68--1945. **Spirit Gardens.** The Heavenly fields. (D. and C.
88:51-61).
---
CANTO SEVEN
1--Title: **The Arcana of the Infinite.** "Arcana," the Latin plural
of "Arcanum," signifies hidden, secret. This title is intended to be
an equivalent for "The Mysteries of the Kingdom"--the esoteric
features or advanced principles of the Gospel. Herein are summarized
those sublime doctrines that came directly to the modern Revelator
during and subsequent to the translating of the ancient plates. A
vision of the dispensations is involved--the reading of the Book of
Time and the Volume of Eternity.
2--1986. **One Vast Mind.** Joseph Smith, Prophet, Seer, and
Revelator.
3--2009. **The Solemn Dispensations.** In theology the term
"dispensation"--from "dispense," to deal out or distribute--signifies
the method or scheme by which God has at different times developed
his purposes and revealed himself to man. It also denotes a period
marked by some particular development of the Lord's work, such as the
Mosaic Dispensation, lasting from Moses to Christ; or the Meridian
Dispensation, ending in the apostacy that made necessary another
restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood. While revelation is
silent upon the subject, it is probable that there are seven Gospel
dispensations--seven distinct periods during which the Plan of
Progression, revealed from Heaven to Earth, has been among the
children of men. The belief as to seven is partly based upon the
scriptural or symbolical character of that number, and upon the
Prophet Joseph's teachings relative to the seven periods, each of a
thousand years, answering to the seven seals of the mystical Book
seen by John in his vision on Patmos (Rev. 5, 6; D. and C. 77).
4--2022. **The Trumpets Seven.** The Angels of the Dispensations. (D.
and C. 88:92-116).
5--2032. **The Holy Order.** The Eternal Priesthood--divine
authority--and those who wield it, in Heaven and on Earth. (History
of the Church, Vol. III, p. 385; Vol. IV, p. 207; D. and C. 20, 68,
84, 107, 112, 121, 124; Alma 13:1-10.)
6--2057. **Ere Earth Knew Abraham.** The pre-existence of the House
of Israel is intimated by Moses (Deut. 32:7, 8). The 144,000
mentioned by John (Rev. 14:1) and by Joseph (D. and C. 77:11) were
"of all the tribes of the children of Israel."
7--2059. **Ark of God * * * Sword of Flame.** Emblems, respectively,
of the Priesthood and the Gospel.
8--2063. **Shine and Shadow.** Dispensations of heavenly light,
alternating with periods of spiritual darkness.
9--2068. **Succeeded By The Less.** Moses, with the Melchisedek
Priesthood and the fulness of the Gospel, was taken back to Heaven,
leaving Israel to be governed by the Aaronic Priesthood and the Law.
(D. and C. 84:19-28.)
10--2071. **Ministers Upon Each Hemisphere.** Jewish and Nephite
apostles.
11--2074. **The Perfect Church.** The Church of Christ on Earth,
perfected after the pattern of the Church in Heaven. (D. and C.
76:67; 107:93. See also "Gospel Themes," p. 81.)
12--2089. **The Ancient One.** "Daniel, in his seventh chapter,
speaks of the Ancient of Days; he means the oldest man, our father
Adam, Michael; he will call his children together and hold a council
with them to prepare them for the coming of the Son of Man."--Joseph
Smith (History of the Church, Vol. 3, p. 386; D. and C. 116).
13--2099. **Keys of Light.** "Three grand keys by which good or bad
angels or spirits may be known." (D. and C. 129).
14--2136. **Most Intelligent.** "God himself, finding he was in the
midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw
proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to
advance like himself."--Joseph Smith ("Times and Seasons," August 15.
1844).
15--2140. **Intelligence Eternal.** "Intelligence, or the light of
truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be" (D. and C.
93:29, 36). "The first principles of man are self existent with God."
("Times and Seasons," August 15, 1844).
16--2150. **Birth and Death Are Baptism.** See "Gospel Themes," pp.
66, 67.
17--2161. **Earthly Sorrow.** The trials of mortal life, foreseen
from spirit heights by the children of God, who nevertheless rejoiced
at the prospect of glory beyond.
18--2167. **Second Estate.** Man's first estate is the spirit life;
his second estate, the mortal life. In the former he walks by sight,
in the latter by faith.
19--2188. **Sun or Moon or Varying Star.** The heavenly bodies typify
celestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories. (D. and C. 76:96-98.)
20--2197. **Vicarious Ordinance.** Temple work, done by the living in
behalf of the dead. (D. and C. 127 and 128.)
21--2288. **Felon's Debt.** "This earth was organized or formed out
of other planets which were broken up and remodeled and made into the
one on which we live."--Joseph Smith (Compendium, p. 287).
22--2293. **Law Hath Magnified.** "The earth abideth the law of a
celestial kingdom." (D. and C. 88:25).
23--2298. **Celestial Seer Stone.** Earth in its sanctified,
immortal, and eternal state will be like a sea of glass and fire
(Rev. 4:6), a great Urim and Thummim to its glorified inhabitants (D.
and C. 130:6-11).
24--2325. **Would Have Lived The Law.** Men's desires as well as deeds
will form a basis for eternal judgment (History of the Church, Vol.
2, p. 380).
25--2333. **Judah's One and Joseph's Three.** John the Revelator and
the Three Nephites.
26--2336. **Unclothed Spirit.** The Spirit seen by the Brother of
Jared, and afterwards embodied as Jesus of Nazareth.
27--2337. **The Triple Seer.** The Apostle Paul, "caught up to the
third heaven" (II Cor. 12:2).
---
CANTO EIGHT
1--Title: **The Lifted Ensign.** The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, organized April 6, 1830.
2--2357. **Shepherds Twain.** Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the
first and second Elders of the Church.
3--2366. **Giant of Untruth.** The parallel begun in the first stanza
continues through the second.
4--2380. **Time Yet Was Young.** Here the main narrative reverts to
the story of Enoch and his city, as revealed to Joseph the Seer, and
embodied in the Book of Moses (6 and 7). In the poem that story
continues as far as the line, "And Noah's righteous seed in me
rejoice."
5--2389. **Sainted Commonweal.** The City of Enoch.
6--2400. **Chain * * * Sundered.** The people of Enoch, under the Law
of Consecration, attained to such a superior condition that it was
said of them: "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were
of one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness, and there was
no poor among them." (Moses 7:18.)
7--2404. **Armageddon's Conflict.** The final struggle between the
powers of Good and Evil, when Satan will be overthrown (D. and C.
88:112-115).
8--2409. **Terrestrial Radiance.** "Their place of habitation is that
of the terrestrial order." They are "held in reserve to be
ministering angels unto many planets," and "as yet have not entered
into so great a fulness as those who are resurrected from the dead."
Joseph Smith ("History of the Church," Vol. 4, pp. 209, 210).
9--2420. **The Captive Free.** Christ, during the interval between
his crucifixion and resurrection, visited and preached to "the
spirits in prison"--spirits disobedient in the days of Noah, and
swept away by the Deluge (I Peter 3:19, 20; and 4:61; Key to Theology
14).
10--2424. **Climbing Robber-like.** According to the Bible, the
people who built the Tower of Babel did so that its top might "reach
unto heaven" (Gen. 11:4). Joseph Smith is said to have declared that
the "heaven" they had in view was the City of Enoch, then suspended
within sight of the earth. Endeavoring to get to Heaven by "another
way," the builders of Babel were comparable to "thieves and robbers."
Tradition asserts that the City of Enoch stood where the Gulf of
Mexico now is.
11--2432. **Tri-Branching Tree.** Noah and his three sons, Japheth,
Shem and Ham.
12--2464. **One Like Unto Him.** Joseph Smith was a man like unto
Moses, who was like unto Christ. Moses led Israel out of temporal
bondage, and Joseph began a work destined to deliver Israel from
spiritual bondage. Thus Moses and Joseph were both typical of Him who
redeemed the world from the bondage of sin and death.
13--2467. **A Two-Fold Type.** The social and spiritual condition of
the Jewish saints and the Nephite disciples foretokened the
Millennium. Joseph Smith had in view the realization of what Enoch
had achieved, and what the primitive Christians endeavored to
accomplish, in preparing a people for the presence of the Lord.
14--2473. **Sought Fulfillment.** Following these words is a
description of social conditions at the time of the advent of
"Mormonism."
15--2604. **The Trampled Terror.** A personification of the French
Revolution.
16--2607. **Frowning Mass, Contemning Class.** The social problem of
the Twentieth Century.
17--2630. **Time An Enoch Came.** Joseph Smith is likened unto Enoch,
and even called by that name, in some of the early revelations (D.
and C., 78, 92, 96, and 104). This may have been done to impress the
fact that Joseph's work was similar to that of Enoch.
18--2656. **A Holy Hand.** John the Baptist, ordaining Joseph and
Oliver to the Aaronic Priesthood, May 15, 1829 (D. and C. 13).
19--2661. **Panoply of Power.** The Priesthood. The main narrative
here resumes from the point of digression.
20--2694. **Again The Woman Wonderful.** The Church of Christ in its
Latter-day Restoration.
---
CANTO NINE
1--Title: **Upon the Shoulders of the Philistine.** Under this
caption, suggested by Isaiah 11:14, is treated the westward movement
of the Latter-day Saints, incidental to the gathering of scattered
Israel.
2--2722. **Eaglet's Nest Is Empty.** Within a year after its
organization the church migrated from its birthplace, Fayette, Seneca
County, New York, and the surrounding region.
3--2724. **Storied Strand.** The shore of Lake Erie, in Northern
Ohio, where the Saints began to settle early in 1831. There they
built their first Temple, and took initial steps toward founding the
United Order, under the Law of Consecration.
4--2742. **Shinea's Land.** Kirtland, Ohio, and its environs, was
"The Land of Shinehah" (D. and C. 82:12 and 104:40-48). From that
part, in 1837-38, the Church moved its headquarters to Far West,
Caldwell County, Missouri.
5--2750. **Their Powers Bestow.** An allusion to visions seen in the
Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836 (D. and C. 110).
6--2759. **Laman's Bands.** The first mission to the Lamanites
(Indians) was undertaken in the autumn of 1830. The missionaries
labored also among the white people of Ohio and Missouri. At
Independence, which was then on the frontier of the United States,
they crossed the line into Indian Territory, now the State of Kansas.
7--2767. **Lands the Rarest.** The region drained by the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers.
8--2779. **Japheth's Wrath.** The Gentiles in Western Missouri,
misapprehending the motives of the "Mormons" in gathering to that
part, and incited by evil-minded agitators, rose against the
newcomers, and drove them first from Jackson County, and eventually
from the State.
9--2788. **The Shoulders.** Civilization, with its steamships,
railroads, and other utilities, and persecution, with faggot and
sword, have helped God's people to accomplish their destiny. "The
blood of the martyrs" has been "the seed of the Church," whose every
movement, voluntary or compulsory, has been toward the goal of its
ultimate triumph.
10--2791. **Calm Caesar.** Julius Caesar, while crossing a stormswept
water, quieted the apprehensions of his boatman by remarking, "Fear
not, you carry Caesar and his fortunes."
11--2794. **The Law of Liberty.** The Gospel of Christ, misnamed
"Mormonism."
12--2800. **Sees Menace.** Having come mostly from the North and the
East, the "Mormons" were suspected by the slave-holding Missourians
of being abolitionists. This false charge, with others equally
groundless, caused the persecution that followed.
13--2813. **A Second Pharaoh * * * A Herod.** These epithets fitly
characterize the Governor of Missouri, Lilburn W. Boggs, who issued
the edict under which the persecuted people were expelled. Said he,
to the mob-militia who drove them from their homes: "The Mormons must
be exterminated or driven from the State."
14--2815. **Gathering the Whirlwind.** Missouri paid her debt to
justice during the Civil War, when her Western borders, where mob
violence had assailed her "Mormon" citizens, were ravaged again and
again by the fierce guerilla warfare that spent its fury in that
unhappy region.
15--2829. **Shakes the Dungeon.** Joseph Smith and others were
imprisoned in Richmond Jail, where they were taunted by their guards,
who boasted of murders and outrages committed upon the defenseless
people after the surrender of Far West. The lion-hearted leader
endured it till he could endure no more. Springing to his feet, he
rebuked the ribald wretches, commanding them in the name of Jesus
Christ to be still. They obeyed, cowering before him and begging his
pardon. Parley P. Pratt, a fellow prisoner with the Prophet, says of
this remarkable incident: "He ceased to speak. He stood erect in
terrible majesty, chained and without a weapon. * * * I have seen the
ministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes, and criminals
arraigned before them, while life was suspended on a breath in the
courts of England; I have witnessed a Congress in solemn session to
give laws to nations * * * but dignity and majesty have I seen but
once, as it stood in chains at midnight in a dungeon, in an obscure
village of Missouri." (Autobiography, pp. 229, 230.)
16--2835. **Disease and Death Subdued.** After the Prophet had
regained his freedom, and while his followers were settling at
Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), an epidemic of fever and ague swept
over that region. Many, prostrated by the malady, were miraculously
healed under his administrations.
17--2836. **Sire of Waters.** The Mississippi River.
18--2839. **City, Mother of Many.** Nauvoo the Beautiful, built upon
the site of Commerce, in Hancock County, Illinois, was the parent and
model of many other cities subsequently founded by the Latter-day
Saints, mostly in the region of the Rocky Mountains.
19--2846. **Unworldly Link.** The Nauvoo Temple, where work began in
this dispensation for the salvation of the dead.
20--2847. **Elijah's Mightier Mission.** Malachi 3:1 and 4:5, 6; D.
and C. 110:4-16; History of the Church, Vol. 4, p. 211; Gospel
Themes, pp. 138, 139.
21--2860. **Crisis Past.** Early in 1837, during a period of apostacy
at Kirtland, the Prophet said: "Something new must be done to save
the Church." Thereupon he appointed Heber C. Kimball, of the Council
of the Twelve, to head a mission to Europe. Part of the opposition
encountered by Elder Kimball and his associates was a fierce
onslaught by evil spirits, at Preston, England, where they began
their labors. (Life of Heber C. Kimball, pp. 138-146.) The first
company of emigrating Saints from abroad sailed from Liverpool for
Nauvoo, in 1840. By that time another apostolic mission, headed by
Brigham Young, President of the Twelve, had been sent to the British
Isles.
22--2863. **Befriended by the Just.** Many of the people of Illinois
extended a hospitable welcome to the plundered and homeless
"Mormons," fleeing out of Missouri.
23--2866. **Earliest Offering.** Ephraim is the first branch of the
Israelitish tree to bear the fruits of faith in and obedience to the
Gospel in latter days. "Ephraim is my first-born," the Lord says
through Jeremiah (31:9). That is, Ephraim, who "mixed himself among
the people" (Hosea 7:8), is the first to be "born of God"--baptized
and gathered out from the nations.
24--2877. **Egypt of the West.** America, where the gathered
descendants of Joseph are to re-enact upon a larger scale the part
played by their great ancestor in the famine-stricken nation on the
Nile.
25--2882. **Long Lost Captives.** The Ten Tribes, carried away by the
Assyrians, B. C. 721, and who are to return from "the north
countries" (D. and C. 133:26-35).
26--2891. **Rallying the Loyal.** The Latter-day Saints have been
taught to look forward to a time when they, lifting up an ensign to
lovers of law, order, and liberty, and reinforced by them, will save
this Nation, while anarchy is aiming at its life.
27--2903. **Inglorious Battleground.** The field of Cumorah.
28--2905. **Where Erst He Fled.** The House of Joseph, in modern
times, begins its march of destiny at the Hill Cumorah, where the
Nephites (also of Joseph) met their tragic fate. There is a tradition
to the effect that every Temple reared by the Latter-day Saints marks
a stage in the flight of the doomed Nephites, pursued by the
victorious Lamanites, to the final slaughter at that historic hill.
29--2919. **Ruined Lie.** The allusion is to cities and temples built
and abandoned by the Saints in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. (D. and
C. 101, 103, and 105.)
30--2924. **Union * * * Enoch Saw.** The United Order--all things
consecrated to God. (D. and C. 105:4, 5.)
31--2930. **Her Trembling Foes.** "Let us not go up to battle against
Zion, for the inhabitants of Zion are terrible." (D. and C. 45:70.)
32--2951. **Pain Shall Bring Thee Power.** Sacrificial trials, that
purify and elevate, redound to the advantage of posterity. The
parents suffer that the children may be blest. All noble and powerful
races have "come up through great tribulation."
33--2969. **City of Joseph.** A name given to Nauvoo after the
Prophet's martyrdom.
---
CANTO TEN
1--Title: **The Parted Veil.** Joseph's vision and prophecy of the
future. He is represented as foretelling to his people their great
destiny.
2--2994. **Honor of a State.** Joseph the Prophet and Hyrum the
Patriarch were murdered while under the pledged protection of the
Governor of Illinois. The mob that fired its fatal volleys into the
bosoms of the martyrs, and went unwhipped of justice, struck down the
honor of a sovereign commonwealth of the American Union.
3--2998. **The Blazing Dome.** The Nauvoo Temple, burned by the mob
forces, after they had captured the city and expelled the remnant of
the persecuted community left behind at the beginning of the exodus
in February, 1846.
4--3003. **New Born Babes.** Nine infants, it is said, were born in
the camps of the fugitive Saints, on Sugar Creek, Iowa, the first
night out from Nauvoo.
5--3011. **Born in a Day. "Little One"--"A Thousand."**--Applications
of ancient prophecy. (Isaiah 60:22 and 66:8).
6--3016. **Cities Twain.** Zion and Jerusalem, the future capitals of
the Saviour's Kingdom; the former the seat of representative
government, the latter of monarchical power. "Out of Zion shall go
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Isaiah 2:3;
Micah 4:2.)
7--3024. **Fain Would Dwell.** The extension of slavery to the West
was the dream of the South before the Civil War. This was one reason
why the Southern States favored the war with Mexico.
8--3026. **Aztec's Altar.** The region settled by the "Mormon"
people, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, belonged
to Mexico, the Land of the Aztecs.
9--3030. **Golden Empire!** California, as a Mexican province,
included the present States of Utah and Nevada. Some of the earliest
settlers of Salt Lake Valley had previously helped to colonize
California, and were among those who discovered gold there, January,
1848.
10--3032. **Eden on the Desert Brine.** The redeemed Wilderness
surrounding the Great Salt Lake, and formerly known as "The Great
American Desert."
11--3044. **Land of the Honey Bee.** The State of Utah.
12--3045. **Pilgrim Sire.** The author's father, Horace Kimball
Whitney, was one of the Pioneers who entered Salt Lake Valley, July
24, 1847.
13--3054. **Hear Me, My People!** At this point begins the Prophet's
farewell address. The preceding stanzas of this Canto are a
generalization of what follows in detail.
14--3073. **Nebo's Height.** Joseph, compared to Moses, is
predicting his own death and the coming of his successor, the
President of the Twelve, upon whom the Prophet placed the right of
succession.
15--3082. **Stalwart Upon the Mountains.** At Montrose, Iowa, August
6, 1842, Joseph Smith predicted that the Saints would be driven
westward, and would "become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky
Mountains."
16--3090. **War Shall Wound.** On Christmas Day, 1832, the Prophet
foretold the war between the North and South. (D. and C. 87.)
According to tradition, he also declared that those nations that
first received the Gospel in this dispensation, would be preserved
when "the consumption decreed" "made a full end of all nations."
17--4034. **First Born Fold.** Ephraim, fulfilling his mission in the
region of the Rocky Mountains.
18--4041. **Brave Sons of Battling Sires.** Descendants of the
patriots of the American Revolution.
19--4053. **And by that Power.** "The redemption of Zion must needs
come by power." (D. and C. 103:15.)
20--4066. **Zion's Land.** Zion in a restricted sense--Jackson County.
21--4080. **The Common Good.** Christ's Commonwealth, foreshadowed by
the American Union.
22--4089. **The Sceptered Harlot.** The Woman described in the
Apocalypse as sitting "upon many waters"--a "great city" reigning
"over the kings of the earth." (Rev. 17.)
23--5002. **A Seventh Realm.** Joseph, paraphrasing Paul, said
concerning himself: "I know a man who was caught up to the seventh
heaven."
24--5033. **I Am.** The Name Divine. (Ex. 3:14.)
25--5047. **Light and Liberty.** "At the first organization in Heaven
we were all present and saw the Saviour chosen and appointed, and the
plan of salvation made, and we sanctioned it."--Joseph Smith
(Compendium, p. 288).
26--5055. **Freedom's Code.** The Gospel of Christ, "the perfect law
of liberty," typed by the American Constitution, guaranteeing freedom
and equal rights.
27--5070. **Not Esau's Hand.** Culture as well as strength must play
its part in the building up of God's Kingdom. Zion, at first
primitive and crude, shall become "the perfection of beauty," "the
joy of the whole earth." Her original builders may be likened to the
massive, immovable foundations of a structure whose polished walls
and glittering spires are represented by their children, educated
under improved conditions, and yet to stand in the forefront of the
world's civilization.
28--5072. **The Kingdom to Complete.** "The spirit and power of
Elijah is to come after, holding the keys of power, building the
temple to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchisedek
Priesthood upon the House of Israel, and making all things ready;
then Messiah comes to his Temple."--Joseph Smith (Compendium, p. 283;
D. and C. 27).
---
EPILOGUE
1--Title: **The Angel Ascendant.** The Angel ascending from the East
(Rev. 7:2; D. and C. 77:9). This is Elias, an address to and a
response from whom forms the body of the epilogue, or final division
of the poem.
2--6017. **Rose Again.** Elias the All-restorer is represented as
reopening for Adam the closed communication between Earth and Heaven.
3--6018. **The City Sanctified.** The City of Enoch.
4--6025. **Alien Fire.** The Gospel, restored through Noah, standing
at the head of a dispensation, was carried by his descendants, after
the Flood, to various parts of the earth, where fragments of it
remain, mixed with the traditions of men. Ceremonies similar to, or
suggestive of Gospel ordinances, and found among primitive peoples,
are thus accounted for.
5--6027. **The Root of Shiloh.** Abraham, ancestor to Jesus of
Nazareth.