SALVATION FOR THE DEAD.
The reader will have observed, doubtless, that according to the history
of the gospel, as given in the last chapter, there have been long
periods of time when it has not been upon the earth.
One of these periods was from the time that Moses and the Holy
Priesthood, together with the fullness of the gospel, were taken from
among the children of Israel, until the restoration of the gospel in
the days of Messiah's ministry in the flesh. Another such period was
from the time the gospel was corrupted, in the first two or three
centuries of the Christian era, and its restoration in the present
dispensation, through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
What became of those who lived in those long periods of time--those
untold millions, who never so much as heard the gospel?--I might push
the inquiry still further, by calling attention to the fact that even
when the gospel has been upon the earth, there are countless millions
who lived and died without having an opportunity of obeying it. What is
their fate?
In order that the force of these remarks may appear more clearly, I
will refer to the present state of the religious world, that is, to the
strength of the respective religions, as represented by numbers:
According to the latest and best information on the subject, there are
throughout the world:
Roman Catholics--206,588,206
Protestants--89,825,348
Greek and Russian Churches--75,691,382
Oriental Churches--6,770,000
Making the total of all Christians--378,874,936
The other religions stand as follows:
Brahminical Hindoos--120,000,000
Followers of Buddha, Shinto and Confucius--482,600,000
Mohammedans--169,054,789
Jews--7,612,784
Parsees (fire worshipers in Persia)--1,000,000
Pagans, not otherwise enumerated--227,000,000
Making a total of--1,007,267,573[A]
[Footnote A: These statements are taken from a recent work published by
Gay Bros. & Co., New York, entitled, "What the World Believes"]
From this showing it is seen that only a little more than one-third of
the world's population are even professing Christians; the other two-thirds
know nothing of Christ or of salvation through his Gospel. No
one, however, will contend that all professing Christianity will be
entitled to salvation, for the very good reason that they do not adopt
its precepts in the practices of their lives; so that the one-third
that are enumerated as Christians would be reduced to much less than
that fraction of the world's population if this consideration is taken
into account.
Even if you grant that the gospel of Christ has been upon the earth for
the past eighteen centuries, as the Christian world claim, here is a
serious question confronting them, _viz_.: What is to be the fate of this
greater part of the children of God who have never heard of Christ, and
know nothing of the Christian religion?
This is a question which confronted those who declared that the gospel
and authority to administer in its ordinances had not been upon the
earth for a number of centuries. It is a question which confronts them
today; but it also may be asked of Christians generally, for even if
you allow that they and their fathers before them have had and still
have the gospel, here is the great majority of the human race--the
children of God--who have not had it in the past generations, and do
not have it even now. What becomes of the neglected ones?
To this question the Saints used to reply, in one of their hymns--
"God is just is all we say, Seek no crop where 'twas not planted,
Nor the day where reigns the night; Now the sunshine bright is
beaming. Let all creatures see aright."
Since those days, however, further light has been revealed from heaven,
which gives enlarged views in respect to the plan of human redemption,
and brings out in strong relief the justice and mercy of God; enlarges
the hope, and dispels the gloom of wretchedness that man-made systems
of theology have cast over religion.
The principle which has performed all this, a principle which is
permeating all religious thought and shattering to their foundations
the old schools of theology, was first revealed by the prophet Elijah,
in the Kirtland Temple, in 1836.
It is written in Malachi: "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he
shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of
the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse."[B]
[Footnote B: Mal. iv: 5, 6. The manner in which Moroni quoted this
scripture to the prophet Joseph Smith was, "Behold I will reveal unto
you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming
of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the
hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts
of the children shall turn to the fathers. If it were not so, the whole
earth would be utterly wasted at His coming." (Pearl of Great Price.)]
This prophecy, for so long before the people in the Jewish scriptures,
yet no one knowing the meaning thereof, was fulfilled by the aforesaid
coming of Elijah to the Kirtland Temple, on the 3rd of April, 1836.
This appearance of Elijah is described as follows--by the way, however,
his appearance was preceded by a vision of the Lord Jesus, then of
Moses, then of Elias, who committed the keys of the dispensation
of the gospel of Abraham--"After this vision had closed," says the
prophet, "another great and glorious vision burst upon us, for Elijah
the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood
before us and said. Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken
of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be
sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, to turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers,
lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of
this dispensation are committed into your hands, and by this ye may
know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the
door."[C]
[Footnote C: Doc. and Cov. sec. cx.]
The key of knowledge this prophet revealed was in relation to salvation
for the dead; the means by which the principles and ordinances of
salvation could be applied to those who had lived in those periods of
time when the gospel was not upon the earth; and also to those who had
lived when the gospel was on the earth, but who had not the privilege
of hearing it; aye, and even to those who had heard and rejected it;
though the spirits of this last class of persons must go to the prison
house where they will be required to pay the utmost farthing for their
wickedness in rejecting the mercies of God; and will, through their
disobedience, have shut themselves out from the heights of glory and
exaltation they might have attained unto had they but accepted the
truth in the love of it, and walked in harmony with its teachings.
This key of knowledge, I say, gives enlarged views of the mercies of
God, and reveals the fact that every man, both in time and eternity,
will always have the privilege of doing right, and reaping the reward
of his righteousness. It brought to light the grand truth that this
earth was not the only place where men could hear the gospel and give
assent to its doctrines. On the contrary it gives us to understand that
in the spirit world the gospel is preached to the departed spirits of
men, that is, to those who have departed from this life and that there
they are instructed in the way of salvation.
These facts give life and meaning to the scripture which says: "Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened
by the Spirit; by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in
prison; which sometimes were disobedient, when the long-suffering of
God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was a preparing, wherein
few, that is eight souls, were saved by water."[D]
[Footnote D: I. Peter iii: 18-20.]
In the chapter following the one I have quoted, the apostle remarks:
"For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,
that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live
according to God in the spirit."[E] This last quotation proves as
plainly as plain statement of holy writ can prove anything, that the
gospel is preached also to the dead, as well as to the living; and not
only that, but likewise assigns the reason why it is preached to them,
_viz_.: that those to whom it is thus preached might live according to
God in the spirit--that is, live in harmony with the precepts of the
gospel taught to them, that they may be judged as men will be who have
the gospel preached to them in the flesh.
[Footnote E: Verse 6.]
The first passage quoted gives us to understand that the spirit of
Jesus went to those spirits that were in prison--to those who had
rejected the gospel in the days of Noah, and who from the time of the
flood until Jesus visited them, had been paying the penalty of their
disobedience in the prison-house prepared for such characters.
In the light of these facts several other scriptures are made plain.
We can understand now more clearly the words of Jesus to his apostles,
when he said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they
that hear shall live."[F] And also the words of Isaiah, when speaking
of the mission of the Son of God, wherein he tells us that not only is
Jesus to be a covenant unto the people, and a light unto the gentiles,
but he is also to bring out the prisoners from the prison house. This
is the passage: "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will
hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of
the people, for a light of the gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to
bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness,
out of the prison house."[G]
[Footnote F: John v: 25.]
[Footnote G: Isaiah xlii: 6, 7.]
And, as it was with those who rejected the gospel in the days of Noah,
so will it be with those who reject the gospel in the days of the
coming of the Son of Man. Such is the prediction of the prophet Isaiah.
After describing the judgments that will attend the glorious coming of
the Son of God, and the punishment that shall overtake the ungodly,
he says: "And it shall come to pass, in that day, that the Lord shall
punish the hosts of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of
the earth, upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as
prisoners are in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison; _and after
many days they shall be visited_."[H]
[Footnote H: Isaiah xxiv: 21, 22.]
But while the gospel is preached in the spirit world, it appears
from all that can be learned upon the subject, that all the outward
ordinances, as baptisms, confirmations, ordinations, anointings,
sealings, etc., etc., must be performed vicariously here upon earth
for those who accept the gospel in the world of spirits. This is the
work that children may do for their progenitors, and upon learning
this, the hearts of the children are turned to their fathers; and the
fathers in the spirit world, learning that they are dependent upon the
action of their posterity for the performance of the ordinances of
salvation, their hearts are turned to the children; and thus the work
that was predicted should be performed by Elijah--turning the hearts
of the children to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the
children, was accomplished in restoring the key of knowledge respecting
the salvation for the dead.
This, however, is no new doctrine. We have already seen that Peter
understood that the Messiah went and preached to the spirits who had
rejected the gospel in the days of Noah; and also that the gospel was
preached to the dead--without confining it to those who lived in the
days of Noah or any other period.
Nor is this all, for Paul says to the saints at Corinth: "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?"[I] And why, I ask, does
Paul make this very plain allusion to baptism for the dead, if there
is no such ordinance connected with the gospel? No other passage of
scripture perplexes the theologians more than this one, and they have
exhausted their ingenuity in trying to explain away the evident meaning
of it, because it is destructive of some of their horrible dogmas in
respect to the eternal damnation of those who do not have the good
fortune to become acquainted with the truth in this probation.
[Footnote I: I. Cor. xv: 29.]
"From the wording of the sentence"--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?--"the most simple impression certainly
is, that Paul speaks of a baptism which a living man receives in the
place of a dead one. This interpretation is particularly adopted by
those expounders with whom grammatical construction is of paramount
importance, and the first thing to be considered."[J] To this
rendering of the passage could be drawn up a long list of respectable
authorities, among them Erasmus, Scaliger, Grotius, Calixtus, Meyer and
De Wette.
[Footnote J: Biblical Literature (Kitto) Art. Baptism.]
Epiphanius, a writer of the fourth century, in speaking of the
Marcionites, a sect of Christians to whom he was opposed, says:
"In this country--I mean Asia--and even in Galatia, their school
flourished eminently; and a traditional fact concerning them has
reached us, that when any of them had died without baptism, they used
to baptize others in their name, lest in the resurrection they should
suffer punishment as unbaptized."[K] This proves beyond controversy the
fact that vicarious baptism for the dead was practiced among some sects
of the early Christians.
[Footnote K: Heresies, xxiii: 7.]
Another fact proves it still more emphatically than this statement
of Epiphanius. The Council of Carthage, held A. D. 397, in its sixth
canon, forbids the administration of baptism and the holy communion for
the dead; and why would this canon be formed against these practices if
they had no existence among the Christians of those days?
We have now seen, not only that baptism for the dead is a principle
known to and doubtless practiced by the Corinthian saints, in the days
of Paul--and evidently with his approval--and by some of the Christian
sects for two or three centuries after his time; but we have also seen
that it was forbidden by the council of an apostate church in the
fourth century.
In the dispensation in which we now live, however, the knowledge of the
ordinance, with a commandment to practice it, and with instructions
necessary to its practice, has been restored; and the erection of
costly temples, in which this and other ordinances for the dead may be
administered, testifies to the zeal with which the Latter-day Saints
enter into this work; and is a living testimony to the world that there
was virtue in the mission of Elijah. He succeeded in turning the hearts
of the children to the fathers; and we may reasonably conclude that
the hearts of the fathers have been turned to the children, for they
without us cannot be made perfect.
This doctrine of salvation for the dead strikes a deadly blow to
the horrible dogmas formulated by uninspired men in the dark ages
of apostasy, in relation to the eternal punishment of those who die
unconverted and in an impenitent condition. According to the aforesaid
dogmas such persons are damned to all eternity, without the least hope
for redemption; and ingenuity has exhausted itself to present to the
mind the duration of their sufferings.
In the month of March, 1830--six years before the coming of Elijah--the
Lord explained, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the meaning of the
terms eternal punishment and endless punishment, in regard to which
men have gone astray. In that explanation it is said: "Behold the
mystery of godliness, how great is it? For, behold, I am Endless, and
the punishment which is given from my hand, is endless punishment, for
Endless is my name; wherefore
"Eternal punishment is God's punishment.
"Endless punishment is God's punishment."[L]
[Footnote L: Doc. and Cov., sec. xix: 10-12.]
The punishment takes its name from him who administers it; and, since
God is Endless, the punishment he inflicts is called endless or eternal.
And, indeed, the punishment exists eternally, and stands ready to be
applied to those who violate the laws of righteousness. But because the
penalty stands ever ready to vindicate any law which may be broken,
it does not necessarily follow that persons violating the law will
for ever have to endure punishment. Mercy, though not allowed to rob
justice, somewhere, and at some time, will step forward and claim her
own; permitting the violator of law to endure punishment no longer than
is necessary to vindicate the law, and satisfy the reasonable claims of
justice. Hence we may conclude, that while the actions of men in this
probation will greatly affect their standing in the life that is to
come, those actions do not, in every case, fix the status of men for
eternity.
This doctrine of salvation for the dead not only enlarges the hope of
man, but it gives him nobler conceptions of the character of the Deity,
and increases his admiration for him. In fact, to my thinking, this
doctrine strips the character of God in the inhuman and vindictive
cruelty which men, in the past, have delighted to represent him as
possessing; and gives new force, and, perhaps, new meaning to the
expression, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all
men the most miserable."
It also vindicates the wisdom of Deity; for it must be a very
imperfect wisdom that would construct a plan for the redemption of
mankind so imperfect in its operations, so limited in its application
as to miss the great majority of mankind, and leave them without
redemption throughout the countless ages of eternity. But when one is
given to understand, and surely such an understanding is given one
in the revelations of God to which the reader's attention has been
directed--when one learns that sometime in the eternities, somewhere in
the numberless creations of God, the proclamation of the gospel will
overtake all the children of our Father, and they have the privilege of
accepting it, and will be saved by it, and permitted to enjoy all the
happiness and glory their nature and degree of development enables them
to encompass--the wisdom, mercy, justice and love of God all stand out
in bold relief; and man's heart is warmed with increased admiration and
devotion to him: for it teaches him that he worships not a tyrant who
delights in the miseries and damnation of his children, but one whose
great pleasure and design it is to bring to pass the eternal happiness
of man.
CONCLUSION.
My task now draws to a close. I have completed the exposition of the
First Principles of the Gospel of Christ, contemplated in this work.
I have endeavored to explain what the Gospel is--its two-fold powers
of redeeming mankind from the consequences of Adam's transgression;
and also from the consequences of their own personal violations of the
principles of righteousness, on the condition of their repentance and
obedience.
The various principles and ordinances constituting the gospel have
been analyzed and the nature and object of each considered in detail,
and then in their relationship to each other--how one principle or
ordinance prepares the way and leads up to another: and lastly, their
application to mankind, not only in this probation, but how they follow
them into the spirit world and throughout the eternities, forever
inviting him to peace and eternal felicity.
In all this I see a most perfect system of moral and spiritual
philosophy--the perfection of beauty and goodness--a harmonious
blending of justice and mercy, of truth and love. How far these pages
exhibit those powers and beauties of the gospel, it will be for the
reader to judge. But in passing that judgment I ask him to remember
this:
Our whitest pearls we never find,
Our ripest fruit we never reach;
The flowering moments of the mind,
Drop half their petals in our speech
And in this probation I do not believe it is given to man to comprehend
all the force, the excellence, beauty and power of the gospel. These
things will be revealed in their fullness only in eternity.
SUPPLEMENT.
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO DEITY.
MAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO DEITY.
WHAT IS MAN THAT THOU ART MINDFUL OF HIM? AND THE SON OF MAN THAT THOU
VISITEST HIM.[A]
I.
In order to a clear understanding of man's redemption through the
atonement of Jesus Christ--the grand central truth of the gospel--it
is necessary to know something of the relationship between God and
man. The very fact that such a sacrifice was made for his redemption--
being no less than the immolation of him, who in heaven bore the second
name--argues at once some special relationship between man and Deity.
In view of the greatness and importance of that sacrifice, we may well
ask, with the Psalmist, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and
the son of man that thou visitest him?" These questions lead to the
investigation of man's origin; for upon his origin his relationship to
God depends.
[Footnote A: Psalms viii: 4.]
A discussion of this subject must be very imperfect, not to say
partial, that does not give some attention to the various theories--at
least to the most prominent ones--of man's origin. It is scarcely
necessary to say that theories on the subject are quite numerous and
widely different; and that in each school of philosophers are men
eminent for their learning and intelligence. All existing theories,
however, may be arranged under three headings: First, the monogenists,
who hold that mankind have descended from a single human pair, created
by Deity; and their descendants, modified by climatic influences,
food, habits of life and thought constitute the various races of
men--this is the theory of those who accept the Bible as authority
on the subject; second, the polygenists, who insist not only on one
act of creation, but upon a number of independent creations, "each
giving birth to essential, unchangeable peculiarities of a separate
race, thus constituting a diversity of species with primal adaptation
to their geographical distribution;" third, the evolutionists, who
believe all existing species are but developments of pre-existing and
lower forms of life; which, in their turn, were but developments of
still lower forms, and so on back, back until you reach the spontaneous
generation of the lowest types of vegetable and animal life, "as the
accumulation of mold upon food, the swarming of maggots in meat, * * *
the generation of insect life in decaying vegetable substances, the
birth of one form arising out of the decay of another; the slow and
gradual unfolding from a lower to a higher sphere, acting through a
long succession of ages, culminating in the grandeur of intellectual
manhood."
Of these theories the first and last only need detain us; and since the
theory of evolution is the one more generally accepted by scientific
men, and is making rapid progress among the masses, I think it proper
to state the basis of this theory more in detail.
The absurdities which theologians have associated with the first named
hypothesis of the origin of man and the universe is largely responsible
for the existence of the theory of evolution. Finding so much that was
contrary to well known facts, not so much in the theory itself, as in
the explanations of it by its advocates, induced men of intelligence to
look for some other explanation of the genesis of things.
It was doubtless observed that many remarkable resemblances exist
between man and the inferior animals. In embryonic development, in
physical structure, in material composition and the functions of
organs, man and the superior animals are strikingly alike. The skeleton
of man when examined minutely and compared with the skeletons of the
higher order of animals, seems only a modification of them, and in some
instances the modifications appear extremely slight. This resemblance
also exists among the inferior animals, and it was this, doubtless,
which gave birth to the idea of a common origin for all existing
species.
Side by side with the above mentioned facts are others that sustain,
it is claimed, the idea of common origin; and suggest an explanation
of how the varieties of animal and vegetable forms were brought into
existence. The great law of nature is for like to beget like; the
tendency of offspring is always to reproduce the parent forms, as every
seed produces its kind; that is the general law of nature, and to it a
special name is given--it is called _atavism_. But notwithstanding this
general law, there is a modification of it, a tendency to variation,
slight in some cases and more marked in others. This is a matter
of common observation. The male does not follow the precise type
of the male parent, nor does the female always inherit the precise
characteristics of the mother. "There are all sorts of intermixtures
and intermediate conditions between the two, where complexion, or
beauty, or fifty other different peculiarities belonging to either side
of the house, are reproduced in other members of the same family."
This kind of variation in cases where offspring are produced by sexual
propagation is attributed to the fact that the thing propagated
proceeds from two organisms of different sexes and temperaments.
Breeders of our domestic animals take advantage of this tendency to
variation, to produce such varieties as are most desirable; and,
indeed, for that matter, to obtain new varieties by crossing breeds.
Sometimes this tendency to variation acts in the most remarkable and
unaccountable manner, and because naturalists can assign no reason
for it. they have called it "spontaneous variation." That it may be
understood I quote instances of such variation from Professor Huxley:
Reaumur, a famous French naturalist, in an essay on variation,
relates a remarkable case of spontaneous variation which came under
his observation in the person of a Maltese, of the name of Gratio
Kelleia, who was born with six fingers upon each hand, and the like
number of toes upon each of his feet. His parents, of course, were
ordinary five-fingered persons. This was a case then of "spontaneous
generation;" and subsequent circumstances in connection with this case
prove there is a tendency in nature to perpetuate these variations.
Gratio Kelleia married, when he was twenty-two years of age, an
ordinary five-fingered lady. The result of that marriage was four
children. The first, Salvator, had six fingers and six toes, like the
father; the second, George, had five fingers and toes; but one of them
was deformed, showing a tendency to variation; the third, Andre, had
five fingers and five toes perfect; the fourth, a girl, Marie, had
five fingers and five toes, but her thumbs were deformed, showing a
tendency towards the sixth. These children grew up and when they came
to adult years married, and of course it happened that they all married
five-fingered and five-toed persons. Now let us see what happened.
Salvator had four children, they were two boys, a girl and another boy:
the first two boys and the girl were six-fingered and six-toed, like
their grandfather; the fourth child had only five fingers and five
toes. George had four children. There were two girls with six fingers
and six toes; there was one girl with six fingers and five toes on the
right side, and five fingers and five toes on the other; the fourth, a
boy, had five fingers and five toes. The third son of Gratio Kelleia,
Andre, it will be remembered, was perfectly well formed, and he had
many children whose hands and feet were regularly developed. Marie, the
last, whose thumbs were deformed, married a man with five fingers and
toes: they had four children; the first was born with six toes, but the
other children were normal.
In this case of Gratio Kelleia and his children is seen the tendency to
reproduce the parent stock, and also to perpetuate the variation which
so unaccountably appeared. That tendency to perpetuate the variation
was very strong, even though these persons with the six fingers and
toes, or who only inherited the deformity in part, intermarried with
persons ordinarily formed. What would have been the result had the
two eldest boys of Salvator taken it into their heads to marry their
first cousins, the two first girls of George? It will be remembered
that these were all of the abnormal type of their grandfather. Is it
not most likely that had these people married and their descendants
continued to intermarry with each other, that a new variety of men
having six fingers and six toes would have been the result? The second
case I quote from Huxley gives us every reason to believe that such
would have been the result:
In the year 1791 there was a farmer of the name of Seth Wright, in
Massachusetts, who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram and some
twelve or fifteen ewes. Of the flock of ewes, one at the breeding-time
bore a lamb which was singularly formed; it had a very long body, very
short legs, and those legs were bowed. In the part of Massachusetts
where Seth Wright lived, the fields were separated by fences, and his
sheep, which were active and robust, would roam abroad, and without
much difficulty would jump over the fences into other people's farms.
As a matter of course this gave rise to all sorts of quarrels,
bickerings and contention among the farmers of the neighborhood; so it
occurred to Seth Wright, if he could obtain a breed of sheep with bandy
legs like the one which had so strangely appeared in his flock, it
would be to his advantage, as they would not be able to jump over the
fences so readily. He acted upon that idea. He killed his old ram, and
as soon as the young one arrived at maturity he bred exclusively from
him. The result was that all the offspring were like the male parent or
female parent, there was no mixing in the offspring the peculiarities
of the parents, they were either pure "Ancons"--the name given to
the new variety--or pure, ordinary sheep. In consequence of this the
farmer in a very few years was able to get a considerable flock of
this short-legged variety of sheep and a large number of them were
soon scattered throughout Massachusetts. Here is the case then where
the tendency to perpetuate a variation culminated in the production of
a new variety. And, indeed, this is what is perpetually going on with
our domesticated animals,--by what we may call selective breeding; and
it is going on, it is claimed by evolutionists, in a natural state,
that is, where man's interference does not effect it; in other words,
variations are perpetuated by means of what Mr. Darwin has called
"natural selection."
Suppose, for instance, that by one of those unaccountable freaks of
nature a "spontaneous variation" is produced, as in the case of Seth
Wright's sheep; and further suppose that the particular characteristic
which distinguished it from the parent stock was favorable to its
persistence, by that I mean that the particulars in which it varies
from the parent stock will enable the animal, if it be a beast of prey,
to secure its food more surely either by an increase of fleetness
or stealth, by which it would the more surely run down, or steal
upon its victims, and in either case be more sure of its food and
hence more secure of existence than the stock from which it came;
and if the means of subsistence for these animals were limited, then
the variety having the peculiarity of fleetness or stealth would be
preserved and perpetuate the peculiarities imparted to it originally by
"spontaneous variation," while the original stock would perish. Thus,
as evolutionists would say, the fittest would survive in this struggle
for existence; and thus the original variation would be preserved and
perpetuated and a new variety brought into existence as effectually by
this natural means of selection as if man had superintended it for his
own benefit. That individuals in organic forms increase in a proportion
greater than the provisional means of support is a theory pretty well
demonstrated; there is, therefore, a constant struggle for existence in
nature, in which the strongest, those best fitted to live and improve
their species, prevail. Every variation, therefore, that is favorable
to races of plants or animals is seized upon by this principle of
natural selection and preserved.
Another way of preserving variations is by what our latter-day
naturalists call "sexual selection." "Throughout nature," say they,
"the male is the wooer; he it is who is armed for fight, and provided
with musical organs and ornamental appendages, with which to charm the
fair one. The savage and the wild beast alike secure their mate over
the mangled form of a vanquished rival. In this manner the more highly
favored of either sex are mated, and natural selections made by which
better ever producing better, the species in its constant variation is
constantly improved."
It is now time to pause and see what conclusions these facts have
led our scientist to draw. I have called attention to the striking
resemblance between man and the superior animals; in the development
of the embryo, in the material of which they are composed, and in
the use of organs they are alike; and especially very much alike in
physical structure, the skeleton of man only slightly varying from
that of the higher order of animals; and that resemblance in something
like gradation exists throughout the organic world. Of course there
are marked structural variations even in closely allied species, and
we have seen that there is a tendency in species to vary and also to
preserve the variation; and where the peculiarity of the variation
is favorable to the individual it is almost certain to be preserved
by the process of natural selection. New varieties thus produced may
be expected to produce still other variations that will remove them
further than ever from the stock from which their parents came, until
the variation amounts to what our naturalists denominate specific
difference. By this process what we now call varieties may eventually
become species, as our species, according to the evolutionists, were
once nothing more than varieties; and the groups which naturalists
classify as genera, families, order, classes, etc., are but the remains
of still older species, which have continued their existence side by
side with the new species, which have been produced from them by this
process of variation; and but for the fact that so many intermediate
species have become extinct, they claim that the multifarious forms of
organic life could be traced, through all the minute variations that
have occurred, back to a common origin; even back to the mysterious
substance in which life seems to generate--protoplasm.
Such are the basic principles on which is grounded the theory of
evolution, as I understand the subject from the works of its advocates,
though my effort to be brief may have rendered my statement of those
principles very imperfect.
One thing more should be stated in connection with this theory, and
that is that very long periods of time are demanded for the slow work
of variation preserved by natural selection to accomplish the wonders
attributed to it. To measure the time claimed by evolutionists by the
lapse of years is simply out of the question; they ask for a long
series of ages, each of which, though doubtless unequal, consists of
millions of years. As the Rev. George B. Cheever remarks: "The first
postulate of this philosophy is that of countless millions of years
to work in, with no Creator, and with no authority that can bring
it to book." To prove that such long periods of time have elapsed,
during which organic forms have existed on the earth, the evolutionist
triumphantly points to the revelations of geology, and there gives
proof which there is, perhaps, no denying, of the lapse of time he
pleads for; and also proof of organic forms of life in those various
ages, fossilized remains of which are found in the strata of the
earth's crust.
If you say to the advocate of evolution that it is incredible that
variations preserved by natural selection could result in the
production of such a wonderful organ as the eye; he replies "that if
numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex
and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its
possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye varies and the
variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such
variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions
of life; then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex
eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our
imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."[B]
But with this statement and some further observations upon it, Mr.
Darwin himself seems not altogether satisfied that he has removed the
difficulty which he admits is enough to stagger anyone; "I have felt
the difficulty," he says, "far too keenly to be surprised at others
hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling
a length."[C]
[Footnote B: Origin of Species p. 143, (American Edition, 1883.)]
[Footnote C: Ibid p. 146]
If you say that it is incredible that natural selection can account
for the production of such a wonderful thing as the mind of man--his
"reasonable soul," the reply is that instinct varies among the inferior
animals no less than physical structure, and though there may be no
perceivable proportion or gradation between structural variation and
variation of instinct; still, if the fact is admitted that among
animals instinct varies, then it is easy to conceive that some of those
variations may be favorable, and if favorable then natural selection
would perpetuate them and make them dominant. From this basis they
make another step the difference between the mental faculties of man
and animal is immense, but the high culture which belongs to man
evolutionists maintain has been slowly developed, and the separation
between the mental powers of lowest man and the highest ape is no
greater than that which exists between the lowest ape and some of the
lower forms of life, say the Zoophytes.
If you say that articulate language surely marks a wide gulf between
man and the lower animals, the reply is that animals are not devoid
of expedients for expressing emotions, and from those expedients may
have been evolved through intermediate species, now extinct, articulate
language.
If you ask why, if species have descended from other species by fine
gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?
Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as
we see them, well defined? The answer is that the intermediate species
have become extinct, that we must look upon each existing species as
having descended from some unknown forms; that natural selection acts
slowly by preserving profitable modifications. "Each new form will
tend in a fully stocked country to take the place of, and finally
exterminate, its own less-improved parent form, and other less favored
forms with which it comes in competition; thus both parent and all
transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the
very process of the formation and perfection of the new."[D]
[Footnote D: Origin of species, p 134.]
If you object further, and call attention to the fact that in the
great geological record, of which evolutionists boast so much, that
not even in that can be found the intermediate transitional forms that
should, according to their theory, link together by fine gradations the
species[E]--this objection, otherwise fatal to the theory of evolution,
is avoided rather than answered by putting forth the claim that the
geological record is very imperfect, and comparatively only a few of
its pages have, as yet, been read by man.
[Footnote E: Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely
graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and
serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution.]
The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the
geological record.--Darwin, Origin of Species p. 205.]
After thus escaping from the difficulty of there being no intermediate
transitional forms between the species, we come to other facts not
less important, and even, perhaps, more fatal to the hypothesis of
evolution--I refer to the phenomena presented by "hybrids," and in
order that I may not be charged with over-estimating the value of the
objection founded on this class of phenomena, I shall quote the words
of Professor Huxley, one of the chief apostles of evolution, and give
his estimate of the weight of the objections:
"There is a most singular circumstance," says the professor, "in
respect to natural species--at least about some of them--and it would
be sufficient for the purposes of this argument, if it were true
of only one of them; but there is, in fact, a great number of such
cases--and that is, that similar as they may appear to be to mere
races or breeds, they present a marked peculiarity in the reproductive
process. If you breed from the male and female of the same race, you of
course have offspring of the like kind; and if you make the offspring
breed together, you obtain the same result; and if you breed from
these again, you will still have the same kind of offspring; there is
no check. But if you take members of two distinct species, however
similar they may be to each other, and make them breed together, you
will find a check, with some modifications and exceptions-- * * * if
you cross two such species with each other, then,--although you may
get offspring in the case of the first cross, yet if you attempt to
breed from the products of that crossing, which are what are called
hybrids[F]--that is, if you couple a male and a female hybrid--then
the result is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will get
no offspring at all; there will be no result whatsoever, * * * Thus
you see that there is a great difference between 'mongrels,' which
are crosses between distinct races [varieties], and 'hybrids,' which
are crosses between distinct species. The mongrels are, so far as we
know, fertile with one another. But between species, in many cases,
you cannot succeed in obtaining the first cross; at any rate it is
quite certain that the hybrids are often absolutely infertile one with
another. Here is a feature, then, great or small as it may be, which
distinguishes natural species of animals."[G]
[Footnote F: The product of the horse and the ass--the mule--is an
example.]
[Footnote G: Huxley's Lectures, pp. 106, 107.]
Now, by the side of these facts, the sterility of species and hybrids,
let us place another; that of the fertility of varieties. So long
as you breed together descendants from a common stock they continue
fruitful to each other, without any check. Now, if naturalists cannot
produce by selective breeding varieties from a common parentage that
are infertile to each other, then it is quite clear that species did
not come from varieties by the process of variation preserved by
natural selection, since here is a phenomenon existing in connection
with species which cannot, to all appearances, be produced by breeding
together varieties. Mr. Huxley remarks on this, that if it could be
proven not only that this has not been done, but that it cannot be
done, then Mr. Darwin's hypothesis would be utterly shattered.[H] Well,
up to the present it has not been done, the gentleman last quoted
admits the fact; he asks, "what is really the state of the case? It is
simply that, so far as we have gone yet with our breeding, we have not
produced from a common stock two breeds, which are not more or less
fertile with one another."[I]
[Footnote H: Huxley's Lectures, p. 141.]
[Footnote I: Lectures, p. 141.]
What do these facts prove, I mean the sterility of species and hybrids
on the one hand, and the fertilities of varieties, descendants from a
common stock, on the other? Why that the great law of nature is, as
announced in holy writ that every seed shall produce after its kind,
and every fish, fowl, creeping-thing, beast, and man shall bring
forth after his kind[J]--that is what it proves. And though man may
for a moment by crossing species cause a slight deviation from that
great law, it can be but for an instant, the monstrosity cannot be
perpetuated, it dies out by being made unfruitful.
[Footnote J: Gen. I: 11, 12, 21, 24, 25.]
How do these facts affect the theory of evolution? Let us remember upon
what that theory rests. It rests upon the principle that lower forms
producing favorable variations and these being preserved by the process
of natural selection amount finally to the production of distinct
species; but we have seen that varieties cannot produce what may be
called the great characteristic of species--infertility to each other;
then also we have seen there is a check to variation in the sterility
of species and hybrids. Add these facts to that other fact that neither
in living nature nor in the geological records can be found the
intermediate transitional forms linking together by fine gradations the
species, and the theory of evolution lies stranded upon the shore of
idle speculation.
II.
There is one other objection to be urged against the theory of
evolution before leaving it; it is contrary to the revelations of
God. I have not in mind, at present, the revelations respecting the
creation of the earth and of vegetable and animal life; but rather the
revelations which speak of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. According
to the revelations of God contained in the Bible, man was created
just and right--"sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall." He
transgressed, in some way, the holy commandment given him, and by that
transgression became fallen man, subject to sin and death, and entailed
the same evils upon his posterity. Both he and they were powerless to
extricate themselves from the consequences of that violation of law;
but a sacrifice was prepared, a Redeemer was provided, both for Adam
and all his posterity. In the meridian of time that Redeemer appeared
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who eventually was offered up
a sacrifice for sinful man--he suffered for sins, the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to God.[A] That this was the mission
of Jesus Christ is evident from the whole tenor of the scriptures.[B]
But if the hypothesis of evolution be true, if man is only a product
evolved from the lower forms of life, better still producing better,
until the highest type of intellectual manhood crowns with glory this
long continued process--then it is evident that there has been no
"fall," such as the revelations of God speak of; and if there was no
fall, there was no occasion for a Redeemer to make atonement for man,
in order to reconcile him to God; then the mission of Jesus Christ
was a myth, the coinage of idle brains, and Jesus himself was either
mistaken, or one of the many impostors that have arisen to mock mankind
with the hope of eternal life.
[Footnote A: I. Peter iii: 18.]
[Footnote B: See the chapters in "The Gospel" on General Salvation,
where this idea is treated at some length.]
Such is the inevitable result of accepting the philosophy of evolution,
after which all the world is now running--it is destructive of the
grand central truth of all revelation; as well ancient as modern; as
well the revelations given to Moses and the prophets, as those given
to the apostles of the New Testament; as well those given in Asia, as
those given in America; for the central truth of all revelation is
the fall of man, and the redemption through the atonement of Jesus
Christ. All things else contained in the revelations of God to man
are subordinate and dependent for their strength and force upon this
leading truth.
I am aware that there is a class of men who profess to be "Christian
evolutionists," and who maintain that Christianity can be made to
harmonize with the philosophy of evolution. But how are they made
to harmonize? We are told that Jesus is still a Redeemer, but in
this sense he gave out faultless moral precepts, and practiced them
in his life; and inasmuch as people accept his doctrines and follow
his example they will be redeemed from evil. But as to the fall of
man and the atonement made for him by the Son of God--both ideas are
of necessity rejected; which means, of course, denying the great
fundamental truths of revelation; it is by destroying the basis
on which the Christian religion rests, that the two theories are
harmonized--if such a process can be called harmonization. It is on
the same principle that the lion and the lamb harmonize, or lie down
together--the lion eats the lamb.
It was stated in the first part of this writing that the follies of
those who profess a belief in the theory of creation as revealed in
the Bible, were largely responsible for the existence of the theory
of evolution; that their exegesis of the revelations on the subject
were so manifestly absurd, and contradicted so many well known and
indisputable facts, that scientific men sought for other explanations
of the origin of things. The theologians in the apostate churches
of Christendom have maintained that God created the heavens and the
earth--the universe--out of nothing, in six days. A statement than
which it is impossible to conceive one more absurd, or one which
contradicts more completely every fact demonstrated by the experience
of man. Every sense, every possible conception of the mind bears
witness that from nothing, nothing comes. The idea of creating the
universe out of nothing, however, is rapidly passing away from the
minds of the present generation; and it is conceded by many theologians
that there is no warrant for such a doctrine in the scriptures; but
that it became generally accepted through a misconception of the
meaning of the word create. "The meaning of this word," says Rev.
Baden Powell, of Oxford University, "has been commonly associated with
the idea of 'making out of nothing.' But when we come to inquire more
precisely into the subject, we can of course satisfy ourselves as to
the meaning only from an examination of the original phrase." The
learned professor then proceeds to say that three distinct Hebrew verbs
are in different places employed with reference to the same divine
act, and may be translated respectively, "_create_," "_make_," "_form_ or
_fashion_." "Now," continues the professor, "though each of these has
its shade of distinction, yet the best critics understand them as so
nearly synonymous that, at least in regard to the idea of making out
of nothing, little or no foundation for that doctrine can be obtained
from the first of these words." And, of course if no foundation for the
doctrine can be obtained from the first of these words--viz., the verb
translated create, then the chances are still less for there being any
foundation for the doctrine in the verb translated, "made," "formed" or
"fashioned."
This is in harmony, too, with the teachings of the Prophet Joseph
Smith. He says "You ask the learned doctors why they say the world
was made out of nothing; and they will answer, 'Don't the Bible say
he _created_ the world? and they infer, from the word _create_ that it
must have been made out of nothing. Now the word _create_ came from the
word _baurau_, which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to
organize, the same as man would organize materials and build a ship.
Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of
chaos--chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the
glory. Element had an existence from the time he [God] had."[C]
[Footnote C: Journal of Discourses, Vol. vi: p. 6.]
Professor Baden Powell further says, "The idea of 'creation' as meaning
absolutely 'making out of nothing,' or calling into existence that
which did not exist before, in the strictest sense of the term, is not
a doctrine of scripture; but it has been held by many on the grounds
of natural theology, as enhancing the ideas we form of the divine
power, and more especially since the contrary must imply the belief
in the eternity and self existence of matter."[D] Theologians have
held, generally, that to admit the doctrine of the eternity and self
existence of matter detracted from the perfection of Deity, though how
that can appear is difficult to comprehend.
[Footnote D: Kitto's Biblical Literature, Art. Creation.]
Not only have so-called theologians been compelled to renounce the
unphilosophical idea that the universe was created out of nothing; but
they also have to admit that there are indisputable evidences of the
earth having a greater antiquity than their interpretations of the word
of God allow. That is, the earth itself bears in its own bosom the
evidence that it is more than six thousand years old. And though it may
turn out, on further investigation, that some of the claims of geology
are extremely absurd; owing to the fact, perhaps, that the founders of
that science have not considered sufficiently the effect of conditions
not now existing and forces not now in operation, but which doubtless
existed and operated in the earlier ages of our earth's existence--yet
when extremely liberal allowances for all these things are made, the
indisputable evidence adduced from the science of geology is sufficient
to establish the statement that the earth is more than six thousand
years old; and it might be added also that from the same source it is
evident that the earth was not created or organized from pre-existing
element in six days of twenty-four hours duration.
These facts which geology unquestionably demonstrates have thrown
sectarian theologians into dismay. The dogmas concerning the creation
formulated with so much pomp and circumstance by the apostate churches
of Christendom, respectable only for their antiquity, are going to
pieces before the facts discovered by geologists and churchmen, or
theologians, call them which you will, are filled with alarm lest all
confidence be lost in revelation; and many of them are making frantic
efforts to harmonize the facts of revelation with the facts of science.
Unfortunately, however, some of these proceed on lines which result
the same as the efforts of some to harmonize the theory of evolution
with the gospel--as the latter efforts end in the destruction of the
gospel, so the former end in denying the inspiration of scripture,
in relegating it to the realms of poetry, which means kicking it
contemptuously out of the domains of fact, of history. "We affirm," say
they, "that it cannot be history--it may be poetry."[E]
[Footnote E: Kitto's Biblical Literature, Vol. I., p. 486. Such also
were the views of the late Henry Ward Beecher, and in fact all of
his school, which I am sorry to say is rapidly increasing in numbers,
both in the United States and England. For the continental countries I
cannot speak.]
There is nothing in the Bible, however, which drives believers
in revelation to those straights--straights in which they throw
overboard, practically, the word of God; discard it, or, in other
words, degrade it to the level of romance--making it nothing better
than the idle coinage of the half frenzied brains of day-dreamers.
If the dogmas of apostate Christendom respecting the creation were
given over as a romance instead of the revelations of God, and those
revelations were re-examined, and especially if re-examined under
the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it would then be found that there
is nothing in the scriptures requiring the believer in revelation to
accept the idea of recent or instantaneous creation of the earth. There
is no more warrant in the Bible for the doctrine that the earth was
begun and completed--created--about six thousand years ago, and that
instantly, at the word of God, than there is that it was made out of
nothing. On the other hand there is very much to lead one to believe
the contrary.
Six thousand years ago our earth reached that degree of perfection that
it was fitted for the abode of man; and it is interesting to note,
in this connection, that geologists have found no evidence of the
existence of man on the earth only in the strata of the earth's crust
belonging to the latest geological periods, and most probably only in
those made within the period of history. But while the Bible may teach
that it was only about six thousand years since man was placed upon
the earth, how long the period of formation lasted previous to that
time, how long it required to prepare this planet with all its wealth
of fruits and vegetables and animal life, for the abode of man, is not
known. "It is called in the scriptures," says Apostle Orson Pratt,
"Six days; but we do not know the meaning of the scriptural term
'day.' It evidently does not mean such days as we are now acquainted
with--days governed by the rotation of the earth on its axis, and by
the shining of the great central luminary of our solar system. A day of
twenty-four hours is not the kind of day referred to in the scriptural
account of the creation; the word 'day' in the scriptures seems often
to refer to some indefinite period of time. The Lord, in speaking to
Adam in the garden says, 'In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die;' yet he did not die within twenty-four hours after he had
eaten the forbidden fruit; but he lived to be almost a thousand years
old, from which we learn that the word 'day' in this paragraph, had no
reference to days of the same duration as ours. Again it is written, in
the second chapter of Genesis, 'In the day that he created the heavens
and the earth;'[F] not six days, but 'in the day' that he did it,
incorporating all the six days into one, and calling that period 'the
day' that he created the heavens and the earth.[G]"
[Footnote F: These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth
when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and
the heavens. Genesis ii: 4.]
[Footnote G: Journal of Discourses, Vol. xiv: p. 234-5.]
As a further evidence that "day" as used in connection with the acts
of creation does not mean a period of duration of twenty-four hours,
it may be mentioned that it was not until the period called the fourth
day that the sun reflected his light upon our earth and ruled the
day; and divided the light from the darkness, giving us the day and
night regulated by the rotation of the earth upon its axis; so that
the preceding three days were not of twenty-four hours duration,
but certainly referred to some other division of time, which was
also, doubtless, employed throughout in speaking of these acts of
creation.[H] Moreover, it is said in this first chapter of Genesis,
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
"And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep."[I]
[Footnote H: Respecting this creation of the sun as referred to in the
above, Apostle Orson Pratt has made some remarks at once ingenious and
instructive, he says:
"What I understand by the formation [creation] of these celestial
luminaries, is that He [God] then caused them to shed forth their light
[that is upon the earth.] I cannot suppose that it would take the Lord
six days to form such a little speck of a world as ours, and then for
Him on the fourth to form a globe fourteen hundred thousand times
larger than the earth. This does not look consistent to me. If it took
six days to form a small world like ours, we might certainly suppose
that it would require more than one day to form the sun, which contains
a quantity of matter sufficient to make some three hundred and fifty
four thousand worlds like this, and whose actual size or magnitude
is fourteen thousand times larger than our globe; consequently I
understand by the formation of the sun and moon and stars, and
setting them in the firmament of the heavens, that He merely suffered
their light to shine on the fourth day, to regulate the evenings and
mornings, that were produced prior to that time, probably by some other
cause. The Lord wanted by these luminaries to divide the day from the
night, and he set them for times and seasons in the firmament of the
heavens." _Journal of Discourses_, Vol. xvi: pp. 316-7.]
[Footnote I: Genesis i: 1,2.]
How long it remained in that condition before the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters, or the six great periods of creation
began, it would be impossible to say, since we have no data in
revelation to go upon; but the duration was doubtless sufficient to
allow all the myriads of years claimed by geologists as necessary for
the formation of our planet. Then how long those periods of time were
which are called "days" in the Bible, is uncertain; but enough is known
to justify us in the belief that they were great periods of time, in
which the successive acts of creation occurred. In which continents
were up-raised, and mountains were heaved up by volcanic eruption,
exposed to warmth and light and covered with vegetation, and animal
life, and then worn away by the combined action of the atmosphere
and rains, much of their matter being carried back to old ocean's
bed, and settling there as sediment, forming new strata of rocks,
occasionally imbedding vegetables and animals which became fossilized;
and these strata, being afterwards thrown up from the bottom of the
ocean are exposed to view, and from what he there finds, the geologist
conjectures at the condition of the earth and forms his judgment as to
what animals and vegetation were then upon it--there was time for all
this, let it be performed ever so slowly.
While the Bible account of the creation gives sufficient margin to
allow all the time claimed by the geologists for that work, let their
claims be ever so extravagant, still let geologists have some modesty
about them and admit--as perforce they must--that they do not know that
the same conditions existed, or the same forces operated in those long
ages of the past that now exist and operate. Hence it is not unlikely
that changes resulting in the advancement of the earth's formation, and
in its preparation for the abode of man were much more rapid then than
now. This is not begging the question, there is no need of that; but
it is mentioned in passing, as pointing to a condition of things not
unlikely to have existed.
III.
What is most perplexing about the Bible narrative of this work of
creation is that two accounts are given of it; and apparently there
is an irreconcilable difference between them. In the first chapter of
Genesis is a statement of the creation in respect to this earth and
the heavens connected with it, from the time it was without form and
void until it was a fit dwelling place for man: or, to put it in other
words, the account seems to reach from highly attenuated nebulae to the
solid earth clothed with its wealth of vegetable and animal life, with
man placed upon it as the crowning excellence of the Creator's work.
But after this elaborate account of the creation contained in the first
chapter of Genesis, we are startled to read in the second chapter--
"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_."
One naturally pauses here to ask, what had become of the grasses,
herbs, and trees spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis? what of the
fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field? what
of man, male and female, of whose creation we have just read? and of
the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth? Is it not strange
that after reading of the creation of man in the first chapter that
we should be told in the second that there was not a man to till the
ground? Proceeding with this second account of creation the Bible says:
"But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of
the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he
put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord to
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. * * *
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and
every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would
call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living thing that was the
name thereof."
What is especially difficult in this second account of creation is
that it reverses the order of that work as given in the first. The
first account commences with the formation of the earth from chaotic
matter and then records the various steps of progress in succinct and
natural order--the same order, too, that science insists upon--up to
perfection: the second begins with an account of the creation of man,
the planting of a garden as the beginning of vegetable existence, and
then the creation of the fowls of the air and the beasts of the fields.
The writings of Moses as revealed to Joseph Smith, in December, 1830,
and now contained in the Pearl of Great Price, make this matter of the
creation of man still more emphatic by saying:
"And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul, _the first flesh upon the earth_, the first man also."
But if these writings of Moses make emphatic the apparent contradiction
in these two accounts of creation, they also furnish the key by which
the whole matter may be understood, and, as I think, explained. After
giving an account of the creation, much as it is contained in the first
chapter of Genesis, it is then stated--
"And behold I say unto you, these are the generations of the heaven and
of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God,
made the heaven and the earth, and every plant of the field before it
was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I,
the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually,
before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. For I, the Lord
God, had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the
Lord God, 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; but
I, the Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and
watered the whole face of the ground. And I, the Lord God, formed man
from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth,
the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created, but
spiritually, were they created and made according to my word."[A]
[Footnote A: Pearl of Great Price, p. 6.]
As to the character of this spiritual creation nothing is known;
nothing, so far as I know, has been revealed in relation to it. Here
let me say, by way of caution, that those who accept the revelations of
God as truth need not be alarmed or worried if they meet with things
in the sacred writings that they cannot explain or understand, as in
the case of this spiritual creation of the heavens and the earth which
preceded the natural, or what we regard as the actual creation of the
earth. In this and in all cases of like character we claim for those
who accept the revelations of holy writ as facts, what Professor Huxley
claims for those who build up theories on their conception of facts in
nature, _viz_--"There is a wide difference between the thing you cannot
explain and the thing which upsets your theory altogether." This idea
is a pendulum which should swing just as high for the believer in
revelation as for the scientist. Not that there is anything wrong with
revelation, the difficulty arises from our inability to comprehend it;
but when increased intelligence shall give us enlarged views and keener
powers of penetration, we shall then find that the revelations of God
are in strict accord with the facts in the case, and perfectly simple
however incomprehensible they may have seemed to us in the day when we
saw as through a glass darkly. But this is a digression.
Though we cannot understand the nature of this spiritual creation, yet
to learn that the first account of the creation in the Bible is of a
spiritual creation and the second of an actual or natural one, gives
some comfort, from the fact that it does away with all charges of
inconsistency or contradiction between the two accounts. For since they
are descriptions of two different things instead of one thing, there is
nothing in the law of consistency requiring the accounts of different
events to be alike.
In these articles, however, what turns out to be an account of the
spiritual creation of the earth has been spoken of and treated as
the natural or actual creation.[B] It has been treated so purposely,
because I believe the natural in the order of its creation and
development corresponds with the creation and development of the
spiritual. Furthermore, I believe the account in the first chapter of
Genesis could be safely accepted as the announcement of the general
plan of creation, not only of our planet but of all worlds; and in
it will be found ample scope for the belief that the earth came
into existence by the accretion of nubulous matter; that it took
thousands of years, yea, millions, perhaps, for the condensation and
solidification of that matter; granting as long periods as geologists
may demand for the formation of the earth's curst; that then followed
the changes which were wrought during the six great periods named
in Genesis; beginning with the production of light, and ending with
placing man upon the completed planet as its lord and sovereign under
God.
[Footnote B: I do not wish in making this distinction between the
spiritual and natural creation, and in using the word "actual" to be
understood as implying that the spiritual creation was not an actual
creation. It may have been just as tangible and actual as the creation
on which we walk. I only use the expression to make a distinction
between the natural and spiritual creations.]
The careful reader of this paper will say, however, that the statements
in the last paragraph permit all the old difficulties to surge back
upon us; all the old apparent inconsistencies between the first and
second accounts of creation in Genesis remain unreconciled. For if the
natural creation of our planet corresponded to the spiritual creation
of it, the spiritual standing in the same relationship to the natural
as the well devised plan of the architect does to the actual erection
of a building--then the account given of the spiritual creation of our
earth may as well be regarded as the account of the actual creation of
it also. But this leaves all the difficulties between the two accounts
of creation in the Bible untouched, and we must look to other facts
than those yet considered if we would see them removed.
The Prophet Joseph Smith is credited with having said that our planet
was made up of the fragments of a planet which previously existed; some
mighty convulsions disrupted that creation and made it desolate. Both
its animal and vegetable life forms were destroyed. And when those
convulsions ceased, and the rent earth was again consolidated, and it
became desirable to replenish it, the work was begun by making a mist
to rise that it might descend in gentle rain upon the barren earth,
that it might again be fruitful. Then came one of the sons of God[C]
to the earth--Adam. A garden was planted in Eden and the man placed
in it, and there the Lord brought to him every beast of the field and
every fowl of the air, and Adam gave names to them all. Afterwards
was brought to Adam his wife, whom, since she was derived from man,
he named wo-man; and she became his help-mate, his companion and the
mother of his children. In this nothing is hinted at about man being
made from the dust, and woman manufactured from a rib, a story which
has been a cause of much perplexity to religious people, and a source
of much impious merriment to reckless unbelievers. We are informed that
the Lord God made every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb before it grew[D] on our planet. As vegetation was
created or made to grow upon some older earth, and the seeds thereof
or the plants themselves were brought to our earth and made to grow,
so likewise man and his help-meet were brought from some other world
to our own, to people it with their children. And though it is said
that the "Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground"--it by no
means follows that he was "formed" as one might form a brick, or from
the dust of this earth. We are all "formed" of the dust of the ground,
though instead of being moulded as a brick we are brought forth by the
natural laws of procreation; so also was Adam and his wife in some
older world. And as for the story of the rib, under it I believe the
mystery of procreation is hidden.
[Footnote C: Lest any one should doubt that Adam was one of the sons
of God, I call attention to the verse of Luke, iii chapter, where in
tracing the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam, and coming to Cainan it
goes on to say that "he (Cainan) was the son of Enos, which was the son
of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God."]
[Footnote D: Genesis ii: 4, 5.]
Of the things I have spoken, this is the sum: There was a planet
created on the plan of the spiritual creation described in the first
chapter of Genesis; beginning with the condensation of nubulous matter
to a "fire ball," then the cooling of the surface and thickening of the
earth's crust, and the envelopment of it in water; then came light, and
by internal eruptions portions of land were thrown above the surface
of the water--"the dry land appeared;" then came the simpler forms of
vegetation; then the sunlight visited the earth, and doubtless higher
forms of vegetation, fruit-trees and flowers and grains were brought
forth; then came the creatures that abound in the ocean, that fly in
the air, and the beasts of the earth. Not by the process of evolution,
but by the various species suitable to the condition of the earth's
development being brought from some other and older sphere, with power
to propagate their kind, until the changed conditions of the earth
became unfavorable to them, when they became extinct and were replaced
by other species of a higher type. Then came the mighty convulsions
which, for some cause or other, and doubtless for some wise purpose,
disrupted that planet; and when from its fragments a new world--our
present planet--was brought into existence, it was made the abode of
man, as described in the second account of the creation in Genesis,
which begins by placing man upon the earth, and then the inferior
animals.
Accepting this statement of Joseph Smith relative to our planet in its
present state being created or formed from the fragments of a planet
which previously existed, one may readily understand how the supposed
differences between scientists and believers in revelation have arisen.
Scientists have been talking of the earth's strata that were formed
in a previously existing planet; they have considered the fossilized
flora and fauna imbedded in those strata, and have speculated as to the
probable lapse of time since those animal and vegetable forms of life
existed; and have generally concluded that the age is so far remote
that there is no possible chance of harmonizing it with the account
of the creation as given in the Bible. Believers in the Bible, on the
other hand, have generally taken it for granted that the account of
the creation in the sacred record, would give to the earth no greater
antiquity than six thousand years; and have held that within that
period the universe was created out of nothing by the volition of
Deity--an idea so palpably absurd that intelligence, despite all church
authority to the contrary, everywhere rejects it.
The theory set forth in this writing that before Adam was paced upon
this earth to people it with his offsprings the matter of which it is
composed existed in another planet, which by some mighty convulsions
was broken up, and from its ruins was formed our present earth, at
once affords a means of harmonizing those facts established by the
researches of men and the facts of revelation. If scientists shall
claim that myriads of years or of centuries must have been necessary
to form the earth's crust, it may be allowed by the believers in
revelation, for there is nothing that would contradict that idea in the
revelations of God on the subject. If scientists shall claim that the
fossilized remains in the different strata of the earth's crust reveal
the fact that in the earlier periods of the earth's existence only the
simpler forms of vegetation and animal life are to be found, both forms
of life becoming more complex and of higher type as the earth becomes
older, until it is crowned with the presence of man--all that may be
allowed. But that this gradation of animal and vegetable life owes its
existence to the process of evolution is denied. As before explained,
the claims of evolution are contrary to all experience so far as man's
knowledge extends. The great law of nature is that every plant, herb,
fish, fowl, beast and man produces his kind; and though there may be
slight variations from that law, those variations soon run out either
by reverting to the original stock, or else by becoming incapable of
producing offspring, and thus become extinct.[E]
[Footnote E: Since beginning this writing I have found some remarks
on the subject of evolution by the late President John Taylor, which
cannot fail to be of interest to the student of the subject: "The
Animal and vegetable creations are governed by certain laws, and are
composed of certain elements peculiar to themselves. This applies
to man, to beasts, fowls, fish and creeping things, to the insects
and to all animated nature; each one possessing its own distinctive
features; each requiring a specific sustenance, each having an
organism and faculties governed by prescribed laws to perpetuate, its
own kind. * * * These principles do not change, as represented by
evolutionists of the Darwinian school, but the primitive organisms of
all living beings exist in the same form as when they first received
their impress from their Maker. There are, indeed, some very slight
exceptions, for instance, the ass may mix with the mare and produce
the mule; but there it ends; the violation of the laws of procreation
receives a check, and its operations can go no further. Similar
compounds may possibly be made by experimentalists in the vegetable and
mineral kingdoms, but the original elements remain the same. Yet this
is not the normal but an abnormal condition with them, as with animals,
birds, etc., and if we take man he is said to have been made in the
image of God, for the simple reason that he is the son of God; and
being His son, he is, of course, his offspring, an emanation from God,
in whose likeness we are told he is made. He did not originate from a
chaotic mass of matter, moving or inert, but came forth possessing,
in an embryotic state, all the faculties and powers of a God. And
when he shall be perfected, and have progressed to maturity he will
be like his father--a God, being indeed his offspring. As the horse,
the ox, the sheep and every living creature, including man, propagates
its own species and perpetuates its own kind, so does God perpetuate
His."--_Mediation and Atonement_, pp. 164, 165.]
Furthermore, since we have learned that God made "every plant of the
field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew" (_i.
e._ in our earth), the gradation of life forms which the naturalists
discover in the various strata of the earth's crust may reasonably be
accounted for aside from the theory of evolution--viz., by the animal
and vegetable life forms of some older earth being brought to our own;
different species being transplanted as changed conditions in the soil
and atmosphere and temperature of our earth rendered it favorable to
their production, the older species becoming extinct as the changed
conditions of the earth became unfavorable to them. Then too, the
theory advanced in this writing gives ample room for the reconciliation
of another serious difficulty between the scientist and the believer in
revelation. To the latter Adam is the first man; the former maintains
that there are evidences which prove the earth to have been inhabited
before Adam's time. Whether or not the planet which existed previous
to our own, and out of the ruins of which our own was organized was
inhabited by man as well as by vegetation and animals, I cannot say;
all remarks on this subject would be conjecture merely. But if the
researches of scientists prove beyond all question that there were
pre-Adamic races, then doubtless they were inhabitants of that world
which was destroyed, but the evidence of their existence as well as
the evidence of the existence of animals and vegetation was preserved
in the re-creation of that planet to form this earth. Though, in this
connection, I must say that so far as I have examined the works of
those who treat on the subject of pre-historic man, or pre-Adamic
races, they have hung the heaviest weights on the slenderest of
threads; and I am inclined to the opinion that Adam was the progenitor
of all races of men whoso remain have yet been found.
So much then for the different theories as to the origin of things
pertaining to our earth; as to the beginning of the universe, that
is beyond the scope of this inquiry, and may be dismissed by saying
that it had no beginning. We conclude this part by quoting one of our
hymns:[F]
If you could hie to Kolob,[G]
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward,
With the same speed to fly,
D'ye think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?
Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?
Methinks the Spirit whispers--
No man has found "pure space,"
Nor seen the outside curtains
Where nothing has a place.
The works of God continue,
And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression
Have one eternal round.
[Footnote F: L. D. S. Hymn Book, 252, 17 ed.]
[Footnote G: A planet near the residence of God.--Book of Abraham,
Pearl of Great Price, p. 30.]
IV.
I think it must be evident to all who have looked upon the dead, that
man is a dual being. Who that has stood by the bier of a friend, a
parent, child or wife, and looked upon the lifeless form stretched
upon it, but has felt that the being he loved has departed, that he is
looking upon the casket merely that contained the jewel--the spirit.
This truth forced upon man's consciousness in the presence of the dead
is also sustained by the word of God, in which it is said--speaking
of that mysterious change to which all flesh is subject, and which man
calls death--"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and
the spirit shall return to God who gave it."[A]
[Footnote A: Ecclesiastes xii: 7]
It is my purpose to show in this writing, that this spirit of man
existed before it was united with the body, that it is an emanation
from Deity, and hence the relationship of Fatherhood on the part of
God, and sonship on the part of man. It is written by the Apostle Paul
that, "God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times
past unto the fathers, by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, _by whom
also he made the worlds_."[B] The palpable meaning of this passage is
that God employed the spirit of Jesus Christ in creating worlds--not
one world only, but doubtless many. And if it was the spirit of Jesus
which acted as God's agent in the creation of the worlds, there can be
no doubt as to the spirit of Jesus having an existence before it was
tabernacled in the body born of the virgin Mary.
[Footnote B: Hebrews i: 1, 2.]
Nor is the above passage of scripture the only one which sustains
the fact of the existence of the spirit of Jesus Christ previous to
its union with the body. There are many expressions which fell from
the lips of our Lord himself that prove the fact. When some of his
disciples murmured at certain doctrines he had been teaching them, he
exclaims--"Doth this offend you? what and if ye shall see the Son of
Man ascend up where he was before?"[C]--doubtless referring to the
place he occupied in the mansions of his Father before the creation of
the earth.
[Footnote C: John vi: 61, 62.]
Again, just previous to his betrayal, in his prayer in Gethsemane,
he said to his Father, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have
finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self, even with the glory which I had
with thee before the world was."[D] No more direct allusion to his
pre-existence could be given than this; and from it we learn that such
existence extended back to a period previous to the creation of the
earth we inhabit.
[Footnote D: John, xvii.]
To all appearances Jesus was as other men in his physical organism.
He was born of woman; nourished in the same manner and with the same
food; subject to heat and cold, hunger and thirst and weariness. He
was pre-eminently the man of sorrows, and more than other men subject
to pain. In short he possessed all the organs, dimensions, passions
and attributes of man; but in him the passions were refined and so
nicely checked and balanced, and the attributes so developed and
made subject to the will divine that he was a perfect man--a God! So
nearly did he resemble other men that his countrymen, and especially
his neighbors, failed to recognize God in him. And when he began his
mission among them they said: "Whence hath this man this wisdom, and
these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother
called Mary? and his brethren, James and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
And his sisters are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all
these things? And he did not many mighty works there because of their
unbelief."[E]
[Footnote E: Matt. xiii, 64-68.]
We may now turn our attention to the more immediate object of this
writing--the relationship between man and Deity.
An important inference may be reasonably based upon this similarity
between the Son of God and other men, viz: that if the spirit which
inhabited the body of Jesus had an existence before it dwelt in the
flesh, is it not possible, and, rather is it not probable, that the
spirits of other men, or of all men, also existed before they were
born into the world? Since Jesus was so much like his brethren in the
many respects noted, it requires no great effort to believe that they
resemble him in this particular matter of the pre-existence of their
spirits.
The question, however, rests upon stronger grounds than mere inference.
The Lord said to Job:
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? declare if
thou hast understanding. * * * Who laid the cornerstone thereof, when
the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for
joy?"[F]
[Footnote F: Job xxxviii, 2-7.]
From this scripture one thing is certainly evident, viz: that before
the creation of this earth--before the foundation was laid or
the measuring line stretched upon it, there were "Sons of God" in
existence; and they shouted for joy; perhaps it was at the prospect of
the creation of the earth we inhabit that they shouted. And since it
was the spirit of Jesus Christ under the direction of God the Father
which created the worlds, it is but reasonable to suppose that he was
present on that occasion, and may not they have been where the spirit
of Job was also?
This doctrine of the pre-existence of spirits makes another scripture
clear: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee," said the Lord
to Jeremiah; "and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified
thee, and I ordained thee to be a prophet unto the nations."[G] It
was the spirit of Jeremiah which the Lord knew; which, in common with
the spirit of Jesus, of Job, of Adam, and, in short, of all men,[H]
dwelt in the presence of God; and as the spirit of Jeremiah possessed
those peculiar characteristics which are favorable to the exercise of
prophetic powers, the Lord foreordained him to be a prophet unto the
nations.
[Footnote G: Jeremiah i, 5.]
[Footnote H: At the first organization in heaven we were all present,
and saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the plan of salvation made,
and we sanctioned it.--Joseph Smith.]
In the revelations which the Lord gave to Abraham it is said:
"Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were
organized before the world was; and among these were many of the noble
and great ones; and God saw that these were good; and he said, these I
will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he
saw that they were good; and he said unto me, Abraham, thou art one of
them, thou wast chosen before thou wast born."[I]
[Footnote I: Pearl of Great Price, p. 32.]
This scripture not only proves the pre-existence of the spirits of men,
but gives us to understand that some were more highly developed than
others, were more noble, and hence set apart for special labors, some
to be rulers; others, as in the case of Jeremiah, to be prophets, each
one in the mighty multitude being assigned to the particular sphere,
and given to the particular privileges that his state of development
and degree of faithfulness entitled him to receive.
From the scriptures we learn that at one time there was war in heaven:
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought, and the
dragon fought and his angels. * * * And the great dragon was cast out,
that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole
world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out
with him."[J]
[Footnote J: Rev. xii.]
To this also agrees the testimony of Jude:
"And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their own
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto
the judgment of the great day."[K]
[Footnote K: Jude 6.]
I have called attention to those passages to prove that there were
some spirits who dwelt with God, so wicked and rebellious, that they
had to be cast out of heaven, and became the devil and his angels; as
well as some who had developed such nobility of character, that God had
set them apart or ordained them to be his rulers. Between these two
extremes of good and bad, obedient and rebellious were, I doubt not,
all degrees of faithfulness and nobility of conduct; and I hazard the
opinion that the amount and kind of development in that pre-existent
state influences the character in this life, and brings within reach
privileges and blessings commensurate with their faithfulness in the
spirit world. Yet, I would not be understood as holding the opinion
that those born to wealth and ease, whose lives appear to be an
unbroken round of pleasure and happiness, must therefore have been
spirits in their first estate that were very highly developed in
refinement, and very valiant for God and his Christ. Regarding this
present state of existence, where as a sphere man is sent to obtain an
experience and further develop the intelligence within him, and obtain
a knowledge of good and evil, from seeing them in contrast and contact
with each other--I hold that that condition in life which is calculated
to give the widest experience to man, is the one most to be desired,
and he who obtains it is the most favored of God.
One step more in this digression in order that I may state further
that I believe it consistent with right reason to say that some of
the lowliest walks in life, the paths which lead into the deepest
valleys of sorrow and up the most rugged steeps of adversity, are
the ones which, if a man travel in, will best accomplish the object
of his existence in this world. The stream that leaps over cliffs of
rocks, thence goes tumbling down through some canyon's rugged defile,
then divides into babbling brooks, now coquetting with the sunbeams
or dancing in the sheen of the moon, then stealing into the shade as
it meanders through the meadows, and then quickening its speed makes
a final rush down a rocky declivity into the ocean--keeps its waters
pure; while the stagnant pool is overgrown with sedges; is a place for
toads to knot and gender in; breeds miasmata and infests the air with
disease germs; its water is impure and it is altogether unlovely and
undesirable. So it is with the life of man. The conditions which place
men where they may always walk on the unbroken plain of prosperity and
seek for nothing but their own pleasure, are not the best within the
gift of God. For in such circumstances men soon drop into a position
analogous to the stagnant pool; while those who have to contend with
difficulties, brave dangers, endure disappointments, struggle with
sorrows, eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of affliction;
develop a moral and spiritual strength, together with a purity of life
and character, unknown to the heirs of ease, and wealth, and pleasure.
With the English bard, therefore, I believe
Sweet are the uses of adversity!
And with the Scotch poet I would say that those events, usually
regarded as misfortunes,
Give the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Thou losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where
What the mountain gorge, the beatling crags, and steep declivities
are to the stream--enabling it to dash on in its course and by its
very motion purify itself--so are what we usually denominate adverse
circumstances to the life of man--they are the means of development and
of purification only--the pathway of fiery trials is the one ordained
of God for his favored sons.
In proof of this I direct you to the lives of the saints and the
prophets; but above all to the life of the Son of God himself! The life
of the Prophet Joseph Smith is an illustration second only to that of
Messiah. He was wont to say:
"I have waded in tribulation lip-deep; but every wave of adversity
which has struck me, has only wafted me that much nearer to Deity."
"Envy and the wrath of man have been my common lot all the days of my
life; and for what cause it seems mysterious, unless I was ordained
from before the foundation of the world for some good end, or bad, as
you may choose to call it. * * * It all has become as second nature to
me, and I feel like Paul, to glory in tribulation, for to this day has
the God of my fathers delivered me out of them all."
The Lord, while the prophet was a prisoner in Liberty Jail, said to him:
"If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils
among false brethren; if thou art in perils among robbers; if thou
art in perils by land or by sea; if thou art accused with all manner
of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear
thee from the society of thy father and thy mother, and brethren and
sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the
bosom of thy wife and of thine offspring * * * And if thou shouldst
be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and sentence
of death be passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the
billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine
enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine
to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall
gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these
things shall give thee experience, _and shall be for thy good_. The
Son of Man hath descended below them all; art thou greater than he?
Therefore hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee,
for their [the wicked] bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are
known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not
what man can do, for God shall be with you for ever and ever."[L]
[Footnote L: Doc. and Cov., Sec cxxii.]
If all this affliction was for the "good" of one of the most favored of
God's sons, is it not a fair conclusion that the trials and adversities
of the other sons of God are for their "good?"
Let us now consider the relationship existing between the spirits of
men and God. Zechariah speaks of God as not only laying the foundation
of the earth, but also as forming the spirit of man within him,[M]
while the writer of the book of Hebrews alludes to Jesus as the _first_
begotten[N] of God. The same writer also saith:
"We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them
reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of
spirits and live?"[O]
[Footnote M: Zech. xii: 1.]
[Footnote N: Heb. i: 6]
[Footnote O: Heb. xii]
We now begin to see why Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "Our Father
which art in heaven." The words "Our Father" are not meaningless, but
express the relationship between God and man. And not in any mystical
way either, but in reality, the relationship being as much a fact as
that existing between any father and son on earth.
This relationship accounts for the interest of God in man; it explains
why he is "mindful of him;" why all created things are made but for his
use, to supply his necessities, to furnish him with comforts, or afford
him the means of experience and education. It makes us understand why
such a gulf exists between man and the rest of the animal creation--man
is the offspring of Deity and inherits his Father's attributes. It is
true those attributes are undeveloped; and often distorted even from
that degree of perfection it is possible for them to arrive at in this
state of existence; but that they exist in man is beyond all question.
The relationship between God and man also enables us to understand how
it is that God permitted such an atonement as the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ to be made for his redemption. Among men may be seen how strong
are the paternal feelings; but how much stronger and perfect they are
in God than in man is manifest in this, that "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life."[P]
[Footnote P: John iii: 16.]
Following as a consequence of the fatherhood of God is the brotherhood
of man. And since Jesus Christ is the first begotten in the spirit
world (and the "only begotten" of the Father in the flesh) it follows
that he is our elder brother; a relationship which accounts for
his willingness to make the great atonement which brings life and
immortality within the reach of his brethren.
God and Christ, then, are by no means beings afar off that man may not
know. Nor does God look upon mankind as worms or worthless things.
On the contrary they are his offspring. He regards them with all the
affection of a loving, father--
He sees their hopes he knows their fear,
And looks and loves his image there!
He delights not in their destruction, but would have all men to be
saved; and for that purpose has established the gospel.
I point out this noble relationship of man to Deity, not to flatter the
former, but because I believe it to be a fact. It is a theme I love to
contemplate, not because it debases Deity, but because it elevates man,
and must inspire him with noble aspirations, and to the performance
of virtuous deeds. If but once understood and realized by mankind, I
believe the conception would be a strong incentive to the reformation
of the world; as it at once explains many things which have been
regarded as mysterious, and explodes many of the absurdities which have
crept into the men-invented systems of theology. Furthermore it brings
man so near to Deity that like their Elder Brother--being in the form
of God--being the children of God--they may think as Christ did, that
it is no robbery to be equal with God,[Q] and may labor with worthy
ambition to that end. Heirs of God they are, even joint heirs with
Jesus Christ, if they obey the gospel of the Son of God; and they have
the assurance of holy writ that when he shall appear they shall be like
him.[R]
[Footnote Q: Phil. ii: 1-8.]
[Footnote R: I. John iii: 2]