CHAPTER XXI.

THE last and most important question which is submitted for the consideration of the Church in her second estate is, as we have signified, whether the Christianity of Christendom is in harmony or in conflict with the attributes which herself for all these centuries ascribed to God? And it is a prediction of our humble self that a reconstruction of that Christianity, restoring that harmony, would bring back that Church or Kingdom of God to the power and great glory of her first estate.

The richest of the rich made infinitely richer, and the poorest of the poor made as rich as they, by their membership relation to Christ, and through him their filial relation to God.

The infinite fact of that relation has been so repeatedly illustrated and proved that we need now only to say, that all the riches of the rich is as nothing and less than nothing in comparison with a single share in the joint interest of the whole humanity, in the thrones and dominions, principalities and powers of the universe of worlds.

Now, therefore, what wait we for? All the poor desire above all things to be rich, and all

the rich desire to be richer; why not declare to them both the whole counsel of God, and show them their clear record of title, as an earnest of their inheritance, to cheer them on their way whither they go to possess it; for life is but a pilgrimage, and why should not the word of the Lord go forth from Jerusalem, the Gospel Church, and from every pulpit in Christendom, to the effect that the rich and the poor shall know and feel alike that the worlds are their own, and that the former are in no wise above the latter, save in the possession of more earthly wealth than they need, and which they soon, at the end of a short pilgrimage, must leave. And also that they may realize that they are fellow-heirs of the same inheritance and the same household of faith, and that there is no middle wall between them.

The revelations of the next, as well as of the following periods, were higher and still higher manifestations of God and of his purposes and his goodness. Instance his plain and audible words of promise to Abraham, that in his seed (Christ) all the nations and families of the earth should be blessed, and in the more perfect types given of Christ in the institution of the priesthood and sacrifices under the law. The second period closing and the third commencing at the giving of that law, the latter, extending from that time to the coming of Christ, we designate the dispensation of prophecy. And by the priesthood, inclusive of Moses, and by that law and the prophets of that dispensation God revealed himself and his power

and glory to a greater portion of mankind, and, as we have before remarked, in an increased ratio. That period, preparing the world for the Gospel, which was the last dispensation to the humanity, of the grace and glory of God.

It is inferable, however, from the past that mental developments of certain portions of mankind were to continue for the enlightenment and general progress of the race. Witness the divine inspiration, as we conceive, of Luther and his compeers of the Reformation, by which they purged the Church from the spiritual wickedness of her high places; and how much less than miraculous was the inventive power vouchsafed to the human mind in the nineteenth century, from which we have the application of steam as a motive power, to the endless variety of machinery, that saves the greater part of manual labor of the world, accelerating the accumulations of individual and national wealth in more than a threefold ratio. Increasing thereby the enjoyment of all mankind of luxury and ease. But the age of steam power is that also of the magnetic telegraph, and of its unspeakable wonders, giving to dead matter motion and the power to convey thought with the velocity of lightning to the extent of its sphere, which is that of the earth and the air. And there are indications, such as the Atlantic cable, which render it humanly certain that such communication round and round the earth will very shortly be complete. And then, who shall be able to estimate the extent and increase of fraternal intercourse among all nations on

the globe, and so prepare the universal heart and mind to receive gladly the pure gospel of love, embracing the whole humanity as a unit, "all members of one body and members one of another," and, as before stated, members constituent of the glorious spiritual nature and body of Christ, and in and with him God-born "before the world began.' And then shall come to pass and be literally fulfilled the saying of Christ, that there shall be one fold (the whole humanity), and one shepherd, Christ. And then, and not till then, "shall nation cease to lift up sword against nation, and to learn war no

Such, to our mind, are the signs of the times, and we rest in hope "that the night is far spent and that the day is at hand." We are fully aware, however, that mountains of stereotyped errors and prejudices are to be removed-not by faith or feeble efforts, but by the Spirit of God, which shall in due time move upon the mass of those prejudices, and the fleshly, insatiable lust for earthly aggrandizement and power, which lust is the God of the world," the prince of the power of the air, or world;" the spirit or lust that worketh in the hearts of the children of disobedience to the law of love. And the Spirit will in due time teach the masses of men, as they were taught in and by the Church in her first estate, that their interests are one and indivisible, and their title to the wealth and glory of the universe, being a joint heirship, is one.

We deem it of vital importance to the world, to

know that it was a part of the divine economy to choose the nation of the Israelites, and to give them a law and ordinances, and thereby give them the knowledge of himself and of his gracious purposes, which knowledge was then being lost to the nations, who were much given to idolatry. And that the giving of that law and of those ordinances, together with Moses and the prophets, and the Oracles of God, (that is, the history by Moses of the formation of the worlds and the promise of the Messiah,) was for the good of the Gentiles also, by preserving that knowledge in the world, and through that people to be extended throughout the earth.