Spirit Promptings

Spirit Memories.—Writing one day upon the subject of spirit memories, and the influence exerted upon the affairs of this life by the awakened recollections of a former experience, I found myself indulging in the following reflections:

Why are we drawn toward certain persons, and they toward us, independently of any known previous acquaintance? Is it a fact, or only a fancy, that we and they were mutually acquainted and mutually attracted in some earlier period of our eternal existence? Is there something, after all, in that much abused term "affinity," and is this the basis of its claim? More than once, after meeting someone whom I had never met before on earth, I have wondered why his or her face seemed so familiar. Many times, upon hearing a noble sentiment expressed, though unable to recall having heard it until then, I have been thrilled by it, and felt as if I had always known it. The same is true of music, some strains of which are like echoes from afar, sounds falling from celestial heights, notes struck from the vibrant harps of eternity. I do not assert pre-acquaintance in all such cases, but as one thought suggests another, these queries arise in the mind.

The Shepherd's Voice.—When it comes to the Gospel, I feel more positive. Why did the Savior say: "My sheep know my voice?" Can a sheep know the voice of its shepherd, if it has never heard that voice before? They who love Truth, and to whom it appeals most powerfully, were they not its best friends in a previous state of existence? I think so. I believe that we knew the Gospel before we came here, and it is this knowledge, this acquaintance, that gives to it a familiar sound.

Very much in the same vein, I once wrote to President Joseph F. Smith—he at the time in Utah, and I on a mission in Europe. Here is his reply:

President Smith's View.—"I heartily endorse your sentiments respecting congeniality of spirits. Our knowledge of persons and things before we came here, combined with the divinity awakened within our souls through obedience to the gospel, powerfully affects, in my opinion, all our likes and dislikes, and guides our preferences in the course of this life, provided we give careful heed to the admonitions of the Spirit.

"All those salient truths which come so forcibly to the head and heart seem but the awakening of the memories of the spirit. Can we know anything here that we did not know before we came? Are not the means of knowledge in the first estate equal those of this? I think that the spirit, before and after this probation, possesses greater facilities, aye, manifold greater, for the acquisition of knowledge, than while manacled and shut up in the prison-house of mortality. I believe that our Savior possessed a foreknowledge of all the vicissitudes through which he would have to pass in the mortal tabernacle.

"If Christ knew beforehand, so did we. But in coming here, we forgot all, that our agency might be free indeed, to choose good or evil, that we might merit the reward of our own choice and conduct. But by the power of the Spirit, in the redemption of Christ, through obedience, we often catch a spark from the awakened memories of the immortal soul, which lights up our whole being as with the glory of our former home."^[1]

"A Glance Behind the Curtain."—Closely akin to these reflections, are some pointed and telling lines in which the poet Lowell expresses his conviction regarding the influence of the unseen world upon the world visible. The action of the poem from which the lines are taken deals with Oliver Cromwell and John Hampden, English patriots, who are represented as about to flee from the tyranny of King Charles the First, and seek a new home overseas, joining the little band of Puritans who have already found a haven on western Atlantic shores. Hampden urges flight, but Cromwell hesitates. Something within tells him not to go—tells him that Freedom has a work for him to go—tells him that Freedom has a work for him to do, not in America, but in his own land, where he afterwards overthrew the royal tyrant, became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and broadened and deepened the foundations of English liberty. The opening verses of the poem contain the crux of the whole matter under discussion:

We see but half the causes of our deeds,
Seeking them wholly in the outer life,
And heedless of the encircling spirit world,
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes.

The fate of England and of freedom once
Seemed wavering in the heart of one plain man.
One step of his, and the great dial-hand
That marks the destined progress of the world
In the eternal round from wisdom on
To higher wisdom, had been made to pause
A hundred years.

That step he did not take—
He knew not why, nor we, but only God,
And lived to make his simple oaken chair
More terrible and grandly beautiful,
More full of majesty than any throne,
Before or after, of a British king.^[2]

A Well Warranted Conviction.—How much of fact and how much of fiction, are here interwoven, matters not for the purpose of this argument. It was the poet's belief that such things could be, a belief shared by myriads of Christian men and women, and confirmed by a multiplicity of experiences.

Columbus and "The Voice."--In another poem--"Columbus"--Lowell sets forth the same idea, that of whisperings or suggestions from beyond the "veil" hiding the spirit world from this world of flesh and blood. The great mariner is supposed to be standing on the deck of his ocean-tossed vessel, soliloquizing over the situation surrounding him: A yet undiscovered country ahead, a mutinous and grumbling crew behind, threatening to put him in irons and turn the ship's prow toward Spain, if sight of the promised shore of India--for which Columus set sail--came not with the break of dawn. A world of care weighs him down, a sense of solitude and utter loneliness, but his soul hears "the voice that errs not," and is patient and trustful to the hour of complete triumph.^[3]

Nephi and the Spirit.—That it was indeed "the voice that errs not" which inspired Columbus, upholding and urging him on to the consummation of the great enterprise he had undertaken, we have sacred and indisputable evidence. Long before Columbus crossed the ocean, an American prophet and seer, Nephi by name, looking down the vista of twenty centuries, forecast the career of that man of destiny, telling how "the Spirit of God" would impel him to cross "the many waters" to this "promised land;" and how the same Spirit, moving upon others, would induce them to follow in the wake of the mighty explorer. That prophet beheld in vision the war for American Independence, the successful struggle of the oppressed colonies against the mother country, and the founding here of a free government, a heaven-favored nation, destined to foster and give protection to the growing work of God in after days. And this revealing Spirit—so Nephi affirms—was more than an inward monitor: "I spake unto him as a man speaketh, for I beheld that he was in the form of man; yet, nevertheless, I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord! and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another."^[4]

The Holy Ghost.—Evidently it was the Holy Ghost who communed with Nephi, though he is here spoken of as "the Spirit of God, and 'the Spirit of the Lord." "The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit,"^[5] and though not in a tabernacle like the Father or the Son, he is nevertheless in human form, and Nephi beheld him and conversed with him.

The Unerring Guide.—The experience of Columbus differed from that of Nephi, notably in this particular: Nephi "beheld," while Columbus was moved upon—yet it was the same Spirit in each instance. It was of the Holy Ghost that the Savior was speaking, when he said to his disciples: "He will guide you into all truth."^[6] The mission of the Holy Ghost is to make manifest the things of God, past, present and future, explaining the purpose of this mortal life, revealing to man his eternal origin and destiny, and answering the otherwise unanswerable questions—whence? whither? and why?

Wordsworth's "Intimation."—It was this Spirit that inspired the poet Wordsworth, bringing the forgotten past to his remembrance, and prompting the utterance of the noble thoughts embodied in these lofty lines:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home.^[7]

Truth and Bigotry.—The big thought was too broad for the narrow, rigid orthodoxy of Wordsworth's time, which could allow for the pre-existence of the Son of God, but not for that of the race in general. "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."^[8] This wonderful prayer from the lips of the Savior was too plain to be misunderstood. It was clear that Jesus Christ, "the Word" that was "in the beginning with God," and "was God," before he "was made flesh,"^[9] had lived before this life. But man, "mere man," was an earth-worm, made out of nothing, and consequently had no pre-existence. So Christian orthodoxy maintained; and Wordsworth had to recant or half-way deny that his heaven-inspired "intimation" meant as much as his bigoted censors seemed to fear. Nevertheless,

"Got but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like
A star new-born, that drops into its place,
And which, once circling in its placid round,
Not all the tumult of the earth can shake."

The truth uttered by the great "poet of nature" touching the previous life, was probably accepted by thousands of advanced thinkers; and their acceptance helped to prepare the way for a more positive and more complete presentation of the great doctrine of man's pre-existence. In this connection the subjoined verses from the pen of a "Mormon" poet, tell their own eloquent story:

O my Father, thou that dwellest
In the high and glorious place!
When shall I regain thy presence,
And again behold thy face?
In thy holy habitation
Did my spirit once reside;
In my first primeval childhood
Was I nurtured near thy side.

For a wise and glorious purpose
Thou hast placed me here on earth,
And withheld the recollection
Of my former friends and birth.
Yet, ofttimes a secret something
Whispered, "You're a stranger here,"
And I felt that I had wandered
From a more exalted sphere.

I had learned to call thee Father,
Through thy Spirit from on high;
But until the Key of Knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason-truth eternal
Tells me I've a Mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
In your royal courts on high?
Then, at length, when I've completed
All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
Let me come and dwell with you.^[10]

How wonderfully clear and comprehensive!—past, present and future circumscribed in brief compass, the mystery of the former life unfolded, the meaning of all existence made plain.

Maeterlinck and "The Bluebird."—Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, author of "The Bluebird," in that section of his dramatic masterpiece entitled "The Kingdom of the Future," deals with the pre-mortal life, and with the spirits of little children waiting to be brought down to earth to be born here. Old Father Time is there with his barge, gathering in the tiny passengers, holding back some whose turn is not yet, and permitting others whose birth-hour is about to strike. The barge being filled, he sails away, and mingling with the sweet strains of children's voices, hailing the distant planet that is to be their new abode, rises from below the song of the mothers coming out to meet them. When the poet's inspired mind conceived this beautiful creation, had he heard of Eliza R. Snow and her invocation to the Eternal Father and Mother?

The Same Note.—I do not impute plagiarism in such cases. There is no monopoly of Truth. It reveals itself to whomsoever it will, and sometimes it tells to several persons, at different times and places, the same thing. Suffice it, that Eliza R. Snow, when she sang of the "first primeval childhood," sounded the identical note subsequently struck by Maurice Maeterlinck, when portraying so tenderly and so tellingly the heavenly origin and earthly advent of the spirits that tabernacle in mortality.

Fame's Partiality.—Inspiration was kind to both poets, but fame has been somewhat partial. Some day, when bigotry is dead and prejudice no longer has power to blind men's eyes to the truth and pervert their judgment, the just claims of all inspired teachers will be recognized, if not recompensed. Meanwhile the world will go on glorifying one and crying down another, as it always has done. It will continue "tossing high its ready cap" in honor of Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, for the beautiful truths set forth in his sublime symbolic drama; little realizing that the American prophet, Joseph Smith, and some who sat at his feet learning wisdom from his lips, taught the same and greater truths long before Maeterlinck was born.

Communications from the Departed.—Many instances might be given of the action and influence of "the other world" upon this world The experiences of the Latter-day Saints alone would fill volumes. I refer particularly to those connected with the gathering up of genealogies for use in temple work, and the work itself done vicariously for the benefit of the departed. By dreams and visions, by voices and other manifestations, spirits "behind the veil" have made known their wishes to surviving relatives in the flesh, so that their left-over tasks might be done for them, the records of their ancestors secured, and they in like manner redeemed through sacred ordinances performed in their behalf and necessary to their progress and happiness in spheres beyond.

Footnotes

1. Gospel Doctrine, pp. 15, 16. "Columbus."2. J. R. Lowell's Poems, "A Glance Behind the Curtain."3. Ib. "Columbus."4. 1 Nephi 11:11; 13:10:19.5. D. & C. 130:22.6. John 16:13.7. Wordsworth's Poems, "Intimations of Immortality," first published in 1807.8. John 17:5.9. Ib. 1:1-14.10. Eliza R. Snow's "Invocation," L. D. S. Hymn Book.