain filthy still." [9]

Sons of Perdition.--One class alone remains outside salvation's pale, permanently condemned--they who commit the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost. For them there is no forgiveness. But one must receive the Holy Ghost before he can sin against it, must have knowledge and power sufficient to entitle him to celestial exaltation; and then prove utterly recreant to the great light that has come to him. Such a sin can be committed only by men equipped with every qualification for the highest degree of eternal glory. It is an offense so heinous that the sinner cannot repent. This is what makes his case hopeless; salvation being predicated upon repentance. If he could repent, he could be forgiven; but being unable to repent, incapable of reformation, he cannot be reached by the pardoning power.

They who commit the sin unpardonable are as first-cabin passengers who, in the full enjoyment of every privilege and advantage pertaining to that highly favored condition, wilfully throw all away, and recklessly fling themselves overboard, to go down in unfathomable depths. Sons of Perdition, these--"the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power"--"the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord." They "deny the Son, after the Father has revealed him. Wherefore, he saves all except them." [10]

Desires As Well as Deeds a Basis of Judgment.--But the final word was not yet spoken. At a date subsequent to that upon which Joseph and Sidney received this wonderful manifestation, the heavens were again opened to the Prophet, and he beheld the glory--the transcendent glory of the Celestial Kingdom, [11] He saw that little children, those "who die before they arrive at the years of accountability," are saved in that kingdom. He also saw his brother Alvin--a good and worthy man, but one who had not been baptized, he having died before the Gospel came--saw him in celestial glory! Joseph marveled at the sight, wondering how Alvin could have risen to so exalted a plane. Then came the voice of the Lord to him, saying: "All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts." [12]

Mormonism's Magnanimity.--And yet "Mormonism" is said to be narrow, small and illiberal. Narrow, forsooth! Then where will you find breadth? Where find justice, mercy, magnanimity, if not in a religion that saves the living, redeems the dead, rescues the damned, and glorifies all who repent? "Mormonism" a small thing? It's the biggest thing in the universe! It is the Everlasting Gospel, the mighty soul-ship of the dispensations, launched in the days of Adam upon the heaving ocean of the ages, and now on its last voyage over the stormy billows of Time to the beaconing coast of Eternity.

Footnotes

1. Hades or Hell, Canto 4, lines 29-39.

2. Rev. 20:12.

3. I Peter 4:6.

4. John 14:2.

5. Vision of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, D. & C. 76:50-70. See also 131:1. Compare 1 Cor. 15:40-42.

6. D. & C. 76:72-79.

7. D. & C. 76:84-88.

8. D. & C. 76:110-112.

9. Ib. 88:21-40.

10. D. & C. 76:31-44.

11. February 16th, 1832, was the date of Joseph and Sidney's vision; January 21st, 1836 the date of the other manifestation.

12. Hist. Ch. Vol. 2, p. 380. Compare Alma 29:4,5.

We are not to infer that Alvin Smith or anyone else could inherit celestial glory, without receiving the fulness of the Gospel. It was a prophetic vision, showing what would be when Alvin had done his part, and the part that he could not do had been done for him. The same vision showed the parents of the Prophet--Joseph and Lucy Smith--in celestial glory; and yet at that time they were still alive on earth. We are not to infer that Alvin Smith or anyone else could inherit celestial glory, without receiving the fulness of the Gospel. It was a prophetic vision, showing what would be when Alvin had done his part, and the part that he could not do had been done for him. The same vision showed the parents of the Prophet--Joseph and Lucy Smith--in celestial glory; and yet at that time they were still alive on earth.

End of Project Gutenberg's Saturday Night Thoughts, by Orson F. Whitney