Theology," "it was held, virtually 'always, everywhere, and by all,' that the universe, as we now see it, was created literally and directly by the voice or hands of the Almighty, or by both—out of nothing—in an instant, or in six days, or in both—about four thousand years before the Christian era—and for the convenience of the dwellers upon the earth, which was at the base and foundation of the whole structure." Such were the views of men concerning the universe during the period here considered.

OF MAN: Respecting man, it was taught that while he was created of God, his origin was purely an earthly one, his body made of the earth, a spirit breathed into him when his body was made, and so man became a living soul. All taught that he was a created thing, a creature.

MAN AND HIS SALVATION: As to man's salvation, some of the creeds taught that God, of His own volition, had foreordained that some men and angels were doomed to everlasting destruction, and others predestined to eternal life and glory. Not "for any good or ill" that they had done or could do, but their fate was fixed by the volition of God alone. These whom He would save, He would move by irresistible grace to their salvation; those whom He had pre-determined should be damned might not escape, struggle they never so persistently; no prayers could save them; no act of obedience might mitigate their punishment; no hungering and thirsting after righteousness, bring them to blessedness; they must perish, and that eternally! Those who perish in ignorance of Christ—the heathen races—were damned. "The heathen in mass, with no single definite and unquestionable exception on record, are evidently strangers to God, and going down to death in an unsaved condition. The presumed possibility of being saved without a knowledge of Christ remains, after 1,800 years, a possibility illustrated by no example." So said those who expounded this creed. Others, still, taught that infants dying in infancy without receiving Christian baptism were damned, and that everlastingly. By some, unbaptized infants were denied burial in sanctified ground. "Hell's Half Acre" was a reality in some Christian graveyards.

OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SALVATION AND DAMNATION: Salvation and damnation meant, as to the former, the attainment of heaven; as to the latter, assignment to hell. The former, judging from the descriptions of it, a mysterious, indefinite state "enjoyed" somewhere "beyond the bounds of time and space * * * the saints secure abode;" the latter, a very definite place, with very definite and very hot conditions, that had power to endure and that everlastingly, to the eternal misery of the damned. Time might come and time might go, but this torture, undiminished, went on forever. If one gained heaven, even by ever so small a margin, he entered upon a complete possession of all its unutterable joys, equally with the angels and the holiest of saints. If he missed heaven, even by ever so narrow a margin, he was doomed to everlasting torment equally with the wickedest of men and vilest of devils, and there was no deliverance for him.

These were some of the prevailing ideas, of the philosophy and the religion of men at the birth of the Prophet. A philosophy inadequate for any reasonable accounting for the universe. A religion that was derogatory to God and debasing to man—errors of both philosophy and religion that it was, I believe, the mission of our Prophet to correct. Let us follow him as he proceeds with his corrections, his setting over against every error above enumerated the truth received of God.

V.

THE PROPHET'S CORRECTION OF SECTARIAN ERRORS.

THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION: Against the sectarian dogma of the cessation of revelation, Joseph Smith proclaimed the reopening of the heavens. Against the doctrine that angels would no more visit the earth, he asserted the visitation of angels to him, revealing the existence of the Book of Mormon, a new volume of Scripture. Other angels brought to the Prophet the keys of authority and power held by them in former dispensations. So came John the Baptist with the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood; Peter, James and John, with the keys of the Melchisedek Priesthood; Moses, with the keys of the gathering of Israel, and so following. Against the doctrine of a closed volume of Scripture, Joseph Smith asserted the existence of, and the truth of the American volume of Scripture, the Book of Mormon. Against this whole narrow, bigoted idea of revelation held by the Christian world, he proclaimed a larger view. Instead of holding that a few prophets among the Hebrews had been visited of God and received divine inspiration he represented God as saying:

"Thou fool, that shall say, A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible! Have ye obtained a Bible, save it were by the Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one; know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men; yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? For I command all men, both in the east and in the west * * * and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them. * * * Behold, I will speak unto the Jews, and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I will also speak unto all nations of the earth, and they shall write it."

Joseph Smith also represents one of the Nephite prophets as saying:

"Behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word; yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true."

This doctrine unites in one splendid brotherhood all the Seekers after God, all those who received inspiration from the Most High and were sent forth from the Divine Presence to instruct their fellow men. Joseph Smith, I say, unites their hands in a splendid brotherhood of the God-inspired men of this world. Not that all the prophets among the various races of men were equally inspired; not that all came with a fulness of truth; not that all had the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if they brought not with their message the effulgent brightness of an all-glorious day, they brought something of twilight which dispelled some of the murkiness of the night in which the men of their respective races had walked; and those who have groped in the density of darkness know how grateful is the twilight, how much better it is than darkness. How noble is this view of God's hand-dealings with the children of men in respect of revelation, as compared with that narrow, bigoted view prevailing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which held that the Hebrew Scriptures contained all the word of God delivered to the inhabitants of the earth!

THE BEING AND KIND OF BEING GOD IS: Against the dogma that God was an incorporeal, immaterial, passionless being, the Prophet announced the splendid doctrine of anthropomorphism—God in the human form, and possessed of human qualities, but sanctified and perfected. In the first great revelation which opened this last dispensation our Prophet beheld Father and Son as separate persons, distinct from each other; persons in the form of men, but more glorious and more splendid, of course, than