WAR OF THE INVISIBLE POWERS--THEIR MASTER--JEHOVAH'S MEDIUM.
"You have prayed me here! Now what do you want of me?"
The Master had come!
But who was he?
Whence came he?
Good or evil?
Whose prayers had been answered?
--
There was in Kirtland a controversy between the powers of good and
evil, for the mastery. Powers good and evil it would seem to an
ordinary discernment. Certainly powers representing two sources.
This was the prime manifestation of the new dispensation. This
contention of the invisibles for a foothold among mortals.
A Mormon iliad! for such it is! It is the epic of two worlds, in which
the invisibles, with mortals, take their respective parts.
And now it is the dispensation of the fullness of times! Now all the
powers visible and invisible contend for the mastery of the earth in
the stupendous drama of the last days. This is what Mormonism means.
It is a war of the powers above and below to decide who shall give the
next civilization to earth; which power shall incarnate that supreme
civilization with its spirit and genius.
Similar how exactly this has been repeated since Moses and the
magicians of Egypt, and Daniel and the magicians of Babylon, contended.
One had risen up in the august name of Jehovah. Mormonism represents
the powers invisible of the Hebrew God.
Shall Jehovah reign in the coming time? Shall he be the Lord God
omnipotent? This, in its entirety, is the Mormon problem.
Joseph is the prophet of that stupendous question, to be decided in
this grand controversy of the two worlds--this controversy of mortals
and immortals!
There are lords many and gods many, but to the prophet and his people
there is but one God--Jehovah is his name.
A Mormon iliad, nothing else; and a war of the invisibles--a war of
spiritual empires.
That war was once in Kirtland, when the first temple of a new
civilization rose, to proclaim the supreme name of the God of Israel.
No sooner had the Church of Latter-day Saints been established in
the West than remarkable spiritual manifestations appeared. This was
exactly in accordance with the faith and expectations of the disciples;
for the promise to them was that these signs should follow the believer.
But there was a power that the saints could not understand. That it was
a power from the invisible world all readily discerned.
An influence both strange and potent! The power which was not
comprehended was greater, for the time, in its manifestations, than the
spirit which the disciples better understood.
These spiritual manifestations occurred remarkably at the house of
Elder Whitney, where the saints met often to speak one to the other,
and to pray for the power.
The power had come!
It was in the house which had been overshadowed by the magic cloud at
midnight, out of which the angel had prophesied of the coming of the
word of the Lord.
The Lord had come!
His word was given. But which Lord? and whose word? That was the
question in that hour of spiritual controversy.
Similar manifestations were also had in other branches of the church;
and they were given at those meetings called "testimony meetings." At
these the saints testified one to the other of the "great work of God
in the last days," and magnified the gifts of the spirit. But there
were two kinds of gifts and two kinds of spirits.
Some of these manifestations were very similar to those of "modern
spiritualism." Especially was this the case with what are styled
physical manifestations.
Others read revelations from their hands; holding them up as a book
before them. From this book they read passages of new scriptures. Books
of new revelations had been unsealed.
In letters of light and letters of gold, writing appeared to their
vision, on the hands of these "mediums."
What was singular and confounding to the elders was that many, who
could neither read nor write, while under "the influence," uttered
beautiful language extemporaneously. At this these "mediums" of the
Mormon Church (twenty years before our "modern mediums" were known),
would exclaim concerning the "power of God" manifested through them;
challenging the elders, after the spirit had gone out of them, with
their own natural inability to utter such wonderful sayings, and do
such marvelous things.
As might be expected the majority of these "mediums" were among the
sisters. In modern spiritual parlance, they were more "inspirational."
Indeed for the manifestation of both powers the sisters have always
been the "best mediums" (adopting the descriptive epithet now so
popular and suggestive).
And this manifestation of the "two powers" in the church followed
the preaching of the Mormon gospel all over the world, especially in
America and Great Britain. It was God's spell and the spell of some
other spiritual genius.
Where the one power was most manifested, there it was always found that
the power from the "other source" was about equally displayed.
So abounding and counterbalancing were these two powers in nearly all
the branches of the church in the early rise of Mormonism, in America
and Great Britain, that spiritual manifestations became regarded very
generally as fire that could burn as well as bless and build up the
work of God.
An early hymn of the dispensation told that "the great prince of
darkness was mustering his forces;" that a battle was coming "between
the two kingdoms;" that the armies were "gathering round," and that
they would "soon in close battle be found."
To this is to be attributed the decline of spiritual gifts in a later
period in the Mormon Church, for the "spirits" were poured out so
abundantly that the saints began to fear visions, and angels, and
prophesy, and the "speaking in tongues."
Thus the sisters, who ever are the "best mediums" of spiritual gifts in
the church, have, in latter years, been shorn of their glory. But the
gifts still remain with them; and the prophesy is that some day, when
there is sufficient wisdom combined with faith, more than the primitive
power will be displayed, and the angels will daily walk and talk with
the people of God.
But in Kirtland in that day there was the controversy of the invisibles.
--
It was in the beginning of the year 1831 that a sleigh drove into the
little town of Kirtland. There were in it a man and his wife with her
girl, and a man servant driving.
They seemed to be travelers, and to have come a long distance rather
than from a neighboring village; indeed they had come from another
State; hundreds of miles from home now; far away in those days for a
man to be thus traveling in midwinter with his wife.
But they were not emigrants; at least seemingly not such; certainly not
emigrants of an ordinary kind.
No caravan followed in their wake with merchandise for the western
market, nor a train of goods and servants to make a home in a
neighboring State.
A solitary sleigh; a man with his wife and two servants; a solitary
sleigh, and far from home.
That they were not fugitives was apparent in the manly boldness of
the chief personage and the somewhat imperial presence of the woman
by his side. This personal air of confidence, and a certain conscious
importance, were quite marked in both, especially in the man.
They were two decided personages come West. Some event was in their
coming. This much the observer might at once have concluded.
There was thus something of mystery about the solitary sleigh and its
occupants.
A chariot with a destiny in it--a very primitive chariot of peace, but
a chariot with a charm about it. The driver might have felt akin to the
boatman who embarked with the imperial Roman: "Fear not--Caesar is in
thy boat!"
The sleigh wended its course through the streets of Kirtland until it
came to the store of Messrs. Gilbert & Whitney, merchants. There it
stopped.
Leaping from the primitive vehicle the personage shook himself lightly,
as a young lion rising from his restful attitude; for the man possessed
a royal strength and a magnificent physique. In age he was scarcely
more than twenty-five; young, but with the stamp of one born to command.
Leaving his wife in the sleigh, he walked, with a royal bearing and a
wonderfully firm step, straight into the store of Gilbert & Whitney.
His bearing could not be other. He planted his foot as one who never
turned back--as one destined to make a mark in the great world at his
every footfall. He had come to Kirtland as though to possess it.
Going up to the counter where stood the merchant Whitney, he tapped
him with hearty affection on the shoulder as he would have done to a
long separated brother or a companion of by-gone years. There was the
magnetism of love in his very touch. Love was the wondrous charm that
the man carried about him.
"Well, Brother Whitney, how do you do?" was his greeting.
"You have the advantage of me," replied Whitney, wondering who his
visitor could be. "I could not call you by name."
"I am Joseph, the prophet!"
It was like one of old making himself known to his brethren--"I am
Joseph, your brother!"
"Well, what do you want of me?" Joseph asked with a smile; and then
with grave solicitude added:
"You have prayed me here, now what do you want of me? The Lord would
not let me sleep at nights; but said, up and take your wife to
Kirtland!"
An archangel's coming would not have been a greater event to the saints
than the coming of Joseph the prophet.
Leaving his store and running across the road to his house, Elder
Whitney exclaimed:
"Who do you think was in that sleigh at the store?"
"Well, I don't know," replied Sister Whitney.
"Why, it is Joseph and his wife. Where shall we put them?"
Then came to the mind of Sister Whitney the vision of the cloud that
had overshadowed her house at midnight, and the words of the angel who
had spoken from the pavilion of his hidden glory. The vision had now to
them a meaning and fulfillment indeed. The sister and her husband who
had heard the "voice" felt that "the word of the Lord" was to be given
to Kirtland in their own dwelling and under the very roof thus hallowed.
One-half of the house was immediately set apart for the prophet and his
wife. The sleigh drove up to the door and Joseph entered with Emma--the
"elect lady" of the church--and they took up their home in the little
city which, with his presence, was now Zion.
It was the controversy of these two powers in the churches in the West
which had called Joseph to Kirtland in the opening of the year 1831.
The church in the State of New York--its birthplace--had been commanded
by revelation to move West, but Joseph hastened ahead with his wife, as
we have seen.
He had been troubled at nights in his visions. He had seen Elder
Whitney and his wife and the good saints praying for his help. This
is how he had known "Brother Whitney" at sight; for Joseph on such
occasions saw all things before him as by a map unfolded to his view.
"Up and take your wife to Kirtland," "the Lord" had commanded. And he
had come. The church, from the State of New York, followed him the
ensuing May.
The master spirit was in Kirtland now. All spirits were subject to him.
That was one ruling feature of his apostleship. He held the keys of the
dispensation. He commanded and the very invisibles obeyed. _They_ also
recognized the master spirit. He was only subject to the God of Israel.
"Peace, be still!" the master commanded, and the troubled waters of
Kirtland were at peace.
There in the chamber which Sister Whitney consecrated to the prophet
the great revelation was given concerning the tests of spirits. There
also many of the revelations were given, some of which form part of the
book of doctrine and covenants. The chamber was thereafter called the
translating room.
Perchance the mystic cloud often overshadowed that house, but the
angel of the new covenant could now enter and speak face to face with
mortal; for Jehovah's prophet dwelt there. To him the heavens unveiled,
and the archangels of celestial spheres appeared in their glory and
administered to him.
Wonderful, indeed, if this be true, of which there is a cloud of
witnesses; and more wonderful still if hosts of angels, good and bad,
have come to earth since that day, converting millions to an age of
revelation, unless one like unto Joseph has indeed unlocked the new
dispensation with an Elijah's keys of power!