JOSEPH SMITH'S DARING ANSWER TO THE LORD—WOMAN, THROUGH MORMONISM, RESTORED TO HER TRUE POSITION—THE THEMES OF MORMONISM.

What potent faith had come into the world that a people should thus live and die by it?

Show us this new temple of theology in which the sisters had worshipped.

Open the book of themes which constitute the grand system of Mormonism.

—

The disciples of the prophet believed in the Book of Mormon; but nearly all their themes, and that vast system of theology which Joseph conceived, as the crowning religion for a world, were derived from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament of Christ, and modern revelation.

New revelation is the signature of Mormonism.

The themes begin with Abraham, rather than with Christ; but they go back to Adam, and to the long "eternities" ere this world was.

Before Adam, was Mormonism!

There are generations of worlds. The Genesis of the Gods was before the Genesis of Man.

The Genesis of the Gods is the first book of the Mormon iliad.

"Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 'Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

"'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.

"'Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

"'Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the corner-stone thereof:

"'When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?'"

Brother Job, where wast thou? Joseph answered the Lord when the Masonic question of the Gods was put to him:

"Father, I was with thee; one of the 'morning stars' then; one of the archangels of thy presence."

'Twas a divinely bold answer. But Joseph was divinely daring.

The genius of Mormonism had come down from the empyrean; it hesitated not to assert its origin among the Gods.

This is no fanciful treatment—no mere flight to the realm of ideals. The Mormons have literally answered the Lord, their Father, the question which he put to their brother, Job, and have made that answer a part of their theology.

But where was woman "when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy?"

Where was Zion? Where the bride? Where was woman?

"Not yet created; taken afterwards from the rib of Adam; of the earth, not of heaven; created for Adam's glory, that he might rule over her."

So said not Joseph.

It was the young East who thus declared. The aged West had kept the book of remembrance.

Joseph was gifted with wonderful memories of the "eternities past." He had not forgotten woman. He knew Eve, and he remembered Zion. He restored woman to her place among the Gods, where her primeval Genesis is written.

Woman was among the morning stars, when they sang together for joy, at the laying of the foundations of the earth.

When the sons of God thrice gave their Masonic shouts of hosanna, the daughters of God lifted up their voices with their brothers; and the hallelujahs to the Lord God Omnipotent, were rendered sweeter and diviner by woman leading the theme.

In the temples, both of the heavens and the earth, woman is found. She is there in her character of Eve, and in her character of Zion. The one is the type of earth, the other the type of heaven; the one the mystical name of the mortal, the other of the celestial, woman.

The Mormon prophet rectified the divine drama. Man is nowhere where woman is not. Mormonism has restored woman to her pinnacle.

Presently woman herself shall sing of her divine origin. A high priestess of the faith shall interpret the themes of herself and of her Father-and-Mother God!

At the very moment when the learned divines of Christendom were glorying that this little earth was the "be-all and the end-all" of creation, the prophet of Mormondom was teaching the sisters in the temple at Kirtland that there has been an eternal chain of creations coming down from the generations of the Gods—worlds and systems and universes. At the time these lights of the Gentiles were pointing to the star-fretted vault of immensity as so many illuminations—lamps hung out by the Creator, six thousand years ago, to light this little earth through her probation—the prophet of Israel was teaching his people that the starry hosts were worlds and suns and universes, some of which had being millions of ages before this earth had physical form.

Moreover, so vast is the divine scheme, and stupendous the works of creations, that the prophet introduced the expressive word eternities. The eternities are the times of creations.

This earth is but an atom in the immensities of creations. Innumerable worlds have been peopled with "living souls" of the order of mankind; innumerable worlds have passed through their probations; innumerable worlds have been redeemed, resurrected, and celestialized.

Hell-loving apostles of the sects were sending ninety-nine hundredths of this poor, young, forlorn earth to the bottomless pit. The Mormon prophet was finding out grand old universes, in exaltation with scarcely the necessity of losing a soul.

The spirit of Mormonism is universal salvation.

Those who are not saved in one glory, may be saved in another.

There are the "glory of the sun," and the "glory of the moon," and the "glory of the stars."

The children of Israel belong to the glory of the sun. They kept their first estate. They are nobly trying to keep their second estate on probation. Let the devotion, the faith, the divine heroism of the Mormon sisters, witness this.

"Adam is our Father and God. He is the God of the earth."

So says Brigham Young.

Adam is the great archangel of this creation. He is Michael. He is the Ancient of Days. He is the father of our elder brother, Jesus Christ—the father of him who shall also come as Messiah to reign. He is the father of the spirits as well as the tabernacles of the sons and daughters of man. Adam!

Michael is one of the grand mystical names in the works of creations, redemptions, and resurrections. Jehovah is the second and the higher name. Eloheim—signifying the Gods—is the first name of the celestial trinity.

Michael was a celestial, resurrected being, of another world.

"In the beginning" the Gods created the heavens and the earths.

In their councils they said, let us make man in our own image. So, in the likeness of the Fathers, and the Mothers—the Gods—created they man—male and female.

When this earth was prepared for mankind, Michael, as Adam, came down. He brought with him one of his wives, and he called her name Eve.

Adam and Eve are the names of the fathers and mothers of worlds.

Adam was not made out of a lump of clay, as we make a brick, nor was Eve taken as a rib—a bone—from his side. They came by generation. But woman, as the wife or mate of man, was a rib of man. She was taken from his side, in their glorified world, and brought by him to earth to be the mother of a race.

These were father and mother of a world of spirits who had been born to them in heaven. These spirits had been waiting for the grand period of their probation, when they should have bodies or tabernacles, so that they might become, in the resurrection, like Gods.

When this earth had become an abode for mankind, with its Garden of Eden, then it was that the morning stars sang together, and the sons and daughters of God shouted for joy. They were coming down to earth.

The children of the sun, at least, knew what the grand scheme of the everlasting Fathers and the everlasting Mothers meant, and they, both sons and daughters, shouted for joy. The temple of the eternities shook with their hosannas, and trembled with divine emotions.

The father and mother were at length in their Garden of Eden. They came on purpose to fall. They fell "that man might be; and man is, that he might have joy." They ate of the tree of mortal life, partook of the elements of this earth that they might again become mortal for their children's sake. They fell that another world might have a probation, redemption and resurrection.

The grand patriarchal economy, with Adam, as a resurrected being, who brought his wife Eve from another world, has been very finely elaborated, by Brigham, from the patriarchal genesis which Joseph conceived.

Perchance the scientist might hesitate to accept the Mormon ideals of the genesis of mortals and immortals, but Joseph and Brigham have very much improved on the Mosaic genesis of man. It is certainly not scientific to make Adam as a model adobe; the race has come by generation. The genesis of a hundred worlds of his family, since his day, does not suggest brickyards of mortality. The patriarchal economy of Mormonism is at least an improvement, and is decidedly epic in all its constructions and ideals.

A grand patriarchal line, then, down from the "eternities;" generations of worlds and generations of Gods; all one universal family.

The Gods are the fathers and the mothers, and the brothers and the sisters, of the saints.

Divine ambitions here; a daring genius to thus conceive; a lifting up of man and woman to the very plane of the celestials, while yet on earth.

Now for the father and the children of the covenant.

With Abraham begins the covenant of Israel. The Mormons are a Latter-day Israel.

God made a covenant with Abraham, for Abraham was worthy to be the grand patriarch of a world, under Adam. Like Jesus, he had a pre-existence.

He was "in the beginning" with God; an archangel in the Father's presence; one not less noble than his elder brother and captain of salvation; the patriarch, through whose line Messiah was ordained to come into the world.

Abraham was the elect of God before the foundation of this earth. In him and his seed were all the promises—all the covenants—and all the divine empires. In them was the kingdom of Messiah to consummate the object and vast purposes of earth's creation.

He is the father of the faithful and the friend of God. In him and his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. He shall become the father of many nations. His seed shall be as the sand on the sea-shore.

In Abraham many nations have already been blessed. He and his seed have given Bible and civilization to Christendom. From his loins came Jesus—from him will come Messiah.

Abraham and his seed have done much for the world, but they will do a hundred fold more. Their genius, their prophets, and their covenants, will leaven and circumscribe all civilization.

Jehovah is the God of Israel—the covenant people. There is none like him in all the earth. There are Lords many, and Gods many, but unto Israel there is but one God.

Between Jehovah and Abraham there are the everlasting covenants. The divine epic is between Abraham and his God.

Mormonism is now that divine epic.

This grand patriarch may be sard to be a grand Mormon; or, better told, the Mormons are a very proper Israel, whom the patriarch acknowledges as his children, chosen to fulfill the covenants in connection with the Jews.

Jehovah never made any covenants outside of Israel. The Gentiles are made partakers, by adoption into the Abrahamic family.

All is of election and predestination. There is but very little free-grace; just enough grace to give the Gentiles room to enter into the family of Israel, that the promise may be fulfilled that in Israel all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

In ancient times Jehovah made his people a nation, that his name might be glorified. He established his throne in David, by an everlasting covenant; but the throne and sceptre were taken from Israel, no more to be, until he comes whose right it is to reign. Messiah is that one. He is coming to restore the kingdom to Israel.

The earth and mankind were created that they might have a probation; and a probation, that a millennial reign of peace and righteousness may consummate the divine plan and purposes.

Righteousness and justice must be established upon the earth in the last days, or nations must perish utterly.

In the last days God shall set up a kingdom upon the earth, which shall never be destroyed. It will break into pieces all other kingdoms and empires, and stand forever. It will be given to the saints of the Most High, and they will possess it. The Mormons are the saints of the Most High.

That kingdom has already been set up, by the administration of angels to Joseph Smith. This is the burden of Mormonism. It was for that the saints were driven from Missouri and Illinois; that for which they made their exodus to the Rocky Mountains; that for which the sisters have borne the cross for half a century.

Now also in the present age is to be fulfilled the vision of Daniel; here it is:

"I beheld till thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days (Adam) did sit, whose garments were white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

"A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

* * * * * *

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him.

"And there was given him dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

* * * * * *

"But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.

* * * *

"I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.

"Until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

* * * * * *

"And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."

Here is the imperial drama of Mormonism which the saints have applied most literally, and sought to work out in America; or, rather the God of Israel has purposed to fulfill his wondrous scheme, in them, and multiply them until they shall be an empire of God-fearing men and women—ten thousand times ten thousand saints.

No wonder that Missouri drove the saints—no wonder that the sisters, with such views, have risen to such sublime heroism and been inspired with such exalted faith. Scarcely to be wondered at even that they have been strong enough to bear their crosses throughout eventful lives, which have no parallel in history. With a matchless might of spirit, and divine ambitions, inspired by such a theology, literally applied in the action of their lives, they have risen to the superhuman.

Comprehend this Hebraic religion of the sisters, and it can thus be comprehended somewhat how they have borne the cross of polygamy, with more than the courage of martyrs at the stake.

We are coming to polygamy, by-and-by, to let these braver than Spartan women speak for themselves, upon their own special subject; but polygamy was not established until years after the saints were driven from Missouri.

We are but opening these views of Hebraic faith and religion. The themes will return frequently in their proper places. But let the sisters most reveal themselves in their expositions, episodes, and testimonies.

Thus, here, the high priestess of Mormondom, with her beautiful themes of our God-Father and our God-Mother!