THE TRINITY OF MOTHERHOOD--EVE, SARAH, AND ZION--THE MORMON THEORY
CONCERNING OUR FIRST PARENTS.
A trinity of Mothers!
The celestial Masonry of Womanhood!
The other half of the grand patriarchal economy of the heavens and the
earths!
The book of patriarchal theology is full of new conceptions. Like the
star-bespangled heavens--like the eternities which it mantles--is that
wondrous theology!
New to the world, but old as the universe. 'Tis the everlasting book of
immortals, unsealed to mortal view, by these Mormon prophets.
A trinity of Mothers--Eve the Mother of a world; Sarah the Mother of
the covenant; Zion the Mother of celestial sons and daughters--the
Mother of the new creation of Messiah's reign, which shall give to
earth the crown of her glory and the cup of joy after all her ages of
travail.
Still tracing down the divine themes of Joseph; still faithfully
following the methods of that vast patriarchal economy which shall
be the base of a new order of society and of the temple of a new
civilization.
When Brigham Young proclaimed to the nations that Adam was our Father
and God, and Eve, his partner, the Mother of a world--both in a mortal
and a celestial sense--he made the most important revelation ever
oracled to the race since the days of Adam himself.
This grand patriarchal revelation is the very keystone of the "new
creation" of the heavens and the earth. It gives new meaning to the
whole system of theology--as much new meaning to the economy of
salvation as to the economy of creation. By the understanding of the
works of the Father, the works of the Son are illumined.
The revelation was the "Let there be light" again pronounced. "And
there was light!"
"And God created man in his own image; in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them.
"And God blessed them; and God said unto them, be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it."
Here is the very object of man and woman's creation exposed in the
primitive command. The first words of their genesis are, "Be fruitful
and multiply."
So far, it is of but trifling moment _how_ our "first parents" were
created; whether like a brick, with the spittle of the Creator and the
dust of the earth, or by the more intelligible method of generation.
The prime object of man and woman's creation was for the _purposes of
creation_.
"Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it," by
countless millions of your offspring.
Thus opened creation, and the womb of everlasting motherhood throbbed
with divine ecstacy.
It is the divine command still. All other maybe dark as a fable, of
the genesis of the race, but this is not dark. Motherhood to this hour
leaps for joy at this word of God, "Be fruitful;" and motherhood is
sanctified as by the holiest sacrament of nature.
We shall prefer Brigham's expounding of the dark passages of Genesis.
Our first parents were not made up like mortal bricks. They came to be
the Mother and the Father of a new creation of souls.
We say Mother now, first, for we are tracing this everlasting theme of
motherhood, in the Mormon economy, without which nothing of the woman
part of the divine scheme can be known--next to nothing of patriarchal
marriage, to which we are traveling, be expounded.
Eve--immortal Eve--came down to earth to become the Mother of a race.
How become the Mother of a world of mortals except by herself again
becoming mortal? How become mortal only by transgressing the laws of
immortality? How only by "eating of the forbidden fruit"--by partaking
of the elements of a mortal earth, in which the seed of death was
everywhere scattered?
All orthodox theologians believe Adam and Eve to have been at first
immortal, and all acknowledge the great command, "Be fruitful and
multiply."
That they were not about to become the parents of a world of immortals
is evident, for they were on a mortal earth. That the earth was mortal
all nature here to-day shows. The earth was to be subdued by teeming
millions of mankind--the dying earth actually eaten, in a sense, a
score of times, by the children of these grand parents.
The fall is simple. Our immortal parents came down to fall; came down
to transgress the laws of immortality; came down to give birth to
mortal tabernacles for a world of spirits.
The "forbidden tree," says Brigham, contained in its fruit the elements
of death, or the elements of mortality. By eating of it, blood was
again infused into the tabernacles of beings who had become immortal.
The basis of mortal generation is blood. Without blood no mortal can
be born. Even could immortals have been conceived on earth, the trees
of life had made but the paradise of a few; but a mortal world was the
object of creation then.
Eve, then, came down to be the Mother of a world.
Glorious Mother, capable of dying at the very beginning to give life
to her offspring, that through mortality the eternal life of the Gods
might be given to her sons and daughters.
Motherhood the same from the beginning even to the end! The love of
motherhood passing all understanding! Thus read our Mormon sisters the
fall of their Mother.
And the serpent tempted the woman with the forbidden fruit.
Did woman hesitate a moment then? Did motherhood refuse the cup for her
own sake, or did she, with infinite love, take it and drink for her
children's sake? The Mother had plunged down, from the pinnacle of her
celestial throne, to earth, to taste of death that her children might
have everlasting life.
What! should Eve ask Adam to partake of the elements of death first, in
such a sacrament! 'Twould have outraged motherhood!
Eve partook of that supper of the Lord's death first. She ate of that
body and drank of that blood.
Be it to Adam's eternal _credit_ that he stood by and let our
Mother--our ever blessed Mother Eve--partake of the sacrifice before
himself. Adam followed the Mother's example, for he was great and
grand--a Father worthy indeed of a world. He was wise, too; for the
_blood of life_ is the stream of mortality.
What a psalm of everlasting praise to woman, that Eve fell first!
A Goddess came down from her mansions of glory to bring the spirits of
her children down after her, in their myriads of branches and their
hundreds of generations!
She was again a mortal Mother now. The first person in the trinity of
Mothers.
The Mormon sisterhood take up their themes of religion with their
Mother Eve, and consent with her, at the very threshold of the temple,
to bear the cross. Eve is ever with her daughters in the temple of the
Lord their God.
The Mormon daughters of Eve have also in this eleventh hour come down
to earth, like her, to magnify the divine office of motherhood. She
came down from her resurrected, they from their spirit, estate. Here,
with her, in the divine providence of maternity, they begin to ascend
the ladder to heaven, and to their exaltation in the courts of their
Father and Mother God.
Who shall number the blasphemies of the sectarian churches against our
first grand parents? Ten thousand priests of the serpent have thundered
anathemas upon the head of "accursed Adam." Appalling, oftentimes,
their pious rage. And Eve--the holiest, grandest of Mothers--has been
made a very by-word to offset the frailties of the most wicked and
abandoned.
Very different is Mormon theology! The Mormons exalt the grand parents
of our race. Not even is the name of Christ more sacred to them
than the names of Adam and Eve. It was to them the poetess and high
priestess addressed her hymn of invocation; and Brigham's proclamation
that Adam is our Father and God is like a hallelujah chorus to their
everlasting names. The very earth shall yet take it up; all the sons
and daughters of Adam and Eve shall yet shout it for joy, to the ends
of the earth, in every tongue!
Eve stands, then, first--the God-Mother in the maternal trinity of
this earth. Soon we shall meet Sarah, the Mother of the covenant, and
in her daughters comprehend something of patriarchal marriage--"Mormon
polygamy." But leave we awhile these themes of woman, and return to the
personal thread of the sisters' lives.