and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other, justice and judgment triumphant as well as mercy and peace; all the attributes of Deity harmonize in this great, grand, momentous, just, equitable, merciful and meritorious act."^[H]

[Footnote H: Mediation and Atonement, ch. xxiv. To the reader who would make a more thorough investigation of this subject than these pages afford, I refer him to the following passages and works. Book of Mormon, II Nephi Chap. ii. Mosiah xv, 18-27. Alma xxxiv, 7-17. Alma xlii, 1-26. Doc. and Cov. Sec lxxvi, and especially the "Mediation and Atonement" by the late Prest. John Taylor Also Watson's Apology for Christianity, Letter vi. Jenyn's Internal Evidences of the Christian Religion, the concluding chapter.]

Through this Atonement, made by Messiah, a full and complete redemption from the consequences of Adam's transgression is brought about; that is, a victory over the grave is secured; and that, too, through the merits of Jesus Christ, And while the law transgressed by Adam has been vindicated, the posterity of Adam, who became subject to death through his disobedience, are redeemed from the grave without anything being required of them. For as their agency was not concerned in bringing about the mischief, neither is anything demanded of them in order to obtain redemption from it.

So far salvation is free, universal, and unconditional extending to every man, woman and child who has ever breathed the breath of life. And hence the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote as one of the articles of our faith—"We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression."

This is what I mean, then, by General Salvation Free redemption for all mankind through the resurrection from death, which was the great penalty affixed to the law that Adam transgressed. This is what the Atonement of Christ accomplished for man, but this is not all it did, as we shall see when we come to speak of Individual Salvation.

Meantime, through the fall, comes our present state of probation; our opportunities for gaining an experience in this life; of coming in contact with good and evil; learning to love the one and despise the other, by seeing them placed in contrast with each other, working out their respective results, to the production of happiness on the one hand, and misery on the other. From which experience we shall learn on what basis rests the eternal felicity of intelligences, and how to perpetuate it throughout the ages yet unborn.

CHAPTER V.

INDIVIDUAL SALVATION.

Having dealt with what I called General Salvation, I now turn to Individual Salvation. You have seen that man is redeemed from the evils brought upon him through Adam's sin, without any act of belief or obedience being required of him. This is because his agency or will was not exercised in breaking the law given to Adam. The calamity overtakes him through no fault of his; and consequently his deliverance, so far, comes without his seeking—in fact, it comes independent of him. In this matter, man is passive, being acted upon by the relative claims of Justice and Mercy.

But apart from the transgressions of our first parents, there is a vast amount of sin, crime and corruption in the world. Envy, hatred, malice, contention, evil-speaking, jealousy, and covetousness abound; to say nothing of the greater evils of lying, drunkenness, stealing, fornication, adultery, and debauchery of every description, which would be improper even to name.

Selfishness is the starting point of the present system of industrialism; chicanery and fraud enter into all the avenues of trade; dishonesty walks the streets without shame; licentiousness revels in its own wantonness; whoredoms are poisoning the life's blood of the nations; prostitution flaunts its shame upon the streets, and takes up its abode in the very shadow of the church, where men meet to worship God. Instead of beautifying the earth, man is but making many portions of it sink-holes of iniquity; where poverty, misery, degradation, drunkenness, crime and sin lie festering in their filthiness under the sunlight of heaven, until the very earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof.

Now, who is responsible for all these evils, this seething mass of iniquity, which blights like a hell-sent plague this fair creation of ours—the earth? I answer that every man and every woman and every child, who has arrived at the years of accountability—who understands the difference between good and evil—is responsible for it, so far, and to that extent that his or her individual acts contribute to the grand aggregate of crime in this sin-stained world.

In the commission of these individual sins, too, man's agency becomes a factor. He sins knowingly willfully, and sometimes wantonly. He transgresses the laws of God and of nature in spite of the protests of his conscience, the convictions of his reason and the promptings of his judgment. He becomes desperately wicked and so depraved that he actually seeks evil and loves it. He hugs it to his bosom and cries, "Evil, be thou my good; sin, be thou my refuge!"

For the transgression of that law which brought death into the world. Justice had no claims upon the posterity of Adam, because their agency was not concerned in it, hence a free redemption was provided from the calamity that overtakes them. But in the case of these individual sins, where the agency of every person is exercised, justice demands that the penalties affixed to the violated laws be satisfied, and the transgressors punished. But here again the principle of mercy is active. As I have before stated, the victory over death is not the only benefit arising from the Atonement of the Messiah; but by the sacrifice which he made he purchased mankind as an inheritance for himself, and they became of right under his dominion, for he ransomed them from an endless sleep in the grave. Nor is that all, but as the scripture saith: "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows * * * He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed * * * The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."^[A] So that his Atonement not only broke the bonds of death, but also atoned for the individual sins of men on condition of their obedience—their loyalty to Christ, who by virtue of his Atonement redeemed them from endless death, and therefore of right became their lawgiver, and had power given him to dictate the terms upon which the full benefits of his Atonement should be applied to individuals, in order to release them from the penalties which follow as a consequence of their personal violations of the principles of righteousness.

[Footnote A: Isaiah liii: 5,6.]

First, however, let us settle it in our minds from authority that the Atonement of Christ has this two-fold force that I have ascribed to it, viz.: that it redeems all mankind from death; and also redeems them from the consequences of personal sins, through obedience to Christ.

The first part of the proposition has already been discussed and proven in those chapters devoted to the consideration of General Salvation, and those arguments need not be repeated here.

That the second part is true is evident from such scripture as: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned;"^[B] and, "Being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him."^[C] But while you are under the necessity of sustaining the proposition, so far as the Jewish Scriptures are concerned, by inference, by conclusions drawn from the consideration of numerous passages, in the Book of Mormon we have passages which at once sustain the doctrine: "And also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing