Truth Never Changes Volume 12, Number 6

TRUTH NEVER CHANGES

A PUBLICATION IN THE SPIRIT AND TRADITON OF TRUTH MAGAZINE

Y VOLUME 12    DECEMBER  2009   NUMBER 06 Y

RELIGION AND POLITICS

CITY OF NAUVOO, FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1844
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FOR PRESIDENT, GEN. JOSEPH SMITH,
NAUVOO, ILLINOIS.
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There are peculiar notions extant in relation to the propriety or impropriety of mixing religion with politics, many of which we consider to be wild and visionary.  Having witnessed in the proceedings of some of our old European nations a policy that was dangerous, hurtful, and oppressive in the union of church and state, and seem in them an overgrown oligarchy, proud and arrogant, with a disposition to crush everything that opposed its mandate, or will. 

IN THIS ISSUE Religion And Politics…………………………………………………………...106 Life & Journal of Eliza M. Partridge (Smith) Lyman……………...108 Quote, R. C. Allred………………………………………………………………113 Open Letter to Pres. Heber J. Grant………………………………….…113 Mormon Mexican Colony Saved By Flames…………………………118 Recommended Sites…………………………………………………………..120 Enoch the Prophet……………………………………………………………...121 Editorial……………………………………………………………………………..130

We have looked with abhorrence upon the monster, and shrink from the idea of introducing anything that would in the least deprive us of our freedom, or reduce us to a state or religious vassalage.  Living under a free republican form of government; sheltered by the rich foliage of the tree of liberty; breathing a pure atmosphere of religious toleration; and basking in the sunbeams of prosperity, we have felt jealous of our rights, and have been always fearful, lest some of those eastern blasts should cross the great Atlantic, wither our brightest hopes, nip the tree of liberty in the bud, and that our youthful republic should be prostrated and the funeral dirge be chanted in the "Land of the free, and the home of the brave," in consequence of a union between church and state.

                No one can be more opposed to an unhallowed alliance of this kind than ourselves; but while we would deprecate any alliance having a tendency to deprive the sons of liberty of their rights, we cannot but think that the course taken by many of our politicians is altogether culpable, that the division is extending too far, and that in our jealousy lest a union of this kind should take place, we have thrust out God from all of our political movements, and seem to regard the affairs of the nation as that over which the great Jehovah's; providence, has no control, about which his direction or interposition, never should be sought, and as a thing conducted and directed by human wisdom alone.

                Either God has something to do in our national affairs, or he has not.   If he has the oversight and charge of them, if "he raises up one king and puts down another, according to the counsel of his own will" if "the powers that be, are ordained of God" then it becomes necessary for us, in all our political movements, to look to God for his benediction and blessing.  But if God has nothing to do with them, we will act consistently, we will cease to pray for our president, our legislators, or any of our rulers, and each one will pursue his own course, and "God shall not be in all our thoughts," so far as politics are concerned.

                By a careful perusal of the scriptures, however, we shall find that God in ancient days had as much to do with governments, kings and kingdoms, as he ever had to do with religion.  The Jews, as a nation, were under the direct government of heaven, and not only had they judges and kings anointed of God, and set apart by him; but their laws were given them of God; hence says the prophet:  "The Lord is our king; the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our law giver, and he shall reign over us" and in the history of the kings of Israel, we find the Lord and his prophets interfering as much in their civil, as their religious affairs, as the book of Kings abundantly testify.  Hence, Saul, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Jehu, and all the rest of their kings, were anointed of God and set apart especially to fulfil that office; and in regard to their policy, their ward, their deliverance, they sought wisdom and protection from God, and ascribed their victories to him.

                Nor was this the case with the Israelites alone; but other nations also, acknowledged his supremacy and sought his aid.

                Abimelech, king of the Philistines, captivated by the beauty of Sarah, took her for the purpose of making her his wife, when the Lord   appeared to him in a dream and gave him certain instructions, the which he immediately obeyed; and although God had smitten his family in consequence of the evil, he immediately removed his hand, and restored them to health, and removed his wrath from the nation.  Nebuchadnezzar had to acknowledge the Lord's sovereignty when he was told by Daniel that "the Lord removeth kings, and setteth up kings" and in the writing which Belteshezzar saw on the wall the Lord revealed to him, through Daniel, not only his own state, but the situation of other kingdoms, that should come after his.

                The Lord sent by Jonah a message to Ninevah, saying: 'that in forty days Ninevah should be destroyed;' but when the king proclaimed a fast, and sat in ashes, both him and his people the Lord averted his wrath and prolonged their lives.  God frequently revealed his will through the mouth of his prophets to the Ammonites, Moabites, Elamites, Hittites, Jebusites, and numerous other nations, and Nebuchadnezzar in a dream had revealed to him, not only the situation of his own kingdom, but that of the different nations that should arise after his, until the final winding up scene.

                And Daniel, and the apostle John, both in prophetic vision beheld a time that is spoken of as a period of great glory, when 'the Lord shall be king over all the earth,' and when 'the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the saints of the Most High God.'

                Certainly if any person ought to interfere in political matters it should be those whose minds and judgments are influenced by correct principles religious as well as political; otherwise those persons professing religion would have to be governed by those who make no professions; be subject to their rule; have the law and word of God trampled underfoot and become as wicked as Sodom and as corrupt as Gomorrah, and be prepared for final destruction.  We are told "when the wicked rule the people mourn."  This we have abundantly proved in the state of Missouri, and having had our fingers once burned, we dread the fire.  The cause of humanity, the cause of justice, the cause of freedom, the cause of patriotism, and the cause of God requires us to use our endeavours to put in righteous rulers.  Our revelations tell us to seek diligently for good and for wise men.  Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxxv. Par. 2: --

                "And now verily I say unto you, concerning the laws of the land, it is my will that my people should observe to do all these things whatsoever I command them, and that law of the land which is constitutional, supporting that principle of freedom, in maintaining rights and privileges belongs to all mankind and is justifiable before me; therefore I the Lord justifieth you, and your brethren of my church, in befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land; and as pertaining to law of man, whatsoever is more or less than these, cometh of evil.  I the Lord God maketh you free; therefore ye are free indeed; and the law also maketh you free; nevertheless when the wicked rule the people mourn; wherefore honest men and wise men should be sought for, diligently, and good men and wise men, ye should observe to uphold; otherwise whatsoever is less than these cometh of evil."

                No one can be more fit for the task than Gen. Joseph Smith; he is wise, prudent, faithful, energetic and fearless; he is a virtuous man and a philanthropist; if we want to find out who he is, his past history shows his indomitable perseverence, and proves him to be a faithful friend, and a man of exalted genius, and sterling integrity; whilst his public addresses and views, as published to the world, prove him to be a patriot and a statesman.

                Let every man then that hates oppression, and loves the cause of right, not only vote himself; but use his influence to obtain the votes of others, that we may by every legal means support that man whose election will secure the greatest amount of good to the nation at large.  (TIMES AND SEASONS, Volume 5)

.                      LIFE AND JOURNAL OF ELIZA MARIE PARTRIDGE (SMITH) LYMAN

               

I was born in Painesville, Geauga County, Ohio.  My parents' names were Edward and Lydia Clisbee Partridge.  At a very early age I was sent to school where I acquired a very good common education.  At the age of eight years my parents went on a visit to their friends' in Massachusetts taking me and my sister Caroline (then a babe), with them.  The other children, my sisters Harriet and Emily, were left in [the] charge of my Aunt Phebe Lee.  We went to my grandfather Partridge's in Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where they left me while they went to visit my mother's friends in the eastern part of the state.  They returned in a short time bringing my mother's sister Elsey with them.

                Although I was very young yet, I remember many things that I saw on this journey.  My grandfather's nice brick house, and the cider mill, the orchard and the farm are all plain in my memory; also the cities that we passed through and the Erie Canal with its locks and the roaring of the Niagara Falls in the distance, the crossing of the lake, my sickness while crossing and many other things are still fresh in my mind.  I do not remember anything more worthy of note except that I was sent to school until I was about 13 years of age or a short time before this when the Book of Mormon was shown to my father.  He did not accept it at first as being what it was represented to be, but after making a journey to New York where the Prophet Joseph Smith lived, and making inquiry of those in the Church and also of those out, he became convinced that the Lord had commenced to set up his kingdom on the earth and embraced the opportunity of becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was ordained to the office of a bishop, there having been none ordained in this dispensation until that time.

                He then returned to his home in Ohio and after a time was called to leave his business which was in a most flourishing condition and go to Missouri to attend to the business of the Church.  He went and left his family to get along as best they could.  I was at that time very sick and he had no expectation of seeing me again, but the Lord had called and he must obey.   He showed his faith by his works and the Lord spared my life and the lives of the rest of his family for many years.  He never went back to sell his place or settle his affairs, but left it for others to do which was done at a great sacrifice.  He had accumulated a handsome property which went for a very little as he could not be there to attend to it.

                His family was moved up to Missouri in company with others who were journeying to that land, which was quite a task on my mother as her children were small.  I being the eldest, we children were five in number and the weather was so cold that we were obliged to leave the Missouri River at a place called Arrowrock about one hundred miles from Independence and wait for my father to come with wagons to meet us.  We procured a small dark room from a family of Negroes, our only light being what came down the chimney, and no way to get in or out of the room except to go through the room occupied by the Negroes.  We occupied this doleful place about a week when my father came out and took us away.

                The weather was extremely cold, so much so that we had to lay by one day or be in danger of being frozen.  We however arrived at Independence in safety and occupied a small brick house which my father had rented for the winter as he had not yet had time to build.  We lived very poor that winter as the people of that country did not want much but cornbread and bacon and raised but very little of anything else.  Consequently, there was but very little to be bought.  But I remember we had a barrel of honey and what vegetables we could get, but no wheat bread as wheat was not to be bought in the land.

                The next spring we moved into a house that my father rented from Lilburn W. Boggs where we lived until my father built a house on his own land; here we lived while we stayed in that county.  In July, 1833, a number of armed men came to our house in the afternoon and took my father to the public square where they administered to him a coat of tar and feathers and raised a whip with the intention of whipping him, but a friend to humanity interfered and prevented it.  I well remember how my father looked; we (the children) were very much frightened.  My mother was very weak having a babe (a boy named for his father), but three weeks old.  The brethren were very kind and assisted my father to rid himself of the tar, but the clothes he had on were spoiled.

                The people of that place had been acting the part of a mob towards our people for some time and still continued the same course until our people agreed to leave the county which they did in the following November.  It was very cold and uncomfortable moving at that time of the year and a great amount, if not all, of our provisions that we had laid up for the winter were lost and our houses left with many of our things in them.  Our land and orchards and improvements of every kind left to benefit those who had driven us away.  We traveled three miles and encamped on the bank of the Missouri River under a high bluff.  The rain during the night poured down in torrents which wet ourselves and our things badly.  This was the first night that I ever slept out of doors.

                The next day we crossed the river into Clay County.  There my father laid up some house logs and stretched a tent on them so that we could stay here until he could go and find a house.   The weather was very cold but we were in the woods and could have plenty of fire.  It was here that I saw the stars fall.   They came down almost as thick as snowflakes and could be seen until the daylight hid them from sight.  Some of our enemies thought the day of judgment had come and were very much frightened but the Saints rejoiced and considered it as one of the signs of the latter days.

                When my father had done what he could to help the brethren across the river he, with others, went out to see if they could find some houses to move into, as there was already snow on the ground.  He found a miserable old house that he could have with one fireplace in it which he and a brother by the name of John Corrill moved their families into.  I think my mother as also Sister Corrill must have had their patience tried very much during this winter, the house open and cold and their cooking and children and husbands and selves all around one fireplace, for stoves were not in use then.

                I did what work I could get for almost any kind of pay, but there were so many wanting work that there was very little chance to get any.  We lived in this old house while we stayed in Clay County which was about two years.  While here my father went on a mission to the eastern states.  After his return he with others went to look for a location for the Saints, as the people with whom we resided began to be somewhat uneasy about us.  My father and those who were with him decided that a good place could be had in Caldwell County.  They (our people) bought land there and removed their families there, thinking to live by themselves in peace, which we had for a while.

                While here, I went about thirty miles from home and taught school for three months, not hearing a word from home while I was away and I did not see a person while there that I had ever seen before, but the Lord watched over me and returned me in safety to my parents again.  I would never advise anyone to let a girl go away as I did then with entire strangers, to dwell with strangers.  It was no uncommon thing in those times for our Mormon girls to go out among the Missourians and teach their children for a small remuneration.  I received but 13 dollars and my board for the three months that I was gone.  I think the people were not as wicked then as they are now or it would not have been safe for us to go about as we did.  I was at this time about 17 years old.

                We remained in Caldwell two or three years when not only the mobs that were around us but the authorities of the state said we must leave that county, which we did.  We settled in Illinois, first at Quincy, then at Pittsfield, Pike County, then at Nauvoo, which was the gathering place for the Saints.  In consequence of the persecutions of apostates, my father was obliged to leave Far West before his family and arranged with Brother King Follett to bring them to Quincy.  We had a very uncomfortable time as the weather was cold and we were badly crowded in the wagon, although we did as we had done every time that we moved, left most of our things.  We crossed the Mississippi partly in a boat and partly on the ice.  Father met us and took us to a house where we were more comfortable than we had been while traveling.  We stayed here but a short time as my father thought he could do better somewhere else and the Church was scattered with no place of gathering.  However, it was not long before we went to Nauvoo as the Prophet, who was yet in prison, had said he thought it was the place to gather to.

                The Saints were nearly all sick with ague and fever and our family had to have a share.  My two sisters, Harriet and Emily, had the ague about a year.  I did not have it as I had worn it out when we lived in Ohio.  As we were by this time much reduced in circumstances (having moved so many times and my father having poor health), it was thought best for me to take a school at Lima, a small town about 24 miles away, which I did and my father rented rooms for his family in a large storehouse where several other families resided, one Brother Hyrum Smith, and his brother-in-law, R. B. Thompson, and two more families, as they had not time to build yet.

                While I was teaching at Lima, I boarded with a gentile family and was well treated, but suffered fearfully with headache.  About two weeks before my school was out, my father sent a man for me saying my sister Harriet was dying.  We rode all night and arrived at home about sunrise.  My sister was still alive but died during the day.  My parents took this trouble to heart very much and my father said she was his pet child, but no one knew it until then and I do not think now that he knew any difference in his children, but I believe when a child or friend is taken from us, we are to think we loved them more than others.

                This was in the spring and my father was making a garden on his lot which was distant about a mile.  As his health was very poor and he did not feel able to walk so far to his work (he was also building a house), he concluded after the funeral of my sister that he would move down home and occupy a log house that he had put up for a stable but had not been used, and then he could work at his house and garden with more ease.  He commenced to move but had to give up and take to his bed before he had the last load moved.  He was sick about ten days when he also left us most uncomfortably situated.  I was too sick to attend the funeral.  He was completely worn out with the hardships and fatigues of movings and exposure caused by our enemies who never slackened their hands but persecuted us continually.  He was firm and steadfast in his religion and tried to the very best of his ability to attend to every known duty as bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We were in very poor circumstances at the time of his death, the handsome property that he had when he joined the Church having been spent in the Church and he not having had the privilege of staying in one place long enough to amass more.

                After his funeral, Brother William Law took us to his house to stay until our house was finished.  He and his wife were very kind to us and doctored me and also my sister Lydia who was very sick, so that in about three weeks we were able to move to our own house which was finished.

                I forgot to mention that while I lived in Far West, I had learned the tailor's trade as far as sewing went, which I found of great use to me as I now could get work at the tailor's shops and was paid three dollars a week which was a great help to us.   After a year or two, my mother married again, as she could not get along she thought without someone to provide for her.  She now had three daughters besides me, and had one son about eight or nine years old.  Her husband's name was William Huntington, a very good man and kind to my mother and her children.

                After a time, my sister Emily and myself went to live in the family of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  We lived there about three years.  While there, he taught to us the plan of celestial marriage and asked us to enter into that order with him.  This was truly a great trial for me but I had the most implicit confidence in him as a Prophet of the Lord and not but believe his words and as a matter of course accept of the privilege of being sealed to him as a wife for time and all eternity.  We were sealed in   , 1843, by H. C. K [Heber C. Kimball] in the presence of witnesses.  I continued to live in his family for a length of time after this but did not reside there when he was martyred which was the 27th of June, 1844.

                I was then living with a family by the name of Coolidge.  I stayed with them for a year or more until I was married to a man by the name of Amasa Lyman, one of the Twelve Apostles.  I then went to live with my mother for a while and after that lived with him and his wife, Maria Louisa.  Times were not then as they are now in 1877, but a woman  living in polygamy dare not let it be known and nothing but a firm desire to keep the commandments of the Lord could have induced a girl to marry in that way.  I thought my trials were very severe in the line and I am often led to wonder how it was that a person of my temperament could get along with it and not rebel, but I know it was the Lord who kept me from opposing his plans although in my heart I felt that I could not submit to them; but I did and I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for the care he had over me in those troublous times.  After I married the second time, we remained in Nauvoo for a few months living a part of the time in the back part of my mother's house.

                In February, 1846, we left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River with many of the Saints and started to go to the Rocky Mountains where we hoped to be free to serve the Lord as we thought best.  While crossing the river the ice came down in large pieces and threatened to sink our boat, but at this time as well as many others, we were preserved by the power of God.  We went to Father John Tanner's and stayed several days as the weather was very cold and we were not in a hurry to camp out until we were obliged to.  After a few days we left Father Tanner and joined the camp of the Saints on Sugar Creek.  The weather was very cold, the snow deep, and we could not but be very uncomfortable as we were very poorly fitted out for such a journey at that time of the year.  On the first of March, 1846, the camp of Israel began to move.  There were about 400 wagons.   After traveling about five miles, they camped for the night, scraped away the snow and pitched their tents.  Fortunately for us, there was plenty of wood and the brethren made large fires in front of the tents which kept us from freezing but we could not possibly be made comfortable under such circumstances; but did not complain as we were leaving the land of our enemies and hoped for better times.

                I think it was near the last of April [1846] that the camp reached a place called by our brethren, Pisgah.  Here they concluded a part of the camp might stop and raise some crops of grain and as all were not prepared to go on much farther.  We had thus far had a most unpleasant journey.  After the snows came rains, almost without cessation, making the ground very muddy and some of the time the roads impassable so that we had to remain in camp much more than we wished to, for we were desirous to get to some place where we could make homes again.

                At Pisgah I left my mother and sisters Emily and Lydia and little brother Edward with my mother's husband, Father Huntington, to stay until the next year or until there should be a convenient opportunity for them to come.  My sister Emily was then President Brigham Young's wife and had one child, a boy named Edward.  My sister Caroline was one of the wives of my husband and traveled on with us.

                When we had traveled about 130 miles from Pisgah, there came a requisition from the United States for 500 men to be taken from our camps to go to Mexico to help the nation who had driven us out from their midst.  Our people responded to the call and sent the 500, many of whom left their wives and children in their wagons, not knowing where they would settle and find a home, left them to the care of their brethren and friends and many of them never met again.  Some of the men died during their absence; others returned to find that their wives had sunk under the weight of care and disease and their children scattered, but the Prophet of the Lord had said go and they went, trusting in him.

                One woman was living with us whose husband was in the battalion [Mormon Battalion].  When it was time for them to return, she was very much elated and rented a room and made all preparations for housekeeping.  But, Oh, what a disappointment waited her; when the company came and she thought her happiness nearly complete, they told her he was dead and had been for months.  Oh, the agony that she endured.  It cannot be described.  My heart ached for, but I could not comfort her.

                I will go back to the time that I left Nauvoo on the 9th of February 1846, and write from my private journal.  It will not perhaps be very interesting to anyone but myself, but it shows more particularly how we were situated and the hardships we endured in accomplishing the journey.  On February 9, 1846, I bade adieu to my friends in Nauvoo and in company with my husband, Amasa Lyman, Daniel P. Clark and wife, Henry Rollins, and Dionitia W. Lyman (one of my husband's wives), started westward, for some place where we might worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences.  We went about one mile to the Mississippi River, waited about three hours, then succeeded in procuring a boat, onto which we put our horses and wagons, and as there was no prospect of Father Huntington crossing the river that night, we took my mother, and sisters Caroline and Lydia and brother Edward with us and crossed the river.  When we were about midway, we saw a boat at some distance from us, sinking, with no one near to assist them, but fortunately for them, they were near a sand bar so that they were not drowned, and soon a boat reached them and took them safely to shore.  Our boat got into the ice which hindered us about an hour but did no damage.  We went to Brother Sidney Tanner's where a part of us stayed all night and the rest stayed at Nathan Tanner's.   (Lyman, Eliza Marie Partridge Smith, 1820-1885 Autobiography (1820-1885)  Source:  Eliza Marie Partridge Smith Lyman, "Life and Journal of  Eliza Marie Partridge (Smith) Lyman," typescript, BYU-S)  {And apologists of plural marriage within the Church would lead us all to believe that plural marriage was never an essential law, and was only practiced by the Saints because of the surplus of “husbandless” sisters during the journey westward.  —The Editor—}

“The Church of the Firstborn is a group of exalted beings who have kept all of the commandments and who have proved themselves faithful in all things, and have had their blessings confirmed upon them by the Lord Jesus Christ, and who have remained faithful unto the end, and is made up of resurrected, glorified beings.” Rulon Clark Allred, 12/07/1975

AN OPEN LETTER TO HEBER J. GRANT, APRIL 15, 1935.

   At the general priesthood meeting held April 6, 1935, you gave expression in substance, to the following:

   "I have in my hands a letter which came to me. I am constantly receiving such letters. Many of these letters come from people who, if they had their just dues, would be in the penitentiary. They are raising families illegitimately and they know as well as they live that it was not to praise posterity that they do this, but to satisfy their own passions. This is the reason behind it all."

   While you mention no names by way of Identifying those to whom you referred as employed in rearing "illegitimate families," for the sole gratification of "passion," neither do you exempt any from the grave charge who are living with plural families since the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890. Previously you said:

"None could point to any one who had entered this principle (plural marriage) since its official prohibition, who were a pride to any community, and that the same could be said of their children."

   At the October Conference of 1918 you gave an unequivocal endorsement to charges preferred against this class of people by the late Charles W. Penrose to the effect that men entering into such "pretended" marriages were "seeking to indulge their own lusts, becoming "rebels against the Church and against the country and state to which they belonged;" you embellished your remarks, as is your habit, by adding the unkind epithets of "traitors" and "liars," to your wicked diatribes.

  At the April Conference of 1931, you renewed this unholy attack on those striving to live the fulness of the Gospel, pledging the resources of yourself and of the Church in aiding the civil authorities to prosecute these men and women, among other things saying: "We have seen, however, and are entirely willing and anxious, too, that such offenders against the law of the State should be dealt with and punished as the law provides."

   In the "Official Statement" of the Church, of June 17, 1933, you characterized those whom you now charge with "raising illegitimate families" from motives of "passions," as "living in adultery."

   Hence it is perfectly clear that your references at the recent priesthood meeting was meant to include all those adopting the plural relationship since the Manifesto of 1890.

   It is to be regretted that you still deem it necessary to camouflage the truth and employ subterfuge in your attempt to convince the world that you want to play in harmony with its institutions and that you wish the Church to do likewise.

   But just what do you mean by this term "illegitimate families?" The dictionary gives the definition of the word illegitimate as "contrary to law; hence born out of wedlock; bastardy." Do you not understand that what may be termed "illegitimate" in the eyes of the world, may be entirely legitimate in the eyes of heaven? You must do, for you have preached this very thing. But if you are not adopting the legal aspect, then you yourself have been engaged in raising "illegitimate families." First, you married "illegitimately" since when you took your first group of plural wives, there was a national law prohibiting the act; then, second, this anti-polygamy law was later adopted as the rule of the Church under the document known as the Woodruff Manifesto, to which document was added the prohibition of cohabiting with wives taken even before there was a law against marrying them. In this situation, therefore, you, according to your own frequent statements, are engaged in raising "illegitimate families." Were clearer proof of this fact desired one need only refer to your arrest on the charge of polygamous living in the year 1899, nine years after the Manifesto, to which charge you pled guilty and paid a fine.  Your statement then, adopting your own viewpoint, brands your children with "bastardy" and places the "scarlet" letter on the brow of your wives—both those taken before and after the Manifesto.

   Now, President Grant, you are at liberty to brand your own progeny as "illegitimate," but I insist that you do not attach that reproach upon my father's offspring, nor on mine. If your wives and children are willing to tolerate such a stigma that is their affair, but you must not invade my household with like vicious charges.

   You say that modern polygamists are actuated in the marital relation wholly by passion. Here again the definition of the term "Passion" as you doubtless meant it be used, is given as being "amorous". "A strong impulse tending to physical indulgence; inordinate appetite; sensual indulgence." It has been a common practice with you, while under the protection of the pulpit, to characterize a certain group of Saints who are out of favor with you as "adulterers," "corrupt," "licentious," "apostates," etc. These harsh inelegant and ungentlemanly adjectives appear to be your stock in trade; and yet others of Saints guilty of similar acts, you cover with your cloak of protection and maintain them in high ecclesiastical positions.

   But upon just what grounds do you hurl these charges at those of the Saints who are living the Gospel as they have been taught both by yourself and others of the leaders in times past, and as the book of the law of the Lord directs?

Just what evidence have you to support your statement of corrupt motives? Is it a case that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh?" Are your wicked charges a reflex of your own life? Let us frankly ask, was it "passion" that prompted you to marry the Stringham, the Winters, and the Wells girls, and others who have borne you "only daughters?" Was it such "Passion" that prompted you to remark before E. A. McDaniel, A. Young and J. H. Moyle in September, 1899: "I am a lawbreaker; so is Bishop Whitney; so is B. H. Roberts. My wives have brought me only daughters. I propose to marry until I get wives who will bring me sons." Was it incestuous "passion" that  caused you to commit an infraction of the anti-polygamous law to which you pled guilty in the District Court, September 8, 1899? To refresh your memory on this point, I quote from the records:

   "F. S. Richards, on behalf of his client, waived the reading of the information and entered a plea of guilty. `Let the plea be entered,' said Judge Norrell, `and the defendant may be brought in for sentence on Monday.'

`We desire to waive time, and my client is ready for sentence now if the court please,' Mr. Richards suggested. `Very well,' said Judge Norrell, and addressing the Apostle the court ordered him to stand up."

   "The tall, gaunt form of the Apostle went up with a jerk, and he cast an uneasy, but defiant glance at the half hundred spectators, as Judge Norrell said: `The sentence of the court is that you pay a fine of $100, and in default of payment that you be imprisoned in the county jail for one hundred days, that is one day for each dollar of the fine."

   "Grant quickly left the courtroom, walked to the clerk's office, wrote his check on the State Bank of Utah for $100, and handed it over to Deputy Clerk Little, in liquidation of the fine."

   "The charge to which the Apostle pleaded guilty, as stated in the information, was that he committed the crime of unlawful cohabitation on January 1, 1890 and on divers other days, and continually between January 1, 1899, and July 15, 1899, by unlawfully cohabiting with more than one woman (See records of the Third District Court, also Salt Lake Tribune, September 9, 1899).

   Was it "passion" that prompted you to acknowledge living in violation of the laws of the land and of the Church in your University of Utah speech in 1903, resulting in your taking an enforced horseback ride across the mountains, to catch a train headed toward Europe, out of the jurisdiction of the Utah Officials who held a warrant for your arrest? In short, have you taken your wives and lived with them, as you now charge others with having done? "Not to raise posterity, but to satisfy your own passions?", and have your children been thus conceived? Surely the middle aged lady in California whom you have repeatedly introduced as "Mrs. Grant, and these are her daughters," and which lady was taken as a plural wife long after the Manifesto of 1890, was not she induced to enter that system with you as a direct result of "passion" or lust?

   The writer recalls attending the funeral of one of your children born of a plural wife, and the sanctity of the solemn occasion so impressed him that the thought of "bastardism" in connection with its entrance into life would have libeled his intelligence. Perhaps you do not realize the fact that your oft repeated blanket charge against men and women who are abiding God's law must be taken by rational thinkers as an evidence of an irregularity in your own manner of living.

One of the most serious charges that can be made against a man or woman is that of sexual impurity. It is through this form of sin, more than any other, that mankind becomes fallen and degraded and that empires crumble to ruin. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of this polluting sin becoming a dominant factor in the lives of their inhabitants; and so Rome fell, and from like causes the civilized world today is trembling on the edge of the great precipice. But as monstrous as is the sin of sexual impurity implied in your frequent changes of "passion," "illegitimacy" and "adultery," far greater is the sin of bearing false witness against one's neighbor by wrongfully charging him with sexual incontinence. And when a man, sailing under the colors of heaven, presuming to speak to his congregation is God's prophet seer and revelator, as you did, deliberately and with ugly malice assails the social acts and motives of a group of saints whom he knows little or nothing about, the results may be disastrous. Your very position clothes your words with a sanctity and credulity or should do--that others, less prominent, do not possess and, by reason of that fact, your statements are taken far more seriously than those of the "rank and file." For you, then, with such tremendous official prestige, to so prostitute your high calling as to charge faithful men and women with being guided wholly by "lust" and "passion," the sin you thus commit is well nigh unforgivable--the blunder is inexcusable and vicious beyond the power of words to express. To steal one's purse may be a matter of small moment; its value may be easily returned; but to deliberately become an assassin of one's good name is so contemptible that God will be slow to forgive it. You of all men, according to your priestly profession, should be slow to anger and be careful with your words.

   The writer admits that much that prompts the lives of many of the present generation is unhallowed lust. This is true of people--both married and unmarried; both monogamous and polygamous--whether Mormon or non-Mormon. We are living in the day spoken of by Paul, when "men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, inconsistent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, etc. and the world is fast ripening in iniquity and preparing for wholesale destruction; but to charge the caress of men and women whom you are aiding in the persecution of, with impure and lustful motives, does violence to your supposed intelligence, besides doing them a wicked injustice. In your claim that men are raising "illegitimate families" from motives of "lust," you are inconsistent. To charge in this enlightened age, when "birth control" methods are so widely taught, when the financial burdens of raising large families are so acute, when men's standing in the Church and society are jeopardized and their civil liberties threatened--to accuse them--I say, of raising large "illegitimate families" merely for the gratification of "passion," in the face of these facts, shows the shallowness of your reasoning and the animus (?) prompting of your words. It is just not being done that way, President Grant, and you of all men should know it. The class of people whom you are charging with raising "illegitimate families," being "guided wholly by passion" are, as a general rule, the kind of Saints who have dedicated their all to the cause of righteousness; neither withholding kindred property or lives—all belonging to the Lord. Penitentiary walls do not frighten them, nor are they intimidated by the unhallowed threats of ecclesiastical disfranchisement.

Their posterity is being reared in accordance with the principles of truth and righteousness, and the day will come when their royal seed will excel in all the earth and receive the homage of the world. It is this seed that is being prepared by the Lord to redeem Zion and to officer the kingdom of God, when the nations of the earth go into dissolution. In fact, as if to show your own inconsistency you are now using many of these "illegitimate children," as you call them, and whom you charge as having been conceived in sin, in your foreign mission work as well as in your work in the Stakes and Wards, and this class of offspring is rendering unequalled service. If it is wrong in the sight of God to rear the families you elude to, why do you, posing as God's mouthpiece on earth, use such in His work? Does time and tithing purge the manner of their birth and purify their lives?

   In your world speech of March 31, you stressed the Eleventh Article of Faith: "We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege; let them worship how, where, or what they may."

   You claim this divine right for yourself and yet, with the inconsistency born of your nature, you deny others a like privilege except they worship as you direct them to do; for you must know the principle of Celestial Marriage is just as vital to many of the Saints whom you advocate the persecution of today, as it was to your father and others when that article of faith was framed. The principle involved has not changed.

   Under date of April 6, 1885, the Deseret News quoted you as saying in your then manly defense of plural marriage: "No matter what restrictions we are placed under by men, our only consistent course is to keep the commandments of God. We should, in this regard, place ourselves in the same position as that of the three Hebrews who were cast into the fiery furnace. It is sometimes held that the Saints are in error because so many are opposed to them. But when people know they are right it is their honest convictions by yielding their judgment to that of a majority, no matter how large."

   Then according to your views, the minority was right and should be sustained at all hazards; but now you maintain the majority is right, and the minority must either conform to your views in their religious worship, or else go to prison. And you are teaming up with the majority--the class of people that drove your father and mother out of Nauvoo across the tractless plains at the point of bayonets, because they refused to harmonize their lives with the world idea. Shame on such hypocrisy!

In the "Official Statement" of June 17, 1933, you state: "He (speaking of yourself) is not performing such marriages (plural marriages) himself; he has not on his part violated nor is he violating the pledge he made to the Church, to the world, and to our government at the time of the Manifesto."

   The pledge you made to the Government, over your signature, in signing the petition to the President of the United States of amnesty, in the year 1891, was that you would observe the laws of the land. And yet you have continued to live in the polygamous relation in violation of the laws of the land and of the Church; was convicted of such a charge and was forced to leave the country to avoid a second arrest. What kind of consistency is that?

   We are informed from creditable sources that the late law--House Bill No. 224, which turns your past misdemeanors for unlawfully cohabiting with women, into felonies--before being introduced in the State Legislature, was submitted to and approved not only by certain High Council of the Church, but by yourself also, and that prosecutions under the new law are being urged by you.

This conforms with your unrighteous proclamation of some time since, that you would "rejoice when the government officials put a few of these polygamists in the County jail or the State Penitentiary," and with the covenant you caused your congregation to enter into, to spy on their brethren and assist in furnishing evidence to place them behind bars, and make their wives and children outcasts.

   We have read somewhere in the scripture of men who dug a pit for their fellow men to fall into, but they themselves fell therein to their own destruction. In the days of Kirtland when Brigham Young and others were forced to flee for their lives, it was the apostates Boynton, Johnson, and Coe who led the mobs. In Missouri the Whitmers, McLellins and Avords incited mob laws against their brethren; and in Nauvoo the Fosters, Laws, and Higbees were the accusers of the Prophet. In this day who are the ring leaders in threatening persecution and extermination of those who are living the sacred laws of marriage? We shall leave you to answer. And let me here say that the famous Boggs exterminating order against the Saints in Missouri was no more vicious nor wicked than the efforts now being employed against the group of unoffending people you are engaged in persecuting, nor was the old mobocratic spirit more insanely brutal--though slightly changed in form--than that being exhibited by you and some of your associates today.

   "Some of you will be handled and ostracized" said the venerable Prophet John Taylor, at the time of receiving the 1886 revelation (which Elder Ballard says is now in existence in the President's own handwriting), "and be cast out from the Church by your brethren because of your faithfulness and integrity to this principle (plural marriage) and some of you may have to surrender your lives because of the same, but woe, woe unto those who shall bring these troubles upon you!"

"Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; your brethren that hated you, and cast you out for my names sake, said, let the Lord be glorified, but He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. (Isaiah 66:5)"

   Those fostering the new law which makes a felon of you, (for it is felony today to live polygamously; it has always been, and always will be) defend the same on the theory that large families living in the polygamous relation are on government relief, and something must be done to stop propagating! What? Is it a crime to propagate healthy and beautiful children as the fruits of holy wedlock? It was considered a crime in Joseph's day, and he was killed for advocating it. (And yet, during the late war, Utah proudly proclaimed to the world that some twenty-five of the children and grandchildren of this great man offered their lives in defense of the government). And so it is a crime now, in the minds of modern bigots and charlatans, to rear large families, though the day will come when both Church and State will seek the help of these as you call them, "illegitimate" children, to defend the principles of liberty and truth. Shame on anyone who will so prostitute his honor and sense of reasoning, as to proclaim against a good people because of the largeness of their families, and of their poverty! Joseph was known to be in such dire distress at times that his table was empty of food, and he was dependent on the contribution of others for the same--he was on "relief," and yet he lived the laws of God and was a mighty Prophet! Are there none others except polygamists on relief in Utah? Surely the twenty thousand odd families claimed to be on relief rolls in this State are not all polygamist families; and even if they were, would you have plural wives stop raising children because of "relief conditions?" Had your cringing minions a spark of the Spirit of the Lord within them, instead of framing laws to halt the propagation of Mormon children, they would advocate laws that would encourage them that would sustain motherhood and contribute liberally to the growth, development and education of their children whom you now seek to label as "illegitimate."

   My deep respect, President Grant, for the position you hold in the Church of Jesus Christ, alone forbears my expressing the contempt in which you are very generally held by the thinking and forward looking men and women of today. The fact that some in your audiences snicker and grin at your crude pulpit jokes, in no sense argues that they endorse your boastful fulminations or accept you as a Prophet of God--no more than the fact that many Saints who refuse to vote to sustain you, but, in order to avoid ungentlemanly castigations from your mouth, refrain from the casting of a contrary vote, signifies their loyalty to your leadership.

 Now, go on slurring the divine system of marriage that brought you and myself, with our expective families, into existence. Find pleasure, if you will, in branding your own wives and offspring as "illegitimate;" proclaim to the world the greatness of your leadership; turn loose the dogs of persecution upon unoffending groups of God-fearing Latter-day Saints who are guilty of no other act than you yourself have acknowledged committing, and boastfully, too! And accomplish your unhallowed determination to harmonize yourself and the Church with Babylon and her ways, and let the God of Israel deal with you as seemeth him good.

                                                                                                   Respectfully,

                                                                                                   J. W. MUSSER

(Journal of Joseph W. Musser, pp. 89-96)

  Mormon Mexican Colonies Saved by "Flames"

by V. W. Bentley -- about 1911

                I remember some twenty years ago when I was living down in Old Mexico. It was during the time of the Mexican Revolution when the famous bandit, Pancho Villa, was roaming the northern part of the nation, especially in the state of Chihuahua. The depredations and crimes that he had committed were too numerous to mention as it seemed he was very fond of taking human life.

                At this particular time, General Villa was in a very ugly mood because the United States had just recognized his opponent, President Carranza. This made General Villa a bandit and rebel, cutting off all possibilities of supplies from the United States. This naturally embittered him towards any American people and he gave vent to his feelings in the form of hanging all Americans that he could find in the country that he rode over.

                How well I remember we were living in the little town of Colonia Juarez and word came that General Villa and his whole army were passing to the west of us some thirty or thirty-five miles and were headed north. Of course, no one ever knew just what Villa's plans were or where he was going as he was a man who did not divulge his plans to others but kept them to himself. It was particularly hazardous that he should be that close to us, as all means of escape had been cut off--the railroad had been destroyed, there were no automobiles, and all of our horses had been stolen so that we were virtually afoot. To have ventured out on any road leading toward the United States would have been suicide as the entire country was thickly infested with roving bandits and rebels, so you can imagine us as the report came that General Villa and his whole army was camped just some thirty miles away. It was no wonder that consternation came over everyone.

However, General Villa did not come our way at that time, but marched straight for the American border. His men were starving and almost out of ammunition and war materials, and so he headed directly for Columbus, New Mexico, where he hoped to replenish the supplies his army so badly needed.  However, when he reached Columbus, disappointment and tragedy met him. Instead of the supplies and ammunition that he had worked for and hoped to obtain, he was driven back by the American soldiers and many of his men were killed and wounded, without their securing any of the provisions and ammunition they so badly needed.

                As a result of their defeat, General Villa and his entire army turned south again and headed straight for the Mormon colonies. General Villa promised his men that when they got to the Colonies, they would be turned loose to loot and rob and steal or do anything else they wanted to without any restrictions. The only requirement was that they were to leave nothing alive in any of the Colonies and were to burn everything that would burn when they got through.

                How well do I remember the anxiety we all sustained, as our scouts, sent out by my father, who was the president of the stake, to watch the movements of Villa and his army, came in and made their report. An experience that I shall remember all of my life happened one Sunday morning about 2 o'clock.  There were four of us boys there at home, and we were suddenly awakened by two of these scouts who came to find father and inform him that General Villa and his entire army had passed through the pass north of the colony and should be there by sun-up or before. As I said, escape was impossible and so we fully felt that it was to be our last day on this earth, as we knew that these rebels would leave no human being alive to tell the story. The panic which followed in this little Mormon Colony was very pathetic indeed. Mothers took their children down into the river bottoms and hid them in bushes, or covered them up with dead branches and then tried to cover  themselves up with sand to escape attention. Others hid in trees or any place that offered any shelter at all where they might not be detected.

                I remember well we could not find father, and although it was 2 o'clock in the morning he was out among the Saints, trying to lend encouragement and assistance wherever possible--we had no idea where he might be. Therefore, we four boys just waited there, deciding to face whatever befell us. It was some time before any of us could go back to sleep, but I remember finally we all did accomplish this--in spite of the tenseness of the situation.

                To my dying day I shall never forget the beauty and serenity of that Sunday morning as the sun came up over the eastern hills. Birds were singing, and if there was ever "Peace on Earth," it seemed to reign on that little colony that morning. We couldn't understand it as we had been sure we would all be dead before sun-up, but to our surprise, we could find no evidence whatever of General Villa or any of his army having entered town. We hurriedly dressed and began to investigate. Father soon came in and told us that he had been all over the colony and it was plain to see that he hadn't slept a wink all night. He told us that to his knowledge, not a soldier had entered town.

However, morning was still early and we felt that perhaps they had been only temporarily delayed, so we waited, expecting them to come at any moment. But by noon not a soldier had entered the colony, and so we decided to send out scouts to investigate.

                You can well imagine the prayer of thanksgiving and grateful joy to our Father in Heaven when these scouts returned with the information that General Villa's entire army had come to the edge of the colony and for some inexplainable reason, instead of marching through the colony, as anticipated, had turned and gone way to the east and missed the town entirely. Our scouts followed them for some little distance to make sure that they had really passed us by before returning.

It was not until several years later that we learned the cause of this action on the part of General Villa. At that time, father was serving as Mission President of the Mexican Mission and was traveling with Elder Whetten throughout the mission and the state of Chihuahua. They had stopped for the evening by a spring. Hardly had they made camp when they were accosted by three soldiers. The men asked them who they were and when they were told who father was, they told him that he was the man that General Villa would like to see and that they were sent back to take him to Villa's headquarters. General Villa was in the company of General Filipi Angeles, who was perhaps one of the greatest military geniuses and authorities on arms and ammunitions Mexico had ever produced. Father discovered later that it was General Angeles who had requested that he and his party be brought to General Villa's headquarters.

                General Villa kept them there as his guests for nine days, during which time they were given the utmost in courteous treatment and the best of everything available in the camp. It was during this period that father had an opportunity to ask General Villa why he had not come into the colonies and destroyed them as he had promised his men he would do when they were retreating from Columbus, New Mexico, after their defeat. General Villa turned to father and in very positive language gave this explanation:

                "Mr. Bentley," he said, "That is one thing I have never been able to understand myself. It might interest you to know that when we got to the edge of those colonies a great vision opened up before me, and instead of seeing those colonies as I remembered them, I could see the houses all right, but they were all in flames. I can see that picture now--those homes burning—and I felt that the heat would be so terrific that it would be unsafe for me and my army with our wounded men to even venture near. The surprising thing was that none of the men saw the same picture that I saw, and when I gave them  the command to turn aside and march around the colonies, taking our wounded soldiers with us, many of them were very resentful and reminded me of my promise, but I turned to them and said, `Can't you see the colonies are already on fire? It would be dangerous for us to go in!' but they couldn't see it. Because they couldn't, it angered me and I gave the command that any man who didn't obey orders should be shot. We marched around and it wasn't until we had gone miles that I came to realize that perhaps I had been  mistaken and maybe those colonies weren't on fire. I turned around and looked toward them, but I could see nothing, yet I felt we were too far away to turn back, so we continued on. No, Mr. Bentley, I have never been able to  understand it to this day because I have learned since that those colonies were not on fire—that not a single home was burned, and yet I saw that picture as vividly as I see you standing in front of me."

                Of course we realize why General Villa did not know or could not understand this vision which he saw. We know that it was the hand of the Lord, protecting His people when they were helpless to protect themselves. (Faith Promoting Stories, Preston Nibley, pp. 53-58)

Recommended Sites 4thefamily.us (Open chat & polygamy discussion) Fullnessradio.acrobat.com/fullness/ (Internet broadcast Wednesdays 8pm MST.  Discussion of deeper mysteries of the Kingdom of God.)

Enoch the Prophet

Hugh W. Nibley

Reprinted by permission from Enoch the Prophet, vol. 2 of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1986), 3—18.

It's been assumed, because the Pearl of Great Price is a little, thin book, that anybody can handle it and write a commentary about it. Acutally it is the most difficult and portentous of our scriptures, and we can't begin to approach the ancient aspects of this most difficult of books unless we know a lot more than we do now. The Prophet Joseph says, "The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out." It's no small thing to approach a writing like the Pearl of Great Price.

In commenting on the book of Enoch, I'll refer mostly to sources outside the Pearl of Great Price. Because all the versions from which the book are taken were unknown in the time of Joseph Smith, these give remarkable confirmation of the Pearl of Great Price. Remember, Joseph Smith did give us a book of Enoch in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Moses. I've written over a thousand pages on it, and I haven't even scratched the surface. The noncanonical stories of the Garden of Eden and the Flood have been very damaging to the Christian message, because they are the easiest to visualize, and you can popularize them more easily than any other of the Bible accounts.

Everybody has seen a garden, and everybody has been in a heavy rainstorm, so it requires no effort of the imagination for a six-year-old to convert concise, straightforward Sunday-school recitals into the vivid images that will stay with him for the rest of his life. These stories have been discredited as nursery tales because in a sense they are nursery tales, retaining forever the forms they take in the imaginations of small children, defended by grownups, who refuse to distinguish between childlike faith and thinking as a child when it is, as Paul says, time to "put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11.)

It's equally easy and deceptive to fall into adolescent disillusionment, especially when "emancipated" teachers smile tolerantly at the simple gullibility of bygone days while passing stern moral judgment on the savage old "tribal god" who, overreacting with impetuous violence, wiped out Noah's neighbor simply for making fun of his boat-building on a fine summer day. The sophisticated say that these so-called myths were tolerable in bygone days, but now it's time to grow up.

Apocalyptic in general, and the writings attributed to Enoch in particular, are correctives for this myopia. They give us what purports to be a much fuller account of what happened. In the Bible we have only two or three verses about Enoch. But these parts that have been thrown out of the Bible (anciently they were part of it) give us a much fuller picture. This allows us to curb the critics' impetuosity and limit their license. The apocalyptic writings tell us in detail what happened—in much greater detail than the Bible. They also tend to make it clear to us just why it happened, and they have come to be regarded as invented "theodicies" to justify the ways of God to man.

In giving us a much fuller account than the Bible of how the Flood came about, the book of Enoch settles the moral issue with several telling parts:

1. God's reluctance to send the Flood and his great sorrow at the event.

2. The peculiar brand of wickedness that made the Flood mandatory.

3. The frank challenge of the wicked to have God do his worst.

4. The happy and beneficial side of the event—it did have a happy outcome.

Now to the first item, about God's not wanting to send the flood: In the Hebrew book of Enoch (discovered by Dr. Jellinek in 1873, long after Joseph Smith's time), Enoch introduces himself to Rabbi Ishmael, who meets him in the seventh heaven in the heavenly temple and says to him, "I am Enoch the son of Jared. When the generation of the flood committed sin, and said to God, turn away from us, for the knowledge of thy ways gives us no pleasure, then the Holy One delivered me from them that I might be a witness against them in the high heavens for all ages to come that no one might say the merciful one is cruel." In the Syriac Apocalypse of Paul, the apostle also is introduced to Enoch, being told when he is asked, "Who is this weeping angel?": "It is Enoch, the teacher of righteousness."

"So I entered into that place," Paul reports, "and saw the great Elijah, who came to meet us." He too was weeping, saying, "Oh Paul, how great are the promises of God and his benefits and how few are worthy of them!"

There is, to say the least, no gloating in heaven over the fate of the wicked world. It is Enoch who leads the weeping, as it is in the Joseph Smith account. Enoch puts forth his arm and weeps, and says, "I will refuse to be comforted." (Moses 7:44.) Enoch is the great weeper in the Joseph Smith version. Of course, he doesn't want the destruction of the human race. But in the Joseph Smith version, the amazing thing is that when God himself weeps and Enoch says, "How is it that thou canst weep?" (Moses 7:29), Enoch bears testimony that the God of heaven actually wept. It is a shocking thing to say, but here again, if we go to another Enoch text, there it is! When God wept over the destruction of the temple, we're told in one of the midrashim that it was Enoch who fell on his face and said, "I will weep, but weep not thou!" God answered Enoch and said, "If thou [Enoch] wilt not suffer me to weep, I God will go whither thou canst not come and there I will lament"—in other words, it's none of your business if I want to weep. The significant thing is that the strange conversation in both stories is between God and a particular individual—Enoch. How would Joseph Smith know that?

In another text we are told, "When God sets about to destroy the wicked, then the Messiah lifts up his voice and weeps, and all the righteous and the saints break out in crying and lamenting with him." Here again we recall from the Joseph Smith Enoch how all the righteous and "all the workmanship of my hands" shall weep (Moses 7:40) at the destruction of the human race. The Lord says, "Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?" (Moses 7:37.) But the same thing happens in the apocryphal writings; not only God but all the other creatures weep for the wickedness of man.

The stock reply to the charge against God of cruelty has ever been that man with his limited knowledge is in no position to judge the wisdom or charily of what God does or does not do. The extreme example of the argument is set forth in the Khadir stories. But, significantly, this argument is not emphasized in the apocalyptic writings. There God does not say to the holy man who is afflicted by the fate of the wicked, "Who are you to question what I do?" He does not blast Enoch or Abraham or Ezra or the brother of Jared on the spot for daring to question his mercy. On the contrary, he commends each one for his concern for his fellowmen and explains, in effect, "I know just how you feel, but what you fail to understand is that I had good reason for doing what had to be done, and I feel much worse about it than you could. You come far short of being able to love my creatures more than I." He commends the prophet Ezra for taking their part: "But even on this account, thou shalt be honorable before the most high because thou hast humbled thyself even as Abraham in pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah," wicked though you know they were. In the same spirit he replies to Baruch, "Do you think that there is no anguish to the angels in the presence of the mighty one? Do you think that in these things the Most High rejoices or that his name is glorified?" He doesn't want to see men miserable. The Joseph Smith text says that "Enoch looked upon their wickedness and their misery and wept"; he saw that they weren't happy at all. Then God tells them, "I am not happy about that either"; no one in heaven is, for that matter. When Enoch is distressed beyond measure at the cosmic violence he must behold, Michael comforts him: "Why art thou disquieted with such a vision? Until this day lasted the day of his mercy, and he has been merciful and long suffering toward those who dwell on the earth.."

Mercy is the keynote, not vengeance. God has not hastened to unleash the forces of nature but holds them back like a dam as long as possible. When the angels, in another Hebrew Enoch fragment, beg God to get on with the work and wipe out the unworthy human race, he replies, "I have made and I remove; I am long-suffering and I rescue." After Enoch saw the angels of punishment who are prepared to come and let loose all the powers of the waters (this would be the Flood, to bring judgment and destruction on all who dwell on the earth), "the Lord of spirits gave commandment to the angels who were to go forth that they should not cause the waters to rise, but should hold them in check, for those angels were over the powers of the waters." On the contrary, the Flood was caused specifically by the cruelty of men, as we are told in Moses 7:34. God held back as long as he could while the angels were urging him to unleash the destruction. (The same thing is happening today. The angels protest, "Why do you let this go on so long?")

Thus this violence of the deluge, the completest of world catastrophes, is shown in the book of Enoch to be the only solution to problems raised by the uniquely horrendous types of wickedness that were infesting the whole world with an order that was becoming fixed and immovable. There's no other cure for it. The Enoch literature elaborates particularly on the theme of Genesis: "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." (Genesis 6:11—12.)

"They are without affection, and they hate their own blood" is the Moses version. (7:33.) The texts say there were great disorders on the earth because of man who hates his neighbor and people who envy people: "A man does not withhold his hand from his son nor from his beloved to slay him nor from his brother."

Incidentally, the book of Enoch is quoted at least 128 times in the New Testament and very often in other places. Since the apocryphal manuscripts were discovered, we've recognized that Enoch is quoted all over the Bible and also frequently in the Book of Mormon. That is very interesting, since the Enoch literature has been discovered long since 1830.

A quotation from an Enoch text occurs in the thirteenth chapter of Helaman. "Ye have trusted in your riches," Enoch tells the people. "Ye have not remembered the Lord in the day he gave you your riches." (Cf. Helaman 13:33.) This is also Samuel the Lamanite speaking, an expert in the scriptures; he knew all about these things. He had access to the plates of brass and other records. And here Enoch speaks in a writing not discovered until 1888: "Ye have not remembered the Lord in the days he gave you your riches; ye have gone astray that your riches shall not remain, because you have done evil in everything. Cursed are you and cursed are your riches."

"Men dressing like women; women like men." The peculiar evil of the times consisted not so much in the catalog of human viciousness as in the devilish and systematic efficiency with which corruption was being riveted permanently to the social order. It was evil with a supernatural twist. The angels or "Watchers" themselves yielded to earthly temptation, mingled with the daughters of men, and used the great knowledge entrusted to them to establish an order of things on earth in direct contradiction to what was intended by God. Some Enoch texts tell of false priesthoods in the days of Seth; Adam had prophesied them, and God is angry in their attempts to surpass his power. Angels and all the races of men use his name falsely for deception. They're not worshipping devils. The Apocryphon of John tells us that the original attempt to corrupt men and angels, through the lust of sex, was a failure until the false ones set up a more powerful machinery of perversion. At first they failed, it says, so they came together and created the antimimon pneuma, a clever imitation of the true order of things, "and they brought gold and silver and metals, copper, and iron and all the treasures of the earth, so they married the women and begat the children of darkness; their hearts were closed up, and they became hard by this imitation false spirit." It was the deliberate exploitation of the heavenly order as a franchise for sordid earthly ambitions.

Another text says the ordinances have degenerated into a false baptism of filthy water. According to the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, it was administered by false angels: "Woe unto you who pervert the eternal covenant and reckon yourselves sinless." It was no open revolt against God but a clever misuse of his name; no renunciation of religion but a perversion of piety. "The time is approaching when all life is to be destroyed on earth, for in those days there shall be great disorder on the earth."

Another theme is quoted in our Moses 7:26. The Adversary will glorify himself and rejoice with his followers in their works. The devil "laughed, and his angels rejoiced." As a result, the order of the entire earth will change and every fruit and plant will change its season, awaiting the time of destruction. The earth itself will be shaken and lose all solidarity. It is the reversal of all values as men worship: "Not the righteous law; they deny the judgment and take my name in vain." This vicious order was riveted down by solemn oaths and covenants of which we read a great deal in the Enoch literature. When the Sons of Heaven marry the Daughters of the Sons of Men, their leader Semiazus says, in a very recently discovered Greek fragment, "I fear you will not be willing to do this thing." So they say, "Let us swear an oath and bind ourselves all to each other. Then they all swore oaths and bound each other by them." The Lord says in the writings of Enoch in the book of Moses, "By their oaths, they have foresworn themselves, and, by their oaths, they have brought upon themselves death." The false oaths and the foreswearing is also an important theme. The systematic false teaching of the fallen angels soon "fills all the earth with blood and wickedness as the cries of the slain ascend to the gates of heaven, their groaning comes up and cannot depart because of the crimes being committed upon all the face of the earth." The passage in the book of Moses says the same thing.

The great heavenly angels, viewing these horrors from above and seeing only one solution, asked God how long he was going to permit Satan to get away with it. This is another aspect of theodicy: Must not God put an end to men when their evil deeds threaten far greater destruction, than their own demise would be? The Pistis Sophia (transcribed, as it tells us in the introduction, from an earlier book of Enoch) asks, "Why did God throw the universe out of gear?" and answers, "For a wise purpose, for those who are destroyed would have destroyed everything." As it is, God had to hold back the destroyers until the last moment. The great danger to all existence was that the perverters knew too much. "Their ruin is accomplished because they have learned all the secrets of the angels and all the violence of Satan"; the threat is from them who have received the ordinances but have removed themselves from the law of the gospel. One must be willing to accept the law of God and the law of the gospel before he is qualified to receive the rest of the ordinances. They had received the ordinances, but they were not keeping the basic laws on which the ordinances were given. Still, employing the forms and knowledge they had, they set up a counter-religion and way of life. It was a time, says the Zohar, when the name of the Lord was called upon profanely. "In the days of Jared my father," says Enoch to Methuselah, "they transgressed the covenant of heaven; they sinned and betrayed the law of the gospel. They mingled with women and sinned with them. They also married and bore children, but not according to the spirit, but by the carnal order only." They changed the ordinances, they married under a different order.

Another text, first published in 1870, addresses the same issue: "Woe to you who write false teachings and things that lead astray and many lies, who twist the true accounts and wrest the eternal covenant and rationalize that you are without sin." This then was no mere naughtiness, but a clever inversion of values with forms and professions of loyalty to God that in its total piety and self-justification could never be set aright—it could only get worse. The Zohar states the general principle: whenever the Holy One has allowed the deep mysteries of wisdom to be brought down into the world of mankind, they have become corrupted, and men have attempted to declare war on God. The only redeeming feature of the thing was that the fallen angels who had perverted the human race had not learned all the mysteries in their heavenly condition (we're told in a Gizeh fragment), and so were not able to give away everything. As it was, their power for evil was almost unlimited.

According to the Psalm of Solomon, an early Syriac document discovered in 1906, "The secret places of the earth were doing evil, the son lay with the mother and the father with the daughter, all of them committed adultery with their neighbor's wives, they made solemn covenants among themselves concerning these things, and God was justified in his judgments upon the nations of the earth." (We're treating this as a theodicy..)

What else could he do? Part of the apocalyptic picture is the infection of the earth itself by the depravity of man, with the wicked sinning against nature and so placing themselves in a position of rebellion against the cosmos itself. It is as if one were to drive full speed the wrong way on the freeway during the rush hour. Only trouble can come from it. "While all nature obeys," Enoch tells the people, "you do not obey, you are puffed up and are vain; therefore, your destruction is consummated, and there is no mercy or peace for you." If you break all the laws, of course you will think that nature is fighting you. "They began to sin against the birds and the beasts and against each other, eating flesh and drinking blood while the earth fell under the rule of the lawless, until finally the earth itself laid an accusation against the lawless ones." All of this from an apocryphal source. That's interesting, because Enoch in the Pearl of Great Price hears a voice from the bowels of the earth, saying, "Wo, wo is me, the mother of men . . . When shall I rest?" (Moses 7:48.)

Instead of the flood sent over a surprised community one fine day, we have in Enoch the picture of a long period of preparation during which the mounting restlessness of the elements clearly admonishes the human race to mend its ways. In the Enoch story, the darkening heavens, the torrential rains, and all manner of meteoric disturbances alternate with periods of terrible drought, and of course that is very clear in the book of Moses version: Remember how the land was blackened and utterly deserted in other parts, but remember also how "the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains." (Moses 7:28.) It's a dark sky, and always the water is flowing, the rivers turn from their courses, and so on. The same picture is in the apocryphal writings as in the Joseph Smith account of Enoch—the darkening heavens and the torrential rains. "Every cloud and mist and dew shall be withheld because of your sins," says one of the Enoch texts. "If God closes the windows of heavens and hinders the dew and rain from falling because of you, what will you do?" Enoch asks.

As during the twenty-five years of recurrent earthquakes that warned Abraham's Cities of the Plain to repent, the earth itself in Enoch's day became increasingly restless. The sea was first drawn back and the fishes were flopping around; and in the Joseph Smith version, sure enough, "There also came up a land out of the depth of the sea." (Moses 7:14.) Then the wicked invaded the new land, as Enoch had foretold, and all the people were in fear and trembling: "And fear shall seize them to the extremities of the earth, and the high mountains shall be shaken and fall down and be dissolved, flow down and be turned into side channels and shall melt like wax before a flame, and the earth will be rent with a splitting and cracking, and everything on earth shall be destroyed." This passage from the Slavonic version describes the same scene as in Moses 7:13—14, where the mountains flow down, the rivers are changed, and the earth shakes, when Enoch spoke the word of the Lord. The mountains shook, and all people were afraid; the rivers were turned from their courses, and the land rose up from the sea—the same picture. This does not sound as fantastic as it once did. Any catastrophe of the magnitude of the flood must have been accompanied by large-scale preliminary disturbances, plus side effects, exactly like those described. The terrible insecurity of the times heightened the social disaster, and the people began to fight among themselves. "A man shall not know his brother, nor a son his father or mother. For God permitted certain angels to go to the sons of adultery and destroy the sons of the watchers who were among mankind and set them to fighting against each other."

The preliminary vision is the key Enoch saw (in the Joseph Smith version) of a great people, who dwelt in tents in the plain in the valley known as Shum; and another great people of Canaan, who completely exterminated the people of Shum. They thus occupied the land and divided themselves; the land was cursed, and they had a terrible time. Emphasis is laid on the pollution of the earth, both physical and moral, for the two go together, and only a great purging of water, wind, or fire can cleanse it. Without such a periodic purging, says the Zohar, the world would not be able to endure the sins of mankind. In another Gizeh fragment we read, "And thou wilt cleanse the earth from all uncleanliness and from all filthiness, and all the earth shall be cleansed from the pollution—and from all impurity, and he shall cleanse the earth from the defilement that is in it." That is what happens. In the book of Moses the earth says, "Wo, wo is me, the mother of men . . . When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me?" (7:48.)

Characteristic of the sweep and scope of the Enoch apocalyptic are the disturbances of the whole cosmos, for Enoch wept not just for the earth but for the heavens' sake. And he "wept and stretched forth his arms, and . . . his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook." (Moses 7:41.) Why shouldn't these and all the creations weep? And all the heavens mourn? This is a common theme in the Enoch literature. The whole cosmos shares the fate of a violated planet. The whole earth shakes and trembles and is thrown into confusion, and the heavens and their lights shake and tremble. "And I saw how a mighty quaking made the heavens to quake and the angels were disquieted with a great disquiet." Inhabitants in the other worlds weep too.

In contemplating these terrifying events, Enoch never allows us to forget that the real tragedy is not what becomes of people, but what they become. That's the sad thing. The people of Enoch's day and Noah's day were quite satisfied with themselves as they were, and they hotly resented any offers of help or advice from God's messenger; and all men were offended by Enoch's preaching. "They do not sow the seed which I give them," the Lord says to Enoch in a very important Enoch text, "but have taken another yoke and sow seeds of destruction and reject my kingship, and all the earth will be overwhelmed with iniquities and abominations." When Enoch asks the Lord why there were destructions, the first thing the Lord says is, "Behold, they are without affection"; "I gave them commandment they should have me to be their father, but they won't do it." Then he goes on, "I commanded them that they should love one another and serve me their father."

Here he says, "They don't sow the seed that I gave them; they've rejected my kingship, and all the earth will be overwhelmed." "The kings of the earth say, 'We have not believed before him; our hope was in the scepter of our kingship and in our glory.'" So when disaster strikes, they must confess that his judgments have no respect of persons. "We pass away from before his face on account of our own works." The theme often repeated in the book of Moses is that because of their own iniquities, they have brought destruction upon themselves. This is a very common theme. The refrain is ever "Wo unto you foolish ones, for you shall perish through your own folly." "They denied the Lord and would not hear the voice of the Lord but followed their own counsel. They go astray in the foolishness of their own hearts." They know not what they are doing when they say to God, "Turn away from us, for the knowledge of thy ways gives us no pleasure"—though God gave them promise of all that he would give them and all that he wanted them to do.

In the Joseph Smith version, Enoch asks, "Why are you going to destroy them? Why are we weeping?" The Lord answers, "In the day I created them I gave them three things, all they could want; I gave men knowledge, I gave them their agency, and I told them what to do—gave them a commandment that they should love one another and have me as their father. But behold they are without affection; they hate their own blood." A new fragment from the Apocalypse of Paul has the Lord explaining to Enoch what he promised men and told them he wanted them to do. "But they have defrauded themselves in refusing to keep the precepts which our Lord gave unto them. Therefore, ask no more concerning the multitude of them that perish," said the Lord, "for having received liberty [he used the word agency in the Joseph Smith version], they despised the Most High, scorned his laws, and forsook his way. Slavery was not given from above but came by transgression, and the barrenness of your women does not come by nature but by your willful perversions."

Peculiar to the world of Enoch is not only the arrogant quality of the sinning that went on, but the high degree of enlightenment enjoyed by the sinners, making them singularly culpable before God. Enoch explains that the Lord said, "I established Adam and gave him dominion." This verse from an old Slavonic version is practically the same verse we see in the book of Moses: "I established Adam and gave him dominion, and I gave him knowledge, I gave him his agency, and I gave him commandments, and said to him, 'This you should do, and this is bad.' What more do you want?" (See Moses 7:32—33.) God has given the human race the power of understanding and the word of wisdom. God created men last of all in his own form—put into man eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart with which to deliberate, with eyes wide open, their choices. God says, "I hoped they would come to me, but they had no love to offer me. Rather they praised the alien one and cleaved to him ['for he loved Satan rather than God'], and for that, they deserted their mighty Lord." Their mocking kings can say, with those of Enoch's day, "We pass away on the account of our own works, descending into Sheol." The fallen angels by their own sweet choice have rebelled and are gone into captivity—"a prison have I prepared for them" (Moses 7:38); therefore they shall go into hell. "Wo unto you mindless ones, for ye shall perish through your own folly; ye have not given ear nor received what is good for you." Following their own foolish ambitions and dreams, and setting their hope not on the foundation of the inheritance of their fathers, in a spirit of apostasy they have no peace of mind and no joy, but stubbornly continue their ruinous course, ignoring God's commandments and blaming others for their misfortunes "with great and hard accusations with an unclean mouth and lies—you are hard-hearted and have no peace." They are not beyond getting the point, for when Enoch speaks to them directly, "They could not speak nor could they raise their eyes to heaven for shame because of their sins and were condemned." He showed them a book, as in the Joseph Smith version. (Moses 6:5, 8, 46.) You cannot deny, he says "for a book of remembrance [you] have written among [you]"; and when he showed them the book, they "could not stand in his presence." (6:47.) This version says, "They could not speak nor raise their eyes to heaven for shame because of their sins when he showed them from the book."

A significant aspect of the apocalyptic picture is the technological advancement of the doomed and wicked world in which men defy God, confident in their technological and scientific knowledge (there's a great deal about this). To the various fallen angels designated by name, the Enoch text assigns the introduction among men of the study of chemistry, the manufacture of weapons and jewelry and cosmetics, the trade secrets of angels—formulas, incantations, drugs, astrologies," and so forth. "They thought to emancipate themselves from dependence on God through their technological know-how." This is not as foolish as it sounds, says the Zohar, for "they knew all the arts and all the ruling principles that governed the cosmos, and on this knowledge they relied until at length God corrected them by restoring the earth to its primitive state and covered it with water." In the days of Enoch even the children were acquainted with the mysterious arts—what we would call advanced sciences. Rabbi Yasah says, "With all that knowledge could they not foresee destruction?" to which Rabbi Isaac replies, "They knew, all right, but they thought they were just smart enough to prevent it, but what they did not know was that God rules the world. He gave them respite as long as the righteous men Jared, Methusaleh, and Enoch were alive, but when they departed from the world, God let the punishment descend and they were blotted from the earth." "Alas," cries Rabbi Simeon, "for the blindness of the sons of men, all unaware as they are, how full the earth is of strange and invisible beings and hidden dangers, which could they but see them, they would marvel how they themselves can survive ten minutes on the earth." In Enoch's time, they had all sorts of engineering projects for controlling and taming nature, as did Nimrod, but the Lord altered the order of creation so that their mastery of nature became their own undoing. The same scientific prowess that led them to reject God led them to insult nature, and the upheavals that engulfed them demonstrate the very real ecological connection between the sins of men and the revolt of the elements. This was formally viewed as fatal extravagance and irrational apocalyptic.

There is more. You can find out sure enough that Joseph Smith knew what he was talking about when he wrote this book of Moses, continuing the prophecies of Enoch.. Theodicy—the vindication of God's justice—is merely one aspect of the Enoch literature that is touched upon in the Enoch section of the book of Moses.

A version of "Enoch the Prophet" first appeared in Pearl of Great Price Symposium: Brigham Young University November 22, 1975 (Provo, Utah. Brigham Young University Publications, 1976), pp. 76—85.

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WILL THE CHURCH BE REDEEMED?

An Examination of 2 Esdras Chapter 2:  Part 2

This article is a continuation of an examination 2 Esdras Chapter 2 in the Apocrypha...

In the previous section, we discussed 2 Esdras Chapter 2.  We will continue discussing this piece of scripture verse by verse.  We also discussed the “Woman” mentioned and defined her as the Church.  The Woman would find herself, in the last days, out of harmony with her Husband, Christ.  This would put her in a state of fornication.  Fornication was defined as follows in pamphlet, “The Peacemaker”, put out by the Prophet Joseph Smith:

“The prostitution of the body after marriage constitutes adultery; but the alienation of the mind or affections from her husband constitutes fornication in a married woman. The sexual cohabitation of unmarried persons is not adultery but fornication. Because although their minds may be united in the closest ties of affections and love; yet she is not given in marriage by the marriage covenant. Therefore it is fornication. But after the body and mind are both obligated by the marriage covenant; if the mind of the wife which was equally bound with the body to obey, and to be in subjection in all things, by the spiritual nature of that covenant, becomes alienated from her husband, she commits fornication against her husband; because the mind of the wife was bound to yield obedience and submission to her husband in all things as well as the body, by the spiritual nature of that covenant.”

The Woman (Church) is found in fornication against her Husband (Christ), because she has alienated her affections from Him.  Though they were bonded in a most holy covenant, she has removed herself in body and mind from Him by changing the ordinances and transgressing the Celestial Law, the Law of Zion.

But the Lord has promised to redeem her, as we will show in 2 Esdras Chapter 2.  Let us continue with verse 3:

3 I brought you up with gladness; but with sorrow and heaviness have I lost you: for ye have sinned before the Lord your God, and done that thing that is evil before him.

The Mother is speaking to her children here.  Who are the children of the Mother?  Are they not those of us in the Church?  (The editor includes fundamentalist Mormons in this group.)  How are they lost, and what evil have they done?

4 But what shall I now do unto you? I am a widow and forsaken: go your way, O my children, and ask mercy of the Lord.

5 As for me, O father, I call upon thee for a witness over the mother of these children, which would not keep my covenant,

6 That thou bring them to confusion, and their mother to a spoil, that there may be no offspring of them.

7 Let them be scattered abroad among the heathen, let their names be put out of the earth: for they have despised my covenant.

Israel was scattered among the heathens.  How are we, as Mormons, still scattered among the heathens?  Have we fulfilled the literal gathering of Israel?  It illustrates in these verses how the children are “lost” – it is because they are scattered and they have not “kept the covenant”.  Which covenant?  Why, the new and everlasting covenant!

8 Woe be unto thee, Assur, thou that hidest the unrighteous in thee! O thou wicked people, remember what I did unto Sodom and Gomorrha;

9 Whose land lieth in clods of pitch and heaps of ashes: even so also will I do unto them that hear me not, saith the Almighty Lord.

For reference, Assur was the capital city of the Assyrians, who carried away Israel into captivity.  What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrha for which these two great cities were destroyed?  Was it homosexuality, like many are led to believe?  No, it was for injustice.  Read the story in the Book of Jasher Chapter 19, where the Eliezer is taken before Shakra the judge in Sodom.  The people of Sodom were in a conspiracy to perpetrate injustice upon other people.  This lack of justice was their sin.

According to Torah Law, the purpose of Priesthood Keys are to administer righteous judgment.  Have the leaders of the Church (and the Groups) used their Priesthood Keys to administer justly?  If you have keys, you must have justice.  If you have no justice, then you have no law.  And if you have no law, then you have no priesthood.  And if you perpetuate injustice, then you are guilty of the same sin as Sodom and Gomorrha.

10 Thus saith the Lord unto Esdras, Tell my people that I will give them the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I would have given unto Israel.

11 Their glory also will I take unto me, and give these the everlasting tabernacles, which I had prepared for them.

12 They shall have the tree of life for an ointment of sweet savour; they shall neither labour, nor be weary.

What is the Lord prepared to give to his people?  What is the meaning of the “tree of life” in these verses?  What ointment?  What are we anointed with?  With oil, right?  The Tree of Life is a metaphor for eternal life.  So the Lord’s people will be anointed unto eternal life.  Where do these ordinances take place?

13 Go, and ye shall receive: pray for few days unto you, that they may be shortened: the kingdom is already prepared for you: watch.

I have always found this verse intriguing.  Why should we pray for those days to be shortened?

14 Take heaven and earth to witness; for I have broken the evil in pieces, and created the good: for I live, saith the Lord.

15 Mother, embrace thy children, and bring them up with gladness, make their feet as fast as a pillar: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord.

What does it mean that the Lord has “chosen” the Mother?  “Many are called, few are chosen”.  How are we “chosen” to do the Lord’s work, and in what manner are we chosen?  “Make their feet as fast as a pillar” reminded me of this verse from Isaiah Chapter 52:

⁷How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t generally think feet are very beautiful.  What connection is there between “feet” and being “chosen”?  There is a deeper meaning here.  Continuing in 2 Esdras:

16 And those that be dead will I raise up again from their places, and bring them out of the graves: for I have known my name in Israel.

What does it mean to raise up the dead?  Are we talking a zombie apocalypse?  How can we as Latter-day Saints assist in the “raising of the dead”?

17 Fear not, thou mother of the children: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord.

There it is again:  the Father of the children has “chosen” the Mother.  So no matter how out of line the Mother gets, the Father still thinks highly of her.

18  For thy help will I send my servants Esau and Jeremy, after whose counsel I have sanctified and prepared for thee twelve trees laden with divers fruits,

These are variations of the names “Isaiah” and “Jeremiah”.  What did these prophets have to say about the latter days?  What is the significance of the number 12 here?

19 And as many fountains flowing with milk and honey, and seven mighty mountains, whereupon there grow roses and lilies, whereby I will fill thy children with joy.

Compare this to Revelations 17:

⁹And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

The seven mountains are connected with the Woman (Church) and he children (Kingdom).  I’m not wise enough to know the complete meanings of this.  But I once stood on a bridge overlooking the Salt Lake Valley and counted all the mountain peaks there.  (There were not seven.)  Continuing with 2 Esdras:

20 Do right to the widow, judge for the fatherless, give to the poor, defend the orphan, clothe the naked,

“Do right to the widow” – the concept of justice again.  Deal justly with the Church.  Refrain from speaking evil of her.

“Judge for the fatherless”.  The fatherless refers to those who are without priesthood.  It also refers to the patriarchal order – the Gentiles are those who have not yet been adopted into Israel, or sealed to a patriarch.  The Gentiles are the fatherless, and those in Zion are to administer justice to the whole world.

“Give to the poor” does not just refer to being charitable.  It refers to keeping the Law of Consecration and the establishment of United Order, the economic order of heaven.

“Defend the orphan” – who are the orphans?  They are the fatherless and the motherless – those who have no Priesthood or Church to represent them.  All nations will go unto Zion for “her laws are just”.  Zion is the place where they will get something they cannot get anywhere else – someone to defend them in their rights.

“Clothe the naked” – this refers to much more than doing charity work.  This has reference to taking people within the temple and clothing them in the manner that we are supposed to be clothed in the temple.  This has to do with temple work.

21 Heal the broken and the weak, laugh not a lame man to scorn, defend the maimed, and let the blind man come into the sight of my clearness.

Who is the blind man?  He is one who cannot see, and it is our responsibility to bring him out of his figurative darkness to be able to finally see the light.

22 Keep the old and young within thy walls.
23 Wheresoever thou findest the dead, take them and bury them, and I will give thee the first place in my resurrection.

This passage is not just talking about finding corpses at the side of the road and burying them.  This talking about doing your genealogy for your ancestors and taking their names into the temple to do their baptisms for the dead, doing their ordinance work.  In so doing, you will find that you have a part and portion in the first resurrection.

The kind of Charity that these verses are speaking of is very specific.  The children of the Mother are “lost” and “scattered”.  To redeem the mother, we must be about performing the works that pertain to building up the Kingdom, for ourselves, for our friends and families, and for our dead.  If we are faithful in this regard, in return, God will bless us with “the tree of life for an ointment of sweet savour” – eternal life.

I will continue in Part 3 about the redemption of the Church, the exaltation of the Elect and the return of Christ on Mount Zion.  Until then, peace be with you, and Happy New Year!

HOLINESS

Y

TO THE LORD

TRUTH NEVER CHANGES
December 2009
volume 12, number 06