salvation may be purchased for those under the dominion of death?

CHAPTER III.

GENERAL SALVATION.

In answer to the questions with which the last chapter closed, I may say that however difficult it may be to comprehend fully all things connected with man's fall, and God's plan for his redemption, we may be assured that the fall was not a blunder, nor was it an accident. The prophet Lehi bowed down under the weight of years, when giving his last testimony and instructions to his son Jacob, said: "Behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."^[A]

[Footnote A: II Nephi II: 24, 25.]

All that has befallen man, we may rest assured, is essential to his eternal and perfect happiness. From our limited experience, we know that men learn to appreciate the joys of prosperity by drinking deeply from the cup of adversity; they learn to prize the boon of health, by languishing upon the bed of affliction; they learn the value of wealth, by experiencing want and poverty; the sweets of life are rendered still more sweet by the draughts of bitterness we are compelled to drink; and the ever intermittent gleams of sunshine are made more bright by the renewing storms which darken the sky; and thus—

"Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up,
Whose golden rounds are our calamities."

As it is with these things I have mentioned, so it is in respect to the greatest blessing Deity can bestow upon man—the gift of eternal life. How great that gift, it is difficult for us to understand. It is not to live merely three score years, nor a thousand years, nor ten thousand years, but eternally; and while

"The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
Man shall flourish in immortal youth.
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds."—

But in order that his children might know how to prize the greatest of all his gifts. Deity has ordained that they should pass through the dark valley of death; and in the meantime, by passing through this probation we call life, they might have the opportunity of demonstrating before the heavens their integrity to principles of righteousness and truth; and by coming in contact with evil, they might forever prize that which is pure and good: that vice might ever be hideous to them, and virtue lovely—and thus the eternal happiness of man be made secure. Thus with death, as with many other things, that which at times we consider our greatest calamity, turns out to be our greatest good.

As to the second question^[B]—How is it that through the sacrifice of one who is innocent salvation may be purchased for those under the dominion of death?—I will observe, in passing, that what should most concern us, is, not so much how it is that such is the case, but is it a fact. Is it true that God has established such a scheme of redemption, is what should concern us most.

[Footnote B: See Discourse of J. Taylor, J. of D. vol 10, p. 114.]

To that question the blood sprinkled upon a thousand Jewish altars, and the smoke that darkened the heavens for ages from burnt offerings, answers yes. For those sacrifices, and that sprinkled blood were but typical of the great sacrifice to be made by the Messiah.

Even the mythology of heathen nations retains the idea of an atonement that either has been, or is to be made for mankind. Fantastic, distorted, confused; buried under the rubbish of savage superstition it may be, but it nevertheless exists. So easily traced, so distinct is this feature of heathen mythology, that some writers have endeavored to prove that the gospel plan of redemption was derived from heathen mythology. Whereas the fact is that the Gospel was understood and extensively preached in the earliest ages;^[C] men retained in their tradition a knowledge of those principles or parts of them, and however much they may have been distorted, traces of them may still be found in nearly all the mythologies of the world.

[Footnote C: See Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Moses, pp. 12 to 31. Gal iii, 8. Heb. iv, 2, in connection with latter part of chap iii. I Cor. X, 1-4. Mediation and Atonement by the late Prest. John Taylor —Appendix.]

The prophets of the Jewish scriptures answer the foregoing question in the affirmative. The writers of the New Testament make Christ's Atonement the principal theme of their discourses and epistles. The Book of Mormon, speaking as the voice of an entire continent of people, whose prophets and righteous men sought and found God, testifies to the same great fact. The revelations of God as given through the Prophet Joseph Smith are replete with passages confirming this doctrine, and lastly, the Saints who have received this doctrine and walked in obedience to the laws of heaven, bear testimony that the Spirit of God has borne record to their spirits that the Atonement of Christ is a grand reality.

This evidence is more than sufficient, it seems to me, to establish the fact of the atonement beyond the possibility of a doubt; and if there are some things in it not within the scope of our comprehension, still there is sufficient foundation for our glorious hope of eternal life through its power; for the evidence proving the fact of that Atonement is sufficient, wanting nothing, either in quality or quantity.

The Atonement is not the only fact which man accepts without being able to comprehend it. Such facts exist all about us. For example, here stands a row of trees; here is the plum tree, the peach, pear, apple, cherry and the apricot. They send their roots down into the same soil; their fibres become interlaced in it; and yet each tree has the mysterious power to draw from the same soil the substances which produce its own peculiar fruit. So it is throughout the vegetable kingdom. But how it is that the peach tree produces the peach, while the plum tree, from the same soil, produces the plum; or how one plant produces wheat, while another at its side produces barley, we cannot tell. But there is the fact; and how stupid would he be considered who rejected the fact, because, forsooth, he cannot understand the mysterious powers or forces which produce it!

As Bishop Watson remarks to Sir Edward Gibbon, in the letters which comprise his Apology for Christianity:—"In physics you cannot comprehend the primary cause of anything: not of the light by which you see; nor of the elasticity of the air by which you hear; nor of the fire by which you are warmed. In physiology you cannot tell what first gave motion to the heart, nor what continues it, nor why its motion is less voluntary than the lungs; nor why you are able to move your arms to the right or left by a simple volition; * * * nor comprehend the principle by which your body was at first formed, nor by which it is sustained, nor by which it will be reduced to earth." The list might be indefinitely extended, for the facts in nature which are incomprehensible are more numerous than those of revelation. And yet those who insist that all the facts connected with revelation should be of such a character that they are perfectly comprehended, refuse not to accept the facts in nature because they are incomprehensible. Why cannot they treat with equal fairness the facts of revelation and leave it to time and further revelation to make that clear which is now obscure?

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL SALVATION.

Unbelievers delight to represent God, the great Law Giver, as unspeakably cruel in demanding such an Atonement as Christ made for the salvation of the children of men. But let it be borne in mind that he who made the Atonement did so voluntarily. Testifying to his disciples